Lately

I figured I should post again one last time before this baby makes her debut in what seems like a scarily short amount of time. I can't even believe I'm so close even though I feel like I've been pregnant forever and physically I am feeling done. But I know that we will probably try for a third and that I'll long for these kicks and discomfort again because of what it means.

Anyway, jumping back a few months I had a birthday and not just any birthday... the big one. The big 3-0. That's a little strange to wrap my head around but no matter how old you are you always feel like yourself. I had just barely gotten completely over my horrible intestinal infection and we went out to eat and then to a Pumpkin Patch with our friends the Mannings. I've probably said it before but birthdays are pretty simple when you're an adult.

I was looking forward to the three crazy holiday months to move my pregnancy along faster and keep me busy and man did they ever keep me busy! To the point where now I'm wondering where all the time went and feeling like there is still so much to do! Halloween came and went-- Luke was Harry Potter and we went to our ward Trunk or Treat. On the day of my parents were in town looking at houses because they had decided to move here so they stayed at our house and handed out candy so Bryan and I could both go out with Luke. We took him out last year but he was more in to it (if not a little stubborn due to his age) this year and understood the whole knocking and getting candy thing. Around this same time we transferred him to his new Outer Space big boy room so we could start transforming his old room into a girly nursery (still in progress).

Bryan also had his big birthday and had to stop calling me a cougar for the one month he gets to each year. I honestly can't remember what we did the day of other than going to his new favorite Thai restuarant, Thai Delight, but I made him a couple different birthday cakes because his dad came in to town a few days before so we celebrated with him and then again a few days after with his mom. I also decided to host Thanksgiving (am I a maniac?) so I had the whole turkey and everything to do. It actually wasn't too bad (I was not as big then as I am now...) and the turkey, while it took a little while longer to cook than I'd planned, was great!

Then we celebrated our favorite (to that point) birthday in our family-- our sweet Luke turned 3! It's so hard to believe that he was my little baby and now he runs around and has full on conversations with us-- mostly sweet ones but some definitely stubborn ones as well. I have pictures from all these things but am currently too lazy to post them and pretty much all the people reading this are my Facebook friends and can and probably have already seen them. I had been planning on throwing him a real party this year and doing all kinds of fun holiday stuff with him since it's his last year alone with us and I wanted to make a big deal for him but... I didn't take into account that I wouldn't have the energy I normally have while getting bigger every day. I hope he had fun, anyway. My parents were in town again to close on a house they had decided on so they were able to celebrate with us. I took Luke to McDonald's for lunch and invited some of his little friends to join us at the play place and then we all went out to dinner later. My parents got Luke a train table and we got him a train set and he was so excited! Later we had another birthday party with his Grandma Sandi and Uncle Mike and she got him a neat Codepillar so he can learn to be a programmer like his dad! Whereas I had made Bryan's cakes from scratch I just didn't have the energy anymore and let Luke pick out a couple of box cakes for the different parties.

The day after Luke's birthday I took him to the pediatrician here for the first time and while I was sitting in the waiting room to go in I got a call from Bryan, which is odd since we generally only text while he is at work. He told me that, due to changes in his department, the Church would not be renewing his contract. Panic attacks immediately set in and worries about having to sell our brand new home while pregnant and feeling soooo not able to do that... I was so frustrated because we had moved our entire lives from Boise for this job. I wondered if we had made a mistake in accepting it. I felt the contracting agency had not been totally forthcoming with us about everything. Bryan knew the contract was technically for just one year but the agency really minimized that and said things to the affect that he'd definitely be renewed for a second year and likely be hired on full time after that. When Bryan first started it became apparent that getting hired on full time was a very difficult thing to do at the church due to their having a pension plan and other things. I think from the moment I learned that I started to feel an anxiety at the back of my heart. So we kind of knew that we'd have to be looking for another job but still thought we had two years. Luckily Bryan was still able to finish his contract while looking for other jobs so we didn't have a gap between jobs. He put out several resumes and had one phone interview and another scheduled but a recruiter coincidentally contacted him at the exact time he was looking and set up an in-person interview with him. That went really well and they ended up offering him a position soon after. The compensation and benefits were great and ended up being a better situation than we'd had before (for instance, as a contract worker we had to get our own private insurance which was quite costly). We decided to accept and finally realized that this could be a blessing in disguise. Bryan had never been truly happy with his job at the church-- mostly because of being a contract employee. He felt kind of disposable and not truly valued, which I think he needs in order to thrive in a job. I've decided that what really happened with our move from Boise is that Heavenly Father knew we needed to be in Utah but a job working for the Church was the only way to get us to move here. I very adamantly did not want to move to Utah but Bryan had had a dream of working for the Church since his mission so I couldn't ignore that. It was a really hard move at the time but we are happy to be here now. Bryan started his new job at Workfront last week and has already been really impressed with it and feels valued (yay!). He's been quite happy there, which makes me happy and I think I feel a lot less stressed now that "the worst" has happened and we've made it through. We were actually really blessed because the period of time between finding out we wouldn't have a job and getting a new one was pretty short. I'm grateful for that!

