The MacLeans

Update.. hopefully soon to be more frequent.

2011-07-01T03:47:00.000-07:00

Well I stink at updating and I'm certain noone reads anymore BUT every once in awhile I get this feeling that i MUST MUST MUST remember how adorable and perfect and frankly sometimes infuriating my kids are at this age and I feel the need to update.

WE have had the funnest summer so far (with the exception of the last week) WE have been off on a new adventure every day. Taking the bus (apparently the coolest thing EVER for a 3 year old and a 1 year old) tot he library. Splash pad after splash pad. Hours at parks where Dean has perfected going up and down stairs himself without me having to worry and also perfected going down slides without me having to worry about him taking a header. Its very relaxing now.

Dean is getting OLD. 15 months now. He's not talking much but he understands most things we say. his least favourit would be "go to time out Dean" he collapses in half in tears when he gets that one. But sometimes (like when you climb up on the couch and drop a heavy book on your brothers head) a time out is necessary. Dean has 4 words total, not a big talker yet. we have Dada. Go, Cheers (his and Jack's favourite dinner time activity is cheersing. SOOOO cute! and random that he has that word) and he says Ja for Jack but only when he really, really, really misses him.

Jack is getting smarter by the second I swear. He sees commericials for the new kindergarten and is soooo excited to go and MAD he has to wait a whole year to do so. He just finished up his soccer season. It was short but good. Some games he was a serious superstar monopoloizing the ball and scoring goal after goal. but sometimes he stunk and would not stop wrestling other boys and jumping up and down holding hands with the girls long enough to play. he was the smallest kid most games so sometimes he just couldn't keep up. BUT he had ALOT of fun and I'm glad we signed him up. I'm a big believer in organized sports.

As for Branden and I things are great. i went back to work the beginning of March. Just part time and since we moved an hour away from my work I was going to quit and find another part time job BUT they offered me to work part time FROM HOME for them. So I work 20 hours a week from home. Its the best of both worlds. I gett o stay home with my babies all day every day. I don't have to pay for day care, but I still work 4 hours a day and get to bring in the extra money that helps us pay down our student loans faster. Most days its great. I work during the boys naps or sometimes I squeeze in an hour or two in the morning when Dean is napping or the boys are just chilling out before we go out. somedays its the hardest thing in the world.. like when they are being beastly. But mostly its great.

Branden got a job working for Amico in woodstock. He's doing stuff he loves, its only a 25 minute drive from our house so we can stay here a few more years like we planned and best of all they gave him a work truck so the boys and I have a car EVERY DAY, hence why we have been having SO MUCH fun this summer. He's happy, but he works long days. 10 hours a day every day and some weekends if they have big projects coming up. But we're adjusting to not having him around as much and its going really great.

This last week has been brutal. we went up to the Thomas S monson camp dedication (me, my aunt and the boys because Branden had to work) on Saturday and it was a BRUTAL day. We had to go because I"m in charge of girls camp and we had to take a ton of food up. But man my kids are NOT car sleepers and barely slept the 8 hours of driving and clearly didn't sleep at all there because it was raining and there was too much mud to explore. So this week they have been tired and grumpy just trying to recover. Especially Dean. he is a rage-a-saurus this week and driving his mom crazy. But he's still soo cute.. espeically when he eats rice from his chubby thighs.

2011 stinks

2011-01-14T08:37:00.000-08:00

the last month has been rough we had the stomach flu, then the flu flu, then the stomach flu again. we have had many issues with our car being written off and getting a new one. we finally have a 2008 honda civic, but are still sorting through issues with the insurance. things have just been not simple and we are stressed. so I wanted to write and remember all the good things that are going on among the chaos.

my kids are adorable pretty much.

dean sucks HARD at sleeping, but we are starting sleep training tonight so pray for us that it works and pray for my sanity the first few hard nights.

other than that dean is sooo close to walking he takes a few steps here and there between me and branden, but keeps getting sick and so gets slowed down. I'm convinced he'd have been walking awhile ago had we not had so much sickness.

Dean and Jack still love eachothr and have daily wrestling/hug matches on the floor, that are ending in tears for one of them less and less every week that passes.

He is the happiest and smiliest baby ever and just oodles of fun. you can't help but love him when you see him.

Jack is just hilarious. we were playing witht he big box for our new stroller yesturday. Branden andI were putting it over him and then pretending to go to bed. He would knock on the box and say "i'm in here" until we came. HILARIOUS.

Jack is getting attitude and its so funny we almost pee our pants. if he doesn't like what you say or do. he says fine, crosses his arms and stomps off. then comes back 20 seconds later laughing and having a great time.

He loves running behind the couch then jumping out hugging me and saying I miss you mama. it melts my heart every time.

And everytime he gets sad he comes running to me. "I need a huggie mommy" so cute.

and when I want to kiss him and he doesn't want me to he says "no no smoochie Mommy"

I just love this stage. its so funny. He's finaally starting to become aware of his bodily functions, so perhaps we'll trying potting training in a few months. but whenever he farts (or hears Branden or I fart) he says "what sound?" and then aanswers "the sound of pooing" hahaha. LOVE IT>

so although life is a bit much right now i love that I get to be home with my kidlets full time right now and most of the time (when they aren't waking me up at 3am to be bed for the 5th time or covered in barf screaming) they are totally adorable.

Time for another update

2010-12-19T04:20:00.000-08:00

I promise in the new year I'll be better at this. It makes me so sad I'm not because I feel like I will forget everything about how wonderful and hilarious my kids are right now.

Dean is basically out of control. For the past few weeks he's been taking a few steps here and there and practicing standing all on his own. He's definately not anywhere near full on walking yet, but we are at the first steps stage. Its pretty cute because he is way to tiny so it makes Branden and I barf and laugh at the same time when he takes steps. Also he is basically obsessed with stairs. And for some reason every morning when I bring him down (way too early when I'm stilll half dead tired and its pitch black out) I forget to put up the gate so I'll be getting breakfast or lying on the couch dying of tired and I'll hear giggling a little too far away and run and he's 3/4 of the way up the stairs laughing like a maniac because he knows he's not supposed to do it. He's pretty good at up the stairs, but hasn't figured out down and hasn't figured out that he doesn't know how to get down so we still have to keep them gated off. Also everytime Jack comes near him on the stair he gets distracted by his love for his brother and falls.

Speaking of the two of them they are basically too much in love with one another. They spend excessive amounts of time in the day taking turns tackling each other and then roll around hugging and laughing until someone inevitable gets squished or poked in they eye and they dissolve in tears and then 5 minutes later they are back at it. Its very cute. I love that they are buds. Jack is always so concerned when Dean is gone and does not enjoy that Dean naps once more a day then him and goes to bed before him. However when Dean destroys his train tracks he has a hard time not murdering him.

Jack is being so very, very 2.5 and most of the time I love it. He's talking like crazy and I'm pretty sure I got his and Deans halloween costumes mixed up because Jack is definately the riddler. He is nonstop asking questions. When we go out every person that we pass. "where she going? what they doing?" ugh.. I love it most of the time. but somedays I have to put a 2 minute ban on questions so I can regain my sanity. Jack is such a well behaved child. I mean he is crazy hyper and all over the place, but he loves to help. He helps me cook and clean and helps with Dean. He is sweet and caring and loving. He is lately getting very set in his opinions and mildly defiant. Which is a new stage that we are figuring out. its so funny to watch him try to refuse something we ask. he stands there saying no looking so unsure of himself I almost have to laugh. Somedays Jack gets soooo hyper he cannot control himself. Sometimes I'll see him next to Dean just shaking with desire to attack him (not a mean attack but a hyper,loving but always painful for Dean kind of attack) Its pretty hilarious.

Oh and they other day Jack told me that Daddy was "a green froggy that goes quack quack" ridiculous.

They boys are loving the snow. We got a sled for them for Christmas (and gave it to them early) and they are loving it. we have so much fun every day.

Branden just finished his 2nd last semester of school. He was so busy and hardly home the last few weeks so its nice to have him home for 3 weeks straight now. The boys and I are loving it. He did well and we are both soooo excited that he's almost done.

In bad news last friday Branden got into a BAD car accident and we are so lucky he walked away with only a minor bump to the head. It was really bad weather.. snow/rain/sleet stuff and he was going to kitchener. On the backroads there is this one really bad blind turn in the road and he was approaching it slowly when another guy came out coming towards him going way to fast and all the way over in Brandens lane. Branden swerved to avoid being hit head on by him and hit some icey leaves which sent him out of control and he ran over a street sign and was sent through quite a few trees about 30 feet down a hill at the side of a road. He ended up wedged between 2 huge trees and could barely open the doors. They had to remove several trees to get the car out. But he was okay thankfully and thats realkly all the matters. The worst part is the car is totalled and because the other guy took off (which infuriates me because if Branden had actually been hurt he would have been stuck because you could not see the car from the road) anyways because he took off the insurance company rules it as Brandens fault. which STINKS. but oh well such is life (I do hate care insurance companies though)

I'm doing well too. So excited for Christmas this year. We have everything ready (which is good since we have no car until they decide to send us the money to buy a new one) and I"m just trying to enjoy this time with my boys and husband.

2010-11-09T05:38:00.000-08:00

I love bath time now that both boys can competently sit in the tub without one disappearing under the water every 10 seconds. They have so much fun playing with eachother and yes one sometimes accidently crawls over the other and tears ensue. but its so fun for them and for me

Update Update

2010-11-06T02:48:00.000-07:00

Well apparently I stink at blogging lately, but I strongly desire to get back into it because guess what? I also stink at journaling and my boys are pretty much the cutest thing that have ever existed right now so I just want to remember everything about them.

So here is the post blogging vacation synopsis.

Dean 7 Months

Dean is the best baby of all time. The kid is always smiley and happy. He is a HUGE baby compared to what Jack was. 75th percentile for height and 50th percentile for weight. Compared to the solid 15th to 20th percentile Jack rocked for the first while of his life he's enormous to us. His physical development is crazy. The kid crawled super early and in the past few weeks he's been cruising like a champ and even mastered the stairs a few days ago. He loves cruising more than anything and is so proud of himself whenever he can follow us around. Yesturday he grabbed one of our kid chairs in the kitchen and was pushing it around to walk. He's out of control. He is the sweetest and most fun child ever. I have seriously only heard him really balls out cry once since he was 6 weeks old and that was last sunday. Our new house is heated by a gas fireplace and it got cold before we got a gate for in front of it and he slipped away from us last week and put his hands on the glass and burned the crap out of 3 of his fingers. He screamed and cried for hours until tylenol kicked in. he had 3 HUGE blisters and it took awhile to treat and bandage them, we thought we were in for a terrible week with the poor kid and his injury but since it happened he's been surpisingly good about it. Poor, poor child.

Jack 2.5 years

Jack is most days the cutest toddler in town. He definately has his moments lately though. He is really into asserting his independance which is fun, but challenging. We've been a bit worried about Jack's speech for the last few months, he has a TON of words, but his annuciation is lacking and he tends to smush words together. We went to a speech therapist and pretty much Branden and I speak to fast hence the smush. So we've been working hard and he's really coming along with his communication, which is helping with some of the frustration he's had. Jack though, is the funnest child around. He is never shy and just runs around playing with anyone he can find. He has the cutest flirtiest smile and just wins my heart over a million times a day. He's really getting into pretend play lately and loves to pretend to make me food, pretend to be a dog, pretend to be a frog, its pretty hilarious.

Branden 26 years

Branden is back for his final year of school (thank goodness) and its going well. He works HARD and is gone for 10 hours Monday through Thursday. Luckily he has no classes Fridays so we always get a 3 day weekend together. He's doing really well and working hard at school and his part time job at the school. He commutes to Kitchener everyday with is friend Jordan who is living in our basement. Its nice in some ways because Jordan drives him so I get the car everyday which certainly makes entertaining the boys easier.

Robin 27 years old

I am doing well. I love being at home with my boys, I love being nearer to my parents, I love having my own home to care for and improve. I do miss my friends from kitchener but we are really loving life. I am DREADING the end of my maternity leave. Branden will be almost done school by the time I finish my mat. leave so I won't have to go back to work full time hopefully. I think I will find a part time job though so we can get rid of school debt as soon as possible! I have been getting back into crafting lately and I'm really loving it. I'll have to post some of my projects as I finish them. I have about a million started and few actually finished.

What have we been up to lately?

We have been baking, baking, baking. Jack is OBSESSED with helping me bake. Everyday "mama I stir" "make cook cook". Mainly he dumps crap in the bowl, stirs for a minute, gets bored and then sneaks chocolate chips. Its pretty hilarious and adorable. We bestow our bakings on others often because we would be major fatties if we didn't.

Pumpkin carving with our cousin. The boys loved watching but NEITHEr would touch the guts. I had to gut the thing. I was schocked because I just assumed two 2 year old boys would love pumpkin guts. ESPECIALLY these 2, they are insane and gross and so totally boyish. But they did not have pumpkin gut love. We did all have fun though.

Playing in leaves. We live in a condo townhouse and in the complex there is a sweet old man Charlie that does alot of the maintenance. He is super nice and rakes all the leaves into piles around the condo for little ones to jump in and my little ones have LOVED playing in them. Leaves are definately the funnest part of fall for these two. Jack loves jumping in them and throwing them and Dean loves eating them.

We have been halloweening. We had great fun this year because Jack atleast semi understood it. I made the costumes. Jack was batman (I made the cape and batman hat and we used a t-shirt he already had) and Dean was the riddler I dyed and question marked the sleeper and hat. Jack was OBSESSED (and still is) with his cape. I made it double sided so it has batman one side and super jack other side. He loves wearing it and flapping his arms and screaming that he can fly. AT the last minute he really wanted his daddy to fly too so I made Branden his own cape. I think I'll work on one for Dean to so he can also fly. We went to our wards trunk or treat and brought my friend Julie her husband and two girls. We had a great time although it was freezing and got enough candy to last us quite awhile.

And if you've made it this far in my massive update (which I doubt many have) you get to hear all about my favourite thing.

These two boys are becoming best friends. They adore eachother. Dean thinks Jack is the funniest thing on the planet and follows him around laughing at him. And Jack loves being adored and loves his brother. He hugs/slash/tackles/slash/drags him a thousand times a day and they both laugh and laugh. If either is grumpy you bring them to the other and they are very likely to cheer right up. I LOVE my boys and I LOVE watching them become friends.

Jacks Words

2010-08-24T15:18:00.000-07:00

Right now Jack's language is developing like crazy, but he has a few things he says not quite right that just make me laugh like crazy and I want to record them so I never forget how perfectly adorable he is right this moment.

Jack is a blanket guy, LOVES his blanket. Only he doesn't say blanket quite right.. or right at all. He calls his blanket his Beyes. Like eyes with a b on it. its sooo cute. He also doesn't quite say mine right yet he says Meyes. so he walks around all the time looking for his blanket saying over and over "meyes beyes, meyes beyes". We love it.

He also apparently has not comprehension of how to actually pronounce thankyou. so whenever prompted to say thankyou he says "guy guys" or if you prompt thanks he says just "guys" soo weird. and apparently he's obsessed with the eyes sound. Its so cute though.

Also all done is "gall go" LOVE IT! I almost dread the day he starts pronouncing all of his words correctly.

And lest you think my child is mildly stupid, he says most words correctly just these ones are off and its hilarious for us.

guess who crawls... sorta

2010-08-19T04:40:00.000-07:00

Apparently Dean thinks he's older than he is. He's bigger than a 4.5 month old should be, rolls around like he owns the place and now crawls. WHAT!!?? I mean he's not crawling pro yet, but he can do two crawls before he gets tired and confused and gives up. Its insane. We can't believe it. I think its because Jack spends alot of time crawling around in front of him trying to get him to play. I;m sure he's still some time before he can properly crawl away from me with speed, but he's only 4.5 months old and its ridiculous! I love my little Deany guy and Jack is getting super excited that Dean is almost ready to help him destroy the world!

Kiddie Pool

2010-08-07T11:47:00.000-07:00

By far the thing that has brought us the most joy and entertainment this summer is our kiddie pool. Jack loves it, Branden loves it, my cousin Zach loves it (yes the big boys jump in there with Jack) and even Dean loves it.

We spend many hot days Jack swimming around the little pool while Branden and I lounge and chat with our feet slung in. It is the PERFECT way to spend a summer day.

Beach

2010-08-06T11:51:00.000-07:00

My brothers girls have been in town staying with my parents this past week so we've been doing lots of fun stuff. On Thursday we headed to the Beach at Pinehurst in Paris. First I have to say it is the PERFECT beach for little guys. Its small, not busy and you can walk out quite a ways before the water gets above their head. Its perfect for keeping an eye on them and still letting them have plenty of freedom, because we all know how little boys love their freedom.

Jack had an absolutley amazing time playing with his cousins. they are so great with him. They made sand castles for him to destroy, helped him bury my legs, had water fights with him and just made his day enjoyable. It was a great day, but it was HOT and I was glad Dean was able to stay home with Branden. He would have just about died in the heat.

