March Photos and Updates

We had a really low-key March since Trevor had lost his job and we had very little income. We spent a lot of time doing free things (like playing at home) and having playdates with friends.

Here's Charlie playing in his native habitat, his playroom! Gotta love that blue-eyed cutie. I also got adventurous with my baking and made my first ever pie from scratch! That's right... crust and all. It was a key lime pie (really just regular lime since you can't buy key limes around here) with graham cracker crust. The crust turned out tasty, but really crumbly. So I may buy pre-made graham cracker crusts from now on unless I can perfect a crust recipe! It was SO tasty and very sweet/rich! :)

Sometime during the middle of the month, my Mom came out to see us for a couple days! She accompanied a friend from NC to UT driving across the country and took the chance to stop in for a couple of days. We had a blast while she was here! We did quite a bit of fabric shopping for baby girl's quilt, went to the park, and to story time (which Charlie LOVED having his Kimma there)! This first picture is a comparison picture of Charlie on the same slide (left picture was taken one year prior to the right picture, taken this March). I can't believe how much he's grown, especially those legs!! The second picture was taken at story time during a bouncing/jumping activity that Charlie really likes.

Here's a picture of a typical Sunday afternoon after we get home from church. My boys are usually so exhausted that they'll fall asleep anywhere! A couple days later we had an early spring snow, so I turned on our new fireplace for warmth. It wasn't quite finished aesthetically, but it was functioning, so I turned it on! :)

Since we were getting less than 3 months out from having this baby girl, I decided to start transitioning Charlie to a big boy bed so I could free up the crib. I thought it might be a bad idea to switch him to a new room and a new bed at the same time he was getting a new baby sister. It might have been too many big changes at once. So, I went to Costco and bought a twin mattress and found a Cars brand sheet set from Walmart. We put the mattress on the floor, put about half of his toys in the closet, and tried out the big boy bed! It was a little iffy the first couple of nights with crying and confusion from Charlie, but he was really smart and, for the most part, always gets in his bed when he's feeling sleepy. It's been about 10 weeks and he's not perfect at napping every day (he probably doesn't nap 2 days a week, which isn't bad), but the main problem is that sometimes it would take him 2 hours of playing before he'd finally fall asleep for a nap around 3pm or so... which meant he didn't want to go to bed at 8 and wouldn't sleep at night until 9:30 or 10pm. Regardless of the irregularity, it's been a relatively easy experience. I have had to put ALL of his toys in his closet now at nap time to encourage sleeping, and that seems to work most days, but lately he's taken to getting behind the blinds and watching what's going on outside his windows. Haha. Oh well!

Pictured above is my man grilling us some amazing marinated pork loins and pineapple. We had a stint of warmer weather and we love to take the chance to grill when we can! MMMmmm! Below... Charlie found another comfy place to nap after church on the next Sunday. He loves to sleep with a pillow on top of him. It's so funny! And I also finally let him play with PlayDoh for the first time (a cheap, fun activity!!) despite my reservations about the mess it would make. It hasn't been too messy yet, so PlayDoh is not on my hate list anymore haha!

We were goofing around with a selfie photo session one day when I was being too pregnant and lazy on the couch. I just love his silly, sweet faces! "Say Cheeeeeese!"

And here's a picture of when I was pregnant at 28 weeks, getting ready to go to yoga. I have to say, doing yoga saves my LIFE when I'm pregnant. I can go in feeling like the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz and come out loose, relaxed, and happy again! Love love love! It was around this point where I was pretty uncomfortable quite often, as my belly was stretching exponentially and it was always really painful. Plus, little girl loves to roll around and poke me with her elbows, heels, knees, feet, etc... and that can get pretty uncomfortable after a while too! But I love her anyway :)

Pictured above, we had a blustery March storm roll through really quickly one evening, and when it passed, it left this gorgeous view out my back windows! LOVE these mountains! I'm so grateful for where I live! And below are just two more pictures of my boy. I couldn't help but snap a picture of him in his I<3NY tee while eating a slice of thin crust pizza. It was all too legit! Hahahaha... too bad we weren't actually IN New York City. That would have been fun! And last, his sassy face! Who can resist!?