Well anyway, another huge thing that happened is that my parents officially moved here about a week before Christmas! It was crazy fast but has been so nice already to just be a half an hour drive away from them. One scary thing that happened, though, was that my dad had a heart attack scare on New Year's Day and had to be rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. We were all really on edge and emotional. He's had a major heart attack before and had to have surgeries. We were very lucky to find out that he was able to get nitroglycerin soon enough to stop it from being a full on heart attack. He ended up not needing to have any further surgeries this time and we were all so grateful for that. We need him in our lives for a long, long time. He is a stable, kind, thoughtful and loving father and I couldn't have asked for more.

Going back a bit, though, we had our first Christmas in our new house and had a nice, small morning with just the three of us before heading to church. After we were able to go spend the evening at my parents' house and have Christmas dinner. It was so nice to be there! We were unable to see Sandi because of a recent intense knee replacement she'd had but we got to go up and spend the following weekend with her. This Christmas was scary because right in the midst of present buying we had our job scare so everything was put on hold for a couple weeks until we accepted our new offer. Thanks for saving Christmas Workfront!

And now we are down to the final stretch of pregnancy before the baby is born. I am so ready/not ready. I don't know the last time I made so many Google Sheets trying to be organized for freezer meals, hospital bag, house cleaning, thank you notes, etc etc etc. There is so much left to be done and I really doubt everything on our list will actually get there but I'll try to do the most essential, at least. Everyone asks me how I'm feeling and I generally say I have no energy or patience (two things you really need with a three year old). I also feel enormous, she moves around all the time (amazing and uncomfortable at the same time), my heartburn is killing me, I have to change sides constantly at night for hip pain and of course I constantly have to pee. To reiterate from earlier, my body is feeling done sharing with another human being. This time my doctor plans to induce me at 39 weeks if I'm at all dilated at 37 weeks because of how quickly Luke came (or would have if we hadn't been able to slow things down with an epidural). I am always so scared of not making it to the hospital (20 minutes away) in time and having the baby in the car. Luke came at 38 weeks 6 days so as long as I can make it to 39 hopefully we'll be okay. It'll be strange to experience a full on labor instead of having my water break and already be dilated to a 9! Who knows what to expect? It's kind of terrifying. One thing I'm certain of, though, is that the next time I'm writing in this blog I'll be a mom of two and I'll be telling exactly how it all did happen. For now, I'm signing off.

Recap

Does anyone even blog anymore? I kind of forgot about it for a while and was actually surprised my last post was as recent as it was. I'm way too lazy to go back and write posts to account for the last seven months so I'm going to summarize here. Honestly, I'm still even writing so I have some form of journal to account for things we've done as a family. I'm happy if people read it but I recently decided to turn the privacy on the blog back on, as I just think I put too much personal information in here for everyone and anyone to read.

Since we last met (or even a little before):

• Luke turned 2! We had a small family birthday and were traveling back to Boise to start moving on the actual day. I owe him big time this year. 
• We moved! So stressful. 
• We flew out to Maryland for Christmas and were able to see my parents' beautiful new home. The Rudds and Handleys came as well. We got to see Star Wars: the Force Awakens and took a girl's trip to Pittsburgh to see where Lindsay (my sister) lives.
• We flew back to Utah and Bryan started his new job working on Temple Square. We lived in his mom's basement for 3 months and celebrated a small Valentine's Day there.
• We sold our home in Boise :(
• We bought a new home in West Jordan, UT :) 
• We moved in, unpacked (mostly) and now I feel very much back to my normal self instead of the ball of stress I was for the time we were unsettled.
• We celebrated St. Patrick's Day and Easter (We rode on the Easter Train in Heber and then spent the weekend in Morgan)
• We had a small BBQ with Bryan's sister for the 4th of July and enjoyed some fireworks that were going off all over our neighborhood.
• My family came out for a little reunion and stayed with us. Some of them are still here and I have another sister and her daughters coming to stay this week! 