Great Wolf Lodgin' It

2010-08-06T11:29:00.000-07:00

This week we went to Great Wolf Lodge as a big extended family. Me, Branden, Dean and Jack. My sister Sarah and her husband Grant and their boy Thomas, my parents and my brothers daughters Jenna, Katie and Devin. It was so much fun. So much fun, in fact, that I didn't manage to squeeze in any picture taking. We all shared 2 rooms between us and I was luckily able to get us a discount through my work. The place was expensive, but it was AMAZING. We loved the whole atmosphere. Although most of the waterpark was aimed older than our kids, there was still so much stuff for the 2 year old crowd to do. There was even one of the HUGE water slides that you go down on a raft that we could take Jack on. He loved it through his terror. There were smaller slides that were so much fun for the little guys, a lazy river they loved, a wave pool, lots of splash area. A huge playground/slash/climbing thing/slash/ splash area they couldn't get enough of. It was a blast. At night we left the kids with my parents and went down and had a blast on all the big slides. It was great. there's mini golf, story time, babysitting for the kids thats reasonably priced when they are 4 and over and way to expensive for the 2 year and new born crowd. Dean loved the hot tub, it was great!

We had an amazing time and want to go back again when both boys are old enough to play. I highly recommend it to everyone!

Pay/Pray-Clearly Interchangable

2010-07-28T04:16:00.001-07:00

So yesturday Jack and I were at the grocery store picking up some gingerale and other assorted items for Branden who was home with Dean and a sick tummy. One of the assorted items happened to be chocolate in nature and this was the item Jack was assigned to carry. Once we got to the checkout and were stuck in a rather long line Jack decided he had had enough of carrying said chocolate goodies and wished to eat them. I quickly advised him that we first had to pay for them. Jack mistook the need to pay for them for the need to PRAY for them so right there in the middle of the line (much to the entertainment of our fellow line waiters) he plomped his bum down, folded his arms and prepared to pray. It was hilarious and of course I couldn't resist his extreme righteousity so i opened it up and let him have one in line. If your willing to sit and pray in the middle of the grocery store you definately deserve chocolate.

Jiggity Jack

2010-07-27T12:15:00.000-07:00

Jack lately is literally both the light of my life and the bain of my existance. He is pretty much the cutest thing ever. His language is progressing like crazy although its hard to pick out if you're not his mom. The problem in our house with language development is that both Branden and I are major fast talkers so its hard for Jack to pick out sometims what we're saying. We've been trying to slow down a bit with him in mind but we've also noticed he's talking alot more than we give him credit for. he just smooshes words together and says them SUPER fast. He's got sentences like a crazy man but you have to listen real carefully. Instead of saying "we've got to go" he says incredibly quicly "weguddago" and where did it go? is "wheredigo?" and so on a so forth. tis great, but we better slow down or his teachers will never understand him.

Jack is amazing with Dean. He plays with him an d kisses and hugs him like mad. he is an amazikng big brother. Jack is also the biggest flirt in flirt town. He is always playing with all the lady babies in our new ward and smiles and jsut gives him his best behaviour. He is SOOO much like Branden its ridiculous, but I love it!

On the other hand Jack has hit the terrible two's full force. Most days hes still sweet and cute and the best kid ever, but ask for a diaper change or dare to not get him a snack the second he requests it and hulk jack appears. I beg I plead for him to return to bruce banner as I laugh at his baby rage, but it doesn't work.. UGH. Good thing its short lived and not often or I might run away.

Army Crawl

2010-07-27T12:03:00.000-07:00

My little Dean is pretty much the craziest, best baby of all time. The kid already only wakes up once a night (and sometimes even manages to sleep right through) he smiles all day unless he's tired or hungry. He laughs at the drop of a hat and thinks me, Branden and Jack are hilarious. He stares at his brother with awe all the time and is soo impressed with Jack. He rolls like a crazy man which si taking some adjusting on Jacks part. If we place Dean down one place he can now be across the room in a matter of seconds and Jack is not used to avoiding stomping on a moving target so we've had a few accidental stomping incidents. Dean is already army crawling. its crazy, he's not even 4 months old yet. The kid is simply out of control.

We adore him though and he is turning out to be soo much fun for all three of us.

Gym

2010-07-27T11:58:00.000-07:00

Well its been almost 4 months since Dean was born and my excuses are running out so this week I finally joined a gym.

I lost all the weight I gained with Dean right away, but I was packing a few extra before I got pregnant with him and i really want to lose the weight. I really can't blame my "mommy tummy" on my kids much though (except the stretched out skin) because I didn't put on much in either of my pregnancies and both times I had lost the weight before my 6 week check up. But I have weight to lose because I got lazy after having Jack and put some of the weight on and then got knocked up again before I could lose it so ya... I need to lose the chunk.

I've been to the gym 3 times since I joined on Friday and I feel good... and awful. SEriously my muscles are dead but it feels sooo good to be dead like this. Today I went to a class. A bosu Ball class and holy work out. I almost passed out and died but i made it through. I thought it was the beginner level class but the instructor advised me halfway through (as she noticed the PUDDLE of sweat forming beneath me as I grunted and moaned) that it was advanced. So I'm pretty proud i didn't actually die.

I need to keep motivated because I really want to get back to my when I got married weight and that is further away than I care to ever admit.

Wish me luck!

2010-07-03T05:17:00.000-07:00

Well its been awhile hasn't it. Last time i wrote was before I had Dean and now the little lad is 3 months. To say the last 3 months has been crazy and busy would be an understatement.

In the past three months I had the wonderful and beautiful Dean Patrick Owen MacLean. He weighed in at 7lbs 1 ounce and was 22.5 inches long. Branden finished his exams. I went into a short lived postpartum crazy area. We bought a house and moved. We've now been here 6 weeks we have painted almost the whole thing, ripped out half the garden (and are still working on the other half) We've replaced windows and had about a billion family BBQ's (We now live in the same condo/townhouse complex as my parents, aunt uncle and cousins. its great!) I've been in a car accident and ganked up my back bad. Dean learned to roll from front to back (at 8 weeks crazy boy) and is working hard on back to front. Jack is getting cuter and more talkative by the moment. He makes noises/slash/talks all the day long. it goes something like this.. giberish, gibberish,gibberish. lets go mom. gibberish gibberish gibberish. you have never seen a kid talk more with saying less. he is probaly THE MOST friendly kid you will ever meet. I seriously have to watch him so closely because he has no stranger hesitation and makes friends with kids and adults alike everywhere we go.

Jack LOVES Dean. He has his jealous moments, but I"m proud to say he has not yet hurt or lashed out on dean on purpose Many accidental hurtings. he frequently tries to pick up dean and fails and drops him, or gets excited running around and trips on deans head or stomps on his hand. But such is the life of a second child. Dean also loves Jack he puts up with toys being shoved in his face, Jack gettign all up in his grill "tickling" him and being tripped on constantly and does nothing but smile and laugh at his ridiculous older brother.

Due Date, Due Date

2010-03-25T12:27:00.000-07:00

Today the baby is due.

To be perfectly honest with you I fully expected to have a several day old, if not several week old baby in my arms by now. Jack was early and I expected this one to be early too. I left work super early so I'd be ready (since I wasn't with Jack) and now to spite me and my preparedness this child is apparently bound and determined to be late.

That is just how life works. I left at the last possible minute with Jack and wasn't ready at all and wasn't rested at all and he was early. This one I am sitting around in utter discomfort, twiddling my thumbs waiting for the baby to arrive.

I am just sick of being fat and I'm sick of weird pains. I went to the OB yesturday and she said if she had to place a bet she'd think I had atleast another week before the baby would come. She also said she'd never seen a baby with his head engaged that still managed to have his legs all up in his mothers ribs and lamented my extreme discomfort as the bablet kicked off my ribs with much force and head butted my cervix. OUCH!!

Also Im' sick of not being able to keep up with Jack. He can run faster than his ginormously fat mother now and is using it to his advantage.

Last week I took him to a large community park with several friends and their kids and was taking full advantage of my slow, rotundness. He ran off at full speed for the swings and got butted in the face by a 15 year old high swinging tushy before I could get to him. He almost catapulted off a 3 foot wall but i was luckily able to haul my fat tush up it and down the other side to save him in time, although I sacrificed some pulled muscles in the process and he ran into the community centre and joined in a class before I could catch him. He also got stuck in a covered slide and thank goodness Janeth was there and thin enough to crawl in and get him.

He is QUITE an adventurous soul that child.

Anyways, I dont' want to complain too much. Actually I DO WANT to complain too much but i'm sure many women that have gone far past their due dates would punch me in the face if I complained too much at this point so I won't.. BUt PLEASE let this baby come soon before I die of discomfort and anticipation.

Mat. Leave

2010-03-08T03:55:00.000-08:00

Well I have officially been on Maternity Leave for this baby for one week now. Well technically I"m currently using up extra vacation which is awesome because since its vacation and not technical mat. leave Jack is still in daycare for as long as I need/want each day so I can actually get stuff done around the house.

I have been scurrying around the last week trying to prepare for this baby without exhausting myself too much. With Jack I barely had anytime off before I had him and we had next to nothing ready when he was born. We figured with our first we'd be late if anything, but that little boy had to be early so we were not ready! Add to that I was SOOO TIRED I just wanted to die when I went into labour with him. I'd been away from home for a few days visiting and had not slept well and went into labour right before I went to bed and UGH! It was not good.

So with this one I"m trying sooooo hard to actually be ready and rested! So far its working, but please pray for me that this little baby does not come until atleast Saturday! I need this week to finish up everything! (and yes I know I"m a FREAK and most people hope for early babies, but such is life!)

My Due date is March 25th so its coming up quickly and aside from not being ready to have this baby I am SOOOOOO READY to have this baby. My body feels like its about to crap out on me. For the last two weeks I"ve been retaining water like CRAZY! and who knew but retaining water makes you HURT so bad! SEriously this pregnancy up until last week I'd only put on 10 pounds total, then last week. 5 pounds in one week. HELLO water retention! UGH!

I also dont' think Jack is at all ready for this baby. He sort of knows its coming and I can see hes struggling with it! I'm sure he'll be fine after a few weeks of adjustment, but we are trying to give him all the extra love and attention we can now.

He is way to cute for words lately. He's had a verbal explosion the last few weeks (thank goodness!) and is saying about 10 new words a day. YEsturday he decided it would be appropriate to climb up on my stomach and stomp on my when I was lying down reading so I of course had to give him a major lecture about how inappropriate this was and he grabbed my cheeks as I was explaning that it was NOT COOL and said Kisses Momma and kissed me... haha so cute! HOw could I be upset at him after that!

I know I Stink at blogging lately, but now I"m off work and I think I'll get back into it.. excuse my return post of MAJOR scatterbrainedness.... I"m 9 months pregnant you know.. so I use it as an excuse to not have a clear brain!

H1N1

2009-11-05T04:44:00.000-08:00

So on Tuesday after work Jack and I dutifully headed off to the Health Unit to received our H1N1 vaccines. We are both priority patients of course so we thought we'd take advantage of it. Overall it wasn't as bad an experience as I had thought. I thought I'd be waiting for hours, but on Sunday my good friend and Public Health Nurse Ruth advised me that Preggo's get to make appointments, so I only waited a mere 10 minutes (thats how early I was for my appointment).

Jack must have thought something funny was about to occur because he was clinging to me like crazy, which He NEVER does. He is such the forget about mommy where is my next adventure type. But in the waiting room he would not leave my lap and left a nice pile of drool on my chest with his cuddliness (I did so enjoy this random cuddly moment).

We got into the room and they administered my vaccine first. I was a little terrified Jack would freak out when he saw the needle going into my arm so I was trying to look overly happy. I must have looked like quite a freak to the nurse. My efforts of extreme smilyness were a waste though because Jack was fascinated by the needle, not freaked out at all. He kept trying to grab it and would not remove his eyes from it. So no crying there as I had expected.

Next it was Jacks turn. He still had fascination in the needle so was fine as I pinned his legs between my legs and his arms with my arms. Then the needle came. He was so happy as it approached wanting to see how it worked, but when it struck OH HOW HE SCREAMED! He Screamed and cried and screamed and cried, but only for 2 minutes. After 2 minutes he stopped screaming and crying and turned to the nurse and began Finger Wagging, emphatically motioning with his arms and yelling at her in baby gibberish!

She was flabbergasted. "I've never had a baby lecture me before." she said.

That Jack he really gave her the business. He was soo emphatic and you could just tell he was ripping a strip right off of her for causing him pain. It was hilarious.

Those who know Jack well have gotten these lectures before. He gave my Dad one when he dunked him under water when swimming once, then also included the lifeguard to ensure she woudln't let my Dad do it again. If Branden and I do something he doesn't like. Out comes the finger wag, lecture and emphatic arm gestures. He almost daily tells the day care ladies to "stop" followed by on of these rousing lectures. And the poor kid always gets laughed at. Because there is NOTHING and I mean NOTHING funnier than getting a lecture from a 17 month old.

Seriously if you see Jack on a regular basis. Please try and make him angry I assure you that you will be greatly entertained by the results.

Ultrasound

2009-11-03T04:31:00.000-08:00

Well I"m sure everyone that has me on facebook already knows this. But on Friday we had our ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby. I'm not going to lie, both Branden and I really thought it was going to be a girl because this pregnancy has been so different. And we both really want to have alteast one of each at some point in time (and Branden wanted only 2, but now he must go for 3) But it was a boy! I'm really excited though. It will be crazy to have too little psycho Jacks around but so much fun! I do get slightly sad whenever I walk through the baby girls clothes. Why oh why are girls clothes SOO much more fun than boys!

Halloween

2009-11-03T04:23:00.001-08:00

Halloween this year was alot of fun. I wouldn't necessarily say that Jack GOT it, but he sure did enjoy it. We did most of our celebrating on the 30th. WE had family down all day for our ultrasound and our ward Trunk or Treat. I think Jack's favourite part of the day was when I was emptying our candy to give out into a bowl. He pretty much went crazy, stole the bowl from me and spent a good hour just throwing it up over his head and organizing it into different places. I don't even think he realized it was candy, he just LOVED the bright coloured crinkly packages.

Me and Brando and Jack and my parents and my sister and her son Thomas all went to our wards trunk or treat that night. I'm on the activities committee so we got there early to set up and what not and I tell you I think the half an hour before everyone got there was Jack's most enjoyable time. The kid LOVED beyond all reasonable loving the fact that he got the entire parking lot to himself and ran everywhere. HE was GASPING for breath but kept running. He ran full speed across the parking lot and 3/4 of the way across the giant field we have for a good half hour. Needless to say by the time the trunk or treat actually started he was pretty tired. So I had to carry him from car to car. Poor kid. It was pretty good attendance though and alot of fun!

We didn't actually take Jack out on halloween. He was soo tired from the night before and well he was only allowed to eat like 2 pieces of candy anyways so it just would have been for our tummies so we didn't take him.

Here is the little man. Dressed up as Jack-Jack from the incredibles. Although we

think he thought he was Dash with all that running.
Our little family of incredibles. I was pretty deluxe on mine and Brandens costumes. red shirts with computer cut out and coloured in Incredibles symbols on them. SOO Deluxe! I was going to Screen Print them, but ran out of time!

Jack and Thomas exploring

Thomas the adorable Alien and my Dad.

Pumpkin Patch

2009-10-21T05:13:00.000-07:00

For the entire month of October we have been wanting to take Jack to the Pumpkin Patch. Almost every Saturday has been rainy and cold so its been put off and put off and put off. Finally this past Saturday we went, it was freezing but atleast it wasn't raining. We went out to Shantzholm and had a great time. Jack liked playing in the mini corn/slash/hay maze and loved looking at the animals. He didn't show to much interest in the pumpkins much to my disappointment since i wanted some cute Pumpkin themed pictures. We didnt' stay a very long time since it was freezing and my maternity coat is still resting warmly at my Sisters house. But we had a great time. We got a great pumpkin that we are planning on carving up with Jack this coming weekend. It should be a great time!

Climbing Hay Bales

Thinking about putting his head through, of course when he did I missed it!

Hitting, Punching, Gnashing of Teethies

2009-10-20T14:23:00.000-07:00

Lately Jack has taken to violence to express his emotions to Branden and I. I have been quite concerned about it because smacking seems to be his method of choice for dealing with any emotion. If he's excited he'll smack you, if he's sad he'll smack, if he's Angry OH HOW HE WILL SMACK YOU! We've been going over methods of getting him to stop and they do seem to be curbing this habit atleast a little. He gets time outs, or if we are holding him or playing with him he gets put down. He does not enjoy either of these things to he usually stops. But sometimes when he's really in a mood, it will do nothing to stop him. One night last week he was angry for no reason in particular and smacked me on my face. So I put him in time out in his crib for one minute. He cried and screamed and tried to climb out and after a minute I picked him up told him hitting was unacceptable and that I loved him. He promptly smacked me in the face again. So back in the crib he went. This repeated no less than a dozen times. The kid is stubborn. But since then he's gotten better. The hitting is less and less frequent.

I spoke with his daycare ladies last week and then said he has never once hit another kid there or them. So thats good (or maybe not) but he seems to be saving his very worst behaviour for home. As I was discussing it with them and expressing my extreme relief that he wasn't "that kid" the one that hit the others (especially since he is currently the oldest and in a room with several rather small babies) he smacked me in the face. They were shocked, I was unimpressed.

I am glad this behaviour is only happening with Branden and I and he isn't really a problem child at daycare or in the nursery. And our consistent responses of no, time outs and we love yous seem to be working. He is hitting less and less and when he does hit the last few days you can see him trying to resist. But those impulses can be hard to control for babies sometimes and he isn't always perfect. Its quite funny actually a few times in the last few days I have watched him fight the urge to hit me or Branden when he's upset he fights it so hard and you can see he's just not able to fight it so he will come over and hit all the while saying 'no no no no no:" because he knows its a no no. Its almost too cute to get him in trouble!

He is a wonderful child who I adore though and I just hope the hitting ends soon. Because quite frankly sometimes it hurts! and I hope its a normal stage of development. It seems to be from what I've read. More common for boys than girls, which makes sense since boys are so very, very rough and tumble!

