The Eger Family

Co-sleeping

2012-02-10T16:59:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about this topic a lot recently. It's such a hot topic in the natural parenting world. Then again every topic in the natural parenting world is hot. Such strong opinions! Well, I'm in the typing mood right now so I thought I would share my experience.

I have a love/hate relationship with co-sleeping. I go back and forth quite a bit. Same goes with breastfeeding (I am going to be addressing this topic soon too. Because we're coming up on a big...can't think of the word for it, anniversary? No. Event? ...maybe. Milestone...I think that's the most accurate. Audrey is almost at the age where I will have breastfed her twice as long as Nate. Which will also bring my total breastfeeding time to 2 years....but I'll address that when the time comes. So for now, co-sleeping).

I haven't been as open about co-sleeping in the past. There are quite a few people that are judgmental about it and, being someone who hadn't tried it before, I didn't have any really compelling reasons to defend it. Until now.

As a disclaimer, I don't care what you do. I'm not trying to convince anyone to make the same choices as me. If you feel good about what you're doing that is the ONLY thing that matters. Not other's opinions.

Before I get too into it I just have to ask: why are people so against it? Who cares? You don't roll on your kid. I'm sure SOMEONE somewhere has or maybe you've heard of it before. Were they on any medication? Did they drink alcohol, or any other substance that would alter their regular sleeping patterns? Probably. But for someone unmedicated and sober, it's perfectly safe. So is it just the safety thing? Why would anyone care if a parent wanted to co-sleep? That's just strange to me. Moving on.

So I came to a realization the other day. I really feel like I have enjoyed Audrey growing up. I don't feel like it has gone by too fast. Nate became a toddler then preschooler before my eyes. It happened faster than I could process. But with Audrey, it has gone at a reasonable pace for me to enjoy. I'm sure that part of it is that I knew how fast it would go so I cherished it more, or that I didn't try to make her be older too fast (like encouraging her to eat food too young, walk, crawl, etc. I let her take her own pace). But I really think a huge part of it is that I cosleep with her. I have spent more hours with her. More one on one time with her. Also it helps that I was able to work from home and see her more. Breastfeeding exclusively has also helped. This is why natural parents are so firm on their beliefs. It's not because they're crazy, or weird. It's not that they think they are better (well.....not ALL of them lol). It's because it is truly a way to enjoy your kids in every stage of their lives.

Do I want to do it forever? Definitely not. I wouldn't mind stopping now. It's just easier to keep going. But I have her sleep half the night in the playpen next to my bed so that she gets used to time away from me. It will be a long process, but I don't care. I realize how much I have bonded with her. She's part me. She relies on me, and I know that we have built a relationship of trust. Is it always easy? Of course not. Do I always love it? No. It's like the saying goes: I love being a parent every day, but I don't love it every minute of every day.

My point of this post, if there even is a point...is basically the point to every post when it comes to parenting. Don't judge others. haha

Jersey Shore

2012-02-05T03:41:00.001-07:00

It finally happened. I watched an episode. 100% truth here...it was mostly to see what I recognized. But also to see why it was so popular. So I watched the first episode....and I have lots to say.

First, and most important, how could there possibly be anyone that actually believes this was not staged? It is so very obviously staged. Does no one see just how obvious it is??? There is not even a small chance that normal people cause this much drama. And what would keep people watching if it wasn't full of drama?? In this episode they stand on the roof and 3 girls HAPPENED to walk by, they HAPPENED to be attractive, and completely slutty, enough to take their clothes off, and the guys invite them up. And their faces aren't blurred which means they had to give permission to be filmed. I've been in that neighborhood many times...it's hard for me to believe 3 slutty girls are wandering around at random...I mean it's a possibility, but not very probable. Then they "work" at a T Shirt shop.....right...well it was filmed in August '09. Guess who was there in August '09. That's right, me. Guess who didn't see any of them at any t shirt shops. Me. And my last point about it being staged. My friend tuned into MTV one time to see his friend on this dating show where they all wait on a bus. It was a gay episode. His friend was presumably straight. He saw his friend a few weeks later and asked him about it. He told him the whole thing was staged. Big surprise. It is MTVs specialty.

Moving along. Do girls actually fall for that sexist douche bag act??? The best line from the show "girls are supposed to cook and men are supposed to eat"...am I watching an episode of Mad Men? Was this set in the 50's-60's?? Who says that???

The criticisms are endless. But I am fully willing to admit that I think it is cool that a show is filmed in Phil's hometown. Because it is fun to recognize the places and be reminded of the fun times I've had out there. But I just wish it was a more respectable show!! I can't wait to fly out again this summer! It is my absolute favorite place to go that time of year!

And just for fun here are some pics of the seaside heights boardwalk:

I just noticed that Phil is wearing the same shirt and these pictures were taken a year apart! Haha!!!

Random old pics I found on my parents computer

2012-01-31T14:11:00.001-07:00

I wasn't going to post these originally, but I told Heather I would haha. I don't have a flash drive with me to save these pics to

BTW This is Heather (below...if you didn't know)

Confessions of a Mom

2012-01-31T00:35:00.001-07:00

There is something about the internet that makes you think that everyone has the perfect life and that everyone is the most perfect mother ever. But that's the "wonderful" thing about the internet. We can choose to share only the best side of us to make ourselves look good. There are many things I'm too afraid to share with some people and other things I'm afraid to share with others. So I'm here to confess. Why? I don't really know. I guess in some ways I think it will make me feel better. So I'm giving it a shot. Here we go (in no particular order, just the first things that pop in my head):

I feel guilty that I stopped breast feeding Nate at 8 months. I wish I never would have done that.
I have wanted to cloth diaper since before Audrey was born, but keep putting it off because they are expensive and every time I consider it I shy away because I know I won't get as much use out of them as I would have if I started sooner, but I still really want to do it. Then I think I'll get lazy with it. Ugh. It's a viscous cycle in my head. But then I get jealous of moms that do cloth diaper (haha).
Audrey still sleeps in our bed. I have her sleep in a pack n play next to my bed for part of the night until she wakes up. I've tried to put her in her own room, but I feel bad, and I'm also a little lazy and don't want to get up in the middle of the night and am just waiting till she sleeps through the night.
I feel guilty that I didn't co sleep with Nate, but at the same time I'm glad. I do think co sleeping is good for a baby's development, but totally understand if a mom doesn't want to do it.
I still breast feed Audrey. I love it and I hate it. I know it's the reason she doesn't sleep through the night and I don't know how to change that. I don't know how to wean her. I don't think she is ready to be weaned. I am really sick of breast feeding at times, but at others I don't feel ready to give it up knowing that if this is our last baby then I'll never get to do it again.
I take pictures of my kids so that you can't see how messy my house is. I have always tried to be organized and have seen myself improve so much over the years that I know I will eventually get to where I want to be, but just feel so far from it that sometimes I get so discouraged and end up getting too far behind. But my house is not constantly messy and that makes me feel better about myself.
Speaking of pictures I feel like I didn't take enough pictures of Nate when he was a baby. I'm sure I took way more than my mom did, but I wish I would have had an iPhone back then because that has made it SO much easier!
I want to be a parent that never yells at their kids because I have read so much about how kids actually behave way better if you can talk to them and explain and stay away from time outs. But it's exhausting to keep up with because I suck at it and end up yelling all the time.
Vaccinations are such a hard subject for me. I get the arguments from both sides and just don't know how I feel. Nate is fully vaccinated, but I have only gotten a few for Audrey because our insurance is so terrible that I have barely taken her into the doctor at all. I'm getting new insurance in May that will cover them. I just don't want to be judged either way! UGH!
I wish I wouldn't have circumcized Nate. Like a lot actually. I don't want to get into it, but basically I'm sorry little buddy I hope you don't care when you're older.
I want another baby for all the wrong reasons. I want to be pregnant and have another home birth and have a brand new baby to wear around all the time and for people to come visit (basically I want another babymoon) but the thought of having three children terrifies me. Partly because I am going back to school and don't want to neglect a baby. I don't plan to be a work from home mom forever. Maybe I'll have these two, wait a few years and have two more. I don't know! I go back and forth all the time.
Audrey still uses a binky. I don't know why people think it is so awful for toddlers to have binkies. So freaking what? They won't use them forever! Not that she's really that old yet, but I just had to get out how annoying it is when people judge moms for that.
I let my kids stay up late because I like to sleep in.

Ok I think thats all. Maybe I'll think of more later.

Life After Wearing a Cast for 8 Weeks

2012-01-25T22:39:00.000-07:00

Is a little rough. I'm not gonna lie. It could be worse. I could have had my finger cut off (which is what happened to my brother in law due to an accident), my baby could have had open heart surgery like my awesome neighbors ( :( ), I could have hit a huge elk and ended up with brain surgery in a medical induced coma like my cousin's husband is right now, or I could be dealing with infertility (which I think is the most heart breaking of my list of horrible things. I am SO sorry if you are going through this and I just want to acknowledge that I love you if you are and I want to help SO bad!!!!!). But all that happened is I broke my stupid pinky. Like I said on facebook the pain doesn't end when the bone is healed. My joints are very stiff because I couldn't move them. It is so strange how they just freeze right up!

So I started physical therapy today. First I soaked my hand in a whirlpool for 10 minutes then they got an ultrasound machine out which isn't like the ultrasounds you get with a baby. It sends the soundwaves into my hand and I can actually feel it and it gives some deep heat (is what the aide said). Then they taught me some exercizes to do and after I did them they shocked my hand and iced it for 15 minutes to prevent it from swelling. It's quite a frustrating process because you have to deal with having a cast for almost 2 months and once it comes off things aren't magically better. You have to get used to using it again. And some things are actually harder to do without the cast because if your joints bend it hurts. For example, I went to tickle Nate and bumped my fingers and it caused a shooting pain. But on the other hand (no pun intended haha) sleeping last night was FANTASTIC!!! I could put my hand under my pillow and it was SO confortable!!! I could rub Audrey while she was asleep too. And showering....aaaahhhh so nice! I didn't have to wrap my arm up in a garbage bag!

It is so weird how you go 25 years with absolutely no problem bending your joints then you get a cast for 2 months out of the 300 you've been alive and they are immobile. But I'm happy that typing is no problem at all. It's nice to not have to bend my hand at a weird angle just to prevent my cast from bumping other keys! I'm glad I can go back to work. It's nice to have the time off, but I have been paid half as much as usual and am getting way behind on bills. It's awful! My tax return could not come fast enough! I'll be relieved when this is over. I'm sick of the constant knot in my stomach!

So I'm very glad to slowly be getting back to normal. And I'm super excited that I can work on my art projects and sewing! And get to organizing my house. Since it happened a month after we moved I didn't have the house how I wanted it and the cast totally hindered everything! I hope none of you ever have to have anything happen to your right hand because it interferes with your life more than you can even imagine!

Bucket List

2012-01-24T01:45:00.001-07:00

Today is my brother's 30th birthday. Sure I've seen my brother and sister turn 30 before, but this one is different because this one means I'm next. So I thought it would be appropriate to make a list before I kick the age 30 bucket. Hopefully it doesn't turn out like JD on scrubs where I finish a triathlon on my birthday (good thing that's not on my list!). Ok here we go:

1-graduate college
2-visit Europe (or at least another continent)
3-take an oil painting class
4-visit the Caribbean
5-sew Audrey an elaborate dress
6-learn to play the piano
7-make a meal using only food from my garden
8-grow a garden
9-become a certified childbirth instructor
10-give up sugar (this one will be the hardest. Stupid sugar tasting so good!!)

Well here's to the next 5 years! Wish me luck!!

The Order of Life

2012-01-17T02:03:00.001-07:00

I've recently had one of those moments when I realize that life isn't turning out the way I expected and that is OKAY. Not better or worse, just different. There's a certain order things go in and every time something happens out of order it's a great excuse to evaluate and modify.

This is the order I'm talking about:
-get married
-finish school
-get career
-buy a house
-have kids

This is mine:
-get married
-have kids
-buy a house

I'm all backwards!!! But in my head after I found out I was pregnant with Nate my planned order was this:
-get married
-have kids
-finish school
-get career
-buy house

So I realized that my order changed again, but definitely for the better! But the thing is, I still have in my head finish school and get career. As much as I'd love to work for jetblue forever, it's truly not my desired field. It's the absolute most perfect job for me right now, but yeah, I miss the medical field. I never wanted to admit it, but it's true.

I kept telling myself I would go back to school when my kids are in school, but buying a house was a major game changer. I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd be paying less for a mortgage than rent. Now that I know how much we will be spending a month for as long as we live here, I realized that I am only a 2 year program away from completely supporting my family. Not that Phil is going to quit working when I have a career, but it will open opportunities for him to do internships or go back to school and pursue his incredible music talent!!! Or whatever he decides to do that working a full time job makes it extremely hard to do.

I thought about doing radiology a lot. Then maybe a year ago my best friend told me she decided that she was going to do it (unrelated from each other. She didn't know I was thinking about it). So I am not making anymore excuses and decided to apply at the same time as her (we can't until next year). It was a great source of motivation to have her doing it too. I still like the idea of being a doula and a childbirth educator and am certain I'm not giving those up, but they don't have consistency and security and I won't be able to rely on either for a steady income.

Anyway I feel really great about this decision and hope it all works out! :)

Two Thousand Eleven

2011-12-31T16:00:00.001-07:00

What a year! Definitely a year I'll remember forever! I love doing these end of the year posts to reflect back on everything we accomplished or endured. I don't think I met one of my new year resolutions, but I'm satisfied with what was accomplished :).

January:
Fairly uneventful. We went to Vegas for Phil's moms 50th birthday. That's about it.

February:

My mom, Audrey, and I went to Florida. My first time there and Audrey's first time touching the Atlantic...even though she'd been to Jersey one time before that, we didn't go to the shore.

We also moved in to Kelsi and Brian's basement apartment.

March:

We flew down to Long Beach for the day because our really good friend Nate Patten was there on a broadway tour for Beauty and the Beast.

And we experienced piggy tails for the first time

April:

Gramps came to visit

May:

I surprised Phil with a weekend trip to NYC for our anniversary/his birthday.

Then we went to Victoria BC to visit James, Phil's brother. It was his moms birthday present.

June:

We went to the beach for Nate's birthday. He turned 3 :).

July:

I took the kids to Jersey to visit the family. Phil couldn't come last minute so I went anyway :)

And I got this awesome pic of my niece wearing Audrey :)

August:

Phil's cousin Nicholas came from Jersey to visit us :)

I did a lot of Utah firsts like going to the copper mine and floating in the great salt lake.

My grandma passed away :(

September:

We unexpectedly found the perfect house for us!!

(these pics have nothing to do with the house, just to document their growth)

October:

Audrey turned 1! We found out the house was ours. And started to move in :)

We also went to jersey for Phil's cousins wedding

November:

Enjoyed our new house.

My grandparents celebrated 70 years of marriage

December:

I broke my stupid pinky, turned 25, and enjoyed Christmas in our first house.

The kind of mom I want to be

2011-12-26T00:34:00.001-07:00

I've been putting off blogging lately due to the fact that typing is basically impossible and all typing is done on my phone because it's actually easier this way, but I felt compelled to write a little post.

As I stared at this picture tonight it made me think:

I'm often hard on myself. I second guess my parenting and worry that I'm not doing anything right. And then there's moments like these. When my kids snuggle up to me and fall asleep. That's the mom I want to be. The kind that my kids feel comfortable with. They know without a doubt that I love them. The kind who's kids run up to when they're hurt because they only thing that makes them feel better is a kiss and a hug from mom. All I want is my kids to feel loved. If they feel that I know I'm doing something right.
They make me feel special and loved. It means so much that they still snuggle with me. It makes my full time mommy gig worth while!!!

I sure do love my babies!!!

Temple Square

2011-12-04T11:19:00.001-07:00

It's a tradition on my birthday to go see the lights downtown. Last year we went with Heather and Dan so this year we did it again!! But this time we took the kids. I took a bunch of pictures for a friend from Phil's ward back home who has never been, otherwise I probably would have forgotten to, so I'm glad I had a reason. Enjoy!

We took trax downtown which is also part of the tradition and part I don't want to find parking.

Some parents just do not watch their kids!! Haha!!!

Nate liked riding on Dans shoulders :)

I love how they completely cover the trees!!

Afterwards we got hot chocolate and went back to Dan an Heathers

My kids love Dan so much!!!

Pics not for the squeamish!

2011-12-01T20:06:00.001-07:00

So last night was fun! I turned around on the porch and my shoe caught the cement just right that I tumbled down the porch stairs (luckily no one saw!!!) scuffing up my shin, banging my hip, catching myself crooked with my right hand bending back my pinky and breaking it. Awesome!!! I ran in the house crying because I looked at my crooked finger and panicked!! I almost passed out. Got very lightheaded and had to kneel on the floor. I went and sat in the car and waited for Phil to gather the kids and rushed to Jordan Valley (which I learned today was the wrong one for my insurance. Joy.). My mom met us there and signed me in under Krista Morgan (lol mom!!!). The kids were dressed ridiculous. Audrey wasn't wearing pants and only had a shirt on, Nate was wearing a shirt and pj pants, no shoes. Haha that's what happens when you're not prepared to leave the house haha!! At least Phil brought a blanket!

They took me back to get numb (ahhhhh) this was taken while we were waiting for the meds.

Yeah. Gross! We thought it was dislocated, but they took an. X ray and its not, it's broken. Then they put a sling on and tried to straighten it.

My mom has worked for an orthopedic surgeon my whole life so I went there today and they took off the sling to X-ray it. And as you can see from the pics below its pretty bruised!!!

The doctor said that a bone chipped off so I have to have surgery on Tuesday. So sad!!! So wish me luck! Pray that I can qualify for financial aid!!!! The Percocet is making me sleepy so that's all for now!!!

Decorations!!!

2011-11-22T21:07:00.001-07:00

I wanted to decorate for Christmas now even though it's a little early because I am just so dang thrilled that I have a place to put all my decor! It is a regular home for Christmas! No makeshift half effort of decorating anymore! I really cannot express my gratitude and excitement!!

When you have a one year old you have to be creative with your placement. So the angel is up on high :). I LOVE that I have a place like that to put it!!!

You have to be able to see the tree out the front window!!

I made that Santa!

I'm so glad I found a place for the nativity where the kids can't mess with it!!

Yeah I really need to finish Audrey's!!

Nate wanted to help. He put that bottom gold one on completely by himself!

Yeah I had to put that music box of carolers up where Audrey couldn't get it. She already broke 2 things off!! So it's new home is on top of the lamp lol!

Warning I'm about to complain (haha)

2011-11-21T23:23:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd give a warning cause if you're not the type that likes to read about other's misfortunes, then you don't have to (hahahaha).

Sometimes I hate holidays with my family. I mean, I love them a lot and I always have fun, but it can be SO ANNOYING! I honestly hate the idea of Thanksgiving sometimes. I mean, I love what it really means, but I don't love what people celebrate. Calling Thanksgiving "Turkey Day" is just as bad and calling Christmas "Santa Day". Do we celebrate Thanksgiving for the Turkey only? We're freaking AMERICAN'S. We live in a first world country. It's the easiest place on earth to always be fed, clothed, and have a roof over your head. So obviously we have a LOT to be thankful for and what do we do? We think about the stupid Turkey. Ok ok yeah the whole forgetting to be thankful thing is not the REAL reason why it annoys me. The real reason is that if we don't eat meat DON'T BUG US!!! It's the third freaking Thanksgiving we have had where we haven't eaten the Turkey. GET OVER IT! They act like we've developed a drug addiction and need intervention. Last time I checked, being vegetarian isn't a BAD thing. We don't push our vegetarianism on ANYONE at ALL. EVER! If someone decided not to eat sugar no one would condem them for not eating the pie!

Yeah I expected it the first Thanksgiving, but this is the third one and we still get abused for it? Just let it go. Let it be. Don't even think twice about it. Don't mention it, don't worry about it, just accept the fact that it is what it is. Because giving us a hard time, even if it's just teasing, is old. It's annoying. I don't want to defend something that is completely moral and fine.

I am also not looking forward to Thanksgiving. At all. For one, I had my Thanksgiving already. We switch famillies every year and this year is an in-law year so we had Thanksgiving with my family yesterday (hence the abuse). And now I would really like to skip this Thursday. Let's go straight to the next holiday being my birthday. Yes. The order of holidays in my house is Halloween, Thanksgiving, My Birthday, then Christmas. Sure we do Christmasy things and my birthday, but it's still the next on the list.