This list makes it seem like we haven't been very busy but a lot has been going on, especially this month. Now that we're settled I hope I can get back to posting at least about our holidays and other major events. 

A New Adventure

When we graduated college and moved out of Utah three and a half years ago I was confident that we would never come back to live there again. Boise, Idaho welcomed us with open arms and we fell in love with this place we'd never given much thought to before. I would be so happy to stay here many more years and yet...

We are moving to Utah.

Yep.

That's happening.

Back in August we went down to Utah for a family vacation, spending time with both of our families. Bryan started to say that he was feeling like we should move back to be closer to our family. While I love both sides very dearly, I vehemently put my foot down. I didn't want to live in Utah and I never had. My life was in Boise, the cost of living was so much better here, we live close enough for an easy road trip, Bryan has such a good job... I enumerated the reasons until I was blue in the face. We finally decided we wouldn't move anywhere until we were sure we could be financially stable there.

At the beginning of October someone reached out to Bryan on LinkedIn from LDS.org. He has dreamed of working for the church since his mission when he was assigned as an Office Elder and helped them with their computers. It was there that he decided that he would study Computer Science and was excited at the thought of using that interest he already had to further the work of the Church. Coincidentally, it is through a fellow mission buddy that he was recommended to work at Clearwater, his current company. Most of the blessings in our life together stem from Bryan's mission. So, when the recruiter for the Church contacted him Bryan told them that he was very happy at his current job but that he would go ahead with the interview.

At first I thought it would probably just be a passing thing-- that I didn't have anything to worry about. In the past I have heard that the Church doesn't pay very well and we didn't want to take a step down financially so we would stay put. We figured if he did get the offer it might be just slightly higher than what we were making now to compensate for cost of living. Bryan went through a few phone interviews, an online test and a Skype interview. Each successive interview mounted my stress and my fear but I kept coming back to the salary and my love for Boise and felt mostly confident we would stay.

I really fought the idea of living in Utah tooth and nail since it has never been a place I imagined raising my family. Growing up on the East Coast, I had a totally different experience in my religious and cultural life from what my Utah born friends described. I liked what I'd had-- valued it. I did seek out the BYU college experience and wanted that but never expected to stay beyond it. I hate to really point out on this blog the reasons I was so sick about Utah itself because I have a lot of lovely friends who are wonderful people who were born and/or raised there. Lets just say that there were several cultural and religious reasons I didn't want to live there. So Bryan knew all of my concerns and had even told his recruiter about them. He was very back and forth, saying we loved where we lived and that especially his wife didn't want to leave but then he kept doing well in interviews. The recruiter had one of their employees and his wife call us so we could ask them questions. They were both specifically not from Utah and had even moved from Idaho for the job. I went into the conversation not thinking it would change my mind in the slightest but talking to them was comforting. They'd felt a lot of the same things we felt and told us how their experience had been so much better than expected. After that I felt slightly more at peace about going to Utah but I still was having a hard time leaving.

Before his final interview, Bryan's recruiter called and let him know the salary that they had decided on, should the offer be extended to us. To put it lightly, we were taken aback. It was quite a bit more than we expected from them. At that point, it seemed inevitable to me that if he did get the offer we would go. Still, after his final interview he was told there were two other people that needed to be interviewed still and that we'd know the following week. We both felt like if he got it then that would be exciting but we'd still have to make a final decision but if he didn't we would be relieved and happy to stay here. Those few days were torture.

