Our Obedient Child

We taught Colby to fold his arms during prayers.  At dinner and for bedtime we've been teaching him how to pray.  He's gotten pretty good at the routine.  He's even put me in my place.  Andrew was late for dinner, so I just made something small.  I put Colby in his highchair and sat down to eat.  I put food on my fork to give to Colby and as i turned around there was my little boy, sitting quietly with his arms folded. I had forgotten to pray and he reminded me. Whoops.

Today, I decided to read the lesson for Relief Society.  I sat in bed with Andrew and Colby and started reading outloud.  The lesson started off mentioning Heavenly Father, and Colby folded his arms (thinking i was praying). I continued reading, and he continued to fold his arms.  Andrew had to whisper "amen" in his ear to finally relieve him from folding his arms so he could get back to reading his own book.

Now i know he is picking things up pretty quickly.  I just hope he picks up more good habits than bad.

our first christmas tree

With Christmas commercials all over the TV, people putting up Christmas lights, i couldn't help but feel that our home needed a little help. it was beginning to feel very empty to me. so Andrew and i set out to get a few decorations for inside our house, and to get our very first christmas tree together! This is our 4th christmas together as a married couple, and our very first tree.  Even though we aren't going to be here for christmas, we are going to be home long enough to enjoy the tree. it was a wonderful idea. i love having that tree in our house and i love the smell! Christmas is my favorite time of year and i'm so glad we can actually enjoy it in our new home too!

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving week was SO MUCH FUN! Andrew and I had decided that we weren't going to go home so that we would be able to make it home for Christmas, and it turns out, Dan and Britt weren't going home either so they drove up to our house, and my parents and Kami decided to come down to us as well. (Jason and Fe were stuck in Idaho because LAME teachers scheduled tests so they couldn't get home in time). My Aunt Robin also came up from Arizona to join us so we had a full house and i loved every minute of it!  I'm so greatful that my family was able to come and spend the holidays with us so that andrew and i weren't alone during this time. I had taught Colby how to say Nana and Papa so when they came they got that great surprise :) Even now that they're gone Colby walks around the house calling for papa, it's sad, but also very cute. 

Our Thanksgiving day was a very relaxing and enjoyable day. We got things ready in the morning, and hung out all afternoon. We took colby on a walk through the park (7 adults and a 16 month old, that's right). I'm going to miss my family, but we'll see them soon for Christmas!

Colby helping us make rolls

he went ahead and helped himself to the cool whip



all of us hanging out together :)



our trip to the park



he actually loves this little kid bench, but it doesn't look like it



Uncle Dan taught Colby a few work out moves. This was DEFINITELY a great end to our holiday. This kid always makes me laugh! i love him so much!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is so much fun with a toddler! We started celebrating our halloween at a ward trunk or treat on Friday. We had the cutest little monkey there! Colby could care less about the candy, but he did have a blast walking around the parking lot and exploring. 

Saturday Dan and Brittany came up from LA to join us for the day.  We had so much fun! we went to the pumpkin patch and searched for our favorite pumpkins.  who knew a little kid could be so obsessed with pumpkins? Colby was fun to watch and he went from pumpkin to pumpkin.

 That night we carved our pumpkins.  Brittany found a super cute idea, so we copied it!

baby #2

so the news is out there, we're having another baby.  we're so excited! i'm almost 12 weeks along i believe. my first appointment is on Nov 3rd so we'll get more information then.
i knew something was up before i took the test.  we've been working so hard on the house and all of a sudden i woke up with absolutely no energy, i didn't understand why i was so tired.  I waited a while to take the test because andrew wasn't ready for the results yet, but i finally convinced him :) My concern is that i was using crazy chemicals on the house before i took the test, so i hope everything is okay even though i was around bad fumes. With colby i got sick around 8 weeks and it lasted until about 20 weeks.  this time around, the sickness started at about 5 weeks. I can only hope it leaves before 20 weeks so that i can eat healthy again and actually eat Thanksgiving dinner! (yes that is a big concern of mine :) ).  So this time around i've got exhaustion, sickness, the random headaches, but that's about it! even though i'm not a fan of the first trimester symptoms, i'm trying to keep in mind how blessed i am that i'm pregnant and as far as we know, everything is okay with our little peanut. i know it could be worse, so i'm trying to keep the right perspective. AH i can't believe my little baby is going to be a big brother!