Why you ask? Is it because I don't want the abuse again? Well, no...and yes. I'm not going to be abused for my vegetarianism, but that certainly doesn't mean I won't endure some kind of abuse. It will be the first Thanksgiving in our home. That part is exciting, but it's who I have to spend it with. And I'm really not looking forward to seeing this person. Because this person no longer lives up here, so it's not that I have to deal with them for a few hours then it's over. No. I have to provide a place for this person to stay. And because they have to spend so much time at my house, I get to hear every little thing that's wrong with it. And I get to be annoyed constantly. So when people asked if it was harder or easier for this person to live up here I would say it was easier because I had to deal with them for shorter quantities of time. Which is preferrable. Because when I have to see them for more than an hour or two at a time...it get's ugly. So, shoot me now please. So that I don't have to be here during the holiday. Thank you!

Demanding children

2011-11-18T14:06:00.001-07:00

I can tell this move has been a somewhat difficult adjustment for my kids. For Nate I can tell that he feels less in control here. He has new rules to follow and he sees us doing things around the house and wants to do them too. So there is a lot of telling him no going on and us getting mad at him and he doesn't understand why so he's been acting out more, getting upset, and wanting control over everything whether it makes sense or not. Like if he wants to be the one to give me something and he doesn't get the chance I have to give it back just for him to hand it right back to me. Or another example, yesterday he wanted to give me a bottle of tums and I told him to leave it there and he was like "no I want to give it to you" so I realized it was more than just that he wanted to give it to me he wanted control. So I let him give it to me and handed it right back to him and he put it right back. His behavior has really been testing my patience. And I have been failing miserably. But it's not his fault.

As for Audrey she has been wanting to nurse ALLLLLLL the time. It's not just for food. It's a comfort thing. I really really want to cut back, but to do so right now would be harder on her than waiting till we can get settled into a routine and she gets used to it.

So when you're a mom moving can be extra hard because you have to worry about your kids adjusting. It's making it take a billion times longer to get settled into a routine because they are so much more demanding I can't get everything unpacked and organized. I'll be glad once things can settle and normal life can resume.

On another note I painted the kitchen!

The ivory on the left started out being red and it looked AWFUL!!! the issue was that it clashed with the cabinets. The ivory looks WAAAYYY better! I was going to paint all the red, but when I got to this point I decided to leave that wall red and see how we like it. We're giving it a probation period. On the other hand I LOVE the teal!!! Love love love it! Here are some more pics of it

There will be more decorations on this wall eventually

Looking into the kitchen. The light makes the green look different. I'm a little worried about it clashing, but I think as I get more decorations in the kitchen it will make more sense. Oh btw I painted that pic that's in the kitchen.

I love the ivory and teal together

Eleven

2011-11-13T15:58:00.000-07:00

I started this post on 11/11/11, but got too busy to finish till now

In celebration of the fact that I am living on 11/11/11 (who WOULDN'T want to celebrate?) I thought I'd write 11 lists of 11 things about 11 different topics.

11 Things about Phil

His New Jersey accent only comes out when he's angry
He started losing hair because of a medication he had to take when he was 17 and hasn't lost any at all since I've known him haha.
He can play any instrument as long as he knows where the notes are
He can't site read music, he does everything by ear and knowledge of music theory. .
He can listen to a song and tell you the chord progression and what other songs have the same chord progression (it's crazy!) he can also tell me what note I'm singing and when I'm flat (drives me crazy haha).
He is 6 foot 3!
He dropped out of high school and started going to college.
He has an associates degree in recording arts from a college in Florida.
He loves to watch documentaries.
He constantly listens podcasts and audio books while he's working and not music. He can learn and memorize by listening unlike most people who are visual. (don't really know if it's most people, just seems to be that way).
Before we had kids he wanted a little girl so bad. He picked out the name Audrey when he was in high school :D.

11 Things about Krista

I love to dance
I am a home birth advocate, but I'm not against hospital birth. I do believe that home birth is better than hospital birth especially if you like having choices, but I don't judge women wherever they want to give birth.
I always wanted to work for an airline because I loved our annual vacations so much as a child I wanted to be able to take my kids to even more exciting locations.
I still think about getting a career in the medical field one day. I miss it.
I have a very limited taste in music. Seriously.
I inherited a lot of my grandma's furniture because I was really the only one who needed it and I can't even tell you how happy it makes me!
My hair is so so so straight. It's kind of ridiculous! I do wish it had a little curl in it. Audrey has the exact same hair.
I don't like buying decorations from the store because I feel like I should make it.
I really like my birthday
I haven't watched a TV show while it was airing in several years (minus when I've flown on JetBlue haha)
I used to dislike the fall, but fell in love with it when I found out I was pregnant with a fall baby.

11 Things about Nate

He loves his ABC's
He can read simple words and spell them and even read when I sign the letters to him
He LOVES the train tracks
Every time we get on a train he thinks we're going to see Gramps
He loves to fly and knows what the jetBlue logo says
He is not shy at all. He makes friends very easily
He loves to color and make art
He loves to take baths and sometimes stays in the tub for an hour just playing.
He's a really good swimmer
When Audrey was really little he was never mean to her (only when she started threatening his things or his space).
He loves to give snugs and kisses

11 Things about Audrey

She is very attached to me
She loves the boobies
She is very snuggly
She has so much beautiful hair on her head (compared to Nate at her age).
She crawls up and down stairs with ease. I don't even have to put a gate up.
She's still a binky baby
She is pretty big for her age
She likes to play with bigger kids
She has way more stranger anxiety than Nate ever has
She has green eyes :D
Her favorite toy is a truck :D

11 Things I love about our new house

How much space we have. it's double what we've ever had before. instead of 1 living room, 2 bedrooms we have 2 living rooms and 4 bedrooms!
The kitchen has plenty of cabinet space and room to move around.
The windows in the basement let in a ton of light.
It's very bright, warm, and open feeling
The bathroom is the biggest bathroom we've had
There's a window in the shower. I don't know why, but I just really love that.
Garage space. So nice to have a garage for once. Even though it's only 1 car sized
There's a linen closet. Sounds stupid but I've never had a real one!
There are two big trees one in the front and one in the back
There's enough space that the kitchen table doesn't get used as a place to put stuff so it's much easier to eat at.
Our room is so big!

11 People who have impacted my life in a positive way (family not included).

Heather Powell. We moved to college together, started adventures together, we can talk to each other about anything, she helped me decide it was the right time to have a baby, she picked an awesome boyfriend that gets along perfectly with my husband so we love to hang out together, and we always get along.
Cynda Min. We met in college and have gone through the same experiences. We are always each other's shoulders to cry on and have so much in common. I could never get sick of her and her hilarious personality!
Dannielle Nielsen. She was my dance teacher starting in 8th grade when I had a terrible self esteem. She gave me the confidence I needed to be a successful person. I will never forget what she has done for me!
Whitney McNeil. She inspired me to have a home birth and she caught Audrey. She gave me the number 1 most incredible experience of my whole life. We are still such good friends and have kids the same age :D
Nate Patten. He was Phil's best friend growing up and gave Phil someone to be hilarious with. I'm not sure if he would be as funny without Nate. He is where we got our son's name and he is one of my very best friends now. I talk to him more than Phil does. I just love him to pieces!
Kelsi Gowers. She was my best friend in elementary. One of my only friends when I moved to my terrible new school (I seriously hated that school!) and she gave us a lease free place to live so we could get into this house. We have so much in common and can talk for hours. I love her so much!
Barbara De Rosa. We met in high school and she opened my eyes to a world of music at a time when I needed something different. It was more than just music. She helped me develop into the person I wanted to be. The music gave me individuality that helped me break away from the norm and have courage to be who I wanted to be.
Andee 'Otuafi. Her courageous adoption story has made me appreciate motherhood in a totally different way. I love seeing her being a mom now to her cute little daughter. She is one of the most amazing people I know!
Annie Thomas. She was another best friend from college. She is an amazing example to me of unconditional love and happiness. Nothing could bring her down. She's a friend that I will be able to rely on my whole life.
Tania Greenhalgh. I owe a lot to Tania! She was the right person for me at the right time in my life. I met her on the first day of middle school and I will never forget that day. She was another person who gave me confidence. She was the best friend I could ever ask for. I can't emphasize that enough. I'm so grateful for her! She is still a positive influence and we are still good friends. I sure do love her!
Erika Polley. This one is funny because her little sister is my age and I never imagined that we would become such good friends. She impacts my life because she always gives me the absolute best parenting advice. She is literally the only person who has given me consistently good advice no matter what. She parents the way I want to parent and influences me to be a better mom. I am so grateful to know her!!!!!!

11 people who call my mom and dad grandma and grandpa in order of age and who they belong to

Destinee 11-My brother Matt
Jordyn 10-My sister Shauna
Brookie 9-Matt
Brynn 8-My brother Ryan
Trevor 7-Matt
Jaci 7-Shauna
Havynn 5-Ryan
Drayson 4-Ryan
Austin 4-Shauna
Nate 3-Me
Audrey 1-Me

11 Places I have loved to visit

Toms River, NJ
New York, NY
Fort Lauderdale, FL
San Diego, CA
Victoria, BC
Lake Powell
Jackson Hole, WY
Washington DC
Niagara Falls
San Fransico, CA
Crested Butte, CO

11 of my favorite movies

Crazy Stupid Love
Dan in Real Life
Garden State
Just like Heaven
Return to Me
Juno
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
13 Going on 30
Slumdog Millionaire
I Love You Man

11 of my favorite TV shows (that I watch online haha)

Bones
Parks and Rec
Modern Family
How I Met Your Mother
Big Bang Theory
Parenthood
The Office
Yo Gabba Gabba
Arrested Development
Angel (purely for the eye candy)
Boy Meets World

11 pet peeves/complaints...I try not to complain too much, so why not?

When Audrey wakes up right as I'm drifting off to sleep (seriously why can't she be like Nate was?)
When people are rude when they're driving for no good reason
People that call 1800JETBLUE and don't have their confirmation numbers ready and have a ridiculous last name that I can't understand and have to have them spell fifteen times
When Nate pours out the soap into the bath tub
When people complain on facebook and it's super vague and annoying
When Audrey cries every single time I put her down
When laundry piles up
Not being able to find a binky
When my phone dies in the middle of using it
That the cord to my laptop stopped working
That every time I get a new phone number I have to put it on the do not call list because billions of telemarketers call. UGH!

There. That's my 11 lists of 11 different topics with 11 things listed :D

Happy November!

My Audrey Girl's little words

2011-11-09T12:53:00.000-07:00

My daughter cracks. me. up! Let's talk about little Audrey for a moment. Being a mother of two, you think you know what to expect the second time around. And to a point, you really do. And then there's a whole other realm of personality and developmental differences that you could never plan for or expect. So lets go to the topic of differences that inspired this post today:

When Nate was 12 months he said lots of words: go (his first word), hi, bapa (grandpa), dada, bird, duck, whats that? (it sounded more like "whats ah?"), uh oh, and wow.

These are Audrey's words: mama, dada, up, help, and boob. Yes boob. LOL!

I can tell that moving and adjusting has been pretty rough on her. She has just been really clingy and pulls at my shirt all day saying "boob" haha. She is such a breast feeder! It's just a totally different experience because I never once have had to give her a bottle, but I worked outside the home with Nate and so it was easy for him to go to bottle only. With her, breastfeeding is the only thing she has done, which I am SUPER grateful for seriously. It's just funny to see the difference between an exclusively breastfed baby compaired to a bottle fed one (he was bottle fed breast milk for the first 8 months of his life and breastfed when I was home).

I love my little girl so much and our bond is very strong. Yes sometimes I wish she had a strong bond with someone else as well so she wouldn't follow me around all day when I'm trying to unpack and clean pulling at my pants, but I wouldn't trade our relationship for the world! She is my little sweet heart and I hope we can have a good relationship our whole lives.

I love being a mom!

wow.

2011-11-08T19:02:00.000-07:00

I am amazed at how many blessings there are even when it seems like all hell is breaking lose!

So it has been one car problem after another. Well, first it was one car and now it's the other. Both issues with the batteries. What the crap? Seriously! So today I was trying to get Nate off to preschool. And the van wouldn't start so I ventured over to my neighbors to find out if they had jumper cables. He didn't, so we both went across the circle to another house. He didn't so we went next door to him. I ended up having three different neighbors helping jumpstart the van. And it wouldn't start. It sucked. Nate had to miss school once again :( :( :( because of stupid car problems!

So I called my mom crying because who else am I going to cry to? Well crying made my recently sore tooth even more sore. You see, a year ago I had a tooth on my left side fixed, but it still hurts when I chew some times so I've been chewing on my right side for so long that it caused issues with a tooth on that side now. So then I outwardly expressed how painful my stupid tooth was and had been the past two days. And so she calls my dad's best friend who is an endodontist to have him look at it today.

Then my neighbor knocks at my door because he found a car battery charger he forgot he had and thought we could give it a try. What a nice guy!

Then my mom picks me up, we rush to the office to get there for the appointment, he looks at it, yep! Root canal. Quickly rips my tooth apart, puts it back together, I go out to the desk and the receptionist goes "oh you're done, he's doing insurance only so you don't have to pay" ...crisis averted and an extremely grateful me.

I get home, the car had been charging for a good amount of time so we unhook it and try to start the van. It starts. NO WAY!!!! I was SURE it was going to have issues too!!!

I feel like everything is hitting all at once, but somehow keeps working itself out. I KNOW that this is where we are supposed to be right now. It's truly amazing how blessed I have felt recently. I definitely haven't done anything to deserve it!

First night!

2011-11-02T00:38:00.001-06:00

Yeah I know I'm updating a TON about the house. I wish I could put into words how happy I am. We waited so long for this!!! I thought it was still years away! I'm just soooooo grateful!!!!! I just want to look back and remember all the details :)

Today the carpet was installed! It makes the house feel SOOO nice and new!!! We moved our bed in and I just have to say how NICE it is to have such a big room! It's the standard size, but we've been in a tiny bedroom since feb. It just makes it that much sweeter. Everything just makes me happier and happier! Knowing this is the last time in a LOOOONG time that we will be moving makes it easier! I hate moving! Who likes it anyway? It feels good though because we endured a lot of small space, annoying neighbors, having to turn our music down in fear of being annoying neighbors, making our living room our entertainment room, toy room, music room, etc and now we have a living room, a family room AND a music room. I just feel like I could go on forever about it! It just feels so freaking dang good!

So happy to be laying on my bed in my room in MY house!! sorry for the billion updates I just can't express my joy enough!

Progress

2011-11-01T06:35:00.001-06:00

I'm awake and it's 6:10 in the morning. Not cool. But it's because my parents are in JFK waiting for their flight to Orlando. I'll feel better once I know they're on! But I know they will get on! I gave them a super pass to make their priority higher :). I'm so happy that they're using my benefits.

We were supposed to go with them. Instead the carpet is being installed today!! As much as I'd love to travel right now, I can't tell you how much more I want/need carpet!!! Last night we ripped it out ourselves (to save $170!!) and it. was. disgusting!!!! There was cat pee in the corner (shudder), the carpet was so old it cracked when it was rolled (I have to wonder if some of it was the original carpet from 1985. I know some of it was newer), and dust had formed underneath the padding. I'm SOOOOOO grateful we're getting carpet!!!! I had to paint this stuff called kilz that is supposed to seal the cat smell. Let's hope it works!!

I do wish my parents were here for just one or two days longer, but their trip was planned way before our house was!!!! Since we weren't planning to get a house till next spring I'm really glad it turned out this way so we could get carpet! Otherwise my parents would have bought us something else for Christmas and paid for this trip! So wahoo to that!

I'm very happy with our progress so far! We have been working our butts off non stop since Saturday! I have a ton to do today too! Packing, take Nate to school, clean up all the paint and tools, meet the carpet guys, but Phil's brother James is coming through town making his way back up to Victoria so we are gonna have some help moving which makes me super happy! And his mom is coming up so she can babysit! Hopefully we can get most of the stuff moved today, I'm just not looking forward to not having Internet till the 8th cause that means I'll have to drive to the center to work :( booo!! I'm definitely spoiled :D.

Anyway just wanted to document how things are coming with the house so I can remember. I'm very very sore and I'll definitely need to take a hot bath when I'm done haha!!

Paint paint paint!!

2011-10-30T22:48:00.001-06:00

The last two days we've spent the entire day painting. Here is what we've accomplished:

The living room.

The green in this hallway was already here (not on the last pic. We color matched some paint.) The ivory color was all us.

Our room is the same ivory color on the right and a deep purple/maroon color. It looks SOOOO pretty!! This pic is lit more yellow than it really is.

Audrey's pink room. Only that one wall and the window seat are dark pink. The light pink is REALLY light. I didn't want it to be too overwhelming.

I LOVE that window seat!

And Nate's blue room. I'm going to paint white clouds and an airplane on the right with a runway on the shelf. Then a train on both sides of the window and a train track on the shelf :)

2 days!!!!

2011-10-26T19:51:00.001-06:00

Two more days till we're homeowners! HOLY COW!!! So so so excited!!!!! Guess what I did today:

Picked out carpet, paint colors, and a new kitchen faucet!! SO EXCITED!!!!!

I need help!

2011-10-25T14:24:00.000-06:00

Today my car wouldn't start so I had to get Phil to drive home from work and I had to drive him back, drop him off, then take Nate to school. So since he was late I had to go inside. I talked to the director about some of the issues that Nate has been having and we've determined that it is definitely not a behavioral problem. In fact, we agree that he never does things on purpose to be bad or mean. The problem is communication. So this is where I need help. I have no idea where to go from here!

I've probably mentioned before that Nate has been really slow with his abstract thinking. I mean really slow. He should definitely not be this behind. He is very smart when it comes to memorization, art, etc. But he cannot answer a why question. His language and communication is very very black and white. He asks the same questions over and over. He often will ask a question wanting a specific answer, but when he doesn't get the answer he wants instead of asking it in a different way he will ask the same question. I kept thinking that this was something he would grow out of, but he should be grown out of this by now. So because he doesn't think abstractly enough to get the results he wants or to express his feelings, he will either have a tantrum, or get frustrated. So this communication problem masks itself as a behavioral problem.

Part of the reason I decided to let him to go preschool was in hopes that this problem would be resolved. I was thinking maybe it was because he wasn't around other kids enough, or maybe preschool would ask him the right questions to get his brain turning. I am so glad that I have sent him to preschool though because it has helped us figure out what the real issue is. The reason we get frustrated with him and hopefully we can find the answer. I just don't even know where to go. I just don't even know what kind of specialist can help with these types of things. Who can go inside his brain and make it think the correct way? Is it something I've done wrong? Is it something he'll grow out of? I just don't even know where to start! If anyone has heard of anything like this, or knows someone who has please let me know!! Thanks!

Happy Happy Happy!

2011-10-22T14:04:00.001-06:00

So a lot of good things are happening all around!! Audrey had her happy first birthday, Nate had an evaluation this week that had happy news and, best of all, next week we will officially be (happy) home owners!!!

I can't believe it's really happening!!

So first of all my baby turned one! Like all parents say: this year went by sooooooo fast!!!

She turned one and I SWEAR overnight she literally turned into a one year old. She just started acting older. She doesn't crawl at ALL anymore, she is talking a little more (kind of). She is more playful and plays peekaboo and her binky game, and even though she played before it's like now all of the sudden it's more thought out and mature. Last night was really cute because Phil sang the ABCs to her and she made movements with her hand and grabbed his hand so he would sign it then her little hand was moving like she was trying to do it too. It was so dang cute!!!

She is growing up so fast! I'm really loving it, but at the same time she's getting to the stage where she isn't sweet and innocent anymore. Now she does things that she knows are wrong, she does things to get reactions out of Nate. It's really quite cute, but can be frustrating. She's also really sensitive to the word no haha! I sure love her!!

This is what it's like trying to take her picture now haha! She climbed up here by herself.

This is what happens when I tell her no.

She loves spaghetti!

Man I love her!!

On to the next topic: Nate's evaluation.

