Hello, Again!

Has it been 2 & 1/2 months since I've blogged? Oops!!

We LOVE it here. L.O.V.E. I think we'll stay a while. :) If you don't get why, you should come visit.

We've been living in a 2 bedroom apartment, on the third floor. On Monday, we move into a 3 bedroom house!! Yay!! So, there is a bedroom that you will be able to stay in. Yes, that's right, YOU! We are very excited.

David had his 1st birthday a couple weeks ago. He is getting "So big"! And, as his Grammie taught him, he'll show you with his hands up in the air. It's really cute. He'll also flex his muscles when you say "How strong are you?" or "Show me your muscles." He plays peek-a-boo by covering up his eyes with his hands.

He's close to walking on his own. Currently he walks along furniture, the walls, cupboards, the bed, his crib, etc etc. He loves his shoes. He's quite the fun little kid. I still call him my baby even though he's big enough to be a "toddler".

Big David is loving being in the Northwest. He has a few businesses he's working on, and he hangs out with me and the kiddo a lot.

I've been active in a mom's group called "Stroller Strides". We work out during the week with our kiddos in the stroller. When the weather was warmer, we were at the park, now we are "those moms" in the mall. :) I come home almost every time telling David how sore I am!

We LOVE our new church too. The teaching is great and the people are great too! There are several people our age, and a few babies. Once a week, little David & I get together with the other mom's/kids for a play date. They are pretty cute kids!

Ah, well. Today I was having a rough time so David graciously watched the baby while I headed out to Starbucks for some "alone" time. It's where I am now actually. I've prayed, cleared my head, read my Bible, done a couple internet searches, and now am writing this... very uplifting I think. :) I told him I would be home after an hour... which was 15 minutes ago, so I should be off! Enjoy the pics below!

New Cit-tay!

So, as many of you know, we moved all the way up to the Northwest (about 11 hour drive from SLC) last week. We have been here a WHOLE WEEK already!! Wowza. Here’s what we’ve done and some of my random thoughts:

So far, we are good to go! My friend, Lindsey, invited me and the baby boy to her weekly play group on Tuesday. David is quite a bit younger than most the kiddos there so he can’t really “play” with them, but I was able to meet some more moms, which was great since I know like 3 people here. (Ok, maybe 2 people in CdA and 2 people in Spokane.)

We’ve taken walked a majority of the days and ran errands. Right now the baby child is napping and my Internet is working and it’s not my turn on Words with Friends or Hanging with Friends. The laundry is basically caught up, so are the dishes. Whew, feels good!

I’m hoping to hit up the mom store, Mother’s Haven, this afternoon. Maybe organize my “desk” (which = ½ of the dining room table where my Pampered Chef stuff is thrown about.)

Today we walked down to Calypsos coffee shop and made a couple stops along the way. We passed by a house we are interested in buying and flipping. (Our goal with flipping is that we could use the profit to pay off debt, but if we can’t sell right away we’d be willing to live there a while.)

Anyways, I can’t remember what I was going to say next so, I guess this is it for now. :)

Stages...

We are in a new "stage" as parents say. Well, I feel like we had been in the birth to 8 month stage with David, but now we are in the "I'm 9 months and want to change a ton in just a few days" stage. :)

David is army crawling now. He's trying to figure out the getting up on his hands and knees thing. I'm sure it will happen any day now.

He can pull himself up onto his knees.... and I'm sure any day now he'll be up on his feet!

He got 2 teeth in the past two weeks. So now he has two on bottom and one on top. Again, I'm sure another will come soon.

Ah, being a parent. OH OH OH!!! Here's a good one.... he takes 2 naps a day consistently! Yay! Good job, son. Way to be!

There's your update for now! I hope to be back soon!

Shout out: to Kym & Aunt Judi! I hope you are enjoying your summer!!

Cousin Kym

This one is for Kym.

We just got back from an almost 2 week trip to California. We had a lot of fun seeing friends and family.

One highlight was seeing Kym. :) Kym is David's cousin. We intended to hang out for the afternoon, which turned into Kym babysitting. She and little David spent a few hours playing AND she fed him dinner. David & I were running around the house cleaning up, making treats, and getting ready for a party that night. We basically talked with Kym from across the house. Good thing she likes kids.... Thanks Kym!

How cute is he! :)

David is 6.5 months old now!

Crazy! We go in for his check up on Friday and will get his stats. Ahhhh, my boy. So cute.

He likes to roll all over the place and is what I'll call "pre-crawling". Very vague, but hey. He gets up on his knees and tries to scoot. He hasn't figured out what to do with his hands in crawling.

