March Weekends

This month we've been lucky enough to have Megan come and visit us 2 weekends in a row! We're pretty lucky.  I haven't been awesome at taking pictures, but she has! Some of these pictures are hers.

Last weekend we went clothes shopping at a little thrift outlet and found some killer deals, went to Ritas, and went to Sizzler.  It was way too much fun!

Jimmie rockin' Aunt Meg's shades

And looking pretty serious

Loving the Rita's Water Ice & Custard 

(Mom got a Raspberry-Chocolate Gelati)

But he scored Raspberry Water Ice from both sides since that was Aunt Meg's choice as well

"Psst.  Mom.  I got a secret for you.  I REALLY like Ritas!!"

And he really does.  We may have given him just a bit too much...because when we came home we realized he was hyped on sugar.  We tried to sit him in the middle of the bed and he would do a mega jump and try and lunge off of the edge of the bed.  He was crazy, I tell you! I've never seen him with so much energy.  Lesson learned.

Gotta love it!

He wasn't sure what to think of this small chair and table.

Sometimes, during the work week, Jimmie super grumpy when I get home.  So we try and take pictures to make him laugh and stop being so serious.  Mainly though, we just cuddle.

For some reason, Jimmie made this face after every bite he took of his breakfast one day.  

He is doing AWESOME at eating his solids.  I mean, he's turned into a little garbage disposal.  This is a good thing since Mommy was getting a little concerned that he wasn't eating enough.

His current favorite foods are:

-Chicken with Apples

-Blueberry Yogurt

-Apples with Cinnamon (that's what he's eating here)

-Banana Pancakes 

(1 egg + 1 banana mixed together and fried up like a pancake. He loves these & they're perfect pancakes for not having any teeth yet!)

Mr. Personality here.  He is hilarious.  Like I said, a lot of the time, he's pretty grumpy when I get home from work.  But on Friday, he was happy as can be and just wanted to play!  How can you say no to that face?? 

When Megan got here THIS weekend, we made some pizza for dinner.  Mmmm.

The main reason she came down this weekend was to go to the Festival of Colors.   Meg's there with her friends right now, so Jimmie and I just sat back, relaxed, and enjoyed a clean house. 

Today we went to Zupas for lunch while our landlords had an open house at the apartment.

In other good news, we signed a lease with the apartment we wanted in Orem earlier this week!  We're very excited to move for several reasons.  Though, I will miss the massive amount of space we have here.  I've liked it here, but I'm ready. 

Initially I had thought we were needing to sell our remaining lease for our current apartment, but it turns out, they're just releasing us from it.  So we're off the hook!  But the even better news is, the open house went great today and they doubt we will need to do another.

So we will move to our new place in North Orem, May 1st.  (Which means for those of you coming to visit in late April, our place should be pretty boxed up)

Because we were just referred to this apartment and never saw an actual listing, we have no pictures!  Which is a bummer. I'm pretty visual and need to imagine where everything should go.

So that's what ^that is.  There's a website called floorplanner.com that lets you create floor plans.  It's not exact...but that's my estimation from memory!

We're excited to have this next little bit of our lives figured out and excited to move.

I love his little laugh so much.  And I love that he got the ticklish gene from me.  It makes things way too much fun.

A typical weekend around here.  Jimmie LOVES rides in the laundry basket and he LOVES playing with Daddy, so this is just doubly fun.

I don't think I've posted many videos of Jimmie walking.  It's basically his main mode of transportation now.  If his walker is out, he will use it to get where he wants to go.  Otherwise, he will speed crawl.  Either way, he's a fast little guy! And he loves his blocks.

Welcome Spring!

As this new, beautiful season begins...we thought we'd start a new season of our own called 

"Sleep through the night in the crib".

I'm liking it a lot so far.  As much as I loved snuggling with Jimmie in my bed, he is a very, very active sleeper.  I've really just been too scared to let him sleep away from me.  I ordered this book because I'd heard a lot about it.  It's a sleep training book... but I don't follow it to a T.  I take the ideas and concepts and make them work for us.  But so far?  Jimmie's pretty textbook in his behaviors.  I'm grateful for this.  Thankfully, Jimmie hasn't really had to "cry it out".  The most he's really needed to cry was about 5 minutes.  If nothing else, this book has helped to ease my mind while I sit on the couch and hear him crying from the other room.  Now that we have established a really solid bedtime routine (that can be followed every night instead of waking up to pick up Dad at 11), he's got this sleeping thing down.  It actually only took 2 days.  And now he is at the point where I can put him in his crib WITHOUT rocking him to sleep and he will cry for 30 second and then go to sleep.  This normally happens about 6:45-7:15 pm.  And he's out for the night! On both Thursday and Friday morning, I had to actually wake Jimmie up by walking around the apartment, turning on lights, and making extra noise while fixing breakfast.  