I haven't wanted to talk about this, but now that it's over and I know I'm not crazy, it's a lot easier. So Nate had a rough start to preschool. Learning his boundaries and working with a controlled group for the first time. He's doing a lot better but his school suggested we have him evaluated for (they didn't say this, but I know it was what they were implying without actually saying it) ADD. So we did. And guess what, he's totally normal. He is a little impulsive and the teacher acts like he can't stay focused on one activity for very long, but it's not to the point of a diagnosis. I have had a feeling that he would be labeled with ADD because it is so incredibly common for kids to be labeled with it these days I wanted to get this evaluation so that when he goes to school I can tell them he doesn't have it. I'm not going say he's so intelligent that he's bored because I don't think that's the only thing. I mean yeah they're learning stuff that he already knows, but that doesn't mean anything.

Ok so the happy news is that the place that had him evaluated has a free service where someone goes out to the child's school to help them be successful. So we're going to do that! Yay! And just look at how cute and grown up this little dude is:

Lastly the house! Next Friday it will be official!! I can't even believe that we went house shopping not even planning to get a house right away and we ended up finding the one. It was the last house, we weren't even going to look at it, but I just really wanted to for some reason. I walked through the front door and felt like I walked through a sheet and it took me back a little and I immediately knew it was the one. Before I had even seen most of the house! And Nate even said "this is my house!"

I haven't wanted to talk about how strong the feeling was because it wasn't official, but it was really really strong. It wasn't just "oh yeah I like this house" it was a distinct "this is the one" and I had to hold back from blurting it out because I hadn't even see the whole thing! I'm just really happy with the way things have turned out. I'm sure we definitely would have qualified for a house before, but the time wasn't right. House prices have dropped so much. 2 years ago this house sold for 40,000 more than what we're paying. So we just feel really lucky and happy it all is going well. Now on to the painful task of moving ugh!!!! But it's the last time for a LOOOONG time!!!! Wahooooo!!!!

Short NJ Trip...and a house update.

2011-10-11T22:04:00.001-06:00

So I was going to post this a week ago, but the pictures weren't uploading correctly. So basically there are less pics on here than originally intended, but I need to post this so it will be in chronological order haha!

Over the weekend we went to New Jersey. It was awesome as always! We had to take a connecting flight there and then take the trains. We have pretty much decided that we are not ever going to take the train again. If Phil's dad wants to see us then he can sacrifice and come pick us up at the airport, or he can pay for us to fly into Newark! (this has been a BIG issue and it really pisses us both off, but I'm really not going to get into it, just know that it is a HUGE issue that I could go on for PAGES about! Let's just say not everyone parents the way I would parent. Or the way my parents would parent. Or Phil's mom...)

ANYWAY so we got in on Friday night. The wedding was the next day and Phil's dad babysat the kids for us so we got to spend the day together which was pretty awesome!! The wedding was in the presbyterian church that Phil used to go to. As a teenager he was involved in the youth group there even though he was LDS haha! So it was fun to tour a building that was such a big part of his life and I even recognized where a lot of the pictures were taken. It was an absolutely beautiful ceremony. Short and sweet and really great!

The Happy Couple

Phil and his (older) brother James

Phil, James, Grandma Seeland (Phil's mom's mom), and Phil's cousin Alayna (she snuck in haha!)

Phil, Cindy (their mom), James

Maddy is the bride and she is Phil's cousin. She is the daughter of Cindy's older brother. (if you were wondering).

After the wedding there was a couple hours in between so we checked into the hotel. Grandma reserved us all rooms because the wedding was at the hotel. That was AWESOME! I love love loved having our own hotel room and having it where the party was. Best idea EVER! The reception started at 6 with a cocktail hour which is pretty much where there were a bunch of stations of appetisers and an open bar for the alcoholics (lol). The food was incredible. Then the reception was a lot of dancing, dinner, having fun, etc. I'm sure you don't need details, but basically, East Coast weddings are amazing! Reminded me of my New Jersey reception!

Phil's best friends Forrest and Brandon (they're brothers) came to our hotel to hang out after the reception for a couple of hours because it would be the only time we could see them. Then as they were leaving James stumbled by COMPLETELY drunk! I had NEVER seen him like that! It was HILARIOUS! Good thing Nate had no idea what was going on! He just thought Uncle James was REALLY fun! The best quote of the night was: "WOW NATE! I LOVE those pajamas! They are SOOO AWESOME! I wanna wear those pajamas. And I don't want Kirsten to hate me for wearing them!" then I was like "should I take a picture of them to show her and he laughed REALLY hard and said yes! The next day I asked and he didn't remember loving his pajamas that much! haha! And by the way, Kirsten is his wife. She's my favorite! I freaking LOVE her!

Anyway the next day we hung out at Robin and Paul's house and then we drove back to the airport. Like I said, short trip. I got a few cool pictures along the drive. I love how different the scenery is!

And for a quick house update:

The loan has been submitted to the underwriters. They're the ones that give final approval. So far everything looks fine so hopefully they approve us! We found out that our house payment is going to be 150 less than we were estimating which is pretty dang freaking awesome! It's going to be 706 at the current interest rate so hopefully it doesn't go up (maybe it will go down! haha that would be awesome!). So we are SUPER stoked about that! Just keep hoping that everything turns out well! My parents decided to pay for us to get the whole house carpeted instead of going on a vacation with them so that was exciting news for us! And we found out that Phil's grandma gives a gift to the grandkids when they buy a house so we don't have to buy a fridge which is a HUGE relief for us as well! So things are looking up! We also found a replacement for renters in the place we're at currently so that made me happy too! Just keep praying for good news!

Holy hair!

2011-10-06T20:31:00.000-06:00

I came across a picture of Nate at about Audrey's age and was actually surprised at how bald he was!

See? Look at this baby's gorgeous locks! (lol)

Now look at this baldy dude!

Now he has more hair than he knows what to do with! Aw I miss my baby Natey!

It's so weird how different they are!

Audrey's 11 months!

2011-10-03T18:01:00.000-06:00

My mind has been so preoccupied with this house business that I forgot to post when Audrey turned 11 months!

This cute little button turned 11 months on September 18th. This picture is from her actual 11 month birthday :D

She has been up to a lot lately. I'm going to update her as of right now and some of these things are new developments, but she's still in her 11th month so it still counts. Here's what Audrey's been up to lately:

She walks! Most of the time now. This is a very recent development. I mean she's been taking steps for a long time and standing on her own, but now she stands up and actually walks around instead of crawls. She still crawls a lot, especially if there's something in her way.
She stands up from a sitting position. Often times she'll do that before grabbing my legs which is a small improvement. It's a little better than having her pull herself up on my legs. haha! But she doesn't need to pull herself up onto furniture any more.
She puts things in cups. Yesterday I noticed her grabbing small things off the floor and putting them in a cup. She also puts cups inside each other. I know that seems small, but it's a significant developmental sign.
She is still SUCH a momma's girl! Crazy momma's girl! Parts of me like it, and other parts wish she would just accept me putting her down without crying about it (depends on her mood). If it was up to her she'd sit on my lap all day. Like she is right now. Anyone have tips on how to get her to not be so clingy? I'm not used to it cause Nate was not clingy at all. I know it's healthy, but it gets old.
She is really sensitive. I think she's like me in that she doesn't like to disappoint people maybe? I was really sensitive like that when I was a baby. I tell her no no and it can be in the nicest tone and she gets all upset over it. It makes me laugh!
She's a really really happy baby! She laughs at everything. I can just look at her and she'll laugh. It's so easy!
She loves bath time!

And here are some pics for you to enjoy haha!

Bathy time!

Posin'

walk walk walk

Someone loves Bananas!

So here's some good house news! The bank finally submitted everything to the credit bureau! So my mortgage guy is going to pull both of our credit scores again tomorrow, but I called my bank today to see if I could find out what it was. Of course they wouldn't give it to me unless I was applying for a loan (which I totally think the should give it to me after all the crap I went through) and he said to look at it online. I asked him if it was safe cause I've heard that looking at your credit goes against the score, but he said it was safe. My guess is that if someone has to look at it professionally then it can go against your score for a few reasons, but just looking at the score only, not a detailed report, then I guess it's safe.

So I looked up Phil's score and it was above the amount that it needed to be! Wa Freakin' hoo!! I'm still not going to get my hopes up too high until I hear it from the person that is actually giving us the loan, but I'm feeling pretty good about it. Of course we could still get denied for some other reason, but he acted like it was only depending on that score. So cross your fingers!

2011-09-30T19:40:00.000-06:00

So this post is kind of dumb, but I just wanted to show that railing hole thingy in our new house cause I said I was going to take a picture of it. It's one of my favorite things in the house. It makes the whole place feel so open.

This is a bad picture of it. I was going to get a better one then forgot. But here it is:

Pictures of our (hopeful) new house

2011-09-25T21:43:00.000-06:00

After finding out that every single thing that is on my credit will also be on Phil's I've been feeling a lot more confident that his score will be perfectly fine. If not then it would make no sense, but I'm confident it will still be above the necessary limit.

Anyway, the real estate agent we've been working with sent me the documents from the appraisal...which basically just points out everything that needs to be fixed on the house and why it came up with the value it is. Seriously, the funniest thing is that these fixes are estimated to cost under 3000, but if they were all fixed the value of the house would be 10,000-20,000 more in this market. It's so weird how it works. But we're happy to fix them all up because this house is really good quality for the price! I can see why people flip houses now (not that I have any desire to do so, but I guess over time that's what we'll be doing when we sell it eventually, but anyway that's beside the point). There were a bunch of pictures of the house in the appraisal. They're not the best quality, but you'll get the general idea. For anyone that is related to Heather Powell, the floor plan is a LOT like the house that you guys lived in when I first met Heather, the one on 2700 w by Sugar Factory rd.

Here is a tour of our new (hopefully) house.

Front

The lawn looks like it's in better shape in person (at least the front yard) and that's gravel on the side. It needs to be weeded. There are two rose bushes and a nice big tree which will be great for Christmas lights in the front yard.

Back view.

The deck needs a little work, but I love that tree because it shades it!

Living room.

See the little...thingy at the top (have NO idea what to call that), it has florescent lights lining it so when we turn on the lights it really brightens up the walls and the ceiling. That was one of my favorite features! I plan to paint the middle half of the wall (half, third, whatever, the part between the chair rail and the top thingy) an olive green and the top thingy and chair rail a light bluish turquoise to accent it. It sounds weird, but they look really good together!

Dining room looking out onto the deck. It's hard to tell from this picture, but a table and chairs will fit out there :D

Kitchen.

The faucet is missing (such a random thing for the previous owners to take!) and we'll need to get a fridge.

Full Bath. Terrible colors, but we'll manage haha!

Audrey's room

That window is shown on the front of the house. I love the little seat there!

Nate's room.

It's pretty small, but I learned from growing up with brothers that boys generally don't care about the size of their room. He'll like it when he's a teenager because he'll be able to easily sneak out (haha). I guess we'll get to that milestone when it happens. Phil's music room looks just like this one only on the opposite side.

And finally the family room. This is where all the toys will go so they won't be in the kid's rooms. This will also be where we put our (non existant) TV. When you walk in the front door and look to the right, instead of having a solid wall, there is hole with a railing on it and you can see right into this room. A part of me wants to put a curtain over it because it will probably be messy constantly, but I really like how it makes the whole house feel really open. Nate's room comes out into this room and the windows on the right look out into our front yard.

Yes I am very excited to be a home owner. Like, insanely excited. If this one doesn't work out, then I know that finding another one will be just around the corner. It doesn't feel so far away anymore. I'm done feeling guilty that my kids live in apartments. The best part is that they'll barely remember life not in this home. I am happy to have the feeling of being settled and knowing what our future will be. Yeah there's still a big part of me that wants to live out of state, but having a home for our kids is so much more important to me. I'll just keep working for jetblue so we can travel. And with the monthly payment being so low we'll be able to afford travel.

It's funny to think about the pressure I felt to get a home even a few years ago. I remember when I was pregnant with Nate my sister asked when we were going to get a home and she acted like we should do it quickly while the house prices were so low. And now 3 years later they're even lower. I feel like we did the right thing. But it was totally inadvertant. We didn't mean to wait for the house prices to drop, we just didn't know where we wanted to end up forever. I was afraid that if we bought a house that we'd end up never being able to sell it if we wanted to move, but now I feel confident that if we ever did want to move (not that we're planning on it) that since we bought it so low, if we need to sell it fast we can drop the price and still have equity. Hopefully that doesn't happen, but it's definitely not a concern anymore.

I think one of the best things is that I don't feel the pressure to "save for a house" anymore. Now I feel like we can save our money for other more important things. I'm just really happy with the way things are turning out. I wish I would have known all along so I didn't have to waste all my time feeling guilty. And if this house doesn't work out, I have total faith that another great one will. :D

A small (not large) sigh of relief!

2011-09-22T22:50:00.000-06:00

I hope everyone's not getting too sick of my updates about the house! But I have some pretty good news.

We still don't know for sure if we are approved. If you haven't been reading, the bank failed to report the car loan to Phil's credit for the past 18 months so we've been waiting for that. They report everything at the first of every month. Which means we really won't know for sure until October 4th when my mortgage guy is going to pull the report again.

We were going to do a rapid rescore, but that's pointless to do until the bank has reported the loan. So the mortgage guy made a suggestion to add Phil to my (small) credit card and line of credit. When we first became joint on my account for some reason or another I didn't add him to those. I have no idea why we didn't do that, but I had it in my head that we couldn't. But what probably happened is that I didn't think it was important at the time. So today I called the bank and asked if we could do that so they had to run another application. Which I think is kind of stupid because I know they just gave it to me, but it might have been when I was doing other things (like getting my first car loan) and so I didn't realize they were running an application. Plus this was so frickin' long ago, I don't remember. I mean I got my credit card 5 1/2 years ago when I bought my first car (she just added it to my account so I would have something on my credit) and my line of credit I got in like 2003.

Ok so this is where the good news comes in. As long as he is approved to be on my credit card and line of credit (which I will be pretty confused if they don't!) when they add that to his credit, it will back track to the time I opened each one! So it's not going to START counting them, it's going to act like it's been counting it for 5+ years! So that gave me some MAJOR hope! Considering that my credit is good I'm hoping that by adding all of the things I have to Phil's credit should make it close to the same (I hope!). So even though we have to wait another 2 weeks basically till we can find out what Phil's credit score officially is, I am pretty confident that it will be high enough. If it is then the house is for sure ours! So I can't wait till October 4th! Which is coincidentally my nephew Austin's 4th birthday! I think getting into a house is a great birthday present for my nephew don't you?! Then we will move in around Audrey's birthday (maybe a little after) so that is a good present for her too don't you think??

Stressssssss

2011-09-21T02:56:00.001-06:00

I'm going to be perfectly honest right now. I'm not the stressing type. Some may say I handle stress well, others will say the opposite. Because when I get stressed I find a way to not worry about it. I hate worrying. So sometimes it's very useful. For example, when I'm taking classes I turn in a paper, or do a test and promptly forget about it, or put it out of my mind. Sometimes I will talk myself into thinking I got a lot of answers right because I have no control after it's over and I don't like to dwell. But on the negative side, I tend to push things off that give me stress and rationalize until it gets resolved. So in some situations, I'm good with stress. In others, the stress control prevents me from being effective.

I wanted to explain this so that you can understand that large amounts of stress never occur in my body. Pretty much ever. Yeah I get stressed out, but I hate being stressed so much that I always find the quickest way to get rid of it (sometimes stress is also a catalyst so that's good!).

So maybe you can understand that the amount of stress caused by waiting for this STUPID credit report is driving me insane! I am actually surprised what it is doing to me physically. I was sitting at a drive through and got a small dizzy spell that made me think my foot wasn't pressing on the brake hard enough. It freaked me out! I got another dizzy spell earlier this evening. The knot in my stomach is unlike anything I've ever experienced! It has not gone away since Saturday and just keeps getting worse. I keep trying to reassure myself that it will be fine, but I just have NO idea how credit works and am not sure if the car payment alone is enough to make his credit score where it needs to be!

I know that if it's not high enough it won't take that long to fix, I just HAD to fall in love with this STUPID house!!!! I want to hate it so bad! I have already tried to tell myself it's not going to happen! But nothing works! I have slept 4 hours a night since Friday. That's not enough! I'm going to go crazy until we find out. Please pray for me...and my health haha!!!

Knots!

2011-09-19T17:20:00.000-06:00

I feel like I'm documenting this way too heavily, but I can't sleep, I have a constant knot in my stomach and, well, it's no secret, I'm a freakin' extrovert so I can't hold feelings inside (if only!). If we get into this house, it will be a nice reminder of what we went through to get it so I can be extremely grateful for it when that day hopefully comes!

So the last few nights I have gotten like 4 hours of sleep tops. It takes me forever to fall asleep and then if I get woken up I can't fall back asleep. The first night it was excitement. We had just seen the house and I really wanted it. It was also a little bit of worry. Worry that someone else would beat us to it. Then since Saturday I literally have had a constant knot in my stomach!!

So today our offer was accepted! Usually you'd be thrilled right? Well, that is when you put your offer in knowing that you're truly preapproved! Because of the credit issue, our mortgage guy decided to go ahead and give us a letter of preapproval based on the fact that Phil's credit score will probably be fine. Probably. The definition of probably is not guaranteed. This means that potentially something COULD go wrong! I am not a mortgage guy so I have no idea what the probability of something going wrong is. For all I know we're TOTALLY fine, but I am not certain.

Maybe this will help explain the knot in my stomach. Today the real estate agent called and he was really excited for us because this house's resale value in this market alone (as low as it is right now) according to the other houses in that neighborhood of the same size is 30-50,000 more than what we are paying! If we recarpeted and repainted we could EASILY resale it for at least 10,000 more alone. We're not going to resale it for a really really long time. I mean this house could end up being the house my kids grow up in! If we don't have anymore kids (which we don't plan on) then this house won't get too small for us. I mean yeah eventually we might want a nicer one, but my point is that paying this low means that when we get our college degrees we will still be paying such a small amount every month. So, basically we'd be getting a really really good house for the price!

If something happens, admittedly I will be really really really sad. I have the knot because I KNOW something COULD go wrong. I'm not naive! And in that case I'm SURE we'll find something else we love, but that means waiting even longer. It's ok. We will live. Let's just hope that it DOES work out!

Tiny house update (but the house is still an acceptable size)

2011-09-17T13:57:00.003-06:00

So do you all wanna hear something super fun?? (insert sarcastic tone). So...the bank hasn't been reporting our car loan to Phil's credit for the past 18 months! Awesome huh! So now we have to wait for them to fix this STUPID error before we can get preapproved. Boooooooo!!!! Otherwise my credit score was fine. I assume Phil's will be also. So that was a major plus!! One step closer to being homeowners! Wahoooo!!!!

*updated* Our real estate agent just got our mortgage guy to agree to preapprove us for the loan! So we put in an offer on the house! HOLY CRAP!!!

A little story

2011-09-17T01:12:00.000-06:00

Tonight was an interesting night! My mother-in-law Cindy invited us to go look at houses with her. Because we were looking for houses in the same price range I figured it would be a great learning experience and we could see what is available in our price range. It ended up being all about us looking for a house and not her. Kind of funny! She still needs to sell her house in St. George before she can buy one up here. She did want to see what kind of houses she could get into up here too. So it was about her, but we ended up finding the perfect house and I wanted to share this story.

First of all, I don't have my hopes up. When it comes to buying a house, I know that it takes a lot of time, you don't walk into the house you want on the first try! I know that a lot still needs to happen before it is even close to official, but knowing that this is the kind of house we can find made me SO happy!

Ok on to the story.

So we started at this big, but pretty old house. One that would totally need a roof replacement. It had a gravel roof. No thanks! So, that put my hopes kind of low right off the bat; The second one didn't have enough bedrooms; the third needed some repairs and was doable, but only had one bathroom; the fourth was beautiful, but we'd have to bring down the price by a lot and it wasn't guaranteed we'd be able to, plus it was in a kind of bad neighborhood; the fifth smelled WAY too strong like smoke; the sixth was awesome. Loved the floor plan (one of my favorite floor plans), but we'd have to bring down the price, and it was off a busier street (7000 s. at close to 5600 w.). By this point the kids were getting sick of being in the car, we were getting tired (well Cindy was getting tired) and Phil was done too. But there was ONE more house that I REALLY wanted to see. I had seen it online, but it didn't have any pictures of the inside. There were a few more houses that he had prepared for us to see, but we were going to cut it short. We were SO close to that last one I wanted to see I just wanted to head over there quick because it was already priced in our price range and it had 4 bedrooms.