We really do love this boy who is learning all sorts of new things every day, especially words and sounds. He's definitely 2-years-old, though, and throws his fair share of tantrums, refuses to listen to anything I say unless there's some sort of reward/treat attached, does what he wants when he wants, and shouts "NOOOOO" on a relatively frequent basis. He has more pent-up energy than I know what to do with, and often tries to smash his head into the floor or my face, or kicks things rapidly with his little feet while sitting down (including ME and my poor belly, ouch!). Heaven help me when this baby comes. But despite all the tiring days I have, his sweet personality and cute mannerisms make me the proudest, happiest Mom of all time! <3

February and Valentine's Day Festivities

February started out like any other normal winter month... trying to figure out fun things to do inside while it was too cold outside to play! I've started making some routine adjustments with Charlie, preparing him for baby sister to come. One adjustment is having him eat in the adult chairs and use his utensils more often. He's actually getting pretty good at eating cereal with milk... with minimal milk spilling each time ;)

The week leading up to Valentine's Day, we had our new backsplash installed! Finally! It took me forever to decide what type of backsplash I wanted, but I'm happy with the way it turned out. Here's the before and after pictures (and I can't believe how different everything looks with the lights turned on and turned off... the wall colors, countertop colors, and cabinet colors all stayed the same, even though they look so different!):

The day after we got our backsplash installed, and two days before Valentine's Day, Trevor lost his job. It was completely sudden and unexpected since the FTC just busted in and shut down operations instantly. It's never fun to lose your job, but Trev took it extra hard because he put so much of his time and heart and soul into his work for the last two years. It was also scary thinking about having all of our regular expenses to pay, plus losing our health insurance with a baby coming, without having much income at all. I wished I could help out in some way... get a part-time job or something... but I was feeling pretty worthless being almost 6 months pregnant. Anyway, I'll update more about all of that later... but it definitely put a damper on our activities for the following weeks.

Valentine's Day still came, as planned! :) I helped Charlie make homemade cards for his Daddy and Grandparents, and I even went to a girl's night where we made cards for our husbands!

Here's the front of my card to Trev, and the envelope of the card from Charlie to his Daddy:

Here's Trev's stash of cards and goodies, my two dozen BEAUTIFUL roses from my sweet husband, and a little treat and stuffed animal for Charlie:

I even decided to try my hand at baking sugar cookies from scratch! I found an excellent recipe online and the cookies were soft and delicious! Charlie was excellent at helping me press out the cookies. He kept saying "hahts" for hearts and counting them! :) I did cop out and buy the frosting, colored it pink, and then decorated the cookies with some help from Chandler (my brother Mike's girlfriend at the time... they were in town visiting!).

As evidenced by the above collection of photos, Charlie's becoming my little copycat these days. Both in facial expression and with his words. Gotta start watching what I say even more carefully! ;) We also had a couple days where it was warm enough to visit the neighborhood park. Thank goodness for FREE activities that help run my kid ragged! :) We spent quite a bit of time watching the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Charlie even tried his hand at figure skating in our living room (aka spinning in a circle!). So cute, little mimic! :)

Here's a picture of my pregnancy progress at 25 weeks. I was feeling so big and always had pains from stretching. The second picture is pretty self-explanatory... Dads make pretty good horses! Haha :)

Despite the job loss, we decided to go forward with our plans to add a fireplace and wainscoting to our living room, since we had just sent in a check for half the cost of the fireplace about a day before his company was shut down. Plus, I had done so much planning and picking out features for the fireplace that we figured we might as well just get it done. (Thank goodness for having some savings!) At the end of February, the process got started as we had contractors route the gas line, move the electrical, and start building the fireplace!

The weather started warming up just enough that the neighbors have been coming out of their houses and spending time outside! It has been SO nice! One of the neighbor girls even took Charlie for a ride in her battery-powered police car. Honestly, I'm the type of Mom where I get a little nervous when Charlie does something new for the first time... and I just hoped that he wouldn't try to stand up and get out while the little car was moving. Fortunately, he didn't, and he really enjoyed his ride! :) Maybe I need to learn to relax. Haha

March updates coming soon!!!