Dear Pregnant Body

2009-10-20T07:08:00.000-07:00

Dear Pregnant Body

I appreciate you, I really do. You are doing a wonderful thing and should be applauded for that. But at the same time I must confess that recently I despise you.

First of all my Pregnant Chest. STOP GROWING! You grew when I was pregnant with Jack, you grew again when I was breast-feeding Jack and you REFUSED to shrink back to your normal (already somewhat bountiful) size post breast-feeding. I thought you had reached your maximum possible size, but apparently I was wrong. You have decided to start growing on me again and I must say this is simply UNACCEPTABLE. Branden may admire and appreciate you, but I despise you. You make my clothes not fit, I am at max capacity in my shirts and bras and have no funds to buy more so STOP! You hurt my back, every night I want to cry because you throw my back all out of whack and it hurts so bad that after Jack is in bed I am in bed with a heat pack trying so hard to get you to stop hurting! And you are getting awfully hard to cover up. I strive for modesty I really do, but you my breasty nemesis make that hard for me. You are already large enough, you provided just fine for my first baby and if you stop growing I promise you will do the same for the second. So please give me a break and STOP GROWING!

Second, my dear sweet complexion. You were so kind to me and to Branden when I was pregnant with Jack. My body created some sort of wonderful hormone that somehow made not only mine, but Brandens skin perfect as well. Oh how we loved that 9 months of blemish free enjoyability. But what are you doing this time? Its like I'm a greasy 14 year old who spends her evening rubbing french fry grease on her face. Stop getting pimples! They make me feel ugly! and stop giving Branden pimples. We don't ENJOY!

Third Stomach, you know you have been causing me the most troubles. Please oh please stop making me barf. I appreciate that the nausea and barfing is not so unrelenting anymore. I appreciate the breaks. I DO NOT appreciate having to run from sacrament meeting to barf, I DO NOT appreciate having to run at top speed past my husbands study buddies just to have them hear me yack in the bathroom. I do not appreciate the horrified tears the eminate from my child when he sees me wretching! I do not appreciate the intense stomach pains that are not relieved no matter how many times I barf (excuse the talk of bodily functions here), poop, burp or toot. You KNOW that when I release gas you should stop hurting, but you insist on continuing the horrible pain. PLEASE STOP!

Fourth-Pregnancy Brain I'm assuming its you that is at fault for how tired I am and I just need to let you know I do not appreciate it one bit. I am well past the first trimester now and I was assuming the tiredness who come to an end as most pregnancy books promise. But you, you seem to be a rebellious brain. Making me tried WELL past the first trimester. I have things to do my dear brain. I need more energy more ability than just waking up, getting through the work day (barely) making dinner (barely) and finishing the dishes (barely). Instead of having to play with my son while sitting or lying down, I would like to run outside with him and chase him for hours as he is accustomed to. I am no longer a fun Mom because of you. I chase him once down the hallway and I'm toast and its not cool. Luckily I have a wonderful husband who is the best Father who chases twice as long, twice as hard to make up for my lackings. BUT i want to chase him myself. So please oh please stop making me so tired. And while I am talking to you brain, enough with the stupidness. You make me forget basic words. I can't hold an intellectual conversation anymore and the other day when I meant to say appetite I said apptitude. NOT SMART. I like being smart so stop making me dumb.

Fifth-Emotions. Get a handle on yourself. Bawling your eyes out whilst watching the Biggest Loser is not an acceptable practice. I am not a terribly tear filled girl and yet you have made me a sobbing mess. I could barely breath from how hard you made me cry at Forrest Gump the other night ( I was however slightly comforted when I looked ever and even Branden had a tear glistening in the corner of his eye, that is a great movie!) I was crying so hard at The Biggest Loser last night that Jack became most concerned. He brought me his favourite stuffed animal steve to make me feel better and when that didn't work he climbed up and gave me a big hug. AS pleasant and adorable as this was, my baby should not have to comfort me and my insane emotions I should be comforting him and his insane emotions.

Sixth, pregnancy Hair. I adore you. you make my hair less greasy I can go three days without washing without being a big old greaseball. You are growing fast and you are soft and lustrous. You may be the only part of my body I appreciate. So I love you!

In conclusion pregnancy body I know you serve me well in so many ways. You made me one perfect healthy amazing baby and I'm sure you're on your way to producing another. You get pregnant with a ridiculous amount of ease. You are a fertile myrtle body and I appreciate that. But I wish, OH how I wish you could do all these wonderful things with just a little less inconvenience to your possessor

Jacks First Hair Cut

2009-10-17T13:11:00.000-07:00

Today we took Jack for his first haircut. At first it was going much better than I expected, he was fascinated by his reflection in the mirror and his crazy silk cape and was being completely quiet and still. Then the lady sprayed his hair with the water and he FREAKED out and then spent the rest of the time acting like we were trying to cut off a piece of his soul. The hair cut turned out good though, no more wispy weird mullet. They gave us a first haircut certificate and a lock of his hair and did you know that first choice doesn't charge for first haircuts. I recommend them. The lady worked fast and made it as painless as possible.

here's Jack about to start the hair cut

And an after picture. its cute, but I think it makes him look so much older. He's totally a little toddler now and not my little baby. that makes me happy, but also a smidge sad.

And the new haircut with a cheesy in his hair. Worlds best Mom eh!

Sewing

2009-10-17T12:24:00.001-07:00

Recently I've gotten back into sewing in a big way. I've been trying all sorts of little projects for Jack. Some have worked, some have not. Some are done and some are not. If this little nugget inside of me is a girl though I promise that my inner seamstress will be unleashed. There are just way to many cute clothes I can make for her and I"m really excited about that. As for Jack I thought I'd show off a few of the things I've made for him lately. The things that are finished are halloween related.

These are some halloween pj's I made him. I couldn't get a good picture, because he was playing with the keyboard and pretty much as still as he's going to get when awake. He is not destined to be a model. I made the bottems too small though, hence the racing stripes in orange material down the side. They are still too small on his tushy. My problem was that I used a pair of his pj's that fit him now as the pattern. But the material they are made of is stretchy and this material, not so much. So his booty hangs out the back, they are still cute though, dorky racing stripes and all and I've learned my lesson for next time.

This is his trick or treating bag that I made him. Pattern from this lovely blog here--->Barefoot in the Kitchen Mine is less girly than hers, obviously and I didn't make the lid because I tried and it kept being too small and I figured who needs a lid anyways. you want easy access to that candy. I LOVE LOVE LOVE how this one turned out and Jack has great fun with it already shoving random crap into it and taking it around the house. I also made one for my nephew Thomas, but gave it to him before taking a picture. His is dark blue material, its cute too, but in the future I wouldn't use such a dark material because you couldn't see the jack'o'lantern face as well.

Anyways those are my current sewing adventures. I'll let you know as I finish more.

Tips Anyone?

2009-10-17T10:02:00.000-07:00

So I'm hoping that some experienced Mothers read my blog here and can offer me some advice/tips. How do I ensure my sweet little baby to be comes late.. or at bare minimum on time. I'm really stressing out lately about this baby being early like Jack was and I just don't want that to happen. I want to be able to work as long as I can and preferably I would like it to be a month late. (I am aware for you Mothers who went overdue that I will probaly be changing my tune those last few weeks) But the thing is. This baby is due April 4th. Meaning I should start my maternity leave atleast 2 weeks before it comes since Jack was 2 weeks early, making my maternity leave start mid march. Which means that it will end mid march next year. Which is a problem

Branden finishes school end of next April and we will most likely be relocating. We'll go wherever he gets the best job and although its possible it might be in Kitchener its not likely. So even if I save up some of my vacation to cash out at the end of my Maternity leave that leaves me with a month where he isn't working and neither am I (because if we're moving I dont' want to go back to my job here for just a month and find daycare for Jack and #2 for just a month)

UGH! So how to I go back in time and make myself get pregnant a month later! (If only we were good at planning the timing of our babies!) Or how to I make sure I'm like 2 weeks late instead of 2 weeks early!

I've seen soooo many tips out there on how to induce your baby to come, sex, castor oil etc. But where are the tips to make it stay in your belly?? Anyone??

Crazy

2009-10-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

I think its fair to say that my child is a smidge on the psycho side of the spectrum. He comes by it honestly though having been born to two parents who have been known to get a little out of control from time to time. But somedays this child is just unstoppable in his craziness.
Lets take last night for example. Jack was excitedly running up and down our hallway (as usual) and got a little too excited at something and ran smack into the wall (this happens more than I would care to admit). But this time was an extreme. After his wall collision he cried for about 15 seconds and then went on running, spent some time on Brandens lap, but seemed fine and normal.
A few minutes later Branden notices some red stains all over our carpet and starts asking me what on earth I've done to the carpet. That's when we look at Jack who's toe had been sliced open on the baseboard upon his wall collision and was bleeding QUITE profusely and tracking it all around the house. There were little bloody toe prints EVERYWHERE and since he'd been on Brandens lap oodles of blood had dripped down Branden's pants and were covering him!
Here is my poor hurt and very bloody baby who is not even making a fuss about this. That is until we went and washed it off and band-aided it. He was not impressed with the Band-Aid. He doesn't' like having stuff stuck to his foot (he freaks out if he steps on a piece of tape or plastic and it sticks to his foot) so he was unimpressed. But seemed fine once we covered it with a sock. He even hopped up on our bed and spent quite some time jumping and marching around. Until we noticed he had bled through his Band-Aid and sock and was leaving bloody toe prints all over our sheets. Then we searched our house from top to bottom and found one lonely robeez to put on him to keep the blood in place. It was a catastrophe and he looked RIDICULOUS!
But this didn't' stop him from running around, throwing his chair all over the apartment, crawling when the foot hurt to much and just plain being insane last night. It didn't' stop him from marching on the spot for 5 minutes at my feet or climbing back up on our bed to jump for another 10 minutes. This child is just out of control!

Thanksgiving

2009-10-16T05:53:00.001-07:00

Monday was Thanksgiving and we had a great long weekend. Friday night we went to our wards Harvest Dance. Which was alot of fun. My parents came and watched Jack so Branden and I could go unencumbered. We learned to square dance, which was I have to say shockingly entertaining and fun. Although I had to FORCE Branden to try it I think in the end he had fun doing it.
Saturday we rested for our next two days.
Sunday we went to church and then to Branden's parents house for Thanksgiving dinner. It was tasty and fun EXCEPT that for some random reason my pregnancy decided to attack and immediately upon finishing the meal I spent quite some time vomiting it back up in the bathroom while everyone listened on. So very lady like of me! The barfing, however, didn't stop me from gobbling up some pumpkin pie later.
Monday we did our Annual Timon Family Tradition and went to the apple orchard. Usually on Thanksgiving Monday the place is booming with people. But this monday was about 1 degree out. So it was a ghost town, except us all dutifully bundled up and ready to pick apples. Jack had a blast though, he didn't even seem to notice the cold. And did not eat a single apple, but had way to much fun throwing them around with great abandon. Other than the freezingness that did not leave me all day it was a grand ol'time!
Then we went back to my parents for a wonderful turkey dinner that I did not wretch up this time (yay me!)
I stole some pictures from my sisters facebook for you to see our Monday Apple Orchard adventures.

Jack Eating Dinner
Jack pushing the Wagon

Picking up apples to throw

walking, cutest sweater on him ever EH! Got it for $2 at a garage sale, it has a matching hat he ripped off, but I LOVE it!

My nephew Thomas and his Dad Grant. Adorable scruncho face eh!

Sitting in the wagon.

Excuse the enormity of my head in Branden's hat (I was cold) and focus on Jack's adorableness!

Announcement-ish

2009-09-29T08:40:00.001-07:00

Some days lately, scratch that, MOST days lately I feel like I am dying. Literally as though I am going to pass at any moment. The reason for this is a good one though, I’m pregnant! (Which I’m sure most of you already know) The due date is April 4th and I’ll be excited as soon as this child stops trying to slowly kill me. So far I refer to this baby as the difficult one. Jack is currently DEFINITELY the favorite!

I have been so, so, so sick with this pregnancy. I was not sick with Jack. I had minor morning sickness, which would easily go away with a bit of two of cracker every hour on the hour. With this one I have been puke your guts out (even when on the anti-nausea medicine) want to die all day most days sick. Its been getting better, I’m through my first tri-mester now so I thought it had past. I haven’t taken my medicine in days and I’ve only felt minor nausea… until this morning.

I woke up this morning feeling fine, feeling great. Well rested and happy to meet the day. I got into work at 7 and was still feeling great. At about 7:30 a wave nausea hit me like I haven’t felt before. I couldn’t even make it to the bathroom it hit so hard and so fast. I grabbed my garbage can and I wretched and I wretched and I wretched and I wretched. All in the garbage can, all in my hair and even some on my shirt. All while my 10 or so co-workers who start early like I do looked on in horror. They were shocked when I briefly looked up between liquid streaming from my mouth I saw the horrified look of swine flue terror on their faces. So I screamed out like the biggest nerd ever “Don’t’ worry I’m just pregnant.” Which did little to stop the stares of horror. When I finally finished the many sympathetic older women I work with gathered around to get my water, pat my head, tell me the understood and not to be embarrassed and to help me dispose of the waste can full of vomit. They all immediately said “it must be a girl”. That is the response I get whenever anyone finds out I’ve been sick. Apparently in many women’s experience they were deathly ill with their girls and barely sick with their boys.

It was a terrible experience. And I had to stay at work (sick days aren’t for wasting on myself you know!) reeking of vomit all day, my stomach muscles sore from so much wretching and feeling like a bag of turd. It has not been a good day.

BUT on a good note-Havarti Cheese and Stoned Wheat Crackers is the perfect post-barf snack.

Worst Day EVER!

2009-06-23T06:05:00.000-07:00

Today stinks, yesturday stunk too, but today is even worse. Both Jack and I got sick yesturday. Mine is a stomachish thing that does not let me be too far from a washroom at any point in time and we are going to the doctor for Jack later today, but he has the worst cough ever, a super runny nose, diarhea and a fever.

Needless to say I am not at work today. I am home very sick and in pain myself and with a very sick and sad little boy. We are watching on tv both of our favourites, the bachelorette and the wiggles. Good day!

Last night I was in gut wrenching pain and Jack was up every 5 minutes and Branden had to work today. So for the first time ever he slept in our bed out of ease of getting him. And let me say this, it will not be a frequent situation. The kid is the rudest sleeper ever, he refused to sleep the right direction and spent all night wiggling and squirming and coughing and waking up ever 5 minutes with his head shoved into Branden's armpit and his feet kicking me in various places on my face and torso. Seriously even when the kid is dead asleep he's moving! So none of us slept too well at all last night.

So today is about appeasing us both. currently Jack is quite happily playing on the floor, hacking away, with massive amounts of boogers streaming into his mouth. The reason why he's so happy is because i let him play with every electronic in the house. Two wii-motes-check, 2 remotes-check- 2 phones-check, one cell phone-check, and one old camera to top it off. The kid is in electronic heaven. I think when I get the energy to get off the couch I'll add a keyboard into the mix.

I hope he sleeps well today because I need sleep like noone's business.

On a cuter note (and less boogery and disgusting note) Jack is obsessed with stuffed animals lately. Actually make that stuffed animal. My cousin Bailey, his honorary Aunt Bailey bought him this fabulous soft lion thats bigger than he is that he LOVES. Every day when he comes home he runs straight for it throws it on the floor gets on top and gives it some serious LOVE (its soo weird, but makes him soo happy) and various times throughout every day he'll bring it to me to hug and then want me to hug him with the lion in between us. Its pretty much the cutest thing ever! I'll try and capture a video of him giving his lion love to share, because it is soo adorable (and weird!)

Hilary Visit

2009-06-13T15:38:00.000-07:00

My oldest friend Hilary has been in Canada visiting the last little while. (She sadly went off to school in Idaho and married a boy from Maryland and is living there.) She has an adorable little girl, Sierra, thats about the same age as Jack (just a few months younger) and I'm soo glad we were able to get together with our babies this past week.

Hilary came down and we all spent the day together. It was a great day and honestly our little munchkins have such similar personalities, they are both a little crazy and a whole lot of fun. We had a busy day of activities for them and had so much fun!

First we had them create some pudding art. Well, atleast we tried. They seriously just ate the pudding and got alot on themselves and the floor and shockingly little on the paper for how much of a mess the rest of the floor was. They loved their pudding and had so much fun eating away. They were hilarious Hil and I were nearly peeing our pants laughing at the two of them.

It finally ended in catastrophe though when Jack slipped in some pudding, fell and devolved into tears, then Sierra devolved into tears upon having her diaper taken off and neither Hilary or I had any desire to hug and comfort our pudding covered little ones. why oh why do events with babies always end in catastrophe?

Anyways after that we took our crying messes of babies off for a fun little bubble bath together. They were totally adorable splashing away together and they got all clean. The bubble bath too, however, ended in the catastrophe. Hilary and I were busy snapping pictures of our little ones and poor little Sierra slipped under the water and it took Hilary like 2 seconds to get here because of the camera factor and this was just unacceptable to Sierra she was so upset and it was so sad! poor little one!

After Hilary finally got Sierra calm, we all had some lunch. The babies had quite a little feast. we had everything for them, chicken, grapes, cheese, crackers, corn and green beans. But they just gobbled up the cheese fast as good be and ignored the other stuff until we got them some more cheese. Crazy kids.

After lunch, they both had naps! (amazing children) and Janeth was happening by the house so she came in with Luke for a bit which was nice (and the crazy lady had her baby the next day!)