So we pull up to the house. It's situated at the back of a cul de sac. One HUGE thing checked off my ideal list. The front yard doesn't look like a haunted waste land, check. The porch was perfect for placing pumpkins for trick or treaters, check. We walk in, though it's a split entry, it has a nice open floor plan, check. The lights get turned on and it's so bright and inviting and warm. The carpet doesn't need to be replaced before we move in, check (though we will replace it eventually). Big backyard, check. On top of that as an added bonus it has a fire pit, a cute little deck for eating breakfast outside or watching the sunset. It's spacious enough to have a family party, a one car garage, and for some reason a slide in the backyard. Ummmm could I fall any more in love with this house?? Not to mention it was in a nice looking neighborhood where the yards were well kept! Wahoo! So yeah. This was totally the one! It had every single thing I wanted in a house.

I was very surprised to find a house that had everything on my check list.

Now here's the weird part. We went into the house and left Cindy and the kids in the car. While we were inside (already thinking this was the one) Cindy walked in with Nate and said "when we were in the car Nate said 'this is my house'" What the??? How crazy is that?? So if we DO end up moving into that house, we can always tell the story of how Nate said it was his house.

So, us, not knowing anything about buying a house, and not originally going into this like we were planning to buy a house right away, were not preapproved for a loan yet. So now we are going to do it ASAP because we want to make an offer! I already knew our price range because America First has a mortgage calculator where you can enter your gross earnings and it tells you an estimate on how expensive of a house you can buy. And after we looked at it, I calculated how much our monthly payments will be and it is the same as what we were paying for rent in our old place (including the insurance and taxes!). Of course the utilities will be more expensive than an apartment, but we're ready for that.

Anyway IF anything happens, you will be hearing about it, but I'm not getting my hopes up until it's official. We might take our time searching for houses too and this just got the ball rolling, but now I know what we can get so I'm pretty happy about that! Yay!

Making Strides Against.....capitalism.

2011-09-16T13:48:00.000-06:00

I just have to vent a little bit here. This is going to be a little political and I realize not everyone is going to agree with me and that's fine I don't care, if I don't have an outlet for this, I might pop!

Every year my work gets involved in a walk called Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. Don't get me wrong, I am ALLLLL for curing cancer! I am totally on board with that! What I am NOT on board with is a company MAKING MONEY off of cancer! Confused? Maybe this picture will clear things up:

Anyone catching the irony here?

I'm not going to get into the studies that prove that a vegan diet can cure, reverse, and prevent cancer. If you're interested in information on that you can watch "Forks over Knives" on Netflix, listen to Tony Robbins, watch "The Beautiful Truth" and if you think it's all a hoax, maybe you could consider the millions of dollars that the meat and dairy industry makes and their ties to the government (specifically the FDA) and then maybe you'll understand. But this isn't a campaign to eat vegan. I don't even eat vegan. Food preferences are linked to the emotional center of your brain and getting someone to change their diet is a lot like trying to tell someone to stop kissing their lover. But you HAVE to see the irony of that picture! How can you not?

What kind of foundation that claims to be devoted to saving your health would partner with KFC??????? Are they REALLY after a cure? Or are they after money?

I am sure that the Susan G Komen foundation has donated a large sum of money to cancer research. I don't doubt that, but if there was a cure for cancer the Susan G Komen Foundation would be no more.

So no. I will not participate in a race for the cure. I will not donate to a foundation that makes money off of cancer. Because I believe in the cure. I believe that the suffering can end, but that won't happen till the greed ends.

Though I personally don't have an immediate family member that has suffered from cancer, I love and care for all of my friends who have been directly affected by cancer. And in respect of you and your loved ones, I will not give my money to a foundation that gives false hope. And I will continue to be vegetarian so that much less money can go towards the meat industry. The industry that I personally believe is the cause of cancer.

Please do not touch.

2011-09-15T01:49:00.000-06:00

Moms out there, have you ever had a day where you feel like every inch of skin you have on your body has been grabbed, scratched, pinched, stepped on, had a 20 pound body rolled over, hit, had tiny feet dug into, and you just can't take any more touching?

You know these days. The days where a ride in the car is like a blissful vacation, where you have to lock the door to the bathroom and all you can feel is grateful for some alone time. And on these days you're watching the clock tick by waiting for the two most wonderful words the English language has ever put together in one phrase: bed time. But then you remember that you have a nearly 11 month old baby that has no concept of bed time. That's just a time that they fall asleep...which is not always the time you want them to fall asleep because you're a sympathetic mother that can't stand the desperate cry of your sweet little baby who doesn't understand why you're leaving her in a room by herself. So the abuse continues until you see your baby in the most beautiful form that a baby can ever be seen in. The one where the eyes are closed and the body is temporarily paralyzed. And the touching finally finally finally stops. And you can sit alone in peace and silence. Sweet sweet silence.

Yeah today was one of those days.

What is with tiny fingernails anyway? No matter how close to the skin you cut them, it still feels like a cat clawing up your leg whenever they come in contact. And the day after they're cut it's like your baby went to the nail salon in the middle of the night without you knowing and before you know it, you're the victim of a suspected fight with a baby tiger that escaped from the zoo.

On a totally different subject, Phil and I have officially decided to stay in Utah and buy a house. If we move out of state then school will be more expensive until we become residents and it's just better if we can go to school here and just finish completely (four year degree finish) then decide what we want to do. Which may just be to stay here in Utah. Since I work for an airline, it's like we're close to everything. Phil's mom is going to move up to Salt Lake now so we're close to even more family members here. At least more immediate family members. The places we were going to move would be closer to Phil's family, but I think we all can agree that we're surrounded by more here. I mean I have three siblings and their families and both of my parents are here. And now Phil's mom will be here permanently. The only ones we're missing is Phil's dad and brother. And they'll never live in the same place (because James will never move back to NJ). Maybe some day we can be convincing enough to get Phil's dad to move out here. If anything (God forbid) happens to Phil's step mom, I'm sure that he probably would move here. In fact, I'm sure if he could, he would move out here now. Not necessarily because he loves Utah, but because he only has his sister out there. I'm sure he'd rather live around his grandkids. But his wife also has grandkids out there.

I love Phil's extended family a lot, but they're just that, extended family. Extended family, no matter how close, is never like your immediate family. Because Phil's mom will live here, his brother can come to us for the holidays. I want Nate and Audrey to grow up around their cousins like I wasn't able to. I want their grandparents to be a huge part of their lives which they weren't so much for me (even though they only lived an hour away).

Anyway that's what we've decided to do for now. Maybe once we graduate a job opportunity will come up and we will move, but we're excited for our next adventure.

A Decade

2011-09-11T13:29:00.000-06:00

I've always thought 9/11 is my JFK shooting, Challenger explosion, Pearl Harbor. It's the thing my kids are going to say "do you remember that day?" and I'm going to say "I could never forget that day." And I'm going to tell them this story:

I walked in to my 9th grade Spanish class. It was my first class of the day and the TV was on. My first thought was that the teacher was watching the news before class and was just really into the story that was on and didn't want to turn it off. Class started shortly after and she didn't turn it off. A plane had crashed into a tall building in New York City. Me, being young and naive, said to the class, "maybe it was an accident". Then a few minutes later the second plane hit and someone goes "do you still think it's an accident?" ...Nope. We watched in horror. We watched both of the towers fall. After that we turned the TV off and talked. What did this mean? Who did this? Why did they do this? As the day went on no one could not talk about it.

At one point they announced that all planes in the US were ordered to be grounded. But my parents were sitting in the airport in Washington state when the news hit. They were supposed to fly back to Utah that day (what are the odds?) What did that even mean for me? This was before there was texting, before I had my own cell phone. I'm not even sure if my parents had a cell phone. I had to wait till I got home to find out that they had a rental car and were driving back with my grandma.

I came home to an empty house. The only thing on TV was the attacks. The dust filling up New York City, the people jumping off the buildings, the city being evacuated, Osama Bin Laden. Not that this is that significant, but me and my best friend got in a fight that day because of some stupid boy that neither of us care about now, my other best friend was out of town, and I was the only kid left at home because all of my siblings had already moved out. I felt so alone. My parents got home in the middle of the night some time. They were very worried about me.

It's interesting to think back on the last 10 years and see how different it is and to see how much more 9/11 effects me now than it did then. To me, NYC was the place that Friend's was set in. I didn't know anyone from there, I had never been there. I didn't know anyone who was directly affected by it.

Now I've seen where they once stood. I haven't visited the memorial yet because I was getting my marriage license while my family went to see it. But I'll be in NYC probably 2, maybe 3 times before the end of the year so I am going to make it a point to go see it.

I'll never forget.

Crafts, the fair, vampires...and other boring Eger stuff... :D

2011-09-11T02:13:00.000-06:00

Is it just me? Or is that one cute almost 11 month old?? I think so! Just wanted to point that out

So we haven't been up to very much around these parts. Honestly, do you want to hear the honest truth? I only tell you because I trust that you will take this information and not pass judgments. I got caught up in watching the TV series Angel on Netflix. Yeah. I was obsessed with it in junior high and I started watching it initially because I was like "oh this will be fun reminiscing" and then I got full blown 100% into it again. So much so that I'm actually thinking in one of the character's English accent. And yes, I'm completely in love with David Boreanaz again (shh don't tell Phil...or my friend Ashlie who will try to make fun of me for it....but in a super annoying "why am I even friends with you?" kind of way...which is why we never get together by my choice). But thanks to wikipedia talking about his marital infidelities, I don't believe my crush will go any further than the character he plays...sigh...I guess I'll never get my chance to be with a sexy vamp....and for the RECORD! Angel was around far before any of those gay twilight fairies (I can use the word gay because one of my best friends is gay....I hope you know that was a sarcastic comment). So because apparently I have something to prove, here are the top 5 reasons why Angel is better than Twilight:

1-Stephanie Myers Barfface was probably influenced by Buffy/Angel to write her stupid stories in the first place.

2-Angel saves the world like 10 times.

3-Angel gets in direct sunlight and he burns. Forced to save the world in the dark! What does that fairy Edward do? Glitter? Do you know who else loves glitter? Trannies!

4-Pregnant vampires? Do you know who thought of that one? Joss Whedon! Stephanie Barfface, you're so unoriginal!

5-Angel falls in love with Buffy, a slayer, a tough girl who fights off evil confidently and alone, he also falls for Cordelia, also a world saver. Who does Edward fall for? Some submissive little twiggy girl who can't even fight her own battles.

There. Hahahah! Ok so I don't know that much about Twilight. Still Angel totally kicks Twilight's butt!!

Ok I totally got off track there. So yeah I've been watching Angel. That's why I haven't updated my blog. Like you don't have your guilty pleasure!

On a totally different note, I've been getting a little crafty. Stumbleupon.com is my friend. Too many craft ideas! So I stumbled on this little paper flower ball thing. Can't remember what it's called and I don't feel like looking up the link (sorry). I thought, hey, I'll make this while I'm watching Angel. I have all this white paper lying around, why the heck not? So I started it and realized, oh my goodness, I still do not have a star for my Christmas tree. This is perfect!

I made this big one first, but I couldn't find my glue gun. It took forever for the glue I had to glue it, but it was a really nice and strong glue. Then I bought a double sided tape dispenser.......bad idea. It didn't work. SO I caved and bought a cheap glue gun. Definitely the best kind of glue for these things! Anyway so far I've made three, I've finished my Christmas star one and learned that I will never paint one ever again. And I LOVE it all glittered! A few people told me I should sell them...I just might. They're pretty fun to make. Time consuming to say the least, but I can work on them while I'm working. I'm thinking of remaking my star with already gold paper then glittering it. I think it will look better that way. The paint crinkled up my paper a bit.

Moving along. We also went to the fair today. My MIL wanted to go. It was pretty fun. I liked the art exhibit. I hated the cattle and other animal exhibit....I mean yeah it's cool to see some animals and all, but this was like "see, look at how much we don't care about these animals. We're just exploiting them and eating them later". I mean those poor cow lady parts! They've probably pushed out 10 babies. They're like the Duggar mom, but by force (milk cows are always pregnant so they produce milk). Then at the end of the building they had beef recipes! A little disturbing to say the least! If I'm going to eat animals, I don't want to look them in the eye before doing so....of course I don't want to eat animals anyway (I honestly could care less if you do though. Don't think I judge meat eaters).

But I'm tired so no more talking for me just look at pictures of awesomely cute kids.

I seriously love this one. The face they're both making cracks me up! LOVE THEM!!!

Nate LOOOOVED this slide!

I just love her from every angle

And now a few not fair related pictures:

Look at those top teeth. Top teeth=OUCH!!! Hurts a hell of a lot more when she bites my nips now!

Lastly, Nate cracks me up. He wrote his name and goes "look mommy! It says Nathan!!!" And it's spelled Naten. Like he spelled his name the other way then just added an N! So funny!!!

He also wrote his whole alphabet:

I love how the C, J, and Z are backwards! too funny! I know the fact that this magnadoodle is a little old makes it hard to see some of the letters, but they're all there.

He is one smart little boy. He retains information like a sponge retains disgusting bacteria! haha! He may be smart, but his preschool has been having a tough time with him. He's not rebellious on purpose. He doesn't do things even though he knows they're wrong, he does then because he really wants to. He's a little too impulsive. Like the other day when he ran across the street to the park and I didn't even hear the door open. He's a little TOO independent. We're actually going to have him evaluated next month. Not really sure what the evaluation is going to do, but hopefully we can get some tips on how to maintain his impulsivness and, you know help him be less Curious George-like. And you wonder why I say I'm surprised he hasn't broken a bone or killed himself.

That's all the excitement for now. Goodnight!

Nate and mommy being silly friends

2011-08-29T00:53:00.002-06:00

Nate made me put on this silly hat daddy made and we started taking picture together and he kept pointing to it and saying "look! Friends!!" aww!!! Enjoy!

Goodbye Grandma!

2011-08-27T23:55:00.000-06:00

What a beautiful funeral on a beautiful day! I think if Grandma ever imagined her funeral, she would have hoped it would have gone exactly the way it did. I feel overwhelmed with love today.

The viewing began this morning at 9:30. Family slowly piled in. All I could think about was if Grandma was there she'd be pushing us all to talk to family members outside of our immediate family. Sometimes it feels awkward to talk to some of my cousins because I see them so infrequently. Many of their kids I've never even seen. But after the first few minutes it starts to feel more comfortable. My aunts and uncles from my mom's side showed up too. Initially it surprised me, but then I realized it made sense. They all knew my grandma and came for moral support. It was great to see both sides of my family together. Really, when I think about it, I went to my brother-in-law's mother's funeral and that's the same thing.

One of the first things I did when I got there was take Nate up to see my grandma. Basically I tried to explain that she was up in heaven and I used the phrase "passed away" even though he didn't know what that meant. He said "there's grandma" and got really uncomfortable and started pointing in the other direction and said "go that way". So we walked away and while I was still holding him he goes "grandma died". I didn't once tell him that she died. My mom might have said something to him last night when they came over, but I know he understood that she did die. It was really interesting to see his reaction. I took him up to her one other time during the viewing and he was still pretty uncomfortable.

It was hard to see them close the casket. It was the last time I'll ever see my sweet grandma's body. I did go up to her and tell her I love her and that was really hard. But really, that was the only truly hard part.

The actual funeral was beautiful. Ran very smoothly. I almost felt like Grandma was up there making sure it all went according to the way she planned it.

Afterwards we took our sack lunches and drove up to Willard, a small town north of Ogden, but before Brigham City. Willard is the town my pioneer ancestors settled in. There are a lot of Morgans in the cemetery there. I got a real sense of family while I was there. The coolest part was actually figuring out which family members crossed the plains with the pioneers. My grandparents are buried close to William and Edward Morgan and William was the ancestor that actually came all the way from Wales with Edward, his son. Edward married Rachel Cole and I was able to see that she was born in 1844 making her 3 years old when she was a pioneer!!! That's Nate's age!!! Then Edward and Rachel are my grandpa's grandparents. Pretty crazy!

I didn't get any pictures of the viewing or funeral. And I am not a fan of pictures of dead people anyway so I wouldn't have posted pics of my grandma no matter what, but here are some pictures at the grave site. My dad got some better ones, but here are some I took:

My sister made this flower arrangement. She's amazing!

Can you tell these two are my brothers?? Ryan on the left, Matt on the right.

His face got so red because it was really hot!

My nieces kept fighting over Audrey. This is Brynn :D. She's funny she came up to me and asked if she could hold Audrey and I'd say yes and I heard her walk up to the other girls and say "Krista said it was my turn" hahaha! Then she asked later when we went out to dinner and I realized what she was doing so I said "I don't care who holds her, you need to figure it out amongst yourselves" hahahaha kids are so funny!!!

My nephew Drayson looked so freaking cute sitting on my grandparent's grave stone.

Brookie and Audrey

He is way too cute! I sure do love him! He looks a lot like my brother, but in blond form. He looks a lot like his mom too, but acts a lot like my brother.

After the funeral my dad took us on a little tour to show us where he grew up, the house his dad grew up in, etc. Most of us had seen all of these places, but Phil hadn't and the grand kids hadn't, and it was just a fun thing to do.

So we drive up to the house he grew up in and many of the other cousins were driving by too. We all got out and were kind of walking around the front. Not really on the property itself too much, just having my dad point out a few things while we looked at it. Well the owner of the house walked out so my parents walked up to her to explain why we were there. Explaining that my grandma had passed away and he wanted to show everyone where he grew up. We found out that the lady was the person who actually purchased the house from my grandma! She said she purchased the house from a Morgan and my grandma definitely didn't sell it to someone in our family first. Then she let us inside!!! That was SOOOOO EXCITING for me!!! I have always wanted to see the house my dad grew up in! It was so awesome! My great grandpa had this house built and paid for it with a team of horses!!! How crazy is that? I think it was 13 horses. It was actually a pretty small house. Which taught me that a family can be happy and successful in a small space :D.

My dad and uncle's bedroom wasn't even really a bedroom! haha! I mean techincally it was, but it was just at the top of the stairs, there wasn't even a door on it and the girl's bedroom was attached to that so they had to walk through their room to get to theirs. That was SUCH a great experience. I absolutely LOVED that part! Probably my favorite part of the entire day!

I love my family. I am so incredibly lucky to have two parents that are happy and in love! And it was just so great to go back to my family roots and be able to experience the love that is so obviously there!

I love you Grandma Morgan! You created an amazing generation of people! Have fun up there with Grandpa!

A Tiny Miracle...and a disaster...

2011-08-26T12:16:00.000-06:00

I'm so thrilled, I might just shed a tear or two. Those little white nubbins on the top of Audrey's mouth are s....l....o....w...l....y... making their way through. Are my eyes deceiving me? Is this an illusion or mirage or some trick of the eye? Can I really see one tiny white dot without gums over it? I was beginning to think this day would never ever come. Ever. I was convinced that Audrey would go through life with two gum bumps at the top. Sure she'd look weird, but I was prepared for the worst.

What does this mean? Is my sweet baby finally morphing back into her human form from her vampire form? ...I type as she CURRENTLY bites me...they're obviously not all they way through yet, but the end is FINALLY in sight!

I've read the horror stories about babies taking a few weeks to teeth. Yeah I've heard them, but I didn't believe them. Nate teethed for one or two notable days and it was over. I even blogged about it. And I got him all this stuff for teething and barely used any of it.

Well, Audrey had to be different. Completely different. Everything about Audrey is SO different from Nate how would I ever expect her to be such an easy teether? Well, those horror stories.....they're true! The first time I started using orajel for her teeth was, get this, MAY!!!!!!!!!! Yes it has been OVER 3 MONTHS!!! No joke. How is this even realistic at all? And of course what substance feels the best on her teeth? My skin (apparently). I have to warn other people "watch out, she's a toe biter". Don't wear sandals when you come to my house! lol! And don't worry, I haven't been consistently using orajel since may. I mean really it's not very much. I'm pretty sure she'd overdose if I used it all the time.

I have tried other medicines. I bought teething tablets and I don't notice that much of a difference. I wish I could ask her if it's working. Sometimes I like to put them in my mouth because they dissolve so fast it feels weird! haha! I tried one initially to see how fast they dissolved and to see if they were numbing or what. I think they do work. I'm going to give her some right now and see if she stops biting me...