Happenings in January

After we flew back from our NC trip, we tried to stay busy through my least favorite month of the year: January. It's so cold, snowy, dark, and holiday-less that it can be hard to feel inspired to get off the couch and do much of anything, especially with me being pregnant. But, we did accomplish some things!

Charlie was the cutest date ever on our trip to the brand new Wendy's that opened in Saratoga Springs. I also had a full day to myself to go shopping for pregnancy clothes and home decor. I love how these living room shelves turned out! (Pictures have since been added to the frames).

We may or may not have gotten desperate enough that we went to the park when there was snow on the ground:

Daddy entertained Charlie with his block juggling skills:

I worried about an early onset of heartburn after getting it pretty bad one afternoon, but thankfully it hasn't been happening too often yet! Charlie and I also took at trip to Jump On It (a trampoline place that's free for little kids!!) with friends Jenny, Henry, and Amy.

We took Charlie to see his first ever movie in the theater! We saw Frozen. He did pretty well through the whole movie, especially considering it was almost nap time by the time we left. He loved munching on popcorn, and had a bit of a hard time sitting in the seat because he didn't weigh quite enough to keep the seat all the way down and his feet would stick up high. We had to hold him on our laps about halfway into it because he was getting uncomfortable. It reminded me of memories of feeling the same way when I was little... those movie theater chairs are annoying! ;)
We also grilled shrimp for the first time. It was actually my first time ever preparing shrimp at all! Fortunately I didn't have to de-vein them, but I did have to take off the shells and create a marinade, which was pretty labor-intensive.

We spent a lot of time eating food. Charlie had his first experience with Pez and he LOVED it:

And I did take him outside once while it was snowing (and not too cold) to play in the snow. He's not a big fan of falling in it or touching it, and it's really hard to keep his gloves on, but he sure looks cute out there! :) We I even built a tiny snowman, but he wasn't really interested in that yet, either. Haha. He mostly liked trying to chat with the neighbor kids walking home from the bus stop, and barking back at the dogs across the street.

Thank goodness January went by pretty quickly! I always look forward to February with great anticipation! :)

2013 Revisited

Off the top of my head, here are the things that most stuck out about our year in 2013:

• Trevor worked as an online business and marketing consultant all year, and I spent time every week helping to design websites for his clients. 
• I went to the gym almost daily in January and it was really nice to be so active.
• Because of my gym-going, Charlie was pretty sick for 3 weeks of January. Poor kiddo had RSV, bronchiolitis, and a double ear infection all back to back. 
• We moved into our new house in Eagle Mountain!
• My parents and brother visited for Easter, and we had a fabulous time celebrating, including letting Charlie have his first mini egg hunt in our front yard.
• Trevor and I took an overnight trip to Park City for our 5th wedding anniversary - and that was the first time we left Charlie overnight with someone (Trev's parents).
• Charlie turned 18 months old and got to go into nursery! Woo hoo!
• I travelled to California to be a bridesmaid in Chris (Kyle) Peterson's wedding. So fun!
• Trev and I played quite a few rounds of golf together, and I didn't improve much. :P
• I was called into young women's and a week later I got to go to girl's camp for a couple days.
• Charlie and I spent a lot of time at the neighborhood pool to cool off in the summer.
• Our good friends, the Kimballs, moved across the country to Philadelphia and it still makes me really sad to think about it. 
• I had my 26th birthday. Trevor turned 29!
• Charlie and I went to North Carolina in August for a week and it was Charlie's second official trip to the beach. 
• Trent received his mission call and left on his mission to Mexico.
• Mical got married to Jeremy in Springville, and I got to help set up for the wedding. It rained like crazy right before everything started, but it all still turned out beautifully!
• Our little family took our first ever road trip and vacation to California. We visited Las Vegas on the way, spent two days at Disneyland, and also hit up some beaches and the San Diego zoo. 
• I got pregnant with Baby #2 while on vacation. :D
• Charlie had his 2nd birthday with a really awesome Mickey Mouse party!
• We got to see my brother and his girlfriend at Halloween, and Charlie went trick or treating as a ninja.
• Thanksgiving was spent with Trevor's family, and we ate Thanksgiving dinner at his parents' house. So yummy!
• Found out that the gender of Baby #2 is a GIRL!
• We spent Christmas Eve at Trevor's parents' house, Christmas morning in our own house, and the rest of the Christmas season in North Carolina! And New Year's Eve, too.