I'm going to add "Happy Parents" at the end of this title.  It fits.

This active guy just sits up as soon as he wakes up.  But then he just sits there.  Doesn't make a peep.  Not gonna lie... it's a little creepy.  I  think he might be a sleep walker when he grows up, haha.  Sometimes he will crawl to the other end of his crib and just sit there.  This is one reason why sharing a bed did not work anymore.  

Of course...once he sits up, he then just slumps forward, totally asleep.  And he stays like this.  Initially I would move him to his boppy pillow or lay him flat, but he prefers this and sometimes that would wake him.  He's fully capable of getting up and moving if he's not comfortable.  Apparently, some babies are just funny sleepers!  He is most definitely a tummy sleeper.  

Sometimes though, I still get those snuggles ;)  He does normally go into his crib without rocking for naps now too.

Just going EVERYWHERE, all of the time.  

This actually means, "Mommy, read me my cow book!!"

Had to throw these ones in here.

One of his favorite things is to come and stand in front of me and just bounce to get me to come and play if I'm doing something else.

This sleep thing must be working... because he looks like a "Happy Baby" to me!

A happy bath time!  A great part of our routine.

A happy side-tongue face!

A happy breakfast eater after a great night's sleep!

A happy free Rita's water ice eater.  Mmm.. Mango!

A happy yogurt painting by Jimmie!

A happy shoulder riding baby!

(And a really happy Mommy, too :) )

A happy baby stealing Mom's ice cream!

This video made me laugh.  He loves ice cream way too much.  His Great Grandpa Foulk would be very proud of this ice cream loving boy!  

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In other news, we will be moving sometime before the end of June.  We don't know where, or when for sure yet, but we are getting our apartment listed to see what kind of interest we generate. (No, this isn't our listing ;) )  If people are interested and we can fill it, we can leave our apartment before our lease is up.  We have looked at a few apartments in Orem that are very close to both of our jobs.  Maybe we'll get them, maybe we wont!  We will just have to wait and see. 

I know this is pretty unconventional, but since this happened today, I thought that I'd include it.  We had to get our apartment totally clean so that our landlord could come take pictures to list it.  I don't remember the last time that EVERY room was totally clean all at the same time.  Not just straightened, but actually cleaned! I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty dang proud!  A special thanks to Aunt Megan for helping by playing with Jimmie for quite some time while Mommy cleaned.  This is one of those things that is more for our benefit and memory than for anything else :) 

We've been here for a while and have had some great memories here.  Since it's a rare, I thought I would take a time to share some pictures of our current apartment.  There are a lot of unknowns and options in our future.  I don't know what the future will bring, but I do know we'll miss it for sure!

(Don't mind the clutter.  I'm doing this "moving" thing in steps.  Packing a box or two a weekend.  And saving any extra boxes we find.)

And by the way... if you're still reading this, and you're going to be looking for a place to live between now and June, let me know!  It's a pretty rockin' place.  2.5 bedroom, 1 bathroom in Provo.  Send me a message if you're interested.

"Homestyling It": Working Mommy & Daddy Stories

Jim's loving his new job and his new schedule.  His training hours were supposed to be for this entire week as he gets to know the ropes of the new position.  However, towards the beginning of the week he took a test that was meant to be like a "pretest" to see where he was at and he passed with flying colors.  Because of this, they modified his training to just fill in the few things he still needed to learn.  Pretty impressive!!  For those of you wondering, Jim's official hours will now be 9:45 pm - 6:15 am, Monday-Friday.  It will be nice to have the same days off again!