So what makes it such a nightmare? Is it because she's cranky? No not really. She's such a sweet happy baby! Is it because of all the BITING?? Yes. She doesn't bite my nipples very often, but when she goes into hardcore teething mode (it comes in waves) my nipples get SOOOO SORE! UGH! They're really sore right now! It's all about the way she latches on. And I think she wants to breastfeed more often for comfort. I don't really pay attention to when she feeds so I'm not sure if it's because it's more often or not. I just know that they are SO SORE! The first time it happened I thought I was pregnant because that's one sign of pregnancy (thank freaking goodness that wasn't the case!). So hopefully this will end soon. Her bottom teeth came in so easily I don't know why the tops are so stubborn!

And now the disaster. Who knew that someday a hurricane that hasn't even caused any damage yet could affect my life so much? When weather causes cancellations they call it an "IROP" which means irregular operations. It honestly doesn't even phase me anymore. I really don't care if customers scream or get mad at me. And honestly they rarely do. I used to get really intimidated, but now I'm at the point where I'm just like "tough luck". Yeah I know it sucks that you're flight got cancelled, I know you are pissed off at the weather and blame the airline for ruining your plans instead of blaming who's really at fault, Mother Nature. I'm never going to talk to you again in my entire life so...go ahead and take it out on me. I'll just move on to the next call as soon as you hang up.

I really love my job. I hate when we have to cancel flights because I feel bad for the people that get stuck. But oh well, it's life. The benefits of the job are just so great! One of the funniest things is when people get really crazy about their seats. Like they can't survive if they can't get a certain seat on a plane. Because you know that the world ends when you just cannot get a good seat on a flight. When I fly, I'm just happy to have a seat. I could care less where it is. Haha!

Anyway we are now in a "code red" which means we are required to pick up over time hours. Of course because of my grandma's funeral I can't pick up over time today or tomorrow so I guess my family picked a good time for the funeral....?? She definitely passed away before Irene went ballistic! So...not just a lame excuse! :D

Well that is all for today!

Baby Genius

2011-08-24T10:55:00.000-06:00

What is it about this generation of parents that seems to think that their children are advanced or gifted?? Do you think EVERY child that is born is more gifted than the next? If that was the case then I guess They're just average right?

This is a big pet peeve of mine.

Let's look at Nate for example. He is a 3 year old that can read. Big freaking deal. Yeah I post videos about it because I think it is cute. But do I think he is some gifted genius?? No. Do you wanna know how Nate learned to read? That was his interest. Some kids watch TV, Nate watches phonics youtube videos. He watches other things too, but he will spend hours scrolling through those videos. He also loved it when I'd draw letters and sound out words with him. That is just what he loves to do.

Psychologists say that all kids catch up reading by age 8. I met someone the other day who had a son that learned to read at 3 and one that struggled at age 7. The one that read early didn't go to college and the one that struggled ended up going to Harvard Law on a full ride scholarship. The difference he found was that the late reader was artistic and could look at problems at different angles just like he would look at his art.

I have one big reason this is my pet peeve. Phil was a "genius" kid. School work came very easily to him. Until it got to junior high where homework mattered. Phil is a very auditory learner. He could listen to a lecture and he'd ace a test. He is amazing at test taking. But suddenly his grades began to drop because he had to do homework. Does this mean he's any less of a genius? Actually he is the most intelligent person I know. But he has a TERRIBLE self esteem because of all of that crap. When we first got married he hadn't looked at his grades from the semester of college he attended the year before because he was too afraid that he failed his classes. I ended up looking at them and he got all A's and B's.

He has recognized this problem and wants to prevent it with our kids. So Nate is not a genius. He is a hard worker. He worked hard to learn how to read. And I want to continue to encourage him to learn and grow without praising him for his innate abilities. That's something that can wait until he's more mature.

Grandma Morgan

2011-08-22T00:31:00.000-06:00

My sweet Grandma Morgan passed away this afternoon. While I was at church I looked at my phone and had a missed call from my dad. My first thought was that something was wrong with one of my grandparents. Their church is the same time as mine and my dad is the bishop, so making a call in the middle of church? Had to be something important. So I called right back and he told me that his mom was dying and that the hospice nurse said it would be today.

I wanted to rush up there, but had a stupid one hour that I had to work and couldn't get it off because of the tropical storm causing cancelled flights. I drove up as soon as I got off work and got there right after she passed.

It has been a very peaceful thing. A few tears here and there, but mostly I'm happy that she is with Grandpa Morgan again. I like to think that she's telling him all about us, especially us kids he never met. Every time I have a special event in my life I wonder if he's there, but I don't know what his presence feels like so now if my grandma is there, I'll know what she feels like.

My grandma was an amazing lady. She was so kind and thoughtful. She had a lot of love and a love for giving. Right after I had Audrey I was on maternity leave that wasn't paid and so we were scraping by and my parents had gone out to dinner with her and were telling her my birth story and how I had her at home and went naturally and all. She was already planning on giving me some money as a congratulations and throughout the dinner she kept adding to it and saying how proud she was. Even she was supportive of my home birth and it meant so much to me that she was so proud. And it helped us out more than she even knew. She was a very faithful woman. She always talked about her faith in such a matter of fact way. She knew it was true, she didn't just believe it. Although I never met my grandpa, the way she talked about him and how she couldn't wait to reunite with him I knew he must have been a great man.

Her funeral is going to be very emotional, but I'm looking forward to feeling her there and being able to tell her how much I love her and hope she watches over us.

And seriously, don't feel sorry for me. It would be selfish of me to wish she was still around. I am happy for her. She was old and ready to pass. She did not feel well anymore and I know she is much happier where she is and to wish her to be in her body that wasn't holding up very well as opposed to with her eternal companion, well that would be just plain silly. So no need to tell me you're sorry. I'm at peace and totally happy with her passing. I'm just looking forward to telling her I love her one last time.

Ten Months

2011-08-19T14:54:00.000-06:00

My Audrey Grace turned 10 months old yesterday. It really is an understatement to say that it has gone by so fast. It's just that babies grow exponentially faster than adults and our slow brains can't wrap our heads around the fact that we JUST had an infant in our arms and now we have a crawling, cruising, almost toddler! I haven't changed much this past year, but Audrey has! So it's a little mind boggling!

My little lover has been up to lots lately. Just grow grow growing!

She took her first step two days ago.
She stands by herself all the time.
Her top tooth is SOOOOO CLOSE to popping through. I can't believe how long it has been taking. And how many times I've been bitten! Probably at least 20-30 times today alone. It is going to pop through ANY minute. I am tempted to make it pop through, but I can't do it.
She loves to do patty cake and itsy bitsy spider.
She pulls headbands out of her hair sometimes now :S
She can safely play in the bathtub.
The bathroom is her favorite room for some reason, but it is my least favorite room for her to go into.
She waves.
She laughs SO easily and smiles constantly. Nate was a happy baby, but he wasn't THIS easy to get to laugh.
She can ride on shoulders safely now (Nate never liked it. So weird).
She feeds herself. And she will eat anything.
She really likes to touch faces. Specifically stick her fingers in people's mouths. Specifically my mouth. Haha!

This little girl has a personality larger than life. I love it! She always makes this funny/cute scrunchy face. The picture two up captured her doing this thing she always does where she puffs her cheeks and blows out. Its so hard to explain into words, but the other day she sneezed when my dad was holding her and he reacted to it in a way that was funny to her so she tried to get him to do it again by blowing instead of sneezing. It was SOOO cute!

I am so in love!

Nicholas' visit

2011-08-17T01:19:00.001-06:00

Nicholas is Phil's 11 year old cousin (he'll be 12 in just a few weeks). He was visiting us from New Jersey this week. His mother Jenny (Phil's mom's sister) gave him the option to either go to summer camp or visit us in Utah and he chose us (aw I feel so honored...even though I know he's really here because Phil's his favorite cousin. He has to be. They're the same person basically). Jenny wanted us to make it as educational as possible and also give him lots of things to do. I took it as a challenge and have tried to do the most educational yet fun things as possible. And I learned that when you use the word educational a 12 year old will think that you said "boring". So...don't use that word around a 12 year old (lesson learned).

I'm actually writing this post for two purposes. Nicholas is going to be writing a report of sorts about his trip for school so I wanted to document his trip to help him reference the things we have done and learned, but also to document how fun it was to have him here. So if I'm just stating information in this post, that is why.

He arrived here on Wednesday evening. The next day I had to go to an orientation for Nate's preschool and then work some hours that evening, so Thursday wasn't an educational fun filled day. He made music with Phillip while I was working and I don't really know what they did, but I'm sure they had a blast. Phil taught him all about the software that he uses to create songs and I can tell Nicholas was into it because he keeps pulling up the program to make drum beat loops.

On Friday, Cindy (Phil's mom) picked us up and we drove to the Trax station to go downtown. They just barely opened up the line that goes out to West Jordan this week so we were able to park right across the street from the church I grew up going to that is right by my high school! Pretty sweet! If only they had that while I was IN high school it would have been pretty awesome. We could have walked to the station from my best friend Heather's house (at the time). If only. Ok I'm going off topic. Anyway. The new trains are awesome. Perfect for strollers.

We went downtown to temple square so I could teach him a little about Utah history and about the church.

We didn't really talk about the church itself. He learned a little about the temple. They have a diagram of the temple in the visitor center so you can see what it looks like on the inside. I found this particularly interesting myself. I hadn't seen it before.

It was so funny, in the visitor center Nicholas goes "I feel weird, everyone's all dressed up" haha I think he thought we were under dressed. There were like five weddings going on at once so I'm sure that's why so many people were dressed up, but I just explained that you have to be dressed nicely when you go in the temple out of respect so people were there for that and we didn't have to be dressed up to be there haha! Then he asked me there were so many girls with name tags. I don't know how familiar he is with the fact that Phil went on a mission, but I tried to explain that they're doing the same thing that Phil did when he lived in San Diego for two years.

Just out side of the visitor center.

In the visitor center there was also an exhibit of the history of the making of the Salt Lake temple. It showed a big slab of granite on a hand cart and he goes "did they catapult it down the mountain?" hahaha I laughed really hard. He's so cute! It was a little far for them to just catapult it down the mountain! So jokingly later he brought up the catapulting again as a joke so I turned around and pointed at the statue of Moroni and said "When they were getting ready to put the statue at the top they prayed then shot the statue up and it landed perfectly in it's place. It was the 'miracle of the catapult'!"

Then we walked over through temple square to the conference center. It was really hot so we didn't spend as much time walking through as I would have liked, but when you have two small children it happens.

I really love to tour the conference center because, for one, it's awesome. And for two, my brother helped build a few things in it. So first they take you into the auditorium and a tour guide (they're always seniors, and they have the best intentions, but bless their heart they can be a little boring to a 12 year old. But he wasn't too bad) gave some pretty sweet information on it. I always forget about it and love to hear the story of how it was built again. President Hinckley wanted an auditorium that would seat 21,000 people and have no obstructed views like there was in the old tabernacle where there are big pillars supporting the upper level. The experts said "it's not possible" and President Hinckley said "yes it is. I've seen the building". Then they figured it out and made it possible. Then they said "alright we figured it out. It will take ten years" and President Hinckley said "Make it 3. I don't buy green bananas", which basically meant "I'm old. You can't take ten years cause I'll never see it." So they finished it in 3. And it's the biggest auditorium of it's kind.

They took us up to the roof afterwards. They have a garden on the roof that is supposed to represent the vegetation of Utah. On the east side there are pine trees and mountain-like vegetation and on the west side there are grasses and...well, it looks like weeds. It represents what the pioneers would have seen when they got here. They use crushed shale instead of soil because it's lighter and it absorbs water better to sustain the garden.

After we left the conference center we made a stop at the tabernacle on the way back to the train to show Nicholas the acoustics. The tabernacle was made before there were microphones so it had to be able to carry sound. He got to see the original organ, but we didn't stay for the presentation.

We hopped on Trax and headed to the Gateway mall for lunch. Afterwards we headed to the splash fountain. Nate wouldn't go anywhere near it, but Nicholas had a ton of fun. It is modeled after the Olympic snowflake icon from the SLC winter games. I wonder if every city that has had the Olympics still has stuff to show off that they were there once. SLC sure does haha!

We were going to go to the copper mine that evening, but Phil ended up helping his friend at work and got home from work too late so we went to the mine on Saturday instead. That was pretty freaking cool! It's the largest open mine in the world. The copper is here because it was in the molten lava that pushed the mountains up. Most of the copper is mixed with the rock and they have this huge refining process to get it out. I didn't realize that they actually get a lot of gold from this mine too. And silver. They actually donated metals to make some of the olympic medals!

This picture doesn't do justice to the gigantic-ness of it!

I never really paid attention to the giant mine growing up. It was just part of the landscape here. For a while I was almost a little bitter that the mountainside was torn apart, but I found out that we use copper in so many things! If we didn't have copper we wouldn't have electricity, our phones, and our cars.

This is a tire from the GIANT hauling tractors they have. Phil is pretending like it is running over his arm.

We left the mine and met up with Cindy to go to Antelope Island. First we stopped at the visitor center so we could make it *educational* and there were these giant spiders in the bushes outside everywhere! They were disgusting! But apparently harmless according to an information sheet on the inside. I guess they get a lot of people asking about it. It looked like a horror movie! Haha! The only thing I got from the visitor center, other than the horrific spiders was this funny statement on the board "The Great Salt Lake isn't completely dead! Aside from the brine shrimp, bacteria and algae live there too!" aw poor great salt lake! They felt bad for it that people thought they only thing that lived there was brine shrimp so they had to mention that also bacteria and algae were rampant. LOL! So random! But it also mentioned it was safe to swim in (so you don't get grossed out with the fact that we swam in it). I also liked that the visitors center showed a map of where the ancient Lake Bonneville used to lie. I forgot to point out that you can see the line where the water used to be along the mountains.

We left the visitor center and headed down to the beach. There were seriously people laying out too. But this isn't a beach you want to hang out on for a long time because flies cover the ground this time of year. And you walk through it and it seriously looks like a scene from the mummy! They are completely harmless though. They don't bite and they don't like humans. You can walk through it and they just all fly away...but it seriously looks super creepy. They're not as abundant on the water though. Anyway, so we walked out to where it was deep enough to float and tried it out (just Nicholas and I). You could see the brine shrimp in the water. Which I'm actually pretty surprised I wasn't MORE grossed out by it. The water actually felt really good. I thought I would want to get out right away. I wasn't a fan of putting my head in it to float because all I could think about was the brine shrimp (of course it didn't bother Nicholas at all). Then I discovered that I could just sit in a ball and float. It was pretty freaking awesome! I was really reluctant to do it at first, but I had such an awesome time! I'm making it sound way grosser than it really was. I seriously LOVED just sitting there. NO need for a floaty and I didn't have to move my arms or try to stay up.

Had to get a picture of Nicholas by the lake for documentation purposes. I couldn't take pics of us floating for obvious reasons (I love my phone too much to willingly kill it).

The weirdest part of the whole thing is that I didn't get everywhere rinsed off and when it dried, it seriously turned to salt. My hair went stiff and I could just pull the salt out. It was so weird!

Ok moving on. The next day was Sunday. We drove up Big Cottonwood Canyon to Silver Lake at Brighton/Solitude to walk around the path there. And so Nicholas could run around the woods and hike a little. Nate ran around with him too. It smells AMAZING up there and always reminds me of camping as a kid. Something I seriously NEED to do soon! I love camping in the mountains particularly! I used to camp at the sand dunes a lot as a kid and I just much prefer the mountains! Maybe I'll get called to be a camp counsilor in young womens some day haha! I can wish! We saw a lot of squirrels, a natural beaver dam (but no beavers :( ) and some gorgeous wild flowers.

Did you know that it's hard to get an 11 year old to pose for pictures at everything you do? I didn't know that! But I learned it! lol! This was the only one I could get of him in the mountains haha!

Lastly on Monday we went to the zoo. Nicholas was impressed that he got to see two different types of animals that he'd never even heard of before. I can't remember what they both were, but I know one was a hyrax haha! They are doing "zoorasic park" this year so they have a bunch of dinosaur displays up and there's a room in one of the exhibits that talks about all of the native Utah dinosaurs. But all of the displays totally freaked out Nate. We saw another girl that had a hat over her face that was about the same age as Nate. It was hilarious. The only one that really freaked Nate out was the T-Rex. haha! He could handle the others. It was pretty cool though. They're also working on a whole new section that I'm excited to see. It's going to have polar bears again! I have missed them! They used to be my fave! And I'm sad cause they took out the zebras. Either that or we missed them. Hopefully those will come back. Otherwise Nate loved the snakes, my favorite was the giraffes and the tigers, and I'm not sure what Nicholas' favorite was, but I just love the zoo. It brings me back to being a kid again. The zoo has changed so much since I was little though I wish it could go back to the way it was. I also have learned in recent years that the zoo was so much more enjoyable when I was a kid. Mostly just because I didn't have to worry about hauling kids around! Haha! It's much more exhausting now!

Well, that about sums up Nicholas' visit. It seemed like it was non stop go go go! I hope that I was able to make it educational yet fun enough! :D

Family Evening Hike

2011-08-08T21:21:00.000-06:00

I read a blog post yesterday about camping and it made me want to go so bad. So for family night I decided I wanted to go find a small hiking trail and let Nate get dirty and throw some rocks (his favorite thing to do in the world).

We ventured up into Big Cottonwood Canyon to find a hike called "Hidden Falls". Well, I followed the directions on the website I found it on and couldn't find it. I figured it was a hit or miss kind of deal because I didn't know if there would be signs or not. I tried to use my phone to find it, but there was no service. So we pulled off into this other trail head (can't remember the name) and it was right along the river so we decided it was just great.

Turns out the entire thing was paved (it was the beginning of a couple trail heads so the actual hikes weren't paved, but for what we were there for, it was paved :D). It was absolutely gorgeous, it smelled amazing, and Nate had a blast.

This one is my favorite!

Throwing rocks into the river

Nate FREAKED out every time Phil would go off the pavement saying "daddy no! It's dangerous!" He was very careful and afraid of the water. Phil kept trying to tell him that it was ok for Daddy to do it, but not Nate. I kept getting mad at him like "no, just let him think it's dangerous for everyone!!"

Preschool!!!

2011-08-04T22:07:00.000-06:00

I didn't go to preschool when I was little. I figured it was pointless because I did just fine in kindergarten so why would I send my kids to preschool? Well, Phil's mom sent her kids to preschool and her parents paid for them to go (not really sure why) so she wanted to pay it forward and do the same for us.

At first I was really reluctant because it felt like she was trying to take control of my kids' lives, but really it's because she wants to do what her parents did for her.

She did the research and asked for recommendations which led to a school called Newcastle Preschool.

Today, before we went to Lagoon (Phil's work paid for it and let everyone out early), we headed over to the school with Cindy to take a look.

I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am! It's $135 a month, which is more expensive than some schools, but I still thought it was reasonable. We've worked out an agreement that Cindy is going to pay for the first year for both kids and we will pay for subsequent years. After the tour today Phil and I discussed it and decided that the reason we only want two kids is so that we can spend more money to give them the opportunities we want to give them.

This is why I'm so excited. We went there and Nate saw the toys in the classroom and ran to them and we were like "aah Nate!" and the owner said "Let him be! This place is made for children" That made us both really really happy! He talked all about how the curriculum works and how it doesn't just shove information into their heads like traditional schools, but teaches them hands on. The guy's wife is in charge of the curriculum and she studied child development in school and wrote the program around how 3 year old and 4 year old brains work. They even have a little playground that is made for 3 and 4 year olds.

We also discussed how Nate is going to be on the younger end since his birthday is in June. He told us that a good thing to do is to wait and see how he does this year and consider holding him back so he's the oldest in his class. Statistically children who are older in their class do better and have more confidence. It wouldn't be because he's not smart enough. He just might be better off that way. I thought that was fabulous advice. Audrey will do great because she's an October baby. :D

Anyway I'm super super excited! This is going to be SO great for my Natey Potatey! I had to hold back a lot of tears while I was there. My little boy is growing so fast! Love 'im!