here's to a great weekend

Colby finally got his 12 month check-up, even though he's 14 months. all this moving and insurance switching is making it hard to get into the doctor. I absolutely hate when he has to get shots, he just looks at me like i need to fix it, but i can't! we also had to go to the lab to get his blood drawn, yes they had to draw it out of his vein, so i had to pin him down while this was happening. it was horrible, but he stopped crying right after i let him go, he's a little trooper.  he's doing well though! he's still a little guy, but he seems happy so i'm not too worried that he's small. here are his stats:

20 lbs 10 ounces

31 inches long

he's in the 50% for weight and about 10% for height i believe, but she said it was okay. i'm working on cutting back on his milk intake since he's getting WAY too much and stopping him from eating i think (by the way thank you everyone who gave me advice on what to do! i've tried different things and we're getting some improvement! yay!).

on a different note, this past weekend my whole family went home to oregon. There was so much going on that made it go by way too fast. i'm so glad we were able to go home, but so sad that it was the fastest weekend ever. we flew in at midnight friday night. Saturday we went to Mike and Cara's wedding (Mike is Andrew's brother). it was so much fun! it was great to see all of andrews family, and it was great to be able to put colby in such a cute outfit for it :)

On Sunday we had Leiahna's baby blessing. Congrats to Jason and Francisca for having such a beautiful baby girl! She is such a good baby! I'm sad i only got to see her for such a short time, and i wont be able to see her again until Christmas.

 

I thought this was such a cute picture of my mom with her grandkids. She was just so happy to have them around her.  

 

 I can't wait to see everyone again!

I need help

my issue for the past weeks or possibly months is this.... Colby hardly eats!  i'm a picky eater, and andrew is picky with textures...when you put that together you get a child that doesn't eat! I don't know if anyone has figured out sneaky ways to get their child to eat. Here's our situation, for breakfast i feed him a banana (sometimes he eats almost the whole thing, sometimes it's 2 bites) then he has maybe a couple crackers and goes to town on milk. For lunch i can get him to eat a chicken nugget and maybe a little bit of string cheese (if he's in the mood).  for dinner...NOTHING. i try to feed him what we're eating, but he wont touch anything if it's not chicken nuggets or fruit. he wont even put it near his mouth. i try to feed him yogurt and such, but he wont eat anything off his spoon because he thinks i'm giving him baby food (which he hates now). eventually i get desperate and right before bed i'll give him a bagel (which he'll have a couple bites) and then i give him more fruit. the last couple nights i haven't given him fruit because i don't want him to get used to the thought "if i don't eat that, i'll get fruit" but then again i don't know if he's too young for me to be putting my foot down that much? i know he drinks a lot of milk, so thats basically where he's getting the idea that he's full, but even when i take his milk away he still wont eat food that easily.  as far as veggies go, SOMETIMES he'll have corn, but veggies usually don't happen.  oh and 1 more thing...i haven't been feeding him in the high chair because all he does is throw his food over the edge and i get mad, so i just put a plate on the floor and he eats on the go. it's not what i want him to do, but i need him to eat! any advice?

a lot of random

sucking colby's boogers out is no fun, to him or me. i literally have to pin him down to get him to stay still enough for me to be able to get his snot out.  We were both sick a couple weeks ago, and now colby is sick AGAIN. he has only been sick once in his life and now twice in 2 weeks?! poor guy.

he's also teething like crazy, so that could play a factor. he has 2 more top teeth on his left side and is working on 2 more on his right, so right now my little boy has 12 teeth. he's really growing up!

as of Saturday, we are officially done nursing. I've been tapering him off since around 11 months or so, and i've been super scared to stop nursing him before bedtime, but i guess he didn't care. haha. i think it's harder for me than him. my little man is growing up so fast! 

he's walking everywhere like he owns this place, and i guess he pretty much does.

He also loves swimming. I was just planning on letting him walk around in the backyard, but he had other plans.

I feel likes its been forever since i've posted a blog. here's a little update on whats going on with our little family.