My job is going great as well.  Excited to get my P.E. classes back, as nice as the 3 week break without them was.  This last week we played modified versions of frisbee golf, kickball, Chinese jump ropes and a few classes even got to play Quidditch.  I enjoy getting to work with all different grades and personalities throughout the school.  After all of the time that I've spent in various schools and grades, I think that I have found that I enjoy working with 4th grade the best, followed shortly by 3rd.  So if I ever got to choose a grade to teach... sign me up with those 4th graders!!

I wanted to share a quick story.  On Friday I got to be part of a very sweet experience.  The 5th grade class that I work with, for the majority of the day, is extremely diverse.  It is a class that has several students with different disabilities or challenges.  We have had a student with a disability who only comes into our classroom for the second half of the day so that it's not so overwhelming being in there all day.  Within the last few weeks we have had the opportunity of having another student join us in the afternoon.  Normally just for part of Science... really, just as much as he can handle.  He faces several different challenges in coming into a mainstream classroom.  He wears headphones to help cope with this.  On Friday, he was feeling like he would like try and come out to P.E. with us since it immediately follows Science.  One of the boys in our class teamed up with him to be their team's pitcher in kickball.  It's always awesome to see how loving, encouraging, and accepting those kids are with them.  They are great examples of how to treat people. 

After a few minutes of game play, this boy goes running off to the side and takes off his headphones.  Without understanding the circumstances, it doesn't seem too important.  But that's actually a HUGE thing for him.  I've never seen him without them and he doesn't like to talk to me very much.  "I don't need these out here.  We've got this!" he yelled.  Within minutes he had created a clever team name, a special pitching style that he called "home styling it", and become the team leader.  It made me smile to myself for the rest of the day as I remembered him running over to me with the biggest smile saying, "Mrs. Young! I'm gonna homestyle it!  Watch this!!"

My explanations can't do it justice.  It was one of those sweet moments where the whole class just felt like one big family having so much fun.  5th grade can be a difficult age for kids as they start comparing themselves, losing friends, gaining new ones, physical changes, never quite feeling good enough.  Bullying starts to become more subtle in the gossip and snickering. There can be so much hurt.  But in this moment?  There was none of that.  This special boy brought out the best in everyone and helped to refocus us.  As one of the students mentioned to me upon walking back into school, "Mrs. Young, that was one of the coolest moments I've ever experienced.  When we played kickball, he wasn't different.  He was just like all of us."  He brought the kid out in us and the only thing that mattered was the fun and excitement of the kids playing all together again.  It's a moment that I will never forget.  As much as I miss my boy while I'm at school, I'm so grateful that I get to experience these tender mercies that teach me lessons every day.

Typically, I don't carry my phone with me.  However, since I forgot my watch, I had to use my cellphone clock.  I had to sneak a shot of those snow covered mountains above as we ran around without jackets in 60 degree weather down below.

I don't remember the circumstances around this picture, but I'm thinking I must have been very happy that it was a Friday on the way home from work :) 

Smarty Pants

Last night as we were reading one of Jimmie's favorite books "Do Cows Meow?" we realized just how much he is listening and how smart he is! As you might guess, it's a book about animal sounds. At the end there is a page with all of the animals, so just for fun I thought I'd ask him where the animals are. 

"Jimmie, where's the pig? Oink oink!" 

He looks at me and then the book and pointed to the pig. 

"Wow good job!!  Let's see if you can do another. Jimmie, where's the sheep? Baa baa!"

Points to the sheep. WHAT THE?! We kept going and he got all of them right! I couldn't believe it. 

We tried again this morning and he got about half right. Some of them it seems like he really knows as he dives at the book to point to certain ones. Other ones I think he had gotten lucky guesses on ;) The duck is very confusing to him. And the cow he likes to point out on the front cover instead of the page.

Every time I try and get a video though, he doesn't want to do it and is distracted by the phone. Eventually we will get it. For now, I'm just totally surprised and proud of my big boy! 

And we hope he feels better soon. 

Until then, we will keep snuggling, reading books, and eating Swedish pancakes! Bananas, strawberries, Swedish pancakes, oh my! 

Congratulations!

I just wanted to take a minute to congratulate my awesome husband for getting a "promotion"! (I know it's not technically a promotion since it's a totally different division, but I consider it a promotion because it's moving over to a division that we really wanted and has a pay raise.)  Jim has been working in the Technical Support division and has liked it pretty well.  He has, for a while now, been trying to get a job in the Terms of Service department for quite some time now.  Previously, openings have fallen through, and there's been a lot of reasons why it couldn't happen.  in the last few weeks we learned of an opening coming up so Jim was very excited to take the test and get an interview for the spot.  I know he was up against some really tough competition, and I'm so proud of him for pushing through and getting the job!