Then, he got it. Still reeling from this. We still hadn't decided but we had until Friday to do so. We felt like it was a good opportunity to work for the church and to be near family and the salary was very tempting. We were like 99% there with the decision but... my heart wouldn't let go. I needed a spiritual confirmation that this could be right for us. Of course we had been praying and fasting about it but I still felt unsettled and our temple happened to be closed for cleaning at the time. We decided to ask to have blessings for each of us. We had our friend and member of the bishopric come over to do so and before he did he sat with us and talked through the whole situation. He himself is a seminary teacher so he does work for the church and talked a lot of his experience there and what Bryan's experience might be. How it would bless our home to have him directly serving the Lord and furthering the work. That is a spirit I cannot wait to have in my home more. During both blessings, he mentioned several things we hadn't even discussed with him that were weighing on our minds and so many things from mine touched me. One in particular that he mentioned that really touched me is that, if you'll notice with certain groups in the scriptures that God asks them to move before He performs a miracle for them. The seedlings of my true testimony as a teenager began when I felt the love of God for me personally and specifically and in this blessing that is one thing I felt strongly. God knows my heart and my trials and He will be by my side. He wants this for us and He wants to bless us. This is the direction our lives are going. We could stay in Boise, in a place we both love, but we both felt wrong about it. Like if we did it would be stagnant because our lives were meant to progress in Utah. And so... we accepted.

We are selling our home. Our beautiful, practically brand new, custom designed home that is part of my heart. I'm having a hard time because I've been looking at houses for sale in the area and price range we want and they are just not what I want. They feel like a step down from where we are now. We are looking forward to having a basement, though!!! I seriously wake up feeling antsy and anxious about packing, cleaning, listing the house, showings, etc. Bryan will start January 4th but because we are spending Christmas in Maryland with my family this year we will move temporarily into his mom's basement about mid December. There is so much to be done before then.

I'm still having a hard time coming to terms with leaving. Boise is where we first lived together as a brand new married couple. It's where Bryan got his first job, where we bought our first home, where we had our first beautiful, wonderful baby. It holds so many wonderful memories for me. I love my friends. I have a truly wonderful support system of other moms like me that I have relied so much on and they have been a balm to my soul.I love my ward and my neighborhood and my house. I even love my Ob/Gyn and the grocery store I shop at. Even the fire station I pass on the way home from Costco and the stretch of road it stands on. I. love. my. life. It is so hard to leave. But it is where we are being led and we will go.

I am excited to live there now, in a lot of ways. We will be so much closer to family! That is a big thing! I can't wait to laugh and play games and have Sunday dinner together more often. Bryan's mom loves to babysit her grandkids, which works for me. I could use a few more outings to movies or plays or, most importantly, the temple with my husband. I can't wait to take Luke to the Aquarium and the Treehouse Museum and the Museum of Natural Curiosity. I can't wait to live near IKEA!!! I will be near old friends I'd like to see more. My parents and other friends and family will be able to visit much more easily! Life will go on. I will make new, wonderful friends. I will come to love a new home and place.

I am very grateful for the love and guidance of the Lord in my life. Truly, He knows what I need better than I do. I've seen the same thing again and again in my life. I think I know what is best for myself and take steps to make it so but He tenderly leads me the way I'm meant to go. And it is always better than the path I might've taken. I'm sad to go but grateful for the opportunity to progress.

We love you all and look forward to seeing a lot  of you more often.

Spring- Summer 2015

Okay, skipping right from Christmas to Summer and doing so in November... pretty much par for the course with me. Though you can probably already tell what we are up to at any given time with a glance at my Facebook page, I  like to have things written out for our family to look back on so I try (not well) to record our adventures. I wish I was better at doing this more often because now I'm reaching back alllll the way to Easter and trying to remember what even happened.

Easter, as it often does, landed on a Conference weekend this year. We had a pretty simple holiday but I was excited to play the Easter bunny more so than last year now that Luke is more little boy than baby. On Saturday I took Luke to a neighborhood Easter Egg hunt during Priesthood session. I think I got there maybe five minutes late (if that) and all the eggs were already gone! I've learned for next year that kids are voracious when it comes to Easter Egg hunts! A friend let me use some of her daughter's empty eggs to set around and let Luke pick them up, so that was nice. The next day was simple. We got up and had cinnamon rolls (trying to make that a conference tradition) and let Luke find his basket. We gave him a little candy and some simple toys. We watched Conference and then had Ham and Cheesy Potatoes for dinner-- my Easter classic dinner.

Luke "hunting" for eggs.

A week or so later we had such a treat to have our friends David and Weston come and stay with us for a weekend. Bryan grew up with these guys and then they all lived together in college. In fact, before Bryan and I were Bryan and I we were all just good friends. I've written about them before. It was a pretty relaxing weekend of playing games and just hanging out. We went out to eat at The Counter (drool) and they got to meet Luke, which was really neat.