Later in the afternoon once they were both up we took them outside to play. We got them into their swimsuits so they could play in the smallest pool ever. it was pretty cute. Then they both got obsessed with climbing up the slide together... sooo cute!!

For dinner, we had a bbq and Hilary's sister Heather and her husband Ken and two little girls came over. It was really nice to all spend time together.

All in, it was a fabulous day. I just wish Hil lived closer so we could have play dates like that for Mommies and babies every week!

Here I am as promised!

2009-06-13T15:22:00.000-07:00

Well the last few weeks have been very busy for us MacLeans. As you know my maternity leave finished and I'm back at work and Branden is also working for the summer. both of our jobs are going as well as can be expected and we're starting to get into the swing of things. We are so exhausted most of the time and being very minimally social, but we are still having fun. Its been really hard though and we're just hoping it gets easier with thime.

It took Jack awhile to adjust to daycare, but he's adjusted and he's in a great daycare. The ladies there love him and he loves them. They even fight over who gets to hold him and cuddle him when he's in the mood. He LOVES all the toys they have there. His favourite is the slide, he climbs up the stairs and goes down the slide for hours at a time. Every time I pick him up he's going up and down and up and down. I really wish that I could be home with him, but this daycare is great and is definately the next best thing since I can't be.

We've been trying to have alot of fun doing stuff together as a family on the weekend, since its our main time together.

A few weeks ago we hopped a fence and broke into a private school park and played together. It was pretty fun!

We had a big delicious waffle breakfast together that Jack loved!

We introduced Jack to the world of bubble baths and he loved them more than anything!

We had a picnic at Waterloo park and Jack got to see all the animals. He, however, was not all the interested in the animals and was more interested in shaking the fences and scaring them away. Then he got too excited for words for no reason ran away and pushed a random little girl who was walking hand in hand with her Mom and then hugged her Mom. he was out of control, but it was alot of fun.

We also went to a play place called busy bees with the trinks and their daughters. Jack was a smide overwhelmed by all the toys, but he definately had alot of fun!

We went to Brantford and Jack got to spend time with his grandparents and meet some of my old friends from Browntown.

Life in general has been pretty great, but busy. I promise though I will be better at keeping up from now on!

bad blogger

2009-06-11T16:52:00.000-07:00

I have been a bad, bad blogger lately. I promise I'm still alive and doing somewhat interesting things. I am also dead tired like noones business at the end of the day and have no energy beyond basic existance most days so blogging has fallen by the wayside. BUT I don't like that my life is going by undocumented (because you know if blogging isn't happening, journaling most certainly isn't happening) so I promise a return this weekend. Multiple posts, many pictures. I swear it!

Jack is One

2009-05-17T14:20:00.000-07:00

Today Jack officially turns one years old! We really didn't do anything special, although I am making him a birthday cookie right now.

I can't believe how fast the past year has gone by. I can believe my baby is no longer a baby he is a little toddler! I just stare at him in awe as I watch him walk around exploring his world and figuring everything out.

He is really so amazing and Branden and I honestly feel we really lucked out. He somehow managed to come into this world and only get both of our best qualities and leave our truly terrible ones behind (which makes us terrified for whenever we have another that it will get all the terrible ones).

He is so smart and funny. Seriously he's starting to figure out jokes and will do anything to make us laugh. He loves to play peekaboo he will hide behind anything and jump out at us.

He LOVES being chased more than anything. Branden and I probaly spend a half an hour an evening chasing him from one end of the hallway to the other, him laughing hysterically all the while.

Jack is getting so big and loves getting into trouble. He is at the stage where he just tears everything apart and loves carrying stuff. He takes all the things that belong at one end of the apartment and takes them to the other and vice versa.

Jack is always on a mission. He marches and runs around the house like he has so much to do and so little time. Its hilarious to watch!

He think his tummy is hilarious. Whenever he had a big meal and his tummy is full and slighly distended he walks around pulling his shirt up and patting and slapping it laughing and grumbling.

I could seriously watch this wonderful little boy all day. he is endlessly entertaining to me. We love him so much!!

Happy Birthday to my fabulous little boy!

Mother's Day

2009-05-10T17:25:00.000-07:00

Today is my first Mother's Day as an actual Mom (last year was just a week before I had Jack). I want to start off by recognizing my own Mom who has taught me so much about how to be a Mom. My Mom is great, she is the least selfish person I know. She is funny, an amazing listener, strong, smart, spiritual and just all around wonderful. I don't think I'd be half the Mother I am without here example. I love you mom!!

Next, lets talk a little about how my day went. I woke up early with Jack and he was perfectly adorable and somewhat cuddly for a bit in the morning and then became ridiculously whiney and tired all of a sudden. So we had to give him a nap before church which in turn made us late for church. Branden and Jack did, however, present me with my Mothers day gift of Hypnotic Poison perfume. It is my favourite perfume EVEr and I ran out a few months ago, so I was pretty happy.

Then was church which was quite delightful and Jack managed to hold it together reasonably well. after church naps and then Jack woke up. I noticed when I went to grab him toys that his play pen was covered in pen. The day before he had somehow found a pen and bit it in half and gotten ink all over himself. It took us forever to clean him up and we didn't even think to check his playpen. Today I discovered the mess. pen all over his toys, the carpet is blue from one end to the other. UGH. Branden and I spent hours scrubbing it and we have most of it out, but ground zero (where the initial explosion happened) is still a mess! UGH! Then Jack spent the evening whining, we put him to bed early and awhile later heard massive crying went into check and he had pooped out of his diaper and onto my bear Branden got me he sleeps with. My kid dumped on my teddy bears head! oh man, that took awhile to clean up to!

So parts of today good, parts bad. Tomorrow work starts so hopefully that goes well!!

1 Week Left

2009-05-04T16:53:00.000-07:00

How will I ever leave my little pudding Hitler!

Today I have just one week of maternity leave left. It is frankly quite depressing and I am feeling far more emotional than I thought I would. I'm trying really hard not to think too much about it, because I'm sure once I'm in the habit of things it won't be terrible. I know Jack will be okay, we had a meeting with his daycare last week and he got to play with his teachers and the kids and he just loved it so much. The ladies, Mary Anne and Gayle are amazing and loving and wonderful and the kids are great and entertaining. I'm quite sure it will be harder on me than him. I can't imagine leaving my little nugget, I'm going to miss him so much. Add to that I am going to be exhausted! All this week I am making ahead freezer meals so I don't have to worry too much about cooking for the first bit I'm back at work. I figure one less thing on my plate is good. Today I made 8 shepherd's pies to freeze. YUM! Tomorrow I go into mass production of lasagna. It will all be okay, I just have to keep telling myself that!

Jack's Birthday Party

2009-05-03T18:55:00.001-07:00

Birthday boy excited to celebrate!

Well, Jack isn't yet one, but we did celebrate his birthday yesturday. Branden starts back to work tomorrow and me next Monday so we decided to get the stress out of the way before we get super busy.

It was a great party. We had it at my parents house and lots of family was there. Jack had so much fun, but was dead tired by the end of the day.

I tried to go all out for it, I mean you only turn 1 once right! Branden thought I was ridiculous, but it all turned out really great. Except my monkey truffle pops. they tasted good, but did not look as nice as I had hoped and definately were not worth the 5 hours of effort.

The theme as you can guess from my last paragraph was monkey's! everything was monkey, the birthday sign, the cupcakes, the treat bags, the truffle pops. It was great.

Jack got some great gifts, including a motorized bus from my cousin Zach and his girlfriend Kiera, a block dump truck from his aunt and uncle, a trainset and adorable outfit from grandma and grandpa, an awesome winnie the poo suit case from cousin Bailey and the ability to pick out his own gift from the toy aisle from Aunt Sue and Uncle Randy.

He loved his first cupcake experience. He seriously could not get enough of it and went onto a serious sugar high for about 10 to 15 minutes after it. At one point he ran across the room screaming at his cousin Thomas, attacked stole he bottle and nearly killed the baby. He was out of control hilarious running and screaming until he pretty much collapsed from exhaustion.

All in all It was a great time and I'm so grateful for everyone that came and celebrated with us.

Now, onto some pictures from the event.

Monkey Treat bags for everyone to take home.

Our Jack inspired Beverages

A fuzzy view of the happy birthday sign I made

Monkey cupcakes

Decor outside

Jack playing in his bus

So excited by the candle and cupcake

Loving the first cupcake bite.

Jack could not get enough of the cupcake!

T-dot

2009-05-02T05:24:00.000-07:00

Well I'm slow writing, but Branden has had this week off so we've been busy and Jack's birthday party is today later on and I've been soooo busy getting all the details for that ready. but I have a few minutes right now and Jack is off with Branden directing traffic for some Osmond thing thats going on with the church so I thought I would blog.

Monday night Branden and I spent our first night away from Jack. I missed him alot, but it was less than I thought I would, mainly because we had SO much fun! I forgot to take any pictures though so my words will have to suffice.

Monday we dropped Jack off at Branden's parents in the late morning, they were kind enough to watch him for us. Then we went over to my friend Opper and his wife Natalie's house in Toronto for lunch. It was so good to see him, since we hardly do anymore. they made us a delicious lunch, then we went and got the most amazing gelato. It was great.

Then we went to our hotel in downtown toronto. It was really nice and we had a King bed, which was so nice! I really want one of those one day! We got changed and went out and did some shopping. Went for a really nice dinner at City Grill. It was so nice to shop and eat dinner without Jack. It went so fast compared to what we are used to.

Then we went back to our hotel room for the night and the next morning it was pouring, so our plans for much outdoor walking were cancelled so we went to ikea to get Jack a toy chest and some other assorted items. We picked up Jack and spent some time with Branden's Mom. Jack seemed like he had tons of fun, he didn't miss us at all but he certainly was excited to see us when we got there.

It was so great to just get away and spend some time alone. I recommend doing that to anyone, its so refreshing. We're going to take advantage of my parents next time sometime later this summer and get away for a day or two again!

Jack Explosion and Another Type of Explosion

2009-04-23T04:47:00.001-07:00

Lately Jack has exploded in his development. He’s gone from drunken staggering to being able to walk fairly competently between things atleast. Distance is still an issue, but he’s getting better by the minute. He’s saying more and more words: Mama, dada, baba and up. He’s quite a little copy cat now and Branden and him love to have raspberry blowing contests. He’ll clap and wave goodbye and hello. He loves to yell and yell, he pretty much thinks it’s the funniest thing ever. He’ll scream at the top of his lungs as long as he can until his face is about to explode and then laughs at himself like crazy. He dances so cute when Branden and I are playing guitar hero world tour.He pretty much just leeches onto one of our legs and shakes his arms around like a crazy person. He’s just getting cuter and funner by the day.

And now onto the other explosion. This past Friday I was at a girls night and several girls were discussing the enjoyability of flax and the health benefits of it. So I decided to be healthy and bought some over the weekend for Jack and I to try. I’ve been adding it to my cereal in the morning and his oatmeal and let me tell you it has increased the efficacy of my bm’s and Jack’s A LOT. Which I don’t’ know how I feel about it, since I’ve always been a regular girl to begin with and Jack is more than regular. I’m okay with the effects on me, but him.. BLECK I have to clean that crap up times a lot more now. NOT FUN! But I think I’ll power through and keep it up, because it is healthy and all. Trust me though every time Jack has an explosive diaper I will be cursing you Cheryl and Jenn.

4th Anniversary

2009-04-22T10:31:00.001-07:00

Today marks 4 years since the day I married my lovely Branden. We're not doing much to celebrate today as Branden is in the thick of exams, but we are going away on our first night away from Jack on Monday. We found a cheap hotel deal at a really nice hotel in downtown Toronto so we'll be there and Jack will be with his grandparents. I'm looking forward to it!

But for today a small ode to my husband, who I love and adore. Branden is by far the funniest, handsomeist and smartest person I know. He is the best Father and Jack and I are both lucky to have him. And although somedays he annoys the beejeezus out of me he is really the best thing in the world and I"m super happy I married him.

Happy Anniversary Hun!

Bath Time Woes

2009-04-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

Bath time with Jack lately has been a little bit in the tricky side of the spectrum. He LOVE, LOVE ,LOVES bath and always has, but he gets a little too excited for his own good sometimes. He just won’t sit still. He crawls from one end to the other non-stop the entire bath. He will not sit still no matter what toys I lure him in with. So we have to bath on the go. Scrub his tush as he crawls away, his face as he crawls toward (the face is relatively easy though since he likes to shove his face under the running faucet) and thank goodness for tear free shampoo since the shampooing is done on the run and there is no way to tip him back so the water and shampoo doesn’t run off right into his adorable little face. But it’s a workout! Any Moms or just smart people in general out there have any ideas on how to get the little nugget to sit the heck still?

Fresh Prince of Bel-Baby

2009-04-21T06:31:00.001-07:00

Not much point to this post really except to share these far too adorable pictures of Jack. I Love my baby!

Easter Finally

2009-04-21T06:03:00.000-07:00

So it may have taken me awhile but I am finally getting around to posting about Easter. We had a fairly laid back Easter, but it was a good time. On Good Friday Jack, Branden and I went to the traditional pancake breakfast and walk in my old ward. It was great to see all my family and old friends. We went on the walk with my family and Opper and his wife Natalie and it was a great, but long walk!

After that we all hung out back at my parents place. They had done an easter egg hunt for us big kids and there was kinder eggs and baby food for the babies. Jack got about 1/8 of a kinder egg and loved every minute of its chocolatey goodness.

Jack finding the "hidden" eggs

Then we had an amazing easter dinner of steak, baked potatoes, corn asparagas and pie. It was quite wonderful.
Jack happily smashing the eggs together.

Then on Sunday we did our own little easter egg hunt with Jack. He managed to find most of the eggs (although they were not exactly well hidden). Then he enjoyed banging them together profusely until his baby snacks popped out. It was cute to watch! All in all it was a good first easter for Jack!

Jack with his Egg stash

No Smoking for Babies

2009-04-19T18:12:00.000-07:00

The weather around here has been gorgeous this last week. And on Friday my friend Janeth and her little boy Luke (who's just a month younger than Jack) and Jack and I decided to enjoy it by going to the park for a picnic. The boys had a lot of fun and seem to be enjoying parks and outdoors more and more as the days go by. We swung on the swings, went on a four way teeter totter. Went down slides and climbed through tubes. It was great... until catastrophe struck!

The boys were sitting on the ground on a blanket eating and Jack was crawling about on the surround grass exploring and eating leaves and dirt and what not. Quite frankly I'm totally okay with him eating dirt. I think its part of being a boy. So I wasn't paying that much attention to it at all. Then I look down and Jack has something in his mouth and is making a most disgusted face about it. Upon further inspection Janeth and I discovered it was a cigarette butt! I almost cried and barfed. I scraped it out, wipied his mouth and gave him a drink post haste. I felt like pretty much the worst mom ever. I didn't even think to look for and clear out cigarette butts. It was terrible and the poor kid smelt like smoke in his mouth region all day after that, even after a thorough mouth scrubbing when we got home. It was not cool. So note to all first time Mothers scan the immediate zone and throw out all cigarette butts when you go to the park!

Jack's First Steps

2009-04-06T19:20:00.000-07:00

Today is an eventful day. It is the day of Jack's first steps. About a week ago he ventured one small step at my parents house, but I don't count that as anything.. it is first steps not step. But today he did it, several in a row 3 or 4 and MAN were the some drunk crazy looking steps, but still its cute and awesome he's starting to figure out how to walk.

It was pretty funny how the first steps happened and I really wish we had a video of what actually happened. My dear old friend Jacquie and her husband Ryan were over visiting (I haven't seen her in like 2 years so this was amazing!) and we were playing with Jack and seriously Jack loved Ryan. He thought he was hilarious! So Jack's first couple steps were actually going from me to Ryan. So funny! Then ryan turned him around and he like seriously jogged, I'm not kidding, JOGGED 4 or 5 steps back to me. His little legs were moving so fast. Its like he thought the faster he went the less likely he was to fall or something.. hahaha.

Anyways he is by no mean a pro-walker yet. But he's starting to do a small drunken stagger. We tried to get a video of the drunken stagger. It sort of worked out, but it was the end of the day and he was tired and not doing as well, but you still get the gist of it. Oh and please excuse my baby's trailer trashy no-shirtness.... its just how he rolls.

Pudding Painting

2009-03-27T19:55:00.000-07:00

Ever since my last attempt at finger painting with Jack I've been really stuck on the idea. I really liked the painting he did and still have it hanging in my apartment, but I'm not really cool with him eating his weight in paint, albeit the paint was non-toxic but still! so we tried painting with pudding. And I have to say I was surprised. he was much more excited to paint with and eat the real paint than the pudding. He cried alot at first, then sort of got into it, then got scared and as I was about to go give him a bath discovered the delicious taste of pudding and gobbled up as much as he could. I think we'll try it again, but probaly not a for a few more months.

St Patrick's Day

2009-03-26T19:44:00.000-07:00

I am proud Irish lady. Growing up we always celebrated St. Patrick's day as both my parents are mostly Irish. We would have corned beef and VOMIT Cabbage. When Branden first kissed me it was a bit before St. Patty's day and I was wearing a kiss me I"m Irish pin. I honestly thought it was my good luck charm for awhile and still have it tucked away in a memory box somewhere.

Now that I'm out on my own I do not celebrate St. Patricks day with the revolting meal of my ancestors past. In fact we barely did anything to celebrate it (although I did gather all kinds of fun ideas for when Jack is older). What I did do is dress Jack and I in our green irish best for the day.