What does this mean for us? Jim's going back to the graveyard shift.  I think for anyone else, that would maybe be bad news.  But for us, we're ecstatic.  There's pros and cons to this schedule, like any. The main reason why this is helpful is because our schedules do not overlap anymore.  Currently, Jim drives me to school, takes Jimmie to daycare, goes to work, takes a break from work, picks me up from work, I pick up Jimmie at daycare and go home (right during Jimmie's nap time), then wake Jimmie up at 11pm to go pick up Jim from work.  Lots of wasted gas, lots of wasted time, lots of Jimmie's schedule being messed up, money put into daycare, and just an added amount of stress with this schedule.  With Jim's weird sleeping issues having previously resolved themselves, we are sure he will be able to still babysit Jimmie during the day.  He now has traditional days off (Saturday and Sunday) and we will be able to finally go back to our scheduled church time in our ward.  Overall, wins all around!  So proud of and grateful for my hard working and loving husband and Daddy.

Speaking of Jim, some of you may have seen/heard that he's got his foot in a boot.  We don't know all of the details, but his ankle has really been bugging him from previous basketball injuries and seemed to be getting progressively worse.  We were going to go get his ankle looked at when it suddenly entirely gave out on Tuesday at work, causing him to collapse because it couldn't hold any weight.  We were able to get a boot to stabilize it and have an appointment to get it looked at further tomorrow.  We'll keep you updated on that :)

*Update:  After seeing the sports medicine doctor today, he believes Jim has a good deal of soft tissue damage in his ankle. He's been put in an Aircast  for 3 weeks to help it heal.  If it's still not good by then, he will have to have an MRI to look for further damage.  Hopefully it heals with just the cast!

In other news, congratulations to Jimmie!  He is now mastering the art of sleeping in a crib.  I know that sounds silly since he has done it in the past, but he is doing it on a more regular basis for longer periods of time.  He's become better at getting himself to sleep.  We've gotten him on a pretty good schedule.  I appreciate being able to do things after he goes to bed around 7:30.  Makes life much easier ;)

(I saw this the other day on Facebook and thought it was really funny.  This never happens, right? ;) )

I haven't posted much of a traditional blog post so far in March.  I guess, since I'm already writing one now, I'll throw in some random happenings from end of February-beginning of March.

We went out to Sizzler with our good friends Ally and Bob.  It was really fun to see them!  Jimmie sported his Disney PJs because it was a little later than we'd anticipated.  He was HILARIOUS interacting with everyone.  He would smile and wave at everyone who walked by and at all of the ladies at the nearby tables.  He had this one lady playing with him for probably 10 minutes.  He just loves to wave!  What a charmer we have here.

He stands and walks so well. Still no interest in doing it unsupported, but if he's even got a pinky on something, he's good to stand and walk around.

Oh yeah, I chopped off all of my hair.  I'll get some more pictures later.  I think I've finally come to terms with it and like it quite a bit! Heaven knows, it's easier to deal with!

Getting into everything... we're especially loving laundry baskets right now!

I just love this shot of his chubby little thighs <3

Apparently he thinks he can feed himself now!  We're more successful when Mom or Dad helps though ;)

We've been going through awesome cycles of sickness over here.  This cold season has gotten us reallllly good this year.  Jimmie's sick, Jim's sick, Mommy's sick.  3 day break.  Repeat.  

Random candids from playing on Monday.  We loved Mommy's day off!!

But that also means mega grocery shopping.  Jimmie had had enough and decided lay down a few times. Good thing he's got a comfy cart liner!

How can you say no to this face?

It's hard.  But we'd better learn fast!!!

Waving hi from a troublemaker. 

At least he's cute about it!!

Because I'm Happy!

Jimmie has a new favorite song.  I'm sure you've heard it by now but it's called "Happy" by Pharrell Williams.  We lovvvvve to dance to it.  Today I had to call out sick and was feeling pretty miserable with a cold and migraines.  Jim's been even sicker and officially has a boot to support his ankle that gave out.   But you