Jersey Video

2011-08-03T09:22:00.000-06:00

I have the app on my phone called imovie for editing videos. I'm not gonna lie, it's not very user friendly and pretty annoying because you can only add one picture at a time so it takes FOREVER, but I felt like making a video of my Jersey trip with the kids. I've never finished an entire video until now. I want to make one for Audrey's birth too :D But I have to put all the pics on my phone to do so. I need software on my computer, but it doesn't have a big enough hard drive or good enough video card. Anyway, here's the video.

Ten

2011-07-28T03:13:00.000-06:00

Well, not much has been going on around the Eger household as of late. Just hangin' out, Nate got a haircut, etc. so when I saw this on my friend Andee's blog, I thought it looked like fun! So enjoy learning more things about me than you wanted to know. :D

ten. Favorite Places to be.
1. New York. I keep dreaming about it. I want to go back really soon!

2. New Jersey. Of course.

3. The Beach.

4. Floating in a swimming pool. Preferably alone. I think I just need to do that some time, but unfortunately have no pool to float in completely alone. Though I'd still love to do so.
5. Driving around at night.

6. Hanging out with friends

7. Eating out somewhere quiet, or sometimes crowded with Phil

8. Rocking on a chair outside listening to the summer bugs chirp

9. Somewhere I'm visiting for the first time.

10. The Airport. A lot of people hate it, but I love it because it means I'm going somewhere fun!

nine. Weird things about me

1.Every night I have such a hard time going to bed at a decent hour because I enjoy just being alone. Not that I don't love being around my family, but I never really get a break except at night.

2. I clean out Audrey's ears while she's nursing (it said weird things ok? lol!)

3.I can't go to sleep without playing on my phone.

4. I feel guilty when I don't raise my kids the way everyone says to. The problem is that everyone says to do it differently.

5. I buy fruit snacks just as much for myself as I do Nate.

6.Even though I've never had an issue before, I always feel like someone is going to jump out of me when I'm outside in the dark.

7. I love Phil's friends just as much as my friends.

8. I like really cheesy or terribly made movies. I just watch them when Phil's not around to criticize them haha!

9. I am very independent. I prefer traveling or doing things by myself because then the only person's feelings I have to worry about are my own and I let a lot of things roll off my back.

eight. Things I am going to do this summer

1. Maybe travel somewhere. Maybe not. Phil wants to go to Portland to visit his friend. I'm hoping to go with him, but who knows.
2. Lagoon
3. take Nate swimming
4. most of the things I am going to do this summer are things I did this summer like see Ben Folds and go to New Jersey.
5. get Audrey's top teeth to pop through
6. organize my house.....maybe
7. figure out school
8. use some food storage.

seven. Things I am thinking of.

1. New York
2. Phil's sexiness. Seriously.
3. How I hope Audrey doesn't wake up a bunch tonight.
4. How I liked the movie I just watched on Netflix
5. How I really need to go to bed.
6. how I'm going to answer the next question without completely revealing that I'm just in my underwear (it's bed time)
7. How I really want to move, but want to still work for an airline.

six. Things I am wearing.

1. my wedding ring
2. a hair elastic
3. my nursing tank
4. my beautiful skin...
5. my hair in a pony
6. ok you got me, I can't think of anything else. My underwear. There I said it!

five. Things I am worried about

1. how people are going to think I'm weird for admitting to the last one.
2. money
3. cleaning my house
4. how I'm going to be tired tomorrow. I never learn my lesson.
5. laundrey

four. Things on my floor
1. everything. haha jk. my laundry basket
2.Some shoes

3. Some cereal that Nate spilled that I just realized he didn't finish picking up.
4. Toys

three. Things I want to do today

1. Laundrey
2. Clean my house
3. cook dinner....oh wait this says things I WANT to do today, not things I HAVE to do today ;)

two. Things I will reveal

1. I want Phil to get a vasectomy. Haha I'm dead serious. I love not being on birth control so much, but I also hate worrying every month then being super relieved when I start my period. HAHA! (it's not really that we're not being careful....but I really don't want to get into what the real reason I worry is ok? Because I'm pretty sure you don't want to hear it either!). And if we decide to have another we both feel like maybe we could foster and then decide if we want to adopt. But we're pretty much thinking we're done.
2. We are seriously thinking of moving to Portland. We're not telling a lot of people because it's not set in stone, but when we get our tax return we're going to start looking for jobs. We both feel like that's the right place for us for many reasons. It's a big music center, there's a lot of natural birth there, and we just feel like we would fit in better there. School might hinder our plans so that's the biggest reason I don't want to tell people because we might be stuck here till we finish school and by then we might want to move somewhere else. But we are really serious about moving there. Phil's mom might move there too if we do. She wants to live near her grandkids and if she does that would be a relief for me because I'd have a babysitter. So I'm revealing that and if you tell anyone else then I'll kick your butt! JK. but don't mention anything on FB because I have no idea if it will pan out the way we hope.

one. A Secret

1. Isn't "reveal something" and "a secret" the same thing? My secret is that we're thinking of moving to Portland. And it's definitely a secret I don't want going around or taken too seriously yet until I actually say "hey guess what, we're moving". It's just something we're planning and have a goal to do, but we also know that it might not be the right time or place. When it gets closer then we'll know for sure.

The best thing to ever happen to mothers.

2011-07-19T16:21:00.000-06:00

Ok, so yeah I'm blogging a little more since I deactivated my facebook account. I'm still not spending half the time I was on the computer, but I feel very strongly about this subject and really want to talk about it.

The Moby Wrap

This is the best thing to ever happen to mothers ever. It's so simple too. It is literally a 16X1.5 foot piece of fabric. But it is not only a life saver, but the bond it creates between you and baby is invaluable. So this is my list of reasons why I love it so much:

When your baby is a newborn and you don't want people touching their face, the most they will EVER do is ask to "peak" at them. And literally the second you take them out, people will start touching them. I paid attention. It's totally true.
They are fragile little things at first. And if you have another child that isn't used to the idea that they need to be soft and not, you know, severely injure the baby, wearing them is a sure fire way to keep him/her safe.
They will sleep sleep sleep in it. It is a super easy way to get them to sleep, it's an easy way to get them to calm down and you don't have to worry about them rolling off the bed, or not being able to hear them cry because they'll be right there.
Hands free! The best place to use it is out of the house. You can hold your toddlers hand, help them go potty, put them in shopping carts, etc while your baby is strapped to you so you don't have to juggle them both. And a lot of places don't have the shopping carts that hold more than one kid.
You never have to skip a hot meal to take care of the baby because you can just wear the baby while you eat!
Babies don't like loud noises. Vacuuming begins to become an impossible task with a scared crying baby. But a baby doesn't cry and get scared when they're right up next to you in the safety of mom's "arms".
Babies like the sound of your heart beat. I always tuck Audrey into the left side (mostly because I'm right handed) and she can hear my heart beat which is very soothing to her.
You can hug them and kiss them constantly while it doesn't interrupt with your daily life.

I wonder if this will give you any indication of how much I love and use my home made wraps (the purple one was an old bed sheet that I cut and sewed together. So easy to make and when you cut knit fabric it doesn't fray).

School

2011-07-19T13:37:00.000-06:00

I'm so excited, I just have to share this excitement.

Since Audrey was due in October, smack in the middle of the semester, we both chose not to go to school. It has been stressful financially and although school is free because of easily obtainable government grants (thanks Nate and Audrey!) the time that it takes would have been too hard for us at the time.

Well, things are settling down now and we're getting serious about going again. I haven't really thought about where we are in the process since I signed up for spring semester of 2010 (so not for at least a year and a half). As I was going over the classes we need to graduate (we're both getting our associates degree in general studies for now) I realized that both of us are almost freaking done! I have 3 required classes left (one of which is math and I have to take the placement test so I'm 99% positive I'm going to have to take math 1010 before I can take math 1050, but so does Phil so we're going to take them together). I believe Phil has 3 left as well (if I remember correctly), but you need 61 credit hours to graduate and right now he only has 33. So that means he would have to take a lot of credits. However, I realized his transcripts from two other schools he went to haven't been transferred yet and he hasn't been to one since 2001 and the other since 2003 so they're all going to count as electives (which is EXACTLY what he needs!). So basically it looks like both of us will finally have our associates degrees after this school year! Wahoo!!

Phil actually already has an associates degree. However it was a specialized program at a school that is not accredited the same as a regular university or state college. So his degree is not transferable so that is why he has to get a regular associates degree...hopefully one day he can use his associates degree, but the jobs are very limited (his degree was in recording arts).

I'm glad that we are almost finished because once we have an associates degree it won't expire like classes sometimes do. It is such a better plan to have kids AFTER you finish school, but sometimes life chooses a different path itself and I'm happy with the path I'm on. I know it would be easier without kids, but at the same time my kids have motivated me and really caused me to figure out what I really want out of life. I actually have 71 credit hours already! Because I've changed my mind so much. But I wouldn't take back one class that I've taken (well, maybe I would take back a few...). I have learned so much and I can't wait to learn more! I'm thinking that I'd like a degree in a behavioral science and focus on family relations. I'd really like to be a counselor of some sort. I'm not in a real rush until my kids are a little older because I want to be at home with them as much as possible for the next 4 years or so. So maybe I could get my masters degree in that time and get a real job (ha ha I don't think I could get one that soon though).

Sometimes when your life path is more difficult you learn to appreciate it more. At least that's the way I want to look at it. So yay for getting a degree!

Nine Months (holy crap!)

2011-07-18T13:45:00.000-06:00

This gorgeous little baby girl is nine freaking months old today.

WHAT THE?? How did that happen? This last nine months went a bagillion times faster than the 9 months previous to that!! Here is what Audrey has been up to recently:

This is one big huge MAMA's girl! Holy. Cow. I love it! But at the same time, she can be a little more clingly than I'd like her to be. But I know that's just because our bond is strong. Seriously right now she is standing on my lap as I type this. Because if I put her down to play she will cry and crawl up to me anyway. I know it's just a phase.
It feels like she will never ever stop teething. It's been more hard core lately. She has bitten me a lot lately while she's nursing (not cool) and I'm really sore. If it were up to her she would nurse all day long. And I know it's not because she needs it, but because she's teething. I've tried a lot of things and she still wants to nurse. Hopefully this will end sooner than later!
She's a cruiser! She crawls super fast now and pulls herself up to EVERYTHING. One thing she ALWAYS pulls herself up to is me. Everywhere I go she stands up to my legs. Which is particularly annoying when I go to the bathroom (you may ask why I don't shut the door. Well, that is a good question. Maybe I should try that some time).
By cruiser I mean cruiser. She cruises along furniture now too. I have done absolutely nothing to encourage this. I would be content if she was a nine month old who didn't even know how to crawl yet. But there's no stopping her. I don't really mind that much, I just already am missing the phase where I could put her in one place and expect her to still be there when I came back.
Last night she started clapping. YAY I love when they start clapping. It's so cute!
She says mama and dada now. Phil pointed out that she says mama when she's upset and dada when she's happy. Whatever! Hahaha! He's right. But it still shows that she loves me more because she knows I'll make her feel better (haha).

And look! She can walk! She took her first step! Ok ok yeah she's a bit cuter than this baby. This was me at 11 months old. (she can't really walk yet).

My dad is so funny. He just loves Audrey. He calls her "little Krista". He leaves me messages saying he wants to see her. It cracks me up! He tells me she has the same temperament that I had. He's really close to my niece Jaci too because she looks just like my sister. But Jaci and Audrey are a lot cuter than we were I'm not gonna lie!

Confession Time

2011-07-18T00:56:00.000-06:00

So, I think it is going to be the best thing to just come out and confess this. I am a complete facebook addict. The worst part of the addiction is that I don't have a TV. So my source of entertainment is sometimes facebook.

Here's the problem. Facebook is WAY too easy to use ALL the time. It's on my phone and it's on my computer (obviously). Well, if my computer is my source of entertainment think of how often I have the opportunity to check my facebook. UGH it's SO annoying! And if it's on my phone I can check my facebook wherever I am.

Why an addict? It is like hanging out with my friends all the time. Like I stated on my facebook, I am a yellow personality. Well, if you're not familiar with yellow personalities they are very social. They like to be with friends and talk and socialize. Facebook is the ultimate socialization tool because you can socialize with your friends wherever you are. But it's not even close to actually hanging out with your friends. Actually hanging out with friends is way better :D.

So the reason I am taking a little facebook vacation is because I need to focus on my children. I need to stop using my computer as my source of entertainment. It's summer! I need to let my source of entertainment be going to the park, swimming, etc. And sometimes it's such a hard thing to do because it's so much easier to stay at home and not get two kids dressed and drag them around, but I NEED to do that. I need to focus on taking care of my family.

Here is the other big huge reason. Being a yellow personality is NOT all it is cracked up to be (yeah it's based off of the personality you had as a child, but I still am dominantly yellow). Yellow personalities choose fun over work. So when I should be cleaning my house, I choose fun over work. It's much more fun to sit on facebook than it is to clean the house. Do I like this about me? NO WAY!! Do I want to change this about me? ABSOLUTELY! Trust me, I've already made a LOT of improvements and have made it closer and closer to who I want to be, but I still have a ways to go. And trust me, the things I want to change, if I said them, would sound so stupid and simple to most people, but for me I have a really hard time.

My mom gives me amazingly good advice. But even though her advice is great, it's still not easy to get up and do what I need to do. And this is really only in my personal life. I am very organized when it comes to work. If my job was to be organized and keep my house clean and be an amazing mother (like if someone was paying me to do it), I would be FANTASTIC at it!

So basically, I have deactivated my facebook account not because of anything anyone has said or done. I love all of my friends and have no problem with anything any of them have said. And truthfully, I delete people if they are negative, annoying, or rude to me. Unless they're my family. In which case, I just hide them from my wall (I seriously have hidden like 5 of my cousins because they are not necessarily people I would choose to be friends with if we weren't family. I have nothing in common with them). I've just deactivated it because I personally need a break from my addiction (haha).

Oh Netflix.

2011-07-17T01:29:00.000-06:00

So you may have heard of the recent Netflix change. They now charge for each service separately. Well, I didn't really care because I never remember to send back my DVD's anyway so I wasn't really using the DVD portion anyway.

So I cancelled the DVD service and only pay for instant play (I use it every single day because of the endless amount of awesome kids shows and no commercials). I sent my last DVD in the mail, took all of the DVD's off the queue and went on my merry way.

Well. When you cancel the DVD portion they give you a certain amount of time to send in the DVD. And apparently if you add another DVD to the queue, with no delay whatsoever they will freaking send it to you.

So, thank you Nate for ordering your Leapfrog DVD (one that is so readily available on instant play...I mean at least let it be one that you CAN'T watch instantly) and RIPPING the envelope open (just to add to the frustration). I hope Netflix enjoys my note that will be going back with the DVD on how irritating it is that my son can SO easily order DVD's when I CANCELLED that service.

Granted, I don't really blame them. But I do want them to understand that it frustrated me that my son can so easily click the stupid "add to DVD queue" button and inadvertently order a DVD for me when I don't want anymore to be sent to my house!! It's not really their fault, but I just want whoever opens my envelope to know it was annoying anyway.

Oh and trust me, I was keeping my eye on that stupid DVD queue too. But suddenly I got an email "The Leapfrog: Go to School DVD will be arriving at your house on Saturday July 16th". Where's the CANCEL button when you need it??

Ben Folds

2011-07-15T14:42:00.000-06:00

I've noticed that when I said I was going to see Ben Folds too many people said "who?" Trust me, you all know who Ben Folds is. He sang this song (in his band that used to be Ben Folds Five):

You may have also heard this song on the radio:

He also sang our wedding song! Which would be this song right here (this doesn't have a video. It's just blackness):

If you STILL don't know who he is, perhaps you've seen over the hedge. Listen to the music. TA-DA!! Now you've heard of Ben Folds.

Alright moving along.

So, last night Phil and I saw him live. :D

Aside from the annoyingly tall, ugly and annoyingly frizzy-haired hippy

in front of usthat made us decide to go to the very back (where it was actually MUCH more enjoyable) and the fact that there was no where to sit, it was pretty amazing. I just love how Ben Folds is as good in concert as he is on CD. And I also love that he sang the song that inspired Audrey's middle name. Which was actually going to be Nate's name had he been a girl. Then we were going to name our second daughter Audrey. Then when we had a boy we feared we'd never get two chances to name a girl so we decided we had to use both names (although almost decided to drop Grace and name her after someone in the family, we couldn't do it because we love Grace too much....plus Grace Audrey just doesn't flow like Audrey Grace). And here is the song I'm referring to:

Audrey is my Gracie girl. :D

Anyway, as you can see, Ben Folds is amazing!

On a side note, the other thing that made the night weird is when we were standing in line to pick up our tickets this guy was standing in front of us and this girl came up to him and started talking to him and I turned around immediately and said to Phil "oh my gosh that's my ex boyfriend in front of us" HAHAHAH!!! Seriously WHAT ARE THE ODDS? It's not like there were a TON of people there! So I just stayed turned around until he walked away. Hahaha it was so weird. I mean it's been well over five years, but it's still just awkward. I don't have any hard feelings toward him, but still! It was more funny than anything. I didn't see him the rest of the night so that was good.

The Hadley Family

2011-07-12T00:03:00.000-06:00

I have like three posts that I need to finish, but this picture inspired me to make a blog post. I just found this on my cousin's facebook and I just love it so much! I realize I don't really blog too much about my actual extended family...actually I'm pretty sure I never have!

Anyway this picture is my mom's family. No in-laws, all blood related. Yes, my mom is the pretty one (haha!)

From left to right: Grandma Hadley, Calvin, Alan, Carolynn, my mom, Janet, Ruth Ann, and the one in the middle bottom is my Grandpa Hadley.

Starting with the oldest:

Grandpa Hadley-I remember my grandpa as a super hard worker. Every time I'd come over as a little girl he'd be gardening in his huge garden. We always had fresh fruits and vegetables to eat. Every morning he had to watch Price is Right at the breakfast table on this tiny old television. He has a foot disorder that I can't remember the name of (not related to diabetes) that made it hard for him to walk and he has been in a wheel chair for a few years now. It's been strange to watch him decline as the years go on, but I'm used to it now and understand if his time comes soon. I will still be very sad when he passes away, but know that the day will come sooner than later. He did turn 90 this year which I think is pretty awesome.

Grandma Hadley-She is amazing. She was always so clean, organized, and talented. She could sew and knit like a certified grandma. She never wanted me to let things to go to waste. We used to go and stay at her house in North Ogden at least twice a year because our dentist (aka my mom's cousin) was up there and I remember I hated eating cereal that morning because she'd make me drink the milk. She was always very healthy too. I remember she had a pretty major stroke when I was little and I thought she'd never be able to make rainbow jello again (a family favorite), but she bounced back to being totally normal again.
About 2 years ago she had another stroke, but this time she didn't quite bounce back. She seems really normal and you would have no idea how much she's changed unless you knew her really well before. Now she asks the family to buy her candy and she will just eat and eat it haha! And she's really anal about cleanliness (worse than before). Since she is really old it doesn't bother me though. It's just a part of life. Maybe it doesn't bother me because I worked with the elderly for so long I just knew it was going to happen.

Ruth Ann-....well, she is our "special" family member. I wrote a big explanation of her, but it seemed really mean and I didn't want it to be so negative. Let's just say she has some narcissistic personality disorders and she is REALLY loud. But she is really loving, great with kids, and I have some great memories of going camping with this place she had a membership to called Camelot and we'd always go there around Halloween.

Carolynn-This lady works so hard for her family and has to go through so much crap yet never ever complains. She always says "people have it worse". Her son was diagnosed with diabetes at age 3 and it was before medical technology was as advanced as it is now so he did not do well. They said he wouldn't survive far into is adult life, but he lived longer than expected. She took care of him until his dying day (which was earlier this year) and he was in his forties. She is the ultimate mom and caregiver and you'll never hear her complain. She seriously amazes me! She married a man who's wife died during the birth of her youngest son (which only makes sense that he'd be the youngest) and Carolynn took them on as her own children with absolute ease. So she has like 12 kids or something along those lines. I won't get into it too much, but she's had a lot of issues with her children, battling alcoholism, severe depression (almost suicide), teenage pregnancy, etc. This lady is going STRAIGHT to heaven when she dies!