Luke and his new buddy Weston playing on the computer.

A few days before Easter our niece Ella called us multiple times begging us to come visit them in Utah for the weekend. It was pretty last minute so we didn't go but we promised we would visit over Memorial Day weekend so that was our next trip! Road trips are hard with kids. But we had fun and mostly just relaxed and played games. My favorite kind of vacation!

Luke helping Ethan play at the park near Grandma Sandi's house

A couple posts ago I wrote about our sweet Callie and how she died. I was really not sure when I'd be ready to have another cat because I didn't want to feel like we were replacing her. However, it just so happened that a family in our ward/neighborhood had two cats that had a litter of kittens each right around the same time. They had twelve kittens to find homes for! We wanted to help them out and we love kittens so we decided to go for it... we got two! Just after memorial day we were finally able to bring them home. We named them Clara (after Clara the companion from Doctor Who) and Watson (From Sherlock).

Clara and Watson join the family

In June Luke and I had Mommy & Me swim lessons from a family in our stake. For two weeks we got up and out the door by 9 with our friends Jennifer and Tyson. Luke had fun in the water but was also pretty independent and didn't want to do the things we were trying to learn a lot of the time. Still, he did learn a lot. One thing he loved to do was jump in the pool into my arms. We had fun showing off his skills to dad over the summer.

Also in July I cut my hair to my chin, updated my Etsy shop, we had Father's day and Luke went to nursery! He... did not like it at first. He cried a lot the first few times and then for several Sundays we was just kind of sober but now I drop him off and he runs off to play without so much as a goodbye when I'm trying to smother him with kisses.

We invited Bryan's mom and his brother Mike to come visit us for the 4th of July and again we had a nice relaxing time. We had delicious food and set off poppers in the street. Luke LOVED those! Then after Luke went to bed Grandma stayed home with him while the rest of us checked out fireworks all around the neighborhood. It was a lot of fun!

4th of July Spread

Luke didn't want to let me take a picture of him in his Captain America shirt

Sandi had to go back to Utah after the weekend but Mike was able to stay with us for a week. We are pretty chill so we didn't have a lot of activities planned or anything but on Saturday we all went to the World Center for Birds of Prey that happens to be, oh, a 10 minute drive from our house. It was seriously awesome too!

We also went to Bryan's company (Clearwater Analytics) party. They decided to host at the zoo, which was so fun! We didn't get to be there too long because I'm kind of strict about Luke's bed time but we did get to do some fun things-- like feed a giraffe! Luke was in awe.

Just a little bit later than that a few friends and I decided to check out a petting zoo in Caldwell, ID. it was a lot of fun but also like 45 minutes away waaay out in the country. We had fun but man, was that a hot day. My cousin Melissa came and she was super pregnant with twins-- poor girl.

We also had a fun Stake pancake breakfast celebrating pioneer day. We had a pie baking contest and then got together later with friends for swimming and a barbecue.

Climbing trees at the pioneer day celebration!

At the end of the month my sister Natalie came to visit for a couple days with her kids. She lives overseas most of the year but they set up camp in Utah for the summer and, since Boise is not too bad of a road trip, I begged convinced her to come. It just so happened to land on a little family holiday we celebrate-- Harry Potter's birthday! So, since we all love Harry Potter I decided to throw a simple party.

Pin the scar on the wizard

Mixing potions

Drawing our Patronuses

Last of all, Butterbeer!

Just a week or so later we took our second road trip to Utah for the summer for my nephews Elijah and Tyler's baptism! We had a lot of fun with almost all of our family together, playing games and hanging out. One day we had the chance to go down to BYU and check things out and that was neat to see. We met up with my old roomie Alicia and caught up. A lot of stuff has drastically changed there since I was in school. Sigh, I'm old. The baptisms themselves were so neat and the spirit was really strong there. I'm so so glad that I got to be a part of it. That evening I even got to see my long lost best friend Ashley who I hadn't seen in over four years! I miss my friends!

Hanging out at BYU

After we got back to Boise, we had yet another fun time when Bryan's cousin Brynn and her family came to stay. They have a daughter about two weeks younger than Luke so those two had fun romping around together. We got to go to the zoo again but this time we spent a lot more time looking at every exhibit and it was so fun! But... then it got hot. We also went to Brynn's sister's wedding open house, played games and hit up H&M (a must when Brynn comes to town).