We officially moved into our new house on the 6th of this month, and it's been crazy for the rest of the time. We decided to completely remodel our home...while living here. Andrew, Jason, Bob, some help from Andrew's friend, and I were luckily able to get most of the tile laid before we moved in. We painted the walls, and we are painting the cabinets (which means nothing can go in the cabinets), we replaced the countertops (which means no sinks) and because of the kitchen remodel all we had was a microwave and the fridge for 3 weeks (yay for frozen burritos!). I'm the happiest lady in the world since we put in our kitchen sink, dishwasher, and stove. Even though we still can't put things in the cabinets, i'm so happy to be able to somewhat use our kitchen! Things are coming along, andrew works all day, and then comes home and we work until about 12-1 getting things done. perhaps we took on too much, but its fun in a weird way. All this work and no sleep has apparently taken a tole on us, colby and I are now sick (although he's handling it better than me) and i'm praying Andrew doesn't get sick - he can't afford to be even more drained than he already is. Even though it's incredibly hard living with your house torn apart with a very curious 1 year old, it'll be worth it. it's fun to start to see all of our hard work to pay off. I'll post before and after pictures when we're done! (hopefully that'll be soon)

Dana Point

This past week Colby and i were in Dana Point with my family. Andrew was in LA for training, so it worked out perfectly that my parents planned this little vacation during the same time so that i didn't have to be alone all week. We had such a great time, i just love going to the beach! The beach is just so much more fun now that i get to watch colby enjoy it. He actually hated the sand at first (not sure why, we've been to the beach lots before and he never had a problem) but by the end of the week he was eating the sand, so i guess he was ok with it. He could hardly control his excitement about the ocean though, he just loved the waves.

He built sand castles with Uncle Jay
Went surfing with Aunty Kami

and ate cheerios that were thrown on the sand for the squirrels

I love the vacations where we just hang out together and go to the beach every day and have some good laughs. my favorite.

We were an hour or more away from Andrew in LA, but one of the days last week we were able to meet up with andrew in Huntington Beach (halfway point - kinda). Colby was so so so happy to finally see his daddy! We were trying to take cool pictures by the ocean, all of a sudden andrew takes colby from me and starts running the opposite way without saying a word. Thank goodness i have catlike reflexes and i see the huge wave thats headed towards us...thanks for the heads up hubby. love you too.

when it rains....

This last week has been one heck of a week! i'm ready for it to be over. andrew and i need to be done stressing out! it all started when we woke up Sunday morning to see that somebody had ripped one of the ski racks off our car (no, those weren't cheap). so we only have one ski rack now. what can you do with one ski rack? it makes me sad to think there are people out there that do that. welcome to the real world i guess. Things started to go smoothly at the beginning of the week, we were cruising through our loan documents and signed them on Tuesday. i talked to someone who said we should get the keys in 24-48 hours after they receive the documents (so on thursday or friday). we were pumped! it would work out perfectly since we are going to be in LA from the 22nd to the 29th, we were excited to get started on the remodeling we wanted to do on the 22nd before we headed down since my dad would be here to help. On Wednesday i did a lot of running around with my parents to get things ready. We picked out the tile we wanted, and i was able to drop my car off at the shop to get it looked at since it's been acting up. when i picked up the car the guy balanced my tires for free! oh it was such a blessing! i was so happy on wednesday! everything was working out for us! thursday came and we didn't hear a word about the house, and the car started acting up again. so today (friday), i took the car to the honda dealership (a different place cuz i felt weird taking it back to the guy who just "fixed" it for free). well... turns out it's an axel problem. there goes $500. and the house...well we'll be lucky if we even get in by next weekend. apparently our lender has just been sitting on all the paperwork we gave him for 3 weeks, and today they sent us a bunch of things we still needed to sign. now we have to close while andrew is in LA on business and i'm 30 minutes away at Dana Point with my family. i mean, we'll make it work, but it's frustrating to be told one thing and then it turns out completely different.

ok so i know this sounds like i'm just venting, and maybe i am - but i'm really trying to see the blessings it in all.

the ski racks - yeah that sucks, but now we don't have a whistling sounds when we're driving down the freeway right? our car may look a little more girly, and be harder to spot when i'm walking out of the grocery store and forget where i parked, but the racks can be replaced.

the axel? well, sure i wish it was just the tires being unbalanced, but thank goodness that guy didn't charge me to balance the tires since that wasn't really the problem. his intentions were good, and thank goodness we had the car checked out today and found the problem so we can leave that car in the shop while we are in LA. That was the car we were going to take to LA, i'm glad we found out the way we did, and not when we got in a huge accident. besides, $500 isn't bad to put into a car that we've had for 3 years. i'm also glad we found out while my parents were here so we have an extra vehicle and the time to figure out what was wrong with the car.

not getting the house today... still trying to find the blessing, but my mom made a good point. andrew is exhausted. he hardly comes home before 8 at night. he's working 12+ hours a day, and if we got the house, he would go right to work and work ALL day saturday to get as much done as he could. and now, he has to relax. there is nothing for him to do. it will be very nice for him.

everything happens for a reason.