We went grocery shopping all decked out and as I was checking out a very old Irish man came up to me nearly in tears. He spoke in a thick Irish accent of being an Irish immigrant and profused over the adorability of Jack and how proud he was of me for displaying my Irish pride. It made this old man's day to see Jack and I all decked out. I must have spent 10 minutes talking to him. Listening to a few of his stories and him telling me over and over again how happy his wife would be when he told her about our wonderful Irish outfits. It really made my day that something so simple made this man so happy. It was a great day!

Memory Corner The Oppertunity

2009-03-26T11:14:00.000-07:00

Me and Opper on a camping trip a few summers ago

Today I share with you a memory that involves one of my dearest old friends Opper. This guy is hilarious. If you meet him, you love him. I honestly have yet to meet someone that does not adore this kid. He is amazing. That being said he also can bit a SMIDGE of an idiot from time to time and my memory from today definately involves him being an idiot.

It was a wonderful summer evening back in our days of singleness. We were having a ysa bonfire/bbq for our ward out on the farm of a man in our ward's. We were way back in the woods and making an enormous bonfire. When I say enormous I really mean it, like this was a serious stack of wood. Opper was having some trouble getting the bad boy started and we had all gathered around the pile of wood on our camping chairs waiting for it to shed its warmth on us. I watched only mildly interested as Opper tried and failed to light the fire. He then got out a jerry can of gas and poured it all over the pile of wood. I then took more notice as he couldn't find his matched and fumbled around for several moments searching for the matches. Finally he found them and as he struck the match it occured to us... the fumes. someone (I have no clue who) screamed the fumes and you could see the look of horror on opper's face as the match lit ( I might be embellishing the detail here just a bit! haha! I was far to terrified to notice this) Anyways he turned and ran as the match ignited the pile and seriously the biggest fire ball I have ever seen wooshed out from the centre of the fire. It came back a good 3 to 4 feet from the pile of wood and I swear singed us all. We were terrified. I just remember Heather and I cuddling together terrified unable to do anything but laugh as the fire went back to its normal place. It was seriously insane and Opper should not be alive! He wasn't even hurt, just a little freaked out. Seriously though anyone who knows ANY opper should know (from this and other stories I've heard) never let an Opper touch fire!!

Sunday Ponderings

2009-03-26T10:10:00.000-07:00

This Sunday in church I had the rare opportunity to actually listen to all the talks (Branden had Jack out in the hall). My good friend Heather was talking about marriage etc. and one thing that she said really stood out to me. It was a quote I had heard before, but hadn't remember and to be honest I still don't remember who she said it was by. Someone amazingly spiritual and intelligent I'm sure. Anyways it was something to the effect that We need to have our eyes wide open to our own faults and half closed to the faults of our spouse.

This really struck a chord with me. In general I am acutely aware of my many, many faults. I am a deeply flawed person and I don't kid myself to pretend I'm not. Most days I spend perhaps too much time focused on my own faults. Although to be honest not in a constructive, better fix em', way; more in a I stink and boo hoo kind of way. I so need to work on being more constructive with them. Anyways, TANGENT, the point is most days I am so fully aware of my faults and Branden's tend to fade into the background. Most days I think he's quite delightful, wonderful and perfect.

BUT for some BIG reason whenever we get into a disagreement, arguement, a battle of wills my eyes immidiately shut to my own long list of faults and focus in like a laser on his. WHAT THE HECK! This makes life so much the more difficult for both of us and I'm not sure why I do it.

So this quote really struck home to me. I am going to try more and more each day to focus on my own faults and not focus on feeling sorry for myself over them but focus on being better on fixing them and becoming the kind of person I want to be. AND I'm going to clear the laundry list of Brandens faults right out of my mind.... well atleast try on that one I"m sure its easier said then done.

Wish me Luck.

Memory Corner Request

2009-03-25T20:11:00.000-07:00

Okay so I feel like in my old age (yes 25 IS old) my memory is failing me and many hilarious experiences from my past are escaping me. So I am inviting all you, all my old friends who know me well enough to have had a hilarious experience with me to share in my memory corner. Email me a hilarious story from our past and be a guest poster on my blog and let me laugh as I remember our antics.

Do it.. now. I promise you might regret it!

Memory Corner-the 14 years old edition

2009-03-25T20:01:00.000-07:00

Hilary and I on better days (although not THAT MUCH better UCK!)

One time when my good friend Hilary and I were a mere 14 years old (or atleast somewhere in that age neighbourhood) we went down to the major metropolis of London to visit my brother and babysit his oldest over night for him and his wife. There was many an adventure that night, but I will not discuss that here for fear of far to much embarrassment. However the next day when my brother and his wife returned home to relieve us our babysitting duties we headed on over to the mall. We were shopping and looking around and happened upon Le Chateau which was a store that at the time was unfamiliar to us. We were looking around and saw these fabulous Neon Blue and Neon yellow Lycra skirts. We thought they were so fabulous and hilarious so we decided it was necessary for us to try them on. We went into our separate change rooms to try them on, we were positioned in change rooms on completely opposite sides of the store. Once we had them on I scurried on over to Hilary's change room to laugh with her at our wonderful skirts. We were in the changeroom together laughing hysterically at our skirts, which fit most oddly being far to large at the top and small at the bottom when we hear the saleslady speaking to us from the other side of the curtain. This sales lady most snottily informed us that these were not skirts they were tube tops. We were soo embarrassed. Seriously how retarded, stupid and just plain newbieish were we that we didn't even know tube tops existed to know that those "skirts" could possibly be tops. I scurried back to the other changeroom as fast as I could, with a face redder than could be. We changed and were out of there as fast as we could. We were soooo embarrassed, but it was so hilarious for us!

2009-03-25T18:47:00.000-07:00

It has been way to long since I've posted. Lots has happened, but I'm too lazy to go into detail. I feel so unmotivated to blog lately, mostly because some days I'm pretty sure only my Mom really misses my blogs.. haha. Good ol' Mom's. Anyways I think I'll do a quick update on life in our neck of the woods.

Jack is getting cuter and more adventurous by the minute. His favourite place currently is the bathroom. We do our very best to keep the door closed at all times, but trust me if we forget that kid will bolt for that bathroom with speed you have never seen. He will spend hours trying to scale the side of the bathtub, recently discovered he can throw his toys in the toilet and has an ever growing love of unrolling the toilet paper with a mighty vigour.

The other day we found him scaling a bookshelf, crazy kid. He is so infested with bruises all the time lately. He face planted off a kids lap in primary in sunday, has a joker-esque bruise extending in a perfect line from the corner of his mouth up his cheek from falling on the edge of our tv stand and has a perfectly carpet burned nose from propping himself up on his face when he feels the need to be on his knees and use his hands beneath himself.

He also loves books, but prefers the adult kind to his lovely board books. He spends hours each day ripping all the books of the bottom shelf and then pretending to read them. He's hilarious.

He is getting more and more vocal all the time. He has dada, mama and baba down and the other day he was playing in the corner and dropped a toy and Branden and I both swear he said Dangit.. it was AMAZING but we can't get him to repeat it. I wish we had it on video you would all die laughing.

Jack in the process of crawling out of his pants.

Jack is working on getting the top two teeth through which makes his bowels, shall we say, slightly loose. This has resulted in him losing 1.5 pounds this week (according to my wii fit which I weigh him on several times a week) He's gone from about 19 pounds down to 17.5 pounds. its ridiculous. He's rather skinny right now and the other day he crawled right out of his pants.

Peacefully sleeping baby

Jack is finally sleeping well. Its amazing and consistent (except when teething) and has been for a few weeks now. I've been afraid to even mention it for fear I would jinx it. But it appears good sleeping Jack is FINALLY here to stay. He sleeps 12 hours straight most night and has a 1.5 to 2.5 hour nap each afternoon (depending on how tired he is) Its amazing and I love it.

We are also spending alot more time outside and Jack loves it. He's still not fully comfortable with grass and swings and slides and everything, but whenever we go he figures it out a little more and loves it a little more.

Sorry no pictures of us together lately, just with Jack

As for Branden and I we are doing well too. Branden is heading into the end of the semester, so is going into a busy time, but is doing well in all his classes. He has a job lined up for the summer, its a really great one at a great company right near us. Which is AMAZING since we have only one car and i'll be needing it in May.

Me I am dreading going back to work. May 11th is my official return to work date and we still don't have day care firmed up for Jack so I'm a little stressed about that. I don't really want to go back. I love spending my days with Jack so much. But there are parts of going back I'm excited about.... like more money and adult interaction every day and more affirmation.

anyways thats all for us lately, I'll try and blog more often.

B

2009-03-02T21:00:00.000-08:00

So a few weeks ago my friend and wonderful blogger Shop Girl did an ABC game which I opted to participate in. She assigned me the letter "B" and my task is to list 10 things that I love that start with the letter B. Its taken me forever to get around to it, but I've decided that today I will do it.

1. The Most obvious thing I love that starts with the letter B is Branden. Yup, thats right big shocker I love my husband! Branden is really pretty much the most amazing thing ever and I absolutely adore him. He is the most supportive husband I could hope for, no matter what I want to do he helps me and always encourages me to try new things. I love this about him. Add to that he's hilarious, bodacious and such a major looker and I just love this boy more than I could ever say.

2.Next is Baby. Please notice I say Baby, not babies. I love one baby in particular right now and thats Jack. I mean babies are great. I love to cuddle them and snuggle them, but spend more than a few hours with one. No thanks. Except for Jack, I could snuggle that little boy and play with him every minute of every hour of every day. I majorly dread the day he turns from baby to toddler and its coming far to soon.

3. Number three on my list is Butts, Bums or Booties. I love tushies! Why, you might ask, because they do funny things like fart or poop that make me laugh so hard! Without bums, I would laugh atleast 50% less in a day.

4. Berries. I love berries, strawberries-good, blueberries-delicious, raspberries-I can live with; blackberries-scrumptious. A wonderful berry smoothie in the morning is the right start to the day, berries on waffles AMAZING and a big bowl of strawberries on a hot summer day make the whole world feel better.

5. Baths. I love a good bath, so relaxing. Its the one time of day I can just drift away, its the cure to all my problems in a day. Baths make my sore muscles hurt less, make my mind less stressed and as an added bonus, make me clean(ish).

6. The colour brown. I love brown, its my favourite colour. It was one of my wedding colours and I wear alot of brown. Its just so warm and flattering. LOVE LOVE LOVE the colour brown, its FAR superior to boring old black.

7. Next is Barbeque. Oh how I adore bbq. I miss bbq food (as we don't have one) nothing beats a deliciously barbequed steak or burger.. YUMM!

8.And directly related to that one is Backyard. What I hate most about not owning a house yet is having no BBQ and no backyard. Branden and I both dream of the day of having friends over in our beautiful backyard, sitting on the deck eating delicous BBQ while the kids play on the freshly mown grass...mmmmm..

9. Basketball. I love to play/slash/watch basketball. It (and soccer, but I was not assigned S) are my favourite sports. I'm no good at it, but its fun. Such good exercise and a bit of competition its just amazing fun!

10. And finally, most appropriately is Benediction. Benediction is great because it means church is over and my tired, grumpy baby can go home and sleep and my starving tummy can go home and eat. It means the end of church and the beginning of Sunday afternoon a time of relaxation, naps and PJ's for the whole family. I love me a good benediction.

And thats that folks. Let me know if you want to play and I can give you a letter!

what a week!

2009-03-02T11:00:00.000-08:00

Cute picture of Jack that has nothing to do with the post, except that its about him!

Last week was interesting to say the least. It was long, gross, worrisome and tiring! On Wednesday Jack got that hershey squirts and BAD! (for those of you who don't know, the hershey squirts is clearly diahrea!) They lasted all day and he pooped all the way up into and through several sleepers and pairs of socks. It was a catastrophe. Then near the end of the day his little peepie doodle (penis) started looking like it was going to fall off. His poor little cash and prizes (penis) was so swollen and red and every time he peed or pooped he would scream in horrendous pain. We spent all night changing his diaper, checking on it and giving him naked time hoping the air would help. This was all made ever the more unfortunate because my wonderful cousin Zach and his Cousin Keira (a recent highschool graduate and still high school student) were over for dinner and some games and had to bear witness to this giant catastrophe.
After they left it just got worse and worse and Branden and I spent quite a bit of time phoning nurses, his Mom (a nurse) and going back and forth on whether or not to take Jack to the ER. I was terrified if I didn't deal with his ever inflating and reddening whoo whoo pronto it would be rendered useless for life. We eventually ended up calling the ER to ask how long the wait was, it was late at night and Jack was exhausted so we didnt' want to wait forever and just make him worse. the wait was at 7 hours! So we decided to stay home and go to the doctor first thing. It would be about the same time we would have been seen at the ER and Jack would be well rested.

So the next day off to the doctor we go, all the while expecting the worst. A terrible UTI or some random infection. But not so much, apparently just a really bad diaper rash from his squirts being so acidic on his pee pee. She gave us some extra strength rash cream, told us to bathe him every time he went poop-dee-doop and give him mucho naked time and sent us on our way.

Jack enjoying doctor prescribed naked time to give his manhood some air.

Jack later that day ate the rash cream and was such a mess, but his pee pee cleared up very quickly and he is back to normal again. I however still had to tackle the mounty of poopy and cream infested laundry. I spent quite a bit of time on stain removal, but now our lives are back to normal.

Jack after he ate the diaper cream being restrained by his Aunt Sarah.

Jack's many stained clothes from the day.

Confession

2009-02-27T19:02:00.000-08:00

I have an embarrassing confession to make. I am so totally and completely terrified of showers. I can't handle showering. I don't do it very often at all. I'm a bath kind of girl, which I know alot of people think is gross, but I'd rather be gross than terrified and shifty. Whenever I shower I get this huge knot in my chest, I find it impossible to relax and I spend the entire time on guard looking around.
There is no concrete experience I have had that makes me terrified of showers (although I did fall in one when I was pregnant-ouch!). Do you know what it is that makes me so scared? Its stinkin' movies and TV and etc. EVERY somewhat scary movie seems to have a shower scene where something horrific and terrifying happens in a shower. I think probaly because the shower provides a perfect scene for partial nudity, but still EVERY one. Arachnaphopia scares me the most, but also the Grudge and many others.

UCK! I hate showers. I don't think I'll ever take one again!

30 Rock

2009-02-24T19:04:00.000-08:00

My current favourite Tv show of all time is 30 Rock. I seriously adore this show and don't think there is anything more hilarious on TV. I love Tina Fey, she is seriously my female crush and if I could be anyone it would be her. She is hot stuff, hilarious and just awesome in general.

I am always shocked when I hear of people who do not watch this show. Seriously do you not know what you are missing out on? Alec Baldwin is amazing, Tina Fey even better and Tracy Jordan, man just hilarious! Today I am seriously encouraging you all to watch this show. Mainly because I am always paranoid of shows I love getting cancelled because of lack of viewership so anything I can do to help I will. But seriously, I promise you if you watch this show you WILL love it, you will laugh until you cry, you will quote it every day, it will make your life better!

So go, schedule your day or set your PVR and this Thursday at 9:30 on NBC and WATCH!

Jack's Nine Month Doctors Appointment

2009-02-24T09:55:00.000-08:00

Yesturday was Jack's Nine Month Doctors appointment. Just the usual check up garbage.
His height is now 28 inches, right in the 50th percentile which he always has been in height and weight. His head size also 50th percentile (which is good because it always was, then randomlly last apointment was 90th, apparently his head just grew before his body). Then his weight was so weird. He's always been right in the middle, like I said 50th percentile, but not so much this visit. He's in the 10th percentile in weight, which is a huge drop and the doctor was rather concerned. He weighs 18 pounds 5 ounces and has put on less than a pound in the last 3 months.

I had to spend forever telling her all about his eating habits, sleeping habits, activity habits etc. so she could figure out why he is all of a sudden so skinny. Which is so weird, I thought he was a little chunker, but apparently not! Anyways he eats really well and alot, the doctor observed him playing for a bit and after talking to me decided there were two reasons he was so underweight.

One, because he still sleeps like turd. We did the whole cry it out thing and it worked to a certain extent. He went from 6 to 8 wake ups a night to 3 to 4, but thats still terrible for a baby his age. She says with waking up that much he's not spending enough time in REM sleep and its in REM sleep they grow and gain fatness so he's just not getting that chance. Add to that he decided lately naps are for losers and we really have to work on his sleep. So she gave us some tips and we have to be even more diligent with crying it out because the kid just needs to learn to sleep so he can grow properly. seriously though my kid is a lemon in the sleep department apparently.

The second reason he's so skinny is because he's so active. those of you who know Jack know he never stops moving. Even lying down he is always rolling his ankles and wrists, its the weirdest and cutest thing ever to watch. But he is always on the move and since he sleeps less, he moves more and ya. So, we have to start giving him really high fat foods. Most of what he eats now is fruits and vegetables, but now the doctor says we have to add in alot of egg yolks, yogurt, cheese and more calorie dense foods. She also said to use major butter in whatever I cook for him.

So Operation Make Jack gain weight begins, wish me luck and if anyone has any advice let me know!

New York

2009-02-23T18:29:00.000-08:00

I'm finally getting around to writing about New York. I'm totally slow since we've been home almost a week, but such is life.
We left early Friday morning for the long, long, long drive to Long Island. Jack was pretty good all things considered. We had to make more stops than we would have had we gone sans-Jack but he didn't do too much freaking out until the last hour. He was decent right up until we hit New York City. We were going through the city, the Bronx to be exact at rush hour and it was INSANE and Jack did alot of crying while we were trying to direct ourselves and it was just not fun. Then as we headed along long island, the closer we got to the Hughes, the louder he screamed. He was beyond being beside himself by the time we got there and we were all pooped from the drive. I've never been more relieved then when we saw their cozy little house!