Janet-AKA my favorite aunt (and I totally know I'm her favorite niece). She is always so happy, funny, and loving. I LOVED staying over at her house when I was little, we did all sorts of fun things together. She was the best aunt a girl could ask for. She used to make porcelain dolls and has given some of them to me. I used to think they were so amazing. She is the closest to my mom of all her siblings (and she's 8 years older than my mom just like my sister is to me). We moved away from North Ogden when I was 2 and I still remember how much she could have stayed babysitting me. It's so weird to think of how old she is now because she still seems so young. When my niece equivalent is my age I will be 37 and yet my aunt is 62! haha! So weird! Of course when Audrey is my age, my sister will be 55 haha! Anyway, blah blah, she's my favorite aunt.

Alan-I probably have the least to say about him. I don't have a ton of memories with him. He's a great uncle and all. I remember he lived just down the street from my grandparents and we'd always walk down to his house to jump on the trampoline. I love love loved doing that. He had a rectangle one not a circle one and it was SO bouncy haha! And it was dug into the ground so much more ideal for falling haha! Yeah, like I said, I love him, but I didn't grow up around him so don't have much to say.

Calvin-AKA my favorite uncle. I have SO many memories with him! He used to take us to Lake Powell. We'd camp on a shore some where and during the day go exploring. It was some of my favorite vacations as a kid. I wanted to live there I loved it so much. I also remember him taking me up to the top of Ben Lomond Peak in North Ogden on his motorcycle. We also used to take trips to the Sand Dunes and I'd get to ride on the back of his motorcycle with him. He was just SUCH a fun uncle! Many of my family vacations included him. He was the rebel of the family long before I was born too, so he was a lot more relaxed and not so stiff like a lot of conservative mormons (haha). Seriously I have so many good memories of him doing awesome things that usually included a boat or a motorcycle.

My mom-well, you know that my mom is the best :D. She's the youngest just like me so we always have that bond. Looking at that picture of her family makes me happy that I'm the youngest because when my siblings get old, I'll still be young and lookin' good (haha!). My mom and I are very similar, but she is more organized than I am. Hopefully one day I can catch up to her organization skills. I guess the fact that I want it so bad is a good thing cause maybe one day I'll figure it out! haha!

Anyway, if you stuck it through I hope you enjoyed learning about my family. You will probably never see a post like this about my dad's side of the family because his family consists of boring, rich, white, republican, mormon people that I have absolutely nothing in common with. And an uncle that is super narcissistic (not mormon anymore so I guess they're not all LDS) and rude to my dad who married someone half his age (when he was 50...and it is his 4th wife, but probably the longest marriage I guess). The only sibling that lives in the same state is my aunt who is just plain awkward to be around. Then there's my dad who is the only normal one to come out of his family. And of course I love my grandma with all my heart, and I never knew my grandpa.

I need a trophy.

2011-06-29T01:23:00.000-06:00

Don't you get trophies for winning things? Where's my trophy? Because I won my first battle with a 3-year-old.

It was SOOOO weird because the day Nate turned 3 he SERIOUSLY turned into a 3 year old. Not even kidding you! He started thinking like one, acting like one, and all of those reasons why people said, "oh just wait till you get to 3" started to make sense. But, for the record, I refuse to think that 3 is worse than 2 because people told me it would be and generally when someone tells me something pessimistic, it pisses me off and I want to prove them otherwise. But mostly I just want to make the point that 2 is at least equally as hard as 3, but in a different way. But the things I was looking forward to with 3 are totally here. Like REASONING!!! It may not be easy, but at least he freaking understands it now!!!! Which brings me to my first battle: The French Toast.

Nate vs. Mommy
Sunday morning, he wakes up too early and is a grouchy grouch grouch. When he is tired, if something doesn't go exactly how he expects it, it is tantrum/whining city. And it is a city I want to move far far away from. But it's also a city that I will NOT put up with. So here is what happened:

He wanted cereal for breakfast. But we were at my friend Cynda's house in St. George and I was cooking french toast for everyone so he was going to have french toast. I told him that and he was expecting waffles for some reason. So when I gave him the french toast he did not want it. He would not eat it and he was crying very loudly and VERY annoyingly because it was not what he wanted. He kept telling me it was disgusting (haha again). But he didn't try it. So on principal alone I was determined that he was going to eat at least one bite of his french toast (because I knew he would like it). At first I tried to force it in his mouth, but he kept covering his mouth and screaming. I tried to rub it on his tongue, but it was too big of a tantrum for him to taste it. But I was not giving up. So I've learned recently that when he asks for something like "I want bread" and we're out of bread, if I say, "we're out of bread" he just keeps asking for it over and over and cries harder. So I have to acknowledge what he's saying first before I can reason with him so I will say "Do you want bread?" then he calms down and says "yeah I want bread" so then I can say "ok, I know you want bread, but we don't have any, do you want something else?" etc. So in this case when he would ask for something other than the french toast I would say "ok, you want some cereal? You can have some cereal if you eat a piece of the toast". He wasn't about to give in to that. So I just kept repeating myself every time he'd ask for something, I would say "you can have that if you eat a piece of toast". Finally he asked to go outside and I said it again and, MUCH to my surprise, he walked right over to it and FINALLY ate a piece! And you will never believe it, but he liked it. Yup. He told me he liked it and that it was good, he was proud of himself for eating it, and he ate the whole piece. That's right. Not that it was broccoli by any means, but I won my battle and that's what matters. Hahaha!

I must say that I'm a MUCH better mom to a 3 year old than I am to a 2 year old. My BFF Cynda has a 2 year old and ALL of the things that drive her crazy about having one are the EXACT same things that drove me crazy. It reminded me that 3 IS way better than 2 no matter how much people beg to differ. Perhaps the reason is because I had an absolutely crazy 2 year old and the fact that 2 was harder for me means I deserve another reward of some sort for not injuring or abusing my child. The truth of the matter is that I can discipline my 3 year old and he gets it. People may find it irritating that they understand and do things despite the fact that they understand, but I feel more like at least he understands why he's being punished instead of doing the same thing over and over and over and never understanding why it made me so mad! Now when I ask the question "you can do that or you can go to time out, which do you choose?" and he will choose the opposite of time out is a big feat for me. Sure he tells me his food is disgusting, but at least I can take a peak inside his brain to understand his motives because he can communicate his feelings more easily. And that, my friends, is why 3 is better than 2. And even if I think 3 is harder, I may never admit it haha!

Netflix Movies (post for Annie!) :D

2011-06-26T21:45:00.000-06:00

One of my BFF's Annie requested I make a blog post reviewing some of the movies I've watched on Netflix that I've enjoyed recently (this is from the past few months). Most of these movies are ones that I watch without Phil because they're not critically acclaimed by any means, but when you don't have a working TV and/or hate commercials, they're awesome! So, don't knock 'em till you try 'em! :D My rating will be in stars 1-5 *****

1-Killers ***** I remember seeing the preview for this movie while we were seeing some movie a while ago and wanting to see it, I loved it so much I watched it a couple of times. And I think I will make Phil watch it with me.

2-Revenge of the Bridesmaides **** I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It was a made for TV movie (ABC Family), but had an interesting story line and definitely a chick movie :D.

3-My Girlfriend's Boyfriend ***** LOVED this one! Filmed in Utah, written by a mormon, and a really cute dude as the lead. Sounds good to me haha! The story line is incredibly intriguing and I love love love it!

4-Outsourced **** Loved the story line. It's the movie they made the TV show out of. The acting is good, but nothing blockbustery.

5-Wedding Daze **** It's a little silly and ridiculous, but enjoyable to watch for sure. I really love Isla Fisher. She is one of my faves.

6-Notting Hill ***** I've watched this one a lot. I just love Hugh Grant. In most shows it's the girl's dreams and fantasies coming true, but in this one, it's the guy! I love it!

7-Beauty and the Briefcase **** I think I loved this one because I just love NYC.

8-Falling for Grace **** It was a movie made of actors I'd never seen before and the main character was charming and lovable. It shed some light on China Town in Manhattan (yes another NYC movie :D) and I hated China town haha so it made me appreciate it a little more.

9-According to Greta ***** Ok, honestly I loved this one because it was all filmed on the Jersey Shore and reminds me of this beach house Phil's grandma rented for a week once (not the actual house, but the shore nearby). It was filmed north of Toms River (Phil's home town) close to Asbury Park. It made me want to go to New Jersey way bad.

10-Return to Me ********** Seriously this is my favoritest movie in the whole world.

My first taste of terrible threes (made me laugh)

2011-06-20T18:59:00.000-06:00

Tonight I made dinner and Nate didn't want to eat it. Probably just because it looked different. The truth is it had all ingredients of things Nate loves. But he would not touch it. Finally Phil resorted to force feeding him so that he would taste it and realize it tasted good. Nate was freaking out, crying, and immediately spit it out and Phil goes "see? It's good" and Nate goes "No it's disgusting!" Hahahahahah we laughed so hard!!! Yeah I'm sure things like that will get annoying, but this is a big leap in Nate's language development. I'm starting to notice more and more the difference between the difficulty of 2 compared to 3. Like the other day he wanted to jump on a bounce house, but it had rained and was wet. Once Nate saw that it was wet he would not go near it even though it wasn't that bad and the rain had stopped (it was for Phil's annual work party). We couldn't even convince him that it wasn't that wet. It literally took him an hour to decide that he would go on it.

It's fun to watch him change and mature. In some ways it's nice and in others I can see it getting more and more difficult. I think it's going to be a totally different set of challenges that won't be as physically exhausting. Bring it on. :D

Jersey here we come!!

2011-06-20T02:01:00.001-06:00

I hate the way my brain works sometimes because I get so freaking excited I can't stand it and it's too late to call people and Phil fell asleep (go figure, I mean it is almost 2am!). So I have to share my excitement SOME way!! Anyway I'm so excited because we are going to New Jersey the 4th of July weekend!!!! WAHOOOOOOO!!! I was hoping we'd be able to go for Phil's grandma's birthday too. I am a TOTAL sucker for family parties. The only word to describe Phil's family getting together is A. MAZ. ING. Not even kidding you. They are the funnest group of people to be around. And there is only one word to describe New Jersey summers: INCREDIBLE!

I do not kid when I tell you that it is my favorite place to go in the summer. We didn't go there last summer and it was a TOTAL bummer. Just complete utter awful bummer. Nothing bummed more than that. I have been every summer for the past 5 years minus last year and I was not a happy girl about it either. No beautiful Jersey Shores, no swimming in the warm ocean water, no swimming in the clean family pools, no fresh smell of basil and Aunt Karen's cooking, no Mrs. Walker's ice cream, no Wawa subs, no pizza slices so big you have to fold them in half, no dirty smelling boardwalk, no warm summer eve's on Karen and Alan's porch, no skin beautifying humidity (yeah I'm weird, I love the humidity), and most of all, no listening to the crickets' crazy loud chirping and singing. Nothing. It. Was. Awful. I never want to go a summer without seeing the Atlantic ever again. NOT COOL! :D So needless to say I am ECSTATIC!!!!!!! Hence all the capitalized words and exclamation marks. I am not going to be able to sleep tonight because I have excitement butterflies!

I NEED this again!

Because this (below) is the last time I had that (above)

He was only 14 months old. So little and cute! That was nearly 2 years ago! AGH!

We haven't been out since November...well, we were on the East Coast in May, but we didn't venture down to good ol' Jersey. So we are getting a little antsy to go! California beaches have absolutely NOTHING on the Jersey Shore. Not even kidding you. EEEEEEEE I can't wait!!!!! Please pray that the weather stays good, no flights are cancelled, and that no crazy large group of people decide to fly to the east coast on a whim! :D Cause I will be mega bummed if we have to put it off (but we WILL be going out this summer if my life depends on it!).

8 months

2011-06-18T16:05:00.000-06:00

My Audrey girl is 8 months old today. On an unrelated note, it's also Nate's original due date 3 years ago. Here's what Audrey's been up to in her 8 months of earth bound life:

She still only has two teeth. Her other teeth have been trying to break through and I can see big bumps where her fangs are...which seems confusing cause it doesn't seem like they should be coming through yet, but I can't really tell.
She crawls all over the place. She does this funny scoot thing. It's not really an army crawl. She puts both her hands in front and uses them both to pull herself forward (unlike an army crawl where you use one at a time) while simultaneously pushing with her toes. I tried to get it on video last night and I caught her FIRST time crawling on her hands and knees and my STUPID phone memory was full (I guess that's my own fault) and it didn't save it. I was SO MAD! RRGH! I was so excited I even said on the movie "I can't believe I'm getting this on video!" and of course. Whatever. haha. Anyway she crawls on her hands and knees sometimes, but hasn't figured out that it makes her go faster (thank goodness). And for some reason her favorite place to crawl is the bathroom. Which, thanks to a crazy pee-er (Nate) I do not want her in there considering I have to wash the rugs weekly now.
She loves to feed herself food. She doesn't care what it is, she will eat anything.
She is SUCH a mama's girl. She can be perfectly content and she'll see me and it's all over. I HAVE to hold her and give her loves.
She stands up to the couch and other various things.
I finally set up the playpen next to my bed for her to sleep in. She still wakes up in the middle of the night to nurse, but I am testing out having her in her own bed to see if she sleeps a little longer. So far it's been pretty successful.
She is 28 inches long and about 19 pounds (it was hard to get her to keep her feet up on the scale when I sat her down so it's an approximate amount).

I cannot even believe how different she is from Nate. The one thing they have in common is that neither of them were difficult or whiny. They didn't have colic or any weird medical problems. They've both been very easy when it comes to that. But their differences are crazy!

Nate was:

VERY spitty. He spit up ALL the time. I mean AAAALLLLL the time. We didn't have burp cloths. We had burp blankets and towels.
He slept through the night starting at 2 months.
He has lighter hair, blue eyes, Phil's eyes, a big smile, Phil's smile wrinkles, etc
He was very active (still is) climbing things, he started scooting at 5 months, crawling on hands and knees at 7 months, standing up to furniture at 7 months, trying to climb stairs at 6-7 months.

Audrey is:

Not very spitty. Just occasionally
She doesn't sleep through the night as well. She's a good sleeper, she just wakes up to nurse then goes right back to sleep
She has dark hair, a smaller smile, greenish-brown eyes, my eyes, etc.
She is very mellow. She didn't start scooting till 6-7 months, she is just now starting to crawl on hands and knees and standing up to furniture.
She is more sensitive. She gets scared of strangers more easily. If you accidentally bonk her she cries more easily.
She laughs a lot more. It's really really easy to get her to laugh.
She doesn't grab my skin when she nurses like Nate used to (he was a much more aggressive nurser).
She is a lot more attached to me than Nate was, but I think a lot of that has to do with me being home more and not working, not to mention never having a bottle. Only like 3 her whole life while she was babysat for a couple of hours.

A few people have said "she looks so much like Nate", but there are so many differences in their appearance. Trust me, I stared at them a lot. haha! She is such a Morgan and Nate is such an Eger. Their eyes, their smile, and their hair is all different. I'm really surprised that my kids don't have more similarities. I really can't believe how different they are. It is so much fun watching them grow up!

My best attempts to get pictures of them together!

Audrey looks cute in this one, but Nate looks weird haha!

Look at those blue eyes. I wish his hair wasn't in his face haha. I want to move it so bad! hahaha!

Trying to get Nate to kiss Audrey and get a good picture. She kept turning her head to look at him and he was trying to kiss her cheek. So he was holding her head lol!

Audrey standing in her bed. And Nate slowly breaking it more and more despite my attempts to keep him out of it. It was too cute not to get a picture of though.

Comparisons

2011-06-15T00:07:00.000-06:00

My friend Shawntae wrote a blog post talking about how she wished her son's first year away. Anxiously wanting him to become a big boy. I am right there with her. When Nate was a baby I payed attention to every little thing. How old he was when he started crawling/walking/got his teeth/talking/etc. I think that's a pretty common thing to do with your first kid. I still do it to a point with Nate, but never once have I done it with Audrey. The only things with her is just things like woh she got her teeth before Nate did and she doesn't sleep through the night as well as Nate did. But I never compare her to other babies her age.

I feel like I focused on his development timing so much that I didn't stop to enjoy it the way I do with Audrey. But the weirdest thing is now that I have a baby I enjoy Nate growing up more. I was SO scared of him not being my little baby boy anymore and that I wouldn't be able to split in two and be both of their moms, but I haven't found myself having a hard time with it at all. I don't feel like I have to neglect one more than the other. My relationship with Nate has shifted and the transition was not rough like I thought it would be.

The weirdest thing happened the other day. I am not even kidding, the day Nate turned 3 he seriously turned into a 3 year old. It feels like he has grown up so much in the past week. This may not seem like a big deal, but yesterday he saw this red jacket and he thought it was his red blanket so he goes "mom give me my blanket" so I handed him the jacket and he goes "That's not my blanket, that's Daddy's jacket." That is honestly the most complete thought I have ever heard him express. I think a part of me was so worried about him becoming a more mature three year old that seeing it actually happen is kind of a relief. I love watching him learn more and more and apply his knowledge. Yeah he may be able to sound out words like an older kid, but that doesn't mean he is smarter than the average 3 year old. He is just smart in some areas and very NOT smart in others (like COMMON SENSE!! haha! I am not even kidding you).

I am done comparing Nate to other kids his age because I will probably go crazy. He's just Nate. He's going to learn everything on his own time and I'm totally fine with that. I just want to enjoy my kids and teach them what they want to learn and not care if they're like every one else because eventually they'll catch up and others will catch up to them. I'm just going to love them. :D

Pet Peeves

2011-06-12T00:39:00.001-06:00

There are just a couple of things that have been irritating me lately and I think if I get them out of my system I can just move on. They're really not that big of a deal. Maybe you'll find them funny...or weird. Moving along.

1-Babies aren't delivered! Where did this stupid term come from? My doula teacher pointed out (nearly 2 years ago) and it's been bugging me since! It indicates something about our culture that I absolutely hate. So...I decided to look up the origin of the word and original meaning of deliver (in the sense of childbirth) is to set free. Which makes sense. But now we use it like "the doctor delivered the baby". No. The doctor did not deliver the baby. The doctor merely forced the woman to lay in the least optimal position to birth a baby just for his/her convenience and then handed the baby over to the mom. Woo that doctor did sooo much. Why do we idolize these ridiculous people??? Make them feel important by handing them a degree and emptying our pockets just so they can push us around and ruin the births of our children by creating problems and saving us from the problems they created. Then hold them up on a pedestal like we couldn't have done it without them. Anyone can catch a baby. It doesn't take a special degree to do so. ...anyway the point of my little tangent is that babies aren't delivered! They're birthed! No one showed up on my door step with my baby in a box expecting a tip. However, I did carry my babies in my belly for 9 months, created everything from the hair on their head to their tiny little toes, then when my baby's lungs were developed they released a hormone telling my body they were ready and I went into labor and birthed my baby. I did all the work. This is a homemade baby, not some cheap delivery from a crappy chain hospital. If you get what I'm saying. These "delivery men" can do a lot of good and save a lot of lives, but true emergencies are pretty rare. I wish that was the only thing they were saving women from is when they need it, not when they create the emergencies themselves. Next time someone I love has a baby I hope they order the carry out service. :D Or at least refuse to leave a tip for crappy service!

2-Using the word "gay" in substitute for the word "stupid". If someone else says "that's so gay" I'm just going to go ahead and assume they are saying "that's so well dressed and fun at parties". In the world I grew up in, tolerance was a big deal and something we learned quite a bit about in school. I often wonder "what would I be like if I lived during the MLK era?" Well, guess what, I didn't live during that era so now I'm asking myself. What do I want my kids to hope I was tolerant of when they're older? The truth is that you don't have to agree with someone's lifestyle, but you do have to love everyone and treat everyone with respect no matter what they're life choice is. Using "gay" negatively is no different than using the N word, or calling something retarded (which I'm totally guilty of and I've done a lot to stop saying it). I used to say things were gay once too. I didn't think about it. But now I do and I hope other people consider the offensive and ignorant things they say every day.

Ok that's all. Thanks for listening haha!

3rd Birthday Beach Trip

2011-06-09T13:37:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was my bubby bub's actual birthday. So since the flight loads were so low on the early morning flight and the evening return flight, my mom and I took the kids to Long Beach for the day.