I have a 1 year old!

I can't believe how fast this year went! Colby is 1! He is such a joy to have around. He sure keeps me busy! For his birthday he had lots of family in town! Bob and Diana came down for the weekend, and my parents were also able to come down, Dan and Brittany came up from LA for the weekend too! Dan's birthday was a few days before, so we had a little combined birthday party celebration. We had so much fun that day!

We went swimming. The pool was pretty cold, but Colby handled it pretty well.

Ate cake. Actually the rest of us ate cake. Colby just stared at his.

and opened presents. lots and lots of presents.

then checked out Dans new ride

I love having a little 1 year old. He is showing that he understands me more and more. I can ask him where something is (only a couple things) and he'll go over to it. He even started signing a couple things out of the blue. I hadn't taught him anything since he was like 9 or 10 months because he didn't seem to be paying attention, and all of a sudden he starts signing. He loves putting things in boxes and taking them out. He loves trying to walk. Loves taking things out of the fridge and trying to put them back in. and loves the dishwasher. He "talks" all the time, but of course it never makes sense.

I'm so glad and grateful that my parents, brother and sister-in-law, and in-laws were able to make the trip to be here for Colby's birthday. It really meant a lot to me that they were here.

Some videos

Colby absolutely loves his daddy! whenever Andrew comes home from work he goes crazy and gets so hyper! He's grown more attached to Andrew than to me, even though i'm with him all day (perhaps he just needs a break from me), whatever the reason, i love watching how happy he is with his dad!

Colby also started walking more and more. He's still a crawler, but loves to walk when he gets the chance! Don't mind that i laugh at him fall, he gets mad at me for that :)

4th of July

This weekend was so great, i LOVED having Andrew to myself for 3 days! (unfortunately now he's going to be working super hard the rest of the week). We were invited over to a friends house for the 4th, we had a nice bbq and good company.

The crying crawl

It may appear as though they were sharing, but really they were both trying to get it to themselves

It was 105 degrees out, so we only set off a few fireworks. I wanted to see Colby's reaction, but since we weren't at home he didn't get his afternoon nap, and by this time could really care less about the fireworks. Poor boy was on the move so much he was just sweating like crazy.

Six Flags

Yesterday, Andrew, Kami, Colby, and I went to Six Flags...for FREE! CBIZ was having a company picnic/party thing there, so we all got free tickets. It worked out perfectly that Kami was going to be visiting that weekend so that we could go and actually go on rides! We switched off who went on rides and who had baby duty. Can i just tell you...that place is AMAZING! We're planning on going back sometime in the next month when my parents are here for Colby's birthday, so they can just babysit and Andrew and I can REALLY enjoy the park and go on lots of RIDES. Colby sure did make it fun though, he was so good and didn't complain even though the only place it let him play was the stroller because the ground grossed me out.

karma

Andrew and i were having an interesting conversation yesterday. The whole argument started a couple days ago when andrew called a little skit, a "sketch". i proceeded to call him an idiot, and ask him (or tell him) that he meant "skit". I decided to look it up yesterday as the argument resurfaced. This is a great example of why you should proof read before you talk smack. this is how that conversation went:

Tara: "See andrew! you google sketch and you get drawings, you google skit and you get....a comedy sketch"

CRAP! Well he won that one.

Well later that night we watched "Did You Hear About The Morgans?" I was telling Andrew how I have a big nose, just like Sarah Jessica Parker. His reply, "no you don't, she doesn't have a big nose either." i responded with the smart remark "yeah huh!" I looked up pictures of Sarah Jessica Parker to prove my point. He still didn't budge. So he told me to google "girl with big nose". so i did. first thing we see... HUGE picture of Sarah Jessica Parker.