Since we had left rather early, we got there at a decent time around 7:30 or so. It was great to see Mark, Kim and Henry. We had missed them all and Jack was super happy to be able to move and crawl a little bit before he settled down to bed.

WE stayed up that night just catching up and watching some TV relaxing and were very happy when we went to sleep!

Saturday we got everyone ready and went to some pretty awesome outlet malls by their house. I got some super cute clothes for Jack and a few things for Branden and I too. It was valentines day and I guess you can say the boys gift to us was the 4 of them putting up with us shopping for a good 4 hours. By the end of shopping we were all so pooped so we spent the night just chilling.

Sunday was church at their ward which was embarrassing to say the least. They have the weirdest building EVER! Most buildings have doors on both sides of the chapel going into the hall, but apparently not theres. I assumed that the doors on both sides of the building would go to separate hallways so when Jack started crying I went to the closest door to take him in the hall only to be surprised by the door I opened heading directly outside. it made such a loud noise and there was a teeny tiny wind gush. It as so humiliating I quickly and sheepishly ran out the other door as soon as I realized my mistake. Their ward was fun though, lots of babies around Jack's age for him to have fun with. Sunday afternoon was nap time and some more hanging out.

Monday morning we woke up bright and early and headed into the city. It was pretty cool to see New York City, but I have to say when I go again (which I desperately want to) I will go without a baby. NYC is not designed for babies or strollers. I would have to say the worst part of the day was lugging the strollers up and down the bajillion flights of stairs in and out of the strollers. My legs were going to die! I swear more of those subway stations need to get elevators!

Cool Pictures Branden took while we were waiting for our subway.
Jack Snoozing above and Me with Kim and Mark below.

When we were in the city the first place we hit was the Rockafeller Centre (30 rock I love it!). Branden and I went to the Top of the Rock while Mark and Kim kindly watched Jack for us. It was amazing, you get such an awesome view of the city and we just loved it and got some really awesome pictures.

Us in front of 30 Rock

Us at "The Top of The Rock"

After the top of the rock we ate and went to the museum of natural history. There was alot of cool stuff to see. I loved the dinosaurs. We didn't stay super long though. It was a holiday (Presidents Day) and so the place was just flooded with people. It was just too busy!

Me and Jack with a meteorite

After the museum we walked around Central Park for a bit, then hit Times Square. We were going to go in the giant toys r' us there, I really wanted to. But again, being a holiday it was beyond busy. So we just took in the sights at Times Square. After that we went by Bryant Park where they were setting up for Fashion Week. It was cool because there was major papparazzi there. We were hoping to catch someone famous (apparently Justin Timberlake was in one of the tents) but the babies (jack particularily) was too cold for much of a wait.

Branden and Jack in Times Square

And that was pretty much our day. We went back to the station to catch our train home and ate a tgifridays while there. My only real regret of stuff I missed was not eating at any cool restaurants. There's lots more I want to see and do there, but we will definately visit again!

We left New York bright and early the next morning (at 3:30) which made us extremely tired, but the drive so much easier on Jack.

We really had a great time on our mini-vacation. It was great to get away and I loved just being able to spend time with Branden and Jack with no distractions. It was great seeing Mark and Kim, we really miss them! Thank you so much guys for being the best hosts ever and taking care of us while we visited you!

Greatest Husband in the World

2009-02-22T20:24:00.000-08:00

I have the greatest husband in the world, officially. Not once, but twice this week our afternoons went as thus, Jack went for a nap and for that 1.5 to 2.5 hours I tidied, watched tv, cooked, whatever I felt like. Then Jack woke up and Branden took the reigns and I walked down to the bedroom and napped, napped, napped, while Branden on his holiday week changed several poopy diapers, shovelled food in a screaming face, kept that screaming face from screaming too loudly as not to wake me up and bathed a dirty boy. It was wonderful, two magnificent afternoons of relaxation and napping. I adore my husband.

Latest, Cutest Things

2009-02-18T13:38:00.000-08:00

Jack has been soo cute lately. I can't even handle it. He's doing so much more all the time and its so cute and I just want to remember it forever. So cute things from lately.

First when he's crawling and sees something he wants to play with instead of sitting down and playing with it, he balances on his knees and head and plays with it under his raised tummy. Its soo strange, yet adorable.

Second when I'm holding him on my hip and he wants to see what my face is doing if I'm not facing him he peers around my side and smiles to see me, so cute!

Third when he's going to do something he knows isn't cool (like play under Branden's desk) he looks back at us multiple times while slowly approaching, trying to make sure we don't catch him.

Fourth, he's working on pulling himself up on stuff, but he hasn't got the strength yet to go all the way from floor to feet so he gets up on his knees and just kneels clinging on to the couch top which is nearly out of his reach when on his knees. its adorable!

I have to try to catch a picture of all these things for you to view!

In other news this is my 100th post. yay! And we are back from New York and I'll write about that later when I have more time.

Memory Corner Comes Back

2009-02-11T06:39:00.001-08:00

I'm sure you all thought I had forgotten about memory corner, but alas, I have not! I just wasn't so into it for awhile. But the other day Branden and i were chorkeling about a memory of ours so I thought I'd write it up for posterity.

When we found out we were pregnant with Jack we realized we would have to move to a new apartment. We were living in a really nice apartment, that was to small for babies and was going to be out of our soon to be reduced by maternity leave budget. So we began our search. Touring apartments is always an interesting venture and you meet the most interesting of landlords/slash/building managers. One Building Manager was particularily memorable to us. He was the funniest looking guy ever and he really thought he was smooth. This man wore the tightest pants ever (hence my above picture) and these insanely tight pants were tucked into cowboy boots. He had a grey mullet that was slicked back with about a pound of grease. We had to hold in the chorkle's just looking at him. And he fancied himself quite the ladies man, he was flirting with every tenant of the female persuasion we came across. He was truly ridiculous! Anyways he showed us the apartment and we were not impressed and had no desire for it. However, wanting to avoid an akward situation when he offered us an application we said we wanted one. He took us to his scary, dank office to get one. But couldn't find it. He spent 10 minutes with us akwardly waiting in his office looking for it to no avail. He eventually decided that he had copies in his apartment and headed upstairs to get them leaving us in his office. Well, since we had no desire for this apartment, were sick of waiting and were really only taking the application as a courtesy/slash/ to avoid akwardness for ourselves we decided to just leave. We were afraid he would come back and catch us though so we quickly ran out what appeared to be the closest exit. It was NOT an exit, and this building was an unknown labrynth. SERIOUSLY we got so lost there were so many corridors and underground parking and we couldn't get out. And we were TERRIFIED of getting caught by this guy. WE ran frantically around looking for an exit thinking we were hearing the clickity clackity of his cowboy boots coming to get us. We were laughing so hard and so terrified. WE finally got out of the building but were so far from where we had parked, so we ran (slipping on the ice multiple times) still terrified this guy was going to track us down ( I don't know what we were thinking). We were so scared and out of breath by the time we got to the car and peeled out as fast as possible! It was quite a hilarious experience for us.

New York

2009-02-11T06:06:00.000-08:00

On Friday Branden and I leave to go and visit our friends in New York. We're really excited, its going to be a ton of fun and I can't wait until we get there. I am, however, terrified of the drive there. First of all a few months ago we took Branden off the insurance in an effort to save some money so I will be doing the full 10 hour drive myself. I have known this for sometime though and I've come to terms with it. I'm all prepared and so I hope it will be fine. My biggest fear about the drive I just realized this week. My dearest baby poops an average of 6 times a day. Seriously this kid has like an over active bowel or something. And every one of these poops is quite sizeable, a few a week even so sizeable they work there way on out of the diaper and own the leg AND the smell like death, literally like death. There is no way on earth we will be first be able to tolerate the smell of one of these diapers in the car for more than a few minutes and second the longer it sits the more likely it leaks and GROSS in my car. So what do we do, we will be stopping every hour on the hour I"m sure. And will we even be able to make it to the next rest stop. Is it acceptable to change a diaper at the side of the road.. ugh. I don't even want to think about it. It honestly stresses me out far more than it should.

Christmas Toy

2009-02-11T05:57:00.000-08:00

Jack got a new toy for Christmas from my parents and finally we put it together this week ( he wasn't really ready for it until he started crawling). He loves it. Its a ride on/slash/walk behind toy. He's so cute because when he's riding on it he has no clue how to get off so he just bails to the side and the toy comes tumbling down on top of him. And when he's walking behind it (and trust me I use the term walking loosely) He doesn't know to actually walk. He just hangs on while it rolls forward and he bashes his face on the handle and falls.. its pretty funny. Poor kid. He does love it though and despite the numerous times it hurts him he's always eager to get back in there with it.

Another Failed Art Experiment

2009-02-11T04:45:00.002-08:00

Look at that cute little smiley/slash/guilty face!

Yesturday I decided that I'd try art with Jack again (because last time went so well!) so I trekked out to Michaels with him and bought some crayons (as well as art supplies for a little project of my own I am working on). We got home and I put him in his high chair with paper and crayons and once again failure ensued. No matter what I did he would not colour he just ate the crayons. I got a video because he was so cute chewing on the wax crayons. Seriously would someone please tell me when kids are ACTUALLY ready for art? (oh and you totally want to avoid sound again, something is sooo wrong with my camera's microphone it just leaves us with alien like sounds!)

Cousin Love

2009-02-08T15:33:00.000-08:00

Every Thursday Jacks cousin Thomas comes over for the evening while my sister goes to her class at U of W. We like to torture them for cute photo opportunities, so I thought I'd share the results of this weeks torture.

He Crawls.... FINALLY

2009-02-08T14:51:00.000-08:00

Jack is finally crawling. He's not very good at it.. he kinda looks like a baby giraffe thats been shot in the butt. But he does it and its adorable! Its taken him forever to crawl. I'm pretty sure he just never saw the point, he rolls like crazy. Its been so cute to watch him figure out the million different little roll angles to get to anything he wants. But crawling is even more adorable. Here's some videos, but don't turn on your volume. HONESTLY don't, I'm way to close to the mike and it will be unintelligible and give you a headache!

Playgroup

2009-02-05T05:35:00.000-08:00

Every Wednesday morning the ladies in my area get together at a different persons home for playgroup. Its alot of fun for kids and Mom's alike. Jack lately is really starting to enjoy it more and interact more with the other children (instead of just lying there, ha!). Its really great because there are several kids within a few months of Jack. This week I snapped a few really cute pictures of Jack playing with his friend Luke, who is about a month younger than him. They were so cute together! I loved it! And yes my apartment is hideously messy in the pictures, but in my defense there were half a dozen kids playing with all those toys at one point or another.

Maybe?

2009-02-04T05:29:00.000-08:00

Maybe when my baby is sad and still slightly sick and therefore majorly whiney I let him play with all the computer cords he wants just to make him happy for a few minutes

Glasses

2009-02-04T05:22:00.001-08:00

Yesturday was Jack's first eye exam. It was an interesting experience to say the least. He was thoroughly unimpressed with the covering and uncovering of his eyes. Didn't like the dark, but was DYING to grab the crazy giant glasses things off the optometrist's head. We have to go back in 6 months because he is slightly cross eyed and far sighted. Both are normal for his age, but because of my ridiculously bad vision and majorly crossed eyes from such a young age they want to make sure its gone in 6 months. Hopefully the next one involves less crying! As you can see I decided to see what he would look like with glasses on last night, but he kept taking them off before I could snap a picture.. so OBVIOUSLY I had to pin down his arms with my feet to take a picture with my spectacles on him. He clearly was not impressed.

Laundry

2009-01-29T06:50:00.000-08:00

Yesturday I was in our bedroom folding laundry and Jack was being slightly annoying so Branden brought him down to join me.

He quite surprisingly enjoyed it ALOT and was perfect the whole time I folded.

New Years

2009-01-29T06:42:00.000-08:00

Our new years this year was pretty laid back, but also alot of fun. I unfortunately forgot to take many, wait ANY pictures so that stinks, but it was still alot of fun. New Years Eve our good friends Matt and Suzie came over. They used to live here, but moved to Arizona over a year ago and we miss them so much! It was great to see them. We all went together to the ward NEw Year's Eve party because Branden and I are on the activities committee and had to run the games. It was great to have Matt and Suzies help with Jack while we did that. The gams portion was alot of fun, but due to Jacks need to sleep we left 2 songs into the dance portion. We came back to our apartment and just hung around with Matt and Suzie until new Years. It was fairly uneventful, but fun. I barely made it to midnight. Having Jack has dramatically reduced my ability to stay up late!

New Years day we had a delicious breakfast with Matt and Suzie before they had to leave and then later that day we went to my Dad's family annual Timon new years day party. It was fun and great to see all my cousins I don't see to often. Here's a picture of the giant bunch of us for you!

Over a month Late

2009-01-29T06:06:00.000-08:00

I have been a major blog slacker lately and its because I find the task of going over our Christmas festivities daunting and have a hard time feeling like I can move on without making note of Christmas. So this morning, when my baby is being wonderful and quietly playing with the garbage (don't worry folks its empty and recently sanitized) I thought I need to just sit down and trudge through this. It will be quick and dirty.

I think one of the most important and exciting things that happened over the holidays was the on Christmas Eve Jack got his first 2 teeth. They are so cute! A two tooth smile is the cutest and most heart meltingest smile on the face of the earth. Unfortunately we have yet to capture a picture of it because Jack just refuses to be cute when the camera is on and he notices it. But this morning I forced a glimpse into his mouth.

You can see me prying his mouth open here as he screams and pushes me away. Sorry its blurry but atleast you can see the two adorable teethies.

Now I'll move on with the Christmas festivities. Christmas Eve we spent at Branden's parents house, we had a delicious dinner and lots of fun there. Jack was totally adorable playing with his cousin Dorian.

And opening presents from his Grandma and Grandpa. He got some super cute outfits and a really nice, warm stroller blankety thing.

Christmas day we spent with my family. We had a wonderful breakfast and then opened presents. Jack loved all the multitudes of paper he was able to play with there. It was a HUGE challenge for his Grandpa to not immediately whisk all paper right into the trash, but anything for a grandson right.

Jack got some great presents, adorable clothes and a walker toy and other random toys from his Grandma and Grandpa. A Little People nativity scene and cute Christmas outfits from his Aunt and Uncle and the softest, best blanket ever that he LOVES to rub on his face from his Great Aunt and Uncle who came over to visit later in the day.

Jack with my cousin Zach's girlfriend Kiera. They had matching outfits, I thought it was adorable and Jack seriously adores Kiera as you can tell from his face.

With his cousin Thomas in the matching outfits Aunt Sarah made them.

After presents we had a delicious dinner and then let the boys play. Jack loved the giant box Grandma and Grandpa's new tv came in. We made him a fort.

All in all Jack's first Christmas was great!

One of Those Days

2009-01-28T19:22:00.000-08:00

Do you ever have one of those days where you are just at the end of your rope. Today is that day for me. My nerves have been frayed all day. Jack and I have been sick, sick, sick the last few days and we're getting over it now, but we're still exhausted and not quite right. Jack was a trooper when he was super sick. He was so good and barely cried through a hacking cough, massive fever, near dehydration, not eating for almost 24 hours straight and boogery face, but now that he just has the remnants of the cough and boogers he is so whiney! and I feel terrible because he's honestly been getting on my nerves all day. How does an 8 month old get on my nerves you may ask?

Well first, he's not eating and that equals pain and confusion and worry and well annoyance for his Mommy. He's slowly been working his way onto more solids and off of more breastmilk the last few months, but he still needs a few milk feedings each day and night, but since he's been sick he's been refusing which leaves me feeling like I'm about to burst. Add to that he doesn't refuse in a polite manner. He screams, kicks and fights me and when I get him close enough he bites, gnashes, scratches and pushes at me. It is painful and oh so annoying! And I just don't get why he's doing it! ARGH!

Next, he is just not himself. He is usually so much fun, he's a really independent and chill kid. He loves attention, but is also fine taking care of entertaining himself when I'm busy as long as he can see me. But the last few days he's just been fussing and whining and crying and wanting up, and then down and then up and then down. ARGH!

Anyways, add all these things to the fact that I am still sick and I am at the end of my rope tonight. As soon as Jack went to bed (early after another frusterating feeding attempt) I lied down to rest and do NOTHING tonight thinking I deserved it, but then I started to think and first I thought and felt bad for being so easily frusterated with Jack. I mean he's sick and I'm sure there is a good reason for his odd behaviour in there somewhere and he's just a baby. So I got up, slumped down the hall to his room kissed him and apologized for being such a short tempered Mommy. Then I came back to do nothing, then I realized that doing nothing is BORING and was not going to make me feel any better so I started a most delightful craft project (the details of which I will reveal when its done). and now I'm here writing about to go to bed and suddenly I feel like I can handle life again, I feel like a better Mommy because when Jack woke up a bit ago I cuddled and rocked him and he actually ate! yay! I just hope tomorrow brings me alot more patience then today had.

Finger Painting

2009-01-11T13:23:00.000-08:00

painting

It has been ages since I have blogged and with all the holiday-ness that has occurred I have quite honestly felt to overwhelmed to begin. But as several people have pointed out to me it is time to return to my blog and since I am still too overwhelmed for holiday tackling I'll start with something new and fun.

Last week Branden and I were discussing doing more organized things with Jack instead of just playing/tickling/slash/throwing him around we thought maybe he was in need of some activities. Boy were we wrong, but some entertainment did occur.