He babbles.

He has a favorite monkey.

He plays in his little exercise, activity, bouncer seat thing (whatever you call those).

He's learning sign language. :)

He eats 2 and a half "table food" meals a day; usually oatmeal, fruits, veggies, and rice cake things for babies. (Which by the way are a great way to distract him and make him feel included at the table when big David & I are eating dinner.)

He wants to drink everything we do. He tries to drink out of our glasses and looks like a cat lapping at the water. Ha!!

He's super-cute! I think we'll keep him! ;-)

Excited!!

So, I realized that recently I've been super excited about certain things.

SANDALS: I bought two new pairs of sandals for the summer, you know the "trendy" kind that could look like Jesus sandals, but are more stylish. They aren't my typical Rainbows, although I still wear those. These are the kind of sandals to where with cute dresses, etc. I bought them from Target and then God decided it would be great to bless us with some rainy, cold weather for a few days. I haven't worn them yet, but I am EXCITED to soon!

DRESSES: I totally am a bargain hunter and I found two dresses at Macy's on sale and I had store credit. (Score!) David wasn't too fond of them, and neither was my mom, BUT I still liked them. I tried them on for a few girlfriends who affirmed my choice to buy them. I am EXCITED about wearing them too, but they are definitely more for summer weather. (This is the only reason I may have kind of felt like I missed California the other day for like 2 minutes.... knowing that it's been summer since February there.) I think it's going to be 78 here this weekend.... maybe I'll wear a new dress to church! (By the way, we've been going to SJCC for almost a year and a half and I've probably worn a dress once, maybe twice and it was when I was pregnant.)

MICHE BAGS: I am a sucker for marketing scams, uh, I mean strategies, when it comes to purses & jeans particularly. Ahhhhh. I gave in to buying a Miche purse after seeing them on the TV show "How I Made My Millions" and then they were up for the deal of the day on Groupon. I realized they had a kiosk at the mall that I had walked by probably numerous times but didn't look twice. So, the show mentioned above (HIMMM for short) highlights entrepreneurs and how their clever ideas turned into big businesses and made them $$$$. We watched it and I looked into these purses online. They seemed a bit expensive for me, who usually buys a purse at Marshall's or Target for $30. BUT I loved the idea of the Miche purse which is basically one bag that you change the outside covers/shells for. I hate transferring my crap from one purse to another so this would be great for me. HERE'S THE KICKER..... I've had the bag for a month and just used it yesterday for the first time on a date with David. Typically I tote the diaper bag around, so I intentionally got the Miche bag out and had a grand time strutting my stuff in a practically vacant Peruvian restaurant as well as Starbucks with 3 18 year old guys sitting in the corner. I'm that cool. :)

It's funny how I got (and am) SUPER - EXCITED about these things and then waited for weeks to actually use them. What is happening to me?! I may have David take a picture of me in my new sandals & dress, carrying my Miche purse this weekend. What a monumental day it will be!!

Pampered Chef

.... is so much fun. Just saying. :)

Here's a recipe we like:

Solid Foods

We started feeding David some "solid" food, or as I heard someone call it, "human" food. Ha!

He had avocado and didn't like that much. Now he's trying oatmeal with much more success.

We'll take him to the pediatrician for his 4 month check up and shots tomorrow. I'm looking forward to hearing how he recommends we continue to feed the child.

Laughing & Growing & Such

We have a good time laughing together :)

He's getting so big!

This week we started introducing food to him. He's quite the trouper.

Sometimes it takes him 1 hour and 30 minutes to finally go to sleep after we put him down. Sometimes it takes him 3 minutes.

He still has red hair.

Cloth Diaper Trial

Did I mention that I did a 3 week cloth diaper trial?

A website called http://www.jilliansdrawers.com/ does a 21 day cloth diaper trial. They let you try several different kinds of cloth diapers, use them, wash them, and then send back what you don't want for an almost full refund. They give you everything but $10 back.

We wanted to use cloth diapers because, in the long run, they save a lot of money. The kinds we ended up buying are all-in-ones that kids can wear up to 35 pounds. At first the mention of cloth diapers kinda scared me... "you mean I have to wash diapers? gross, why can't we just buy disposables and throw them away?" BUT I am already doing laundry every day so what's one

extra load? It hasn't been bad at all. And they don't stink any worse than disposables. It's one less trip to the dumpster, and two extra steps to the washing machine. NBD.