Scoreboard
Andrew: 1 Tara: 1

Soccer

Andrew signed up for a soccer league this summer. He had his first game yesterday and they tied! (the other team scored at the last second! dang). Andrew was DYING! He hasn't had time to work out very much the last 6 months. i made him go running with me in the morning, and after 20 minutes of playing soccer his legs were pretty much noodles. but he had fun, and colby and I had fun watching him.

what a weekend

Andrew made his own dinner the other night.

Ingredients: mac and cheese, black beans, chilli powder, pepper, ketchup, and cheese. i know it's been a while since he's cooked, but what the heck? that's completely wrong! He had a spoonful ready for me to taste it. after some convincing on his part, i told him i'd try it if he made me brownies so i could counteract the disgusting taste in my mouth.

Turns out it was good! i'm a little bummed about that, i didn't get my brownies.

On another completely unrelated note: I've decided house hunting is DEFINITELY not as fun as it may appear. I thought it would be awesome to look through a bunch of homes and then pick one that i liked and make an offer. Not only do i have to sacrifice a lot of what i was hoping to get, but most the houses we find we get outbid on. I knew in some homes you get into "bidding wars" but i didn't realize it was on EVERY house. There are other homes that have been on the market for a long time, but then i start wondering...why have they been on the market a long time? what's wrong with them? turns out looking at homes is completely exhausting when you only have an hour or so during Andrew's lunch, and a baby that needs to nap. And then you deal with getting a loan. UGH. but i'm SO anxious to get out of an apartment and make our house our own :) ultimately, i know we'll end up where we're supposed to. we just have to keep our spirits up and keep looking.

This last weekend Kami came up to visit from Arizona. She spent some time here, then went to LA and then came back here with Dan and Britt, we went out to dinner, and made smores over the stove.

Kim and Jeff were also on a trip and were able to stop by on sunday for a bit to see us. it was a great weekend filled with visitors! Kim and Jeff also have a dog, Nessie. I thought for sure colby would start crying once he saw Nessie, but turns out he kinda liked her, even though he was getting knocked over. i guess the dog licks all over the face made up for that, plus Nessie brought some new food for him to try.

going private

it's that time... i'm making my blog private. just leave your email address if you want an invite on my blog or on facebook!

Best Toy Ever

Colby was having a little too much fun out of our sight this afternoon. When you don't hear anything at all, it's never a good thing.

Sherwood

Being in Sherwood this last week was amazing! i just love being back in my home town. Colby was having issues all week....issues with his bowels that is. we had many dirty diapers a day, most at VERY inopportune times. He even left a little surprise in Nana's bathtub, and no, it was not a snickers. To make things even better, Nana was on bath duty that night.
And then there was the restaurant as we were heading out of town. We heard some intense pushing coming from the backseat on the way to the restaurant, only to find that colby's little Huggies did not do their job. It took a tag team with my mom and me to clean up the explosion in the bathroom at the restaurant. Needless to say, there were casualties - the new shirt my mom got me now bears colby's mark forever. But who can stay mad at this kid? Especially when he's at the wheel.


Andrew and i were finally able to go on a date. It was a short date, we made a break for it while colby took a nap. We jumped on my dads motorcycle and headed straight to.... the movie theater. kinda pathetic right? we finally get to go on a date and we go to a theater. well we had movie ticket gift cards that we had to use. truthfully, it didn't matter what we did, it was just great to be the two of us for a couple hours. and to ride on the back of a motorcycle again!

My first Mothers Day was fun! i told Andrew that i wanted a couple shirts and molten lava cake for mothers day. We celebrated mothers day on Tuesday when we headed to the Woodburn outlet mall so i could pick out the shirts i wanted, and that night we made molten lava cake. PERFECT mothers day. It was a perfect mothers day as well - Colby got super spoiled by Nana at the outlet mall.

Bend

After Cabo, Andrew, me, and Colby headed up to Oregon to extend our vacation for 2 more weeks. We went straight to Bend to spend some time with Andrew's parents. We went shooting, walked around Sunriver, and went shopping at the Bend Outlet mall (which i thought would be a lot bigger). It was a fun week and great for Colby to get to know his Grandma and Grandpa Leith better.

All ready to go shooting! looking like a big boy!

A new toy





Spending time with Grandma while we shoot the guns

Protecting his little ears

My parents were also there for a bit, and fed Colby oranges

and bones

Next week: Sherwood