So in our discussion we determined to try finger painting. I grabbed some finger paints and bristol board from the local dollar star and on Friday we tried our new activity. Being parents with much foresight (ha!) we stripped him down to his diaper and let him have at it. All went quite well at first he was very entertained by the gooshiness and slidiness of the paint and since he was only in a diaper it didn't matter that when he got excited by this he was smacking his thighs in an uproarious manner. He got paint everywhere and we didn't care until his adorable old habit of sucking his thumb smacked us right in the face. He shoved that blue/white and green thumb right on in his mouth without either of us even noticing.

The best shot we could get while hurriedly trying to whip him off to the tub.

Branden noticed first and gave a yelp and began making sure the paint was non-toxic (it of course was) I whipped that thumb out of his mouth so fast and was able to see the damage, his teeth, lips and tongue were a variety of colours and he looked quite angry about the bad taste! Unfortunately mine and Branden's somewhat surprised reactions somewhat scared the dear boy and when he's scared he sucks his thumb so as we wrestled him down the to tub (making sure to stop for the camera) and tried to wipe of his thumb and mouth we were fighting that old habit and let me tell you my baby has some serious muscles when he wants his thumb. It was quite hilarious and we have his short lived artwork proudly displayed on our fridge. But believe me we will not be trying activities again until the child understands finger paints and thumb sucking are not friends.

Jack's finished artwork

repetition

2008-12-14T15:14:00.000-08:00

"did you poo? it smells!"

I honestly say this sentence probaoly a dozen times a day, my baby is a reakasaurus (although sometimes I must admit his father adds to it and blames it on the baby) but seriously we have so many poo scares each day. How do his farts smell exactly like poo?? geeze!

Letters to Branden Part 1

2008-12-12T18:27:00.000-08:00

Branden is away today, he left early this morning with his Mom. He's gone to his parents house to spend boy time with his brother and friend Russell who is just getting back from being away with the army for 4 months. He's gone until Monday morning, which is the longest ever and especially since Jack has been born. Part of me is excited because I LOVE alone time, part of me is scared because I've never been all alone with not even 10 minutes of relief with Jack before for that long and part of me misses him already, so I decided to write him an email each day giving him an update on life at our house while he is gone. It's below (keep in mind jack is a NUTBALL whenever one of us is missing, he just prefers his parents together and with attention glued to him!)

Hey Babe!

Since you are gone for a few days I've decided to email you a daily update on the happenings of the wife and son you left behind and let me tell you, did you ever choose a good day to leave. You son has been a nutball today! We have no semblance of schedule or normalcy and as I write this he is screaming his head off in the background so loud I cannot hear the girls of Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants over-emote on the screen.

After you left I changed Jack (from the vomiting incident I'm sure you remember fondly) once he was naked he pretty much refused to be re-dressed he screamed and yelled and kicked, so I let him hang out naked for a bit before finally forcing him into clothing, much to his protest. He then promptly fell asleep on my hip ( I think the tantrum wore him out!) So I put him down for a nap at 11:30 since I was terrified to wake the cranky monster and force him to wait for his normal nap time. I had a very nice 2 hour break and then he woke up so happy and nice and cuddly. He was being totally adorable and he just sat for over half an hour cuddling on my lap until he decided it was time to break free. He then screamed and rolled for along time... He got under my rocker and I narrowly saved him from getting rocked right in the skull.. he rolled under the chair and got entangled in its legs and he half crawled he got his left arm and leg going , but the right side remained dead so he kinda just went in a wierd circle and then collapsed in tears! so back to bed he went for a mere half hour.

He awoke and screamed and rolled and screamed and rolled and found paper somehow and ate that paper and screamed and rolled and wanted to be picked up, then put down, then up, then down. He was very indecisive today! I decided to feed him, we tried Prunes to get his juices flowing (looking back I'm not quite sure why I chose pooping prunes while you were gone and all diapers fall to me, but oh well!)

Seriously Branden the kid LOVED prunes. I took a video for you because he was so cute. He would kick and get all excited whenever another bite was coming, check it out....

Then I decided I was tired and wanted a bath. so I set him up on the bathroom floor with towels all under him, he usually just lies there and plays, but not today (the kid is getting far to mobile for his own good!) so while I was oblivious he rolled all the way over to the doorway and grabbed onto that boingy noise making door stopper thing and grabbed on and PULLED I heard it boing and snapped to attention just to see the kid pulling it and the baseboard along with it right of the wall! I know its not secured very well, but still.. thats crazy. check out his destruction....

I jumped out of the bathtub and grabbed him before that thing could boing and hurt his hand.. it was a catastrophe.

Then bathtime for him where he kicked so violently he splashed water ALL over me and now I'm enduring to 7:30 he's tired and whiny and crazy, but I'm trying to force him to stay up until 7:30 (thinking selfishly of my own wake up time tomorrow morning)

wish me luck the next few days, our son apparently gets insane when you are gone!

I love you and miss you so much (and so does Jack!)
Robin

PS. as I was about to press send I heard grunting and toots in the background and this happened.

(here in the email a picture of Jack's humungously poop rear end was attached, but I won't subject anyone but Branden to that hideous sight!)

I will however share the picture of how happy he was as I wiped his stinky tush! so happy when he yucks his Mommy out!

apparently prunes work their magic fast.

PPS Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 sucks hard just like you said it would. I should listen to you more often.

PPPS yes Im' gross for sending you a picture of your sons poop, but I just didn't want you to miss anything!

Seriously though Jack is just getting crazily mobile lately. Usually while we are getting ready in the morning we set him on the middle of the bed and he can't roll (he's an expert roller on the floor, but we have a HUGE puffy pillow top and he sinks in alot and it inhibits him, but apparently not anymore) He rolled almost to the edge and we saved him just as he was half dangling over the edge (and the pictures below are so staged after the fact, yes I'm a nerd!)

Anyways I look forward to Branden returning, being a single parent is not fun!

I'm melting...

2008-12-09T16:24:00.000-08:00

You know that feeling that I"m sure every Mother gets, the feeling where you look at your little baby doing the most adorable thing and you can literaly feel your heart melt to puddles! Jack is being so cute today that mine is liquified. I can't believe that I love him more every day than the day before!

New Nephew

2008-12-09T05:08:00.000-08:00

I've been such a slacker on updating, but we've been sick here and busy. However, big news is that 2 weeks ago my sister had her baby. He's totally adorable and lovely and makes me want another squishy newborn with his perfection. His name is Thomas Charles and I think he looks like his Dad! More later I hear the sounds of my son forcing out some poop!

I wish I was rich so I could afford a Green Screen

2008-12-06T06:16:00.000-08:00

How funny would a baby be if you owned your very own green screen and your very own green suit. Imagine how much more hilarious all the bizzare things I make Jack do would be if you couldn't see that I was making him do them.. like when I play shaken baby syndrome with him (a game where I shake his booty while he laughs uncontrollably) it would be HILARIOUS if you just saw him shake shake shaking and laughing.

Man, when I become a millionaire I'm buying a green screen and no matter how old I am having another baby!

Crying it Out

2008-11-24T12:21:00.001-08:00

Last week we had Jack's six month appointment/slash/shots with our Doctor. Branden came with me this time which was nice since Jack screamed his face off when he got the shots (and oh joy we get to go back tomorrow for a flu shot!). When we were there we talked to the doctor about Jack's sleeping habits. Despite a few freak nights where he's only woken up once or twice on average the kid has been waking up between 6 and 8 times a night and I was getting pretty sick of it and far to exhausted to survive! I was feeding him atleast 3 or 4 of those times because it just made it faster/easier to get him back to bed. The doctor stated very matter of factly that I have been spoiling Jack and if I keep it up he's going to expect it for the next few years and that we needed to start letting him cry it out. She told me to try it a few weeks and see how it worked and to just wake up with him once to feed him about the middle of the night. She said to go in and check on him when he cried but not pick him up or comfort him. I was not impressed to have to start this!

So that week we went home and began our quest to let Jack cry it out with his afternoon nap. He woke up 3 times screaming his face off for a good 10 or 15 minutes each time before going back to sleep. I was a wreck. I was crying and so upset. Branden was so wonderful comforting me and trying to make me feel better, but in my emotional state I decided to yell at him like some insane irrational beast. Apparently hearing my baby cry makes me CRAZY! But he continued to be understanding. His nap was so hard I did not think I could do it through the night, but Branden made me promise to try. That night he woke up 3 times screaming before I even went to bed, it was TERRIBLE. I went to sleep about 10:30 and he didn't wake up again until 1:30, I fed him put him back to bed and he slept until 7:30. INSANE!

everynight since (except one freak night he decided to wake up at 2:30 am and play in his crib) he has only woken up once in the night to eat. Its amazing! Its taken me a few nights to get used to it (who knew your baby sleeping better could be SOOOO painful for your poor chest!) but now I'm sleeping better than I have in months and for the first time since Jack has been alive I feel well rested its amazing!

I'm so shocked it worked so fast! Either I have a genius baby or crying it out really does work!

Days away at Grandma and Grandpa's

2008-11-19T17:47:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday night last week at midnight the expansion to the computer game Branden loves came out and we both knew he would be obsessed at first. He walked to the video game store at midnight got it and played all night. Thursday morning (in order to save our marriage and allow him the freedom of a few days of indulging in computer games) I dropped him off at school and headed to my parents house for a few days so he could enjoy his computer and Jack and I could enjoy my parents.

When we got to my parents house we decided a fun way to spend the day would be to go and visit my very pregnant older sister (she is due Saturday YAY!). We had such fun. I haven't seen her house since they've done a bunch of renovations so it was good to see. Jack christened all her baby (Elron as we call him in utero)'s stuff. He played in her jolly jumper and loved it soo much so we've borrowed it for now. WE had lunch together, then decided to go shopping. The girls perused while my Dad watched Jack in the stroller on the benches.

We went to baby gap and their were several ladies from my sisters ward that worked there and wanted to see Jack. So I went out and got him and brought him in, just to discover he had taken a GIANT duece and it had gone everywhere. Luckily baby gap is well equiped with a washroom and baby changetable as well as plastic bags. He had pooped eVERYWHERE it was the most enormous poop of all time. It was in his socks and all the way up his back, almost in his hair. All of his clothes were finished. ITs a good thing we were in baby gap because his wonderful grandparents bought Jack a new outfit. I'll have to take a picture soon, but he got the CUTEST shirt ever that says "I'm kinda a big deal" (quote from anchorman for the will ferrell impaired) and Branden has a shirt that says the same thing and I'd been looking forever for one for Jack. We were so lucky and he got cute knee high socks and cute sweat pants that will be super comfy for winter and warm! I secretly think the kid just wanted new clothes so he chose well where to crap his pants. Thank goodness for grandparents eh!

Jack sitting on his Cousin Elron and His Aunt Sarah

After the mall we headed back to my parent house, where Jack proceeded to not sleep but scream until 11pm and then woke up about a billion times that night. So the next morning we were set to go swimming with Grandma and Grandpa, but I was to exhausted so Jack got to have his first outing without me (we've left him with people, but he's never gone out anywhere without us). He went swimming with them and my parents said he was so good, didn't cry at all, charmed all the old ladies at the pool and was obsessed with splashing everywhere and everyone and then wiping his cute little face with the back of his hand. I was sad to miss his adorableness, but glad for the break.

Jack and his very proud Grandpa!

My mom and I did a bit more shopping that day, just looking around mainly and hung out. For dinner my Aunt sue and cousin Zach came over and Jack always loves them. Then Jack and I headed home to a very lonely Branden who was over his game and ready for me and Jack time. It was quite a fabulous weekend!

Jack and his adoring Grandma.

Six Facts for Six Months

2008-11-19T17:32:00.000-08:00

Jack was 6 months old as of yesturday. I can't believe he is soo old! The last six months have been the best I've had yet, also the hardest and I can't believe how fast they have gone by. I was really, really hoping my sister would have her little baby boy yesturday, but no such luck. I though it would be cute if they were exactly 6 months apart, but oh well they will be close enough.

Here is Jack's facts for now

1. Jack thinks his feet are the greatest thing in the world. If you tap his foot to his nose its a guaranteed smile/slash/laugh fest.

2.Jack loves to sit, he's become such a sitting champ lately. The only problem comes when he doesn't want to sit anymore he doesnt' know how to get out of sitting position so he just screams until I get him or he falls.

3. Jack is just the most pleasant baby on the planet now. he's alwasy been a really good baby, but was a smidge fussy sometimes and clingy. Now he will go to anyone, do anything and he just smiles and laughs and is just so agreeable. Its great. He still definately has grouchy days and moments, but he is just getting more amazing by the day.

4. Jack is finally getting hair! thank goodness. Its not exactly thick and lustrous yet, but he's definately got a thin layer covering his whole head now.. its sooo cute and soft. I love it. ITs soo long right at the back so it sticks straight up back there... so cute!

5. Jack is trying super hard to crawl, but he just ends up swimming on the floor. He hasn't figured out getting his body off the floor yet so he does the crawling motions ont he floor. its sooo cute. Occasionally he gets his tushy up and lunges forward and bifs his face of the floor. It makes me laugh!

6. Jack has the flirtiest smile I have ever seen. He is just so cute and whenever someone makes eye contact with him he gives this winning, adorable, charming, perfect smile. you can't help but love this amazingly flirty kid!

Memory Corner Round #2 Already!

2008-11-12T01:35:00.001-08:00

Well I'm still unable to sleep from Jack wakings so I thought I would move up my schedule and move on to my second round of Memory Corner and hope that effort makes me tired enough to actually sleep.

One summer some time ago my good friend Kevin came down to visit me in my hometown of browntown. As part of that weekend me and my friend Jacquie decided to take him and our other friend Andrea to the rope swing. The rope swing is a thing frequently visited in my youth, I spent one summer going their almost everyday with a large group of my friends. It is basically a rope tied to a tree over a dirty grimy river. You, as the name of it clearly implies, swing out on the rope and drop in the dirty grimey river. Doesn't sound to exciting now, but it was alot of fun!

Picture of Kevin, me and Jacquie after our rope swing trip. Please forgive my hideous blond hair stage and welfocity (I had just jumped in a dirty grimey river after all).

So off to the rope swing we went this Saturday afternoon. When there Andrea decided that she didn't want to actually jump IN the dirty, grimey river so she decided just to swing out on the rope and come back in. However, this was a big failure for her. As the rope swung out and back in Andrea missed her footing on the ground and swung back out again screaming all the while. Kevin, being the big strong man he is, decided it was his time to jump in. He yelled out "I'll save you Andrea!" in his most heroic voice (which sent Jacquie and I into our first fit of hysterical laughter) and he jumped out to save her from the rope. He failed at this effort miserably!! He grabbed onto Andrea and the Rope as the swung back in, but did not have a good grip on the ground himself and out onto the rope he went with Andrea and they both went tumbling down into the river. Oh my holy heck did Jacquie and I think this was hilarious we collapsed into laughter as the two of them climbed out of the river. They were unimpressed, but Jacquie and I laughed and laughed and laughed. It was a grand day and we mocked Kevin for his failed heroics for years to come!

Kevin and I later that day, clearly he had forgiven me, but is making a very strange face for some reason?

Date Night

2008-11-12T01:30:00.000-08:00

So this weekend on Saturday night Branden and I had a date night. Our good friend Elaine offered to watch Jack and we took her up on that offer. We were really looking forward to a nice, fun, romantic evening alone...

Know how to ruin a romantic evening alone...

Start it off by ordering copious amounts of chinese food...

You will then spend the next few hours alone watching Tropic Thunder and laughing at jokes that are too stupid to actually laugh at while on separate couches with your pants undone or in sweat pants moaning to eachother about your sore MSG filled tummies.

Not romantic, but we definately did have fun together.

2008-11-12T01:25:00.001-08:00

So Jack woke up alot and refused to sleep from about 3 to 4:30 tonight and now I'm wide awake and unable to get back to sleep. So I was looking through old picture files and reminiscing and I found a picture of Branden the first night I met him. I think he's like 15 or 16. Ahhh.. how I love him, even so cute when he was a skinny little guy.

Memory Corner

2008-11-11T14:32:00.000-08:00

This is the group of ladies I travelled to YSA stuff that summer and were witnesses of this event (actually I don't think Hilary was there that particular time,but she usually was)

The picture is Hilary, Heather, My sister Sarah, Me and Jacquie.

Recently I've been reading through my old journals while in the bathroom (too much information I know). I've been reading my journals from my teen years and I laugh and laugh and laugh at myself because honestly I was ridiculous and also I had forgotten many of the hilarious things that happened to me when I was younger so I have decided to institute on my blog Memory Corner where once a week (or so, basically whenever I feel like it) I will tell a story from my past that I think is funny or important in some way or another.

Today I share the T-Rex story.

Way back in the day (which was a Friday in case you were wondering) my dear girlfriends and I were heading off to a YSA conference in Kingston. We arrived rather early so we hit the mall in town and were (for some unknown reason) browsing around toys r us. We found this jumbo t-shirts with a t-rex on them which for some reason we thought were hilarious and were joking about wearing and walking around the store holding our arms up in perfect T-rex fashion pretending to be t-rexs and saying in a growly voice "I"m a t-rex". I know this sounds retarded, but 4 girls together equals much silliness and ridiculousity.