We woke up at 5 am. Nate is very very cranky if he doesn't get adequate sleep so he had a little melt down over oatmeal that made us leave later than we wanted to. So my mom dropped me off at the terminal so I could start checking in and she went and parked the car. She had to take the shuttle over to the terminal and we had no idea how long it was going to take. So I got our boarding passes and waited for her over by security. We were both FREAKING out because our flight was leaving at 7 am and it was 6:30 so we knew they started the boarding process. I called my mom like 15 times wondering where she was hoping that she was almost there. Finally a little after 6:30 she ran in. Because we have small children we get to go through the family and special assistance line. No one was in that line so we were able to get right up through security. We rushed super fast. I was like running, grabbing shoes off, collapsing strollers (I wanted to check it, but he said it was easier for them if I checked them at the gate). The security people could tell we were in a hurry so they were very helpful. We were upstairs at the gate at 6:38. Yeah! We were THAT fast! We were running and ran straight to the podium and it turns out we didn't really need to run because they still boarded a little after that, but because we had been running I asked the flight attendants for some water. Haha! I needed it bad!

I'm glad he's old enough to keep headphones on. When we first started flying on jetBlue he wouldn't keep them on. I forgot to bring my own so I bought these on board and they were a little too big for him. So I put Audrey's shirt in between. :D

He fell asleep, I'm not even kidding you, the SECOND the tires hit the runway. And that is not an exaggeration!!

We arrived and went to the car rental counter which took us over an hour because the line was so long. Apparently Avis was a popular one that day. I think that a lot of people were doing the same thing that I did and bid for the price. The lady behind me got her car through the same process for the same price. And she worked for jetBlue too. As well as the girl in front. So it was fun to chat with them.

We first headed over to Denny's for some breakfast then we headed to Huntington Beach. It's a really big beach, and it's a state park so we paid to get in to the State park part. There was a lot of beach space, not a ton of people. Oddly there were a lot of teenagers swimming and it was NOT warm water! It's not like the East Coast by any means. And it was only about 62 degrees at that time. The wind was a little chilly.

You can see how overcast it was by these pictures. They call it the "June Gloom".

We were there for about 4 hours though and half way through the clouds had burned off and it was a lot warmer.

My mom likes to dip her little baby feet into the ocean. So now I have pictures of her dipping her feet in the atlantic:

And now the Pacific as well.

Nate had so much fun playing in the sand and making...

...sandcastles.

Audrey took a long nap

I took a short one.

Then we woke up.

I just love this picture of her on her hands and knees. I love this swimming suit. She doesn't really crawl on her hands and knees yet, but she gets up on them a lot.

After the beach we headed over to a place called Shoreline Village. We went there with Nate Patten when we met him in Long Beach and there was a lady handing out samples of their garlic bread and marinara sauce and it was SOOO good that I wanted to go back there and eat. I will have to make it a tradition to go there every time we're in Long Beach because it is SOOOO good!!!
Of course the sun got to Nate and he was super tired. He fell asleep in the car. And we put him in the stroller and he stayed asleep.

He slept all through dinner!

Then we strolled around some more, got some ice cream, took pictures at this thing:

We also let Nate go on the merry go round which he LOVED. He was so excited he kept saying "we're going up and down!" "we're on a horse!" and "we're going in a circle!"

Then we drove back towards the airport that evening, we had some extra time so we stopped at a playground for a couple minutes.

Then we flew back home.
It was such a great day! I hope Nate loved his 3rd birthday...and I hope he doesn't hate me too much for his first sunburn. He doesn't seem to notice though, but in the bath he goes "mom what happened to my butt?" hahahah! It was actually his leg, but I guess he thought it was his butt. Let's just say that wind+spray on sunscreen=weird splotchy sunburn. Audrey got the least amount of sunburn. Just a tiny bit on her face and shoulders. Not much though.

Three Years Ago....

2011-06-07T20:13:00.000-06:00

I met the love of my life three years ago. It was love at first sight. As these three years have gone by I've grown more in love with him. He's definitely gotten cute and more handsome. Sometimes I stare longingly into his big blue eyes and caress his soft hair. I like to snuggle him when he's sleeping, and I kiss him all the time. Yep. He's definitely the love of my life. I've got a picture of the first day we met:

It was a very close relationship from the beginning.

At 3 years old Nate is 3 feet 5 inches and 36 pounds. He still loves to draw. He loves ABC's and counting. He loves to read and loves puzzles. He thinks my iphone is "Nathan's Phone" and I have not been able to convince him otherwise. Guess I shouldn't have put toddler games on it right? haha! He loves to go to the playground...like every single day if I'd take him. Now that it's warmer I might just do that. He loves to ride his bike in the front yard.

Granny (Phil's mom) and Grandma (my mom) are two of his favorite people. He asks to see them both at least once a day. He has a best friend Brooklyn. The almost four year old girl that lives upstairs.

He is silly and happy and the best love of my life I could ever ask for!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FAVORITE SON! I LOVE YOU!!!

Nate's Birthday Party!

2011-06-07T15:11:00.002-06:00

On Sunday we celebrated Nate's 3rd birthday. Sunday worked best for everyone so since it was that day we decided to have the party at my parent's house instead of a park. Every single one of my nieces and nephews was able to make it for the first time this year. I've never thrown a party that had THAT many kids involved. Needless to say, it was EXHAUSTING! I went to bed at 11 Sunday night and slept in till 10:30 Monday morning! Audrey is teething too so she woke up a million times and it was nearly impossible to get her to go to sleep in the first place. Moving on.

I made the cupcakes from scratch. I can't stand the taste of the store bought kind so I ventured over to foodnetwork.com and found a recipe for red velvet cupcakes that had 5 stars. I thought it was pointless to add the red food coloring, but they ended up looking like bran muffins so now I understand why you add it. But they tasted awesome!

By the time I was done making them I was so tired that I didn't feel like decorating them as originally planned. Next time I make the cupcakes the night before....I should have done that this time.

I went to my parent's ward yesterday so I could go straight to their house after church and start working. I worked for 3 hours straight until the party started on making cupcakes and airplane balloons. No store has airplane decorations so I had to improvise. They turned out really cute too. We hung them from the trees in my parent's backyard.

We had a barbecue and because we're vegetarian made veggie burgers and veggie hot dogs. The adults all loved it, but a few of the kids had a little fit haha. They're so uncultured! lol! The Morning Star Chipotle burgers are AMAZING! We got them from Costco...if you have a membership, do yourself a huge favor!!

After Nate opened his presents we had an airplane throwing competition. I was busy throwing the party and forgot to designate a photographer so unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of them. My brother and dad got really into it, but they didn't even end up winning! It was hilarious! There was also a prize for the most creative airplane. My niece Jaci taped one of the long balloons that I was using to make airplanes to her airplane because she wanted it to fly better (since it had a balloon). She was upset that it didn't work, but she definitely won for the most creative (she is SUCH a doll!).

I can't believe my sweet little boy is going to be 3. That seems so old! I love him SO much! Can't wait to take him to the beach with his new beach toys!

What is happening to my BABIES?????

2011-06-05T00:21:00.000-06:00

I know it's cliche, but seriously how are my kids growing up so dang freaking fast? Audrey is on the verge of crawl crawling. Hands and knees, not just army crawling. And tonight she seriously learned how to get into a sitting position! She did it TWICE tonight by herself! And Nate, what is going on in his little head? He's already figuring out how to read! What the??

I mentioned in my last post that he can read the word cat and cow. He's been reading more and more words. I got a couple videos of it tonight, but it was after we had been playing around with the words for a long time so he was sick of doing it. Here's the best one:

I just feel like typing

2011-05-27T01:56:00.000-06:00

When it's late at night and everyone is asleep except me, I have so much clarity. I can actually think. I notice that when I drive in the car I always think of everything I need to do and I'll think of everything I need to talk about to someone about because I have no distractions. Every time I put my phone to my ear it's like a radar goes off and Nate instantly comes over and starts whining about something or demands my attention. Therefore I often find myself staying up way too late just so I can have some peace and quiet. The only problem is that I don't have anyone to talk to because it's so late so I am blogging instead.

One of my favorite things to do lately is just spend time playing with Nate, reading him stories, and singing to him. I don't take nearly enough time to do that and I'm making it my goal to set aside more one on one time just me and him with no Audrey. I love to peer inside that cute little brain of his and find out whats making his little wheels turn. Tonight I was reading him a Dora book that my MIL gave him and there was a part where she goes into the spooky forest. Lately Nate has been pretending he is a ghost. I have no idea where he learned it. So when I saw the spooky forest I asked him "do you know what's in a spooky forest? A ghost!" he remembered that and when we got to the page with the forest picture on it, there wasn't a ghost, but there were a couple of snakes and he goes "*gasp!* look! A ghost snake!" haha! SO cute!

I've been spending a lot of time teaching him to read. Haha I know he's only (almost) 3, but it's never too early to start right? Since he knows his alphabet I started teaching him what sounds the letters make. He's watched this show called Super Why and Word World which have helped him learn the sounds and have helped him learn what the lower case letters look like to help in my effort. Well, there are actually two words he can read successfully without my help. Cat and cow. haha! I just have him sound it out and then he puts it all together. But most of the words I sound out with him. My point to explaining this is that when I write a word he'll go "*gasp* let's go find the cat!" or dog, or whatever else we're spelling Haha! Tonight I was doing this with him and sometimes he will sound out one letter and just guess what the word's going to be. So there was one with a c and he goes "k k kiss!" haha so I spelled kiss and helped him sound it out and as soon as we were done he goes "*gasp* give me a kiss!" And I kissed him. It was SO CUTE! Then I wrote the word "love" and he goes "I love you mom!" By the way, he gasps a lot haha. It was just so cute. I love little moments like that.

Another cute Nateism is the way he loves blankets. Sometimes it drives me CRAZY because I'll be holding Audrey sitting on the couch and she will have finally fallen asleep and he'll try to get up on my lap under the blanket. But the other day I was sitting on the couch and he wanted to get on my lap. He wiggles a lot and doesn't always just sit in one spot so I'm not always fond of him sitting on my lap, but he kept just trying to get on my lap and I kept telling him no. Then he goes "mom! Give me a hug!" He must know I definitely can't resist that one! So I gave him a hug and he made his way under the blanket onto my lap. haha a minute later I kicked him off and he went on his merry way. A few minutes later he comes back "mom! Give me a snuggle" Seriously Nate? How am I supposed to resist that?

I love that little boy so much! I would get tons of pictures of him to post on here, but have you ever tried to get a picture of a 3 year old?? Sometimes I fear that if someone found my phone they would think I loved Audrey more than Nate, but in reality it's that I can't get a blur-free picture of the little guy! Most of the pictures I actually capture are of the back of his head haha. It's hard to get a blur free picture of Audrey too now that she's on the move so much. But she can't just run away so it's definitely a lot easier.

I don't have my phone near me or else I'd post more pictures, but I just have to tell you about this picture:

Phil is OBSESSED with this picture. He put it has his computer background and he made me send it to his phone today. Haha I love it! She is wearing her new little summer sun dress that I found really inexpensive at Walmart (hear the shame in admitting I got it at walmart? Yeah there's shame haha, but it's RIGHT by my house and well, it was just a freaking cute dress ok? :D). Phil cannot resist her when she's got pigtails.

I have got to say that I am just completely in love with this little girl. She is definitely on the move. Occasionally she gets up on her hands and knees, but hasn't mastered crawling just yet. She's got the army crawl down however. I remember this one parenting book I read when Nate was little said to put pillows and other obstacles in their way so they learn to solve problems and such. Well, I just realized this time around I don't even need to do that cause Nate will just do it for me. He'll create plenty of obstacles haha! She also can successfully sit without falling. She's been able to for a few weeks, but don't know if I've mentioned it.

She just melts my heart.

Lastly, just for fun because I have it on my computer here is a picture of me at about Audrey's age.

Same eyes and eyebrows for sure. Same hair and forehead. I feel like my cheeks were chubbier though and I'm not sure if she has my smile or not. She's got her own little distinct smile. I also think my face is longer than hers. And in my own opinion I think she's cuter! :D I guess I see her all day and can see the similarities. I can't find a picture of her that is posed anything like this one. I'll have to try to get one.

Also, here is my Natey at 7 months. I think they look a lot alike too, but not as much as some people think. I think they have similarities, but I have also been around them constantly a lot and can see a lot of differences. But look how cute he was!

This is at Audrey's age now.

What I think is funny is that Nate DEFINITELY has Phil's eyes eyebrows forehead and hair. And that is what I know for sure that Audrey has from me. Oh my gosh he was SUCH a dang cute little baby! RRGH! Still is dang cute, I just miss squeezing that cute little chubby body!

Ok I'm done now haha

7 months already?

2011-05-19T01:39:00.001-06:00

How is my little girl so dang big already? She was JUST BORN my goodness!!!

I still just cannot get over the cuteness of this picture. Seriously it is to die for! She kills me! It cracks me up that she couldn't just sit back in the stroller. She sat up like that the entire time she was in it. And she played with Nate's hair, which he did not like, but he'll get over it.

Audrey seems to have turned into a completely different baby recently. Suddenly she can sit up without falling. I mean she could sit up before, but eventually she'd tip over. Now she crawls around every where. She hasn't mastered hands and knees crawling yet, but she keeps getting up on them and rocking. She is about 2 months behind Nate when it comes to this and I am NOT upset about it. I'm hoping that's a sign that she won't be as crazy. :D She likes to kick her feet a LOT and wiggles her hands. She was VERY wiggly in my belly and she's very wiggly now.

She is just as happy as can be. She's a little ornerier lately because she's been teething, but most of the time, as long as I'm around, she's happy as a clam. I cannot even believe how attached to me she is. She actually reaches out for me now. She will be perfectly content and then she'll see me and start whining. The other day she fell over and got hurt or bumped something and my mom tried to comfort her, but she wouldn't calm down and the minute I grabbed her she stopped instantly. And when we were at James' house Phil set her on the floor and she BOOKED it to me. I had NEVER seen her crawl so fast in my life. It made me soooooo happy! We really have a deep deep bond. I remember feeling like Nate would go to anyone and wouldn't even care, but Audrey does. It really does make me happy. I don't mind that she cries when I'm around. Sometimes I would really like a break, but the fact that she wants me does make me super happy. Phil says I have the magic touch. In fact he used this funny analogy today he goes "It's like when you have a bowl of oatmeal. I'm happy with eating the oatmeal, but then someone with a big plate of mozzarella sticks walks by. I was happy with the oatmeal, but now that I saw the mozzarella sticks I want nothing to do with the oatmeal. In this analogy I'm the oatmeal and you're the mozzarella sticks" referring to Audrey.

Audrey is very vocal lately. She does a lot of babababababa's and last night out of nowhere she woke up and for some reason started going "wuh wuh wuh wuh wuh wuh" We have no idea why. It was in a really low tone and it was really really funny! She was doing that instead of crying. But she was still half asleep. It was SOOOO FUNNY! She also is doing really well with feeding herself. If I put something in front of her she will grab it almost with her thumb and pointer. She will eat almost anything. If I'm eating in front of her and not sharing, she gets really mad at me. :D

I can't believe how much she is growing. And my love for her never stops. I just really love this age.

Anyway that is all good night

Victoria Part 2

2011-05-19T01:15:00.000-06:00

Now that you're familiar with Victoria, let me tell you about our visit there.

This is my brother-in-law James Eger:

Isn't he so cute? Phil and him look so much alike only he's about 7 inches shorter and 2 years older. Phil has the make of his Dad, but the looks of his mom. James is like all his mom. He is dressed up here because he couldn't get out of work even though he asked for it off. He works at a fancy and very expensive restaurant.

This is James' wife Kirsten Dales (she kept her last name cause that's what she grew up with):

Like I mentioned before, she is from Calgary, Alberta. They met while living in Colorado. She was in the states on a specialized work visa because she researches a lot of things to do with plants (she's never been super specific about it because it would probably take a lot to explain, so that's all I can explain). Eventually she wants to become an environmental scientist. And James was living in Colorado at a resort working with adaptive sports.

They got married last August (when I met James I thought he'd never get married haha...I think he did too. They met like a month after we got married actually). Kirsten is still in school and apparently school is a lot less expensive in Canada, it's a lot easier to bring an American to Canada, and her parents live in Victoria so that is why they live there. James hates it, but Kirsten loves it. He wants to live in a small mountain town like Crested Butte again. He's not much of a city person. Yet he grew up in New Jersey. So they live in a suburb of Victoria called Metchosin. It's a lot more rural than Victoria, yet not a far drive away. I think it's the only place that James could live.

Alright moving along. We flew into Seattle because it is a lot more expensive to fly into Victoria considering that you have to get passports for the kids when you fly (we will do that soon, but we just didn't want to spend all that money at one time) and when you enter by boat or car all you need for kids is a birth certificate, it was free for us to fly to Seattle and we used a buddy pass for my mother in law. However, the ferry times from Seattle to Victoria were terrible so we ended up having to stay the night in Seattle when we got there and we had to stay the night before we left for home too.

Tired after a long day of traveling

Seattle is gorgeous. Very green and it smells good. I say that because New York smells like a big garbage can haha. I didn't actually go downtown though unfortunately. I'd love to go back just to go to Seattle. So we made our voyage to Victoria the next day.

View of Seattle from the back of the Ferry.

It's a long ride. About 2.5 hours. So Phil got bored

Nate fell asleep like this

James and Kirsten didn't have one big car (understandably because who does? we only do because Phil's mom gave us her van. We would have never chosen to have one otherwise) so we had to drive in two separate cars. So Kirsten, Audrey and I went in one car and everyone else went in James'. After about a minute of driving we realized how AWESOME of an idea that was because we realized something very important. We have something very big in common: we have the same in-laws!!! So....yeah we had some good conversations and some good venting. Because, well, this trip required quite a bit. Let's just say my MIL and I have VERY opposite personalities.

I'm not going to give a play by play, just kind of a general this is what we did. Obviously this is more for journal purposes than anything, but if you like to read then I hope you enjoy this post haha! So on the first day we went to the beach. We drove west along the southern end of Vancouver Island to a place called China Beach. It's very rural out where we went and VERY beautiful. I kept telling Kirsten I felt like I was in Northern California. We pulled up to a parking spot in the middle of a thick mountainous area. It looked more like we were about to hike up a mountain, not go to the beach! So when you see those surveys that ask "what do you like more? Mountains or Beach? If you go to Victoria, you get both. Nate loooooved the beach. Especially throwing rocks in the water. Here are our beach pictures:

My phone can take really cool panoramic pictures where you can go all the way up and all the way down. When I'm in the app I can just scroll around like you're actually standing there, but then it lays it flat. This picture is a complete 360 and completely up and down. The pictures of the trees were actually all behind me and to one side not on two opposite sides. It shows them on two opposite sides because I started with the camera facing the ocean (which is in the middle) anyway it's a cool app and it's kind of funny that it makes it look like the beach is small. Truly it was a lot bigger of course.

Nate throwing rocks.

Because of my recent back issues Kirsten offered to wear Audrey. She loved it. It made me love her that much more too!

James always has to climb things and balance on things. He cracks me up!

Someone put this big log on this other one and balanced it. So we threw Nate on it and he rode it like a teeter totter.

Cutest couple! :D I love that they were holding hands. They look like parents hahahah

This is the weirdest starfish I've ever seen! I didn't know they came with more than five legs. Apparently this kind eats other starfish. Not anymore. It was dead. Yuck!

Still blown away with the thick forest that lines the beach.

Auntie Kirsten :D

This is the parking lot I was talking about. Looks more like Yosemite than the beach!

The next day we went to the aquarium. This is the third aquarium I've been to this year, but hey I'm not complaining! It wasn't very big, but the thing that I like about aquarium is that they raise awareness about keeping the ocean clean and healthy and they raise money for it.

That weird starfish again!

I love the way sea anenome's feel when you touch them!

Weirdest fish on display!

These were taken right outside the aquarium. She is so cute it KILLS ME!!

This was the view from the back of the aquarium! It was a lot prettier than this picture makes it look haha.

The next day was a little sunnier so thats where I got all those beautiful pictures in the last post. Most of those were from the gardens at the university where the castle is. Some are from this park we went to. On this day though we visited the castle then we went to this little petting zoo and after that we went to this doc to feed some fur seals. They are wild seals, but are used to being fed by humans. :D We fed them fish bits. They sure were cute!

One of the Peacocks getting it's sexy dance on

That night we took the ferry back to Seattle.

Goodbye Victoria...

....hello giant cruise ship.

The next day we flew home.

The end. (haha)