The diapers are SUPER CUTE on him and come in FUN colors. He has different shades of blue, green, yellow, white, red, orange. Yay! The kinds we have are BumGenius 4.0 One-Size Pocket, FuzziBunz One-Size Pocket, and Smartipants. (They aren't the old fold and pin system... they look like disposables and all you do is stuff

an insert and then snap or velcro them onto the baby... no folding required.)

BumGenius:

FuzziBunz:Smartipants:

I didn't think I would be such a supporter of cloth diapers, but I have been converted. Don't get me wrong, I do like disposables for certain occasions (trips, when all cloth are dirty, babysitting, etc.), but 95% of the time, I'll be using cloth.

Undercover Mama

Seriously, the best thing in my wardrobe right now! (I have them in black, white, and brown.)

2011 Predictions

Once again, I saw my friend Andrea's predictions blog and decided to share what happened last year and what may happen this coming year. (Thanks, again, Andrea for the idea!)

2011

January: Do a 21 day cloth diaper trial, see if we like it :)

February: Take a trip to CA... Biola homecoming and visiting the family

March: David's sisters come to visit us. Celebrate big David's birthday.... hm, not sure how yet.

April: Our baby will be 6 months old and definitely sleeping at least 7 hours a night. (Haha, we'll see if that happens!)

May: Watch our baby grow! (How's that for a cop out?)

June: Watch our baby grow!

July: Ryan & LeAnna's wedding in CA! Go up to Coeur d'Alene to find a place.

August: Move on up to Idaho (is it too early to be scared of the winters there?), Hopefully get to Reno for the friends reunion at the Riddle's.

September: Settle in in our new place in ID and buy a Cal King bed :)

October: Little David turns 1! I'd like to have a party for him, maybe kind of small depending on how many new friends we meet.

November: Head down to Thanksgiving in CA with David's family.

December: Maybe go down to CA for Christmas... we need to start saving money for all these trips. :)

Back to 2010

January - Pray for and get a raise or more hours at work. I expect hours to get increased anyway because tax season is starting. Got more hours & the raise... worked a lot. Sold my Camry.

February - Choose a home church. Sell my Camry. (If you are interested in buying it email me or David. It's a great car and I'll be sad to see it go.) (We chose the church South Jordan Community to attend. Great. Love it. Sold my Camry last month. Found out I was pregnant... surprise!)

March - Buy an older, yet reliable, used car for me to drive. Celebrate David's 27th birthday. I'll plan a special date & maybe we'll get together with friends. Yes. That is what we'll do. Oh, also, does softball season start this month? If it does, I'll find a team. (Didn't buy a car, celebrated David's birthday while having consistent, miserable morning sickness. Didn't play softball. Just worked a lot!)

April - Tax season will end so hopefully I won't be as busy at work after the 15th. And if softball season didn't start last month, hopefully it starts this month & I'll be on a team. (Made it through tax season & didn't play softball because of the tiny blueberry inside me.)

May - Go to northern California to be in Melissa & Josh's wedding. Maybe David & I will make a little extended vacation out of it. (I went to CA for my best friend Crystal's wedding shower, and while I was gone David moved our entire apartment! What a guy! We also went to the Jordan's wedding. :)

June - Go to southern California to be in Crystal & Brett's wedding. Maybe David & I will make a little extended vacation out of it. Possibly move if we can't renew our lease. (Went to So Cal for Crystal & Brett's wedding.I thought I'd be working less, but stayed up there at the 35 hour week range.)

July - If we have money left over from our travels, we'll buy a bedroom set. Cal King bed, here we come! (No Cal King Bed but we did go to Oregon for a family vacation and met up with the Swingrover's. Fun times. Merry Christmas.)

August - Work & live. (Just that, worked & lived.)

September - Celebrate my 26th birthday. David has planned "date days" for my birthdays the last couple years. I'm sure he'll come up with something good. :) (We went to the John Mayer concert for my birthday, had a couple great baby showers and my parents came to visit.)

October - Celebrate our 1 year anniversary... by going "away" somewhere for that weekend. Probably be baby hungry, even though our plan is not to get pregnant for at least another year from this month. (We went up to Park City for the weekend of our anniversary... was baby hungry for our baby to come. And that he did on 10-24.)

November - Celebrate Thanksgiving & experience random snow showers across Salt Lake City. (We celebrated Thanksgiving with my extended family in Salt Lake and survived the month being sleep deprived new parents!)

December - Travel to visit family for Christmas. Probably be baby hungry again. (Went to CA for Christmas and not baby hungry. We watched our baby grow so much in December! Holy Cow... he's like a little boy!)

I'll check in on this post a year from now with what actually happened in 2010!