Anyways fast forward to the conference. The second night there was a dance in a building by a harbour and it was the hottest building ever so everyone was sweatier than you can imagine (this doesn't really apply directly to THIS particular story, but I thought I would mention it anyways). Anyways after the dance we were walking back to our car and the boy that I liked at that moment was walking along beside us and started talking to me. And honestly I was such a spaz around boys I liked. I was super chill with boys when I was just friends with them, but when I wasn't friends first and just liked them out of nowhere... TOTAL spaz. I was (and still am, even with Branden now) about the least smooth girl you will ever, ever meet. So anyways he starts talking to me like a normal human being and I spaz out and all I can think of to say is "I'm a T-rex" in the ridiculous growly voice, with my arms raised up like a t-rex and then I ran away. ARE YOU SERIOUS? its probaly my most ridiculous moment ever. It was a tale told around YSA for years to come and everyone always mocked me by saying "I'm a t-rex" in a ridiculous growly voice, with their arms raised up.. UGH. So embarassing, yet still to this day I honestly think its hilarious and am proud of myself for being such a tool! (needless to say NOTHING every became of me at that boy, but a hilarious story!)

Half Way Done

2008-11-11T14:28:00.000-08:00

Today marks the official halfway point of my maternity leave. As of today I have been off work for 6 months and have 6 months left. This is a day (for some odd reason) that I have been dreading. It feels so weird that my time at home with Jack is half over. This morning while I showered and Jack laid on a towel on the floor beside me looking up at me, reaching for me and singing and yelling I cried and I cried. I got so sad at the thought of leaving him, which is pathetic because I still have 6 months left, but I just felt so sad.

And then I decided this wasn't a sad day, this was a day to remind me to treasure my little guy. So I got out of the shower and spent the rest of the day playing with, cuddling, laughing with, throwing around and just adoring my little man. And I resolved that the next 6 months will be even better than the last 6 months (if thats even possible). That I will spend more time playing with, laughing with, adoring and enjoying my little Mom. I will be a better Mom every day and I will intrench in him so firmly my total love and adoration for him that he will never be able to forget when he's off being independent at Day Care.

Joy in the Journey

2008-11-10T06:49:00.001-08:00

This weekend was our Stake Conference. One of the focuses of this stake conference for us was finding joy in the journey and it really hit home with me because I think its something that I often struggle with. Somedays it just feels like I'm waiting for my life to start. I'm sure just about anyone who is married and waiting for her husband to finish school so they can buy a house etc. understands. But its such a waste of my effort and my life to just wait for my life to start. I really want to resolve to find more joy in the journey. There are so many things about our life now that are amazing and that we will never have again. With Branden in school he is around the house alot more and is able to spend tons of time with me and with Jack. Its such an amazing opportunity for us to get to be together so much as a family and I can really see the effects in Jack's relationship with Branden. I think I just need to appreciate more of what we do have now and stop worrying about what we don't have.

Halloween

2008-11-03T07:48:00.000-08:00

Jack's first halloween went pretty well. He spent the day dressed up in a halloween onesie and the cutest pumpkin hat in the world. Seriously I don't care if its not in season I am putting that hat on him every day until it no longer fits his gigantic noggin'. It's just way too cute.

Halloween night we went to our friends Elaine and John's house to take Jack out trick or treating with them (we felt stupid actually taking him to doors when he is clearly to young for candy, but wanted him to have the experience). So Branden and John took the kids out and Jack just watched the older kids trick or treat. He conked out on his Dad's shoulder after only a few minutes though so they came on home and helped Elaine and I hand out Candy. It wasn't too exciting for Jack but he did seem to enjoy it.

And now a photo montage of the event.

All dressed up in his Halloween outfit with his Daddy.

Cutest/drooliest pumpkin head EVER!

Ready to go out trick or treating

On his way out

Conked out on Elaine after he got back.

He woke up after just long enough to develop a love of chip bags and smacking them on the ground. he fell asleep again still clutching on.

The next morning he was still loving the chip bag!

He Sits

2008-11-01T06:14:00.000-07:00

So this past week (Tuesday, October the 28th to be exact) Jack finally sat by himself. We never thought he would. He hates sitting and hardly ever practices. He just loves to stand to much so goes stiff as a board when we try to sit him. But I have been vigilant about karate chopping out his middle and making him practice every day so now he sits. Obviously if anything distracts him he's over in a second. But when he focuses he can sit quite awhile. We are so proud!

Branden and Robin

2008-10-28T07:41:00.000-07:00

Information about us, idea stolen from a friend.

How did we meet? We met at Erin Puddicombe's going away party when we were like 16 or something like that. Clearly we didn't start dating right away, but were friends for a long time before we actually realized we enjoyed eachother like that.

Where did you go on your first date? Branden's house. His family was out of town so he invited me over, we played monopoly, cards, laughed and joked and talked like mad and watched part of ice age. It was a great first, first date.

How long have you been together? Umm that would depend what you count as the start date, from our first, first date Almost 6 years. From when we got back together after his mission 4.5 years.

Who said I love you first? Him, he said it WAY first and I responded with a rousing 10 minute chorus of "are you sure's?" Then told him I loved him like a month later.

Who is taller? Definately Branden.

Who sings better? Definately Branden, I sound terrible and he's really good. Even though he hasn't sang in like forever because I made fun of him for singing at his farewell (I'm such a bad wife)

Who does the laundry? I do, Branden will change a load now and then for me, but he doens't b elieve in separating colours so if he does it our clothes get dingey. he also doesn't believe in folding so obviously its my job.

Who does the dishes? I do, its the one chair Branden hates most (as much as I hate ironing) he's maybe done them 3 or 4 times our whole marriage (including when we had a dishwasher and you just had to load and unload it!) I don't mind dishes though so its fine and besides when he does them they never get put away in the right place. Sometimes I secretly think Branden does chores poorly so I'll just stop asking him to help.. hahah.. and its not an unfounded thought because he's said its true!

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? I do now, Used to be the other way around but the right side of the bed is closer to Jack's room and since I wake up with him I have to be there so not to trip and make quite a racket getting around the bed to Jack.

Who pays the bills? I do, but Branden is aware of what they all are.

Who mows the lawn? We dont' have one currently, but when we do Branden will. that horticulture degree has to come in handy somehow.

Who cooks dinner? I do. Branden will occasionally,but then its like chicken nuggets and fries or delissio pizza. I like cooking though.

Who drives when you are together? Until like 4 days ago Branden always did, now me because we took him off insurance to save some money.

Who is more stubborn? I'd go with Branden, although I definately have my stubborn moments too.

Who kissed who first? He kissed me first. I was not the experienced kisser so there is no way I'd venture that. He did it in front of my sister too when we dropped him off at his parents house one night. so smooth. It took me like a month to initiate a kiss in our relationship and when I did I totally forgot to tuck my hair behind my ear so it was just a big gross hair sandwich. I was such a newb.

Who is more sensitive? I don't know, I'll ask Branden.....he says he doesn't know either. No answer here.

Who proposed? Branden and he did it really cutely too. First he was going to propose on my birthday, but chickened out and just gave me the ring as a "promise ring". Then he did for real a few months later at a YSA dance he took me upstairs and did this game show thing.. it was pretty cute. I about ruined it though because after I won the game show as my prize he took me blindfolded into a room (and hte room was all decorated with twinkly lights and cuteness) but when I was still blindfolded I felt one of the light cords and thought he was putting a snake on me and freaked out... sooooooo not romantic Robin!

Who has more siblings? Branden does. I have a brother and a sister, he has 2 brothers and a sister.

Who wears the pants? Both of us I would say. We come to pretty much all decisions together and both of us HATE it if the other tries to tell us what to do, so that never happens successfully.

Weekend Update

2008-10-27T05:57:00.000-07:00

We had a very busy, very fun weekend. I think Jack is definately ready to just crash today, but unfortunately me and him get to go spend 3 hours at the hematologist's office. FUN!

Anyways Friday night we went to our friends Elaine and John's house for a games night. Unfortunately it didn't get off to a great start because Elaine was at emergency with her oldest son who had a pencil eraser stuck in his ear. They came home not too long later though because there was an enormous wait so they just went to the clinic the next morning. We played with Jack and their kids and then their kids went off to bed but Jack decided sleep was for hosers (usually he sleeps so well at their house, but not that night) and stayed up as we played banagrams until we left around 11ish. It was a good night though and Jack fortunately slept in until atleast 8:30 saturday morning which was enjoyable for both of us.

Saturday we hung around the house all day trying to get Jack to nap lots and catch up on his sleep so he would not be a grouchy baby when we went to a Halloween party that night at our friends the Neebs. Jack borrowed Ben's costume from last year and was a hotdog, Branden and I did not participate in the dressing up.

My lonely little hotdog with the group.

Me and my hotdog!

Jack was highly unimpressed with his costume as it did not leave his feet the freedom to stand and walk and stomp as he pleased. So after just a few minutes he rebelled and screamed until I freed him from the costume. The party was lots of fun.We chatted, ate delicous food and played a rousing game of "Things". By the end of the night though all children were in melt down. Not Jack though because he slept on the floor upstairs for a good hour mid party. I was proud considering his rejection of public sleep the night before. All in all it was a great night.

Sunday was church, a nice afternoon nap and then we went over to Elaine and John's house for dinner. I'm pretty sure they wanted Jack more than us as this was our invitation. 3 o'clock the phone rings. Elaine asks is Jack awake?? Branden says no. Elaine says call us and come over when Jack is awake.. hahaha. Oh well.. we had a delicious dinner. Then we went to Stake Christmas choir practice. Branden stayed the whole time but I didn't even make it into one song before Jack screamed for food and sleep so I took him home and put him to bed.

Swaddle

2008-10-21T17:51:00.000-07:00

We never really swaddled Jack much, maybe for the first few days of his life and thats it. He just hated it, he woudl kick and scream and kick and scream until he worked his way out. He likes the freedom to move and thrash about. Add to that he's a sweaty beast of a kid who (in the summer when he was really little) hated having blankets on that just made him even sweatier and hotter.

BUT the other day Branden and I thought it would be funny to see what he would do if we swaddled him now that he's bigger. WE thought he'd scream and kick and just be entertaining in general, but he didn't. He thought being swaddled was the greatest thing since sliced bread, he smiled and laughed and cooed, then got frusterated until he got his thumb out, then sucked his thumb while he smiled laughed and cooed. He really thought the whole process was quite funny, until he became bored and screamed, but still it was mucho fun for us!

Sleep

2008-10-21T17:46:00.000-07:00

So I've done a post like this before about Jack's many sleep positions, but seriously this kid never sleeps the same way. Lately he's been so cute in his sleep/slash/when he's waking up going to sleep. The other night Branden and I army crawled into his bedroom together just to peek up over his crib and stare at him and laugh as he thrashed about trying to fall asleep. Something is so cute about babies sleeping. Anyways recently he's just been sleeping so cute everytime I"ve gone in that I HAVE to snap a picture (and pray the flash doesn't wake him up). Some samples for you...

On his side

Hands under head

Rubbing his eyes in his sleep, the cutest BY FAR!

Wash Cloth Thief

2008-10-21T17:44:00.000-07:00

Last week I was innocently giving Jack a bath, I was washing him everywhere and getting him all de-stinkified and clean when the child stole the wash cloth from me. He snatched it right out of my hand (where did this kind of finger/slash/hand dexterity come from). He then promptly shoved it in his mouth and ate it for a good 10 minutes while I stared on. It was so cute, but weird he's never been able to grab anything away from me before, but now its becoming a recurrent thing!

Thanksgiving.

2008-10-21T17:37:00.000-07:00

Better late than never, over a week late here comes my Thanksgiving post.

Thanksgiving was pretty great. On Saturday Branden, Jack and I headed down to his parents house in Brampton for the day. We spent the day with his family, visited an apple farm, played scrabble and had a most delicious dinner. It was alot of fun. The only unfortunate part was that Jack and Branden both had major colds and Jack REFUSED to nap so it was major meltdown time earlier than we would have preferred.

Sunday we stayed home, went to church and Jack and Branden slept and recovered.

Monday we woke up and Jack screamed for 3 hours straight, we thought it would be a terrible day, but packed up the car to go to Brantford to visit my family. He miraculously changed mood and was the best baby all day long. We met my family at the apple orchard and walked around picking apples (usually we all pile on the trunk and drive, but thats not so safe with a 5 month old so it was walking this year) It was alot of fun. Then we spent the afternoon playing board games /slash/ wii mario kart and had a delicious dinner where Jack had his first taste of mashed potatoes. He seemed to enjoy them quite a bit. It was a great holiday and we had so much fun with both of our families.

5 Months

2008-10-17T05:28:00.000-07:00

Today Jack is 5 months old. I feel sad and excited! How is his life going by so fast, how can it be that in just 7 months he will be a year old and I will have to leave him and go back to work. UGH! But my baby is 5 months old and here are his 5 facts.

1.Jack doesn't sit yet. He refuses to sit ever, he will not practice so he will never learn. I secretly (or not so secretly now that I'm putting it out in blog land) fear that he will go on his first date and not be able to sit down for dinner. The kid will just NOT sit. As soon as we try and sit him he goes stiff as a board and you have to chop out his lower half to get him to sit. This makes getting in the bumbo, highchair, sitting on my lap all very difficult things.

2.Jack has more to say with every day that passes. He just makes noises all day long, I like to say he has a few words under his belt because his main sounds are "MOooooooom" and "Booooooooob" (I like to think he loves me extra special because he uses these words so frequently) But apparently they are just the easiest sounds for his little mouth to form because he is sooo not knowing what he's talking about, just rambling away.

3.Jack has started reaching for us and I/slash/we LOVE it. Some days when he is feeling particularily clingy I take him in his bumbo into the bathroom with me and he sits in his bumbo while i shower. Well last week he spent the entire 15 minute shower making "moooom" and "booooob" sounds with a pathetic little sad face on reaching up to me in the shower. It was so cute I wanted to die!!

4.Jack thinks his Dad is the funniest person on earth. I mean he thinks I'm pretty funny and definately gives me and others my fair share of smiles and laughs, but NOONE and I mean NOONE can make him laugh like his Dad does. Perhaps it has something to do with all the silly voiced rhyming about his stinky poop, but he just laughs at his Dad all the time.

5.Jack's life is a song. Jack loves music/slash/singing so we sing to him all the time. We sing about his dookie diapers, about his baths, about each body part as we clean it (including his man bits), about his food and his toys and everything and he LOVES it (even though his mom has a vomity gross singing voice!)

General Conference

2008-10-08T05:13:00.000-07:00

General Conference was an interesting experience for us this year. It was our first conference with a baby and it definately did not result in as much spiritual enlightenment as it normally does. First we didnt' make it to many sessions because since Jack has been the lack of sleep baby lately, we were busy napping! Sunday morning though we woke up early with the best of intentions. We headed over to our friends Elaine and John's house and made their family a waffle breakfast and then we all headed to the church for conference together. Jack was remarkably well behaved (he is not too frequently well behaved at church, it falls right at his nap time and therefore equals him being a grouch) but he was so good. I fed him and then he fell asleep on John which was a miracle because he hates sleeping in public, but maybe the room being dark for conference helped or something. All was well until suddenly John felt his front getting a little too warm. Thats right my son had peed right through is very recently changed diaper all over himself and John. I ran off to the bathroom with Jack and his clothes were DRENCHED and this of course was the Sunday I had forgotten to bring an extra outfit (I usually have atleast an extra sleeper with me) so I get my baby out of his soaking wet clothes and into a new diaper and do the walk of shame back into the meeting with my ghetto diaper only baby to collect his stuff and father and take him home to get some clothes (it was freezing!). While i am doing this, John has had to go home and change his whole outfit, he was also soaked in pee. Man oh Man, what a Sunday.

When I got home I gave Jack a big lecture about peeing on people. We advised him that if he keeps on bodily functioning on our friends we will have none left. I hope he understood!

Hair Ball MacLean

2008-10-08T05:07:00.000-07:00

So Jack's new favourite thing is eating my hair. He's been rather obsessed with pulling it out by the handfull for quite some time, but now he's taken to eating it. Its soo cute and funny, but also painful for me and the kid is going to get a hair ball. We've been trying to get pictures of him doing it and finally succeeded.. he looks so devious like he knows what he's doing is wrong and then when he realizes his father has caught him in the act he throws away the hair with disdain!

My Baby loves his thumb a little TOO much!

2008-10-01T04:48:00.000-07:00

Jack is obsessed with and addicted to his thumb. It is soo cute when he sucks his little thumb, I just love it! I know many people say thumb sucking is a bad thing (for future teeth issues etc.) BUT there is not much I can do to stop and almost 5 month old from sucking his thumb and I really don't want to. His thumb is his new best friend, his surrogate Mommy. We often hear Jack get a little upset during nap time or sleeping at night and automatically 5 seconds later we hear him sucking away on his thumb and we dont' have to wake up. Its delightful.

However, lately I think the thumb sucking has gotten a little bit out of control. He is so addicted to his thumb that he won't even let go to eat. He doesn't suck his thumb when he is playing or yelling (which is most of the day) but when he is sitting, cuddling or being held in general he is all about that thumb and since he is ALWAYS doing one of those three when eating it causes issues. When we are trying to feed him rice cereal (a recent thing we are starting solids a bit early on the advice of our doctor) he will not let go of the thumb. We have to hold both his hands to get the spoon in and then he loves the food, but as soon as we let go of the hands to get another spoon full his thumb is right back into his mouth. This makes a MEGA mess since the food is not only all over his face, but also all over his hands and anything his hands touch. UCK!

He does the same thing when I am breastfeeding him. He tries to eat and have his thumb in his mouth at the same time. Its soooo strange! I have to restrain his arms at the same time as feeding him, its quite a complicated process!

Do you think the church would let me sign him up for their addiction program??