A Carolina Christmas

Our flight to North Carolina on Christmas day evening went really well! We had a direct, non-stop flight from Salt Lake to Raleigh and it was glorious! With enough snacks and the saving grace of the iPad, Charlie did wonderfully. We arrived in NC around 11pm or so and drove back to my parents' house so Charlie could go to bed after saying hi to everyone. A couple hours later, Trevor and I went to bed too (around 2am EST). Unfortunately, only about an hour or so after that, Charlie woke up crying, so I gave him some Tylenol and helped him fall back asleep. That only lasted for 45 minutes. From about 4:30am on, he was up crying because he was in pain and he was SO tired and just wanted to sleep but he couldn't because his ear was hurting him. He had been getting over a week-long cold that had finally subsided, but flying on the airplane caused fluids to get into his ear canals and he got an ear infection. It was SO sad and hard not being able to do anything to help him until the doctor's office opened at 8am. It was also so hard not to get any sleep after all that traveling. We went to a local instacare when it opened and got the beloved prescription for some antibiotics. Poor Charlie was so tired, he finally passed out in Trevor's arms while waiting for the doctor, just to be awoken minutes later when the doctor came in.

This picture shows the difference between my happy boy on Christmas morning, and my tired, sick boy just 24 hours later. Quite a big change in such a short time. :(

Over the next week, he was on a regimen of Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Zyrtec, and antibiotics to help with the pain, bacteria, and fluids. At least he was feeling back to his normal self within a day of getting the drugs!

Sometime the next day, we got to open our presents. Charlie wasn't too interested in the actual opening part (still!), but he did enjoy the gifts he got, especially the Mickey Mouse figurines from Uncle Mike!

Later in the week, after extended family from my Mom's side arrived in town, a few of us - me, Trev, Uncle Don, Caroline, and Margaret - decided to go to the local UNC basketball game! (We would have gone to Duke, but it's about 10x more expensive!). This was our view from our seats in the upper stands. The game was an easy one for Carolina to win, so it wasn't super interesting, but it was still fun to have the experience!

Trevor was pretty excited to see Michael Jordan's  jersey hanging from the rafters!

And we also were the LAST ones in line to get a picture with UNC's mascot, Ramses! (Darn it, I'm half blinking!)

After the game, we drove around campus for a minute and Trev and I got a couple pictures snapped at the old well on campus. Tourism at its finest. ;)

Other Christmas activities included roasting hot dogs and s'mores over a backyard bonfire, singing Happy Birthday to Jesus and eating cake, eating lots of delicious fresh mex food made by my Dad, and playing lots of games of nertz!

The weather was also pretty nice while we were there, especially compared to frigid, snowy Utah, so we spent a couple hours one day at Pullen Park, letting Charlie play on the playground and ride the carousel and choo-choo train! He really just loved it all, even though he was very ready for a nap when we were done! :)

At some point during the trip we went to Albemarle for a day to visit Nana and Granddaddy and my Dad's side of the family. I really can't remember what part of the trip it happened in. We did so much in just 8 days that it's all a bit of a blur when I try to pull it up from memory! Charlie loved seeing Nana and getting to play with all of her toys.

For New Year's Eve, we (Me, my Mom, my Dad, Mike and Trevor) rang in 2014 rather low-key by watching the Texas A&M vs Duke football game, where Duke lost, sadly, but just barely at the end. And then we watched the ball drop on the big screen TV in my parent's basement while sipping some sparkling cider. We are party animals!

We also visited the Marble's Children's Museum one rainy afternoon for a couple hours. I'm pretty sure Trevor liked it as much as Charlie did! Haha :)

The flight back home also went very well, and fortunately it didn't cause Charlie's ears to start hurting again (thank you Zyrtec and antibiotics!!). Here's Charlie looking so grown up in his OWN seat on the plane:

We had so much fun that it took me a few days to get enough energy to get back to normal life! Sometimes you need a vacation after your vacation, and here's me the next day after getting home in my sweats and no makeup to prove it! :)

Merry Christmas (and New Year's) 2013!