Lastly, we finally got a new oven. I haven't written about it on here but we were dealing with a horrible mouse situation where the mice had peed on the insulation of the old oven and taken some out, which made it unusable. It smelled like mouse pee every time I turned it on and the safety of it's use was compromised. We tried to get our builder to pay for it since the mice got in through a hole they hadn't sealed but they wouldn't So, we relented and just bought a new one over labor day when we thought the mice were all gone, Spoiler: they weren't actually >:( but we are working hard on that issue now and they haven't done anything to the new oven so far. The oven is covered under a 3 year warranty that would cover situations like that, though. That is making a veeeery long story short. But we were without the use of an oven for over 6 months. Stove top, Slow cooker, Grill. At least it was summer time!

Well anyway, we sure did a lot this summer but I loved giving Luke all of these new experiences! Next up, Halloween... which will be much more timely!

Christmas 2014...

I literally cringed as I wrote that title. I feel incapable of moving forward and writing more blog posts until I acknowledge and account for our Christmas.

This should be short, as we didn't go anywhere this year and hadn't just barely had a baby.

The Sunday before Christmas I got food poisoning. 😷 It was seriously not fun and I think it'll be a while before I can look at, much less eat, Thai food again. I'm sorry, Bryan. He served his mission there and loves the food. Well anyway, luckily for me Bryan took the whole week off so I had the help I needed with Luke. Unluckily for Bryan (and me) our Christmas break week wasn't all we hoped for. In fact, I was determined to have Luke see Santa and get a picture on his lap but was unable to. I was feeling better but not great so we went to The Village a couple days before to find a TWO HOUR WAIT... in the winter cold!! Horrible. So we left and it was an altogether miserable experience.

I was feeling like 95% myself on Christmas Eve and our friends invited us over to enjoy a little dinner and Christ centered program. That was so nice, especially since we don't have any family in town. It really made the evening special and we even got some Christmas Eve snow!

The next morning we got up and opened presents with our one year old little boy! He didn't really get what was going on but it was still fun. We had our traditional Eggs Benedict breakfast followed by a lazy day enjoying new presents and resting. We then had our traditional Ham dinner... and that was that!

So now that St. Patrick's Day is upon us... Woops. Anyway, at least now I'll feel resolved about that. Here are some Christmas videos we took (I totally forgot about pictures! Uh oh!) I hope the YouTube links work. Enjoy!

To Grandmother's House We Go!

So a couple of weeks ago, without too much advance warning, we hopped a plane and went to Maryland. Just like that! Actually it was a lot more intense than that-- traveling is a lot more complicated with a baby than on your own. We had to carry around a cooler bag full of breast milk, bring our pack 'n play, check the car seat and stroller at the gate each time, worry about naps and fussiness on the plane and another million things I'm pretty sure I've blocked out. A couple nice things about our traveling with baby experience, though: everyone was very complimentary on how adorable my baby is but oftentimes would try not to sit next to us (which is how we got a free seat between us on our first flight out, which was "full." Sweet!) and we didn't have to haul heavy carry on bags around the airport because he put it all in the basket of Luke's stroller or hanging off the handles. Our two flights out went really well with him! He was overall happy and cute. The way back was crankier, though, and we were glad to be home.

My sister lives overseas during most of the year and so we wanted for everyone to get together in the summer when she and her family would be here. Originally we had rented a big cabin in Colorado for everyone to come to. That would have been a straight through, 2 hour flight for us. Simple. A couple weeks before that planned trip my dad had a heart attack (which he is recovering well from now, thank goodness) and the doctor told him that he should fly under no circumstances. So, that trip was postponed until the fall. However, that would rule Natalie and her family out of coming and after the scare of my dad's heart attack we all wanted to be together. So plans were moved and changed and we went home to Maryland instead.

Luke's first flight!

I can pretty much barely get him to sleep in my arms anymore.

Layover + Two Hour Delay in Chicago Midway

Finally we arrived! It was so good to be home-- the home I love so dearly. We were so excited to see everyone! Several family members still hadn't met Luke, including his cousin just a few months older than him.

Meeting his future playmate for the first time!

Playin' with cousin Jack! Another future playmate-- though Jack is a year and a half older.

Smiley boy loved this toy Grandma had!

I am really glad we ended up going back to Maryland. My parents are selling my childhood home and I got one last hurrah there. I'm also glad I got to bring at least one of my kids there. They are moving just a half an hour away so technically when I go back I could drive by my old house but that sounds much too painful-- some other family living in my house.

Such a gorgeous house.

I had a very idyllic childhood.

I love Luke snuggles.

First time on a swing!

Not sure why he pulls his own hair... Silly boy!

Being men, grilling.

One of the nights we decided to have a girls night out to the temple. I didn't realize it until i was putting my skirt on but I'd left my recommend at home in my temple bag! We had to go through the whole process of calling my bishop at the temple so I could go. I'm so glad I was able to because it was a wonderful experience. We were greeted by this site when we got home:

Bryan & my brothers in-law playing board games. I love seeing this!

Mom and sisters at the temple.

This was probably the last time I'd be in my home ward... I'm glad I got to show Luke off.

Cousins having fun playing!

Dad and Luke enjoying the porch swing.

Luke would crack up when Ivy jumped on the trampoline.

Silly boy!

We got to see so many old friends while we were there-- Amanda came to chill with us one morning.

Mom and Dad took us to visit their new lot. It was gorgeous and green and had us longing to live on the east coast (don't worry Boise friends, we love it here too and will be here for a little while still).

Panorama view of the lot.

Grandma and Grandpa playing with Luke while Bryan and I took a stroll around the lot.

Cousins enjoying some video game time.

We were there for a little less than a week but the time flew by too quickly for my taste. It felt so nice to be home and be with my family. Unfortunately two of my sisters weren't able to come with the change of plans but luckily we'll see them and their kids when we go to the Colorado cabin this fall.

Since we've been back life has continued to be busy. Luke used to sleep until 7-8 but has never really gone back to that since we got back. He's been getting up so early lately and I did not miss that. I think it's mostly due to teething and having a general 8 month sleep regression that comes with learning to crawl and such. I've been busy crafting up a storm-- making birthday presents and play mats and decor for our house. I love it! I'm also just about done weaning myself off of pumping. It's gone well but been a little emotional. I'll post more on that later. Bryan got a call from Nintendo America saying they approved him to be a game developer for the Wii U!!! We are very excited about that. He really enjoys making games as a hobby.

Anyway, that's life as of late!

Independence Day + Life

Oh, do I have a blog? Sometimes its been weeks months since I've written and then all the sudden I'll remember that I have one. Especially now that we have our sweet little boy, I want so much to document life. I was looking through my personal hand written journal the other day and realized that I haven't written in it since I found out I was having a boy. Wow, Alyssa. Way to take note of the important things in life. Aaaaanyway, I'm here now, writing about not writing... so I should probably get onto the meat of the post.

Well, the 4th of July was a couple of weeks ago and we had a great day. I just love any reason to celebrate. Recently, I've started a craft group with some other ladies in my ward/neighborhood and I've really enjoyed it because I love crafting. We meet just once a month but I craft myself nearly every day. Anyway, at our first craft group I made these:

I saw them on Pinterest and couldn't stop thinking about them. They aren't perfect but I really like them. I just put little flags in them this year but maybe next year I'll get some flowers or something for them.

Since the 4th was a Friday we decided to use the long weekend and go to Utah. This was Luke's first long trip ever! The car ride was the worst of it. We left after Bryan got home from work and I assumed that would be perfect and he'd sleep in the car. Sometimes when we're out and about and it's getting close to nap time as we are driving home Luke will fall asleep in his car seat (which I hate because then it's hard to transfer him without disrupting the nap process) so I thought it'd be like that. I'm not sure if it was because it was bedtime instead of nap time or because Bryan's car is brighter than the one Luke and I drive around in (it has better gas mileage) but it was not what I was expecting. He did take a little nap in the late afternoon of the car ride and that went okay. I snapped a picture of him sleeping. So cute:

To grandmother's house we go!

Anyway, he was a tired boy on the trip but did pretty well with naps once we were actually there. On the 4th we went a little carnival in Morgan, where Bryan's mom lives. It was so so hot and I was reminded of why I'm not a fan of summer. I hadn't realized this until then because I spend most of my time a.) in the house in air conditioning b.) in the car in air conditioning c.) in a store in air conditioning... basically I would die without air conditioning. I mostly lurked in the shadows (i.e. shade of anything I could find). It was a cute little fair with a lot of fun things for kids to do. Cousin Ella got her face painted. She asked for a "unicorn looking at an American flag" and the face paint's eyes widened dramatically with each word. In the end she just got a unicorn-- she's a funny girl. There were also some fun ring toss, etc games to play for free. Bryan, Luke, Shelley, Ella and Ethan took a cute little train ride around a field.

I love this candid shot of everyone.

Later that day Bryan's cousin, her husband and their baby girl Dierdre came over. Dierdre and Luke are just a couple weeks younger than Luke so we thought it would be fun to get them together. It sure was! They really interacted. You can kind of see it in some of the pictures below. Dierdre is a cute girl with such a sweet disposition. I wish we could have play dates more often!

We had a delicious BBQ with hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, frog eye salad, corn... so many delicious things. I made a fruit pizza for dessert:

When the babies were put to sleep we decided to set off some small fireworks. I've never bought fireworks before-- just watched the big ones others set off. It was fun to do that and have sparklers. It'll be fun when Luke is old enough to appreciate these things too.

After, we just sat in Sandi's backyard and watched fireworks all over the valley. I'm not exaggerating when i say it was the best fireworks experience I have ever had. We didn't have to go anywhere or deal with crowds and we could see them going off all over. Her neighbors even set off some really good ones right in front of us that were better than the city fireworks! I can't remember which these were, though:

So fun! The next day my old roommate Alicia came up and visited all day. it was so fun to introduce her to Luke and she just loved him. Who doesn't, though? He is such an adorable, happy baby. I can't get enough of him. We played with Luke and when Luke went down for naps we played games just like old times. In the evening we ate s'mores and finished off our small fireworks.

What an amazingly fun weekend! We drove home on Sunday and that drive was probably worse than the one there. There was this huge hassle of trying to find a place to warm Luke's bottle and the only gas station for miles having the convenience store closed... seeing someone run into the pump... Luke waking up and falling asleep a million times over... Lets just say we were so happy to get home and sleep in our own beds.

Also since I last posted Bryan and I were able to celebrate Mother's Day and Fther's Day. Last year we knew we were having a baby and so we celebrated but now we really are fully fledged parents. For Mother's Day Bryan bought me a 90 minute massage and a couple other small, cute things. Oh. My. Gosh. I told him he could get me that every year! Best Mother's day present ever! Motherhood is hard work and getting to relax like that is just about the best thing I could have asked for. For Father's Day I got Bryan a few small things and we also got a grill from Target for a really good deal! We've been grilling up a storm ever since. Bryan is a grill master already.

 As I mentioned earlier, I am super into crafting and sewing right now. It's important to do something for yourself as a motehr so you aren't drawing from an empty well. This is what I do for me and I'm thriving in it. Sometimes I can't fall asleep at night for thoughts of all kinds of different projects I'm planning on doing. A lot of them are for my house but one of the things I'm doing is making these padded travel play mats for babies and selling them on Etsy. If you're interested here's the link: http://www.etsy.com/shops/TheLoveableLion

Well, last but absolutely not least is Luke. Really, I just saved the best for last. We love this little boy so much! The first three months were very hard. I loved him dearly then as well but they were very hard. I'm sure you're aware if you've been keeping up with this blog. After that the months have really seemed to fly by! I love being a mom to this smiley sweetheart. It's still hard work but he is so cute and so much fun. I love watching him grow up and go through all these different stages. He eats normal food with us and has his bottom two teeth and his top two are slowly coming in. He can roll over both ways easily and always, always immediately rolls to his tummy for sleep now. He's been in his crib for months and sleeps 11 hours most nights! We love bedtime! He enjoys having his Dada read him bedtime stories and his Mama sing to him. He still has a full head of hair and has had three haircuts already! If we set him down sitting up he stays that way easily to play with toys. Right now he is working on crawling! He army crawls pretty well but is working on getting up on his knees. He's no longer content to sit in our laps but wiggles all around to get to what he wants. He is such a cute boy and I kiss him pretty much every moment I am playing with him. Here's a video I took of him trying to crawl yesterday. Beware, it is three full minutes long.

Life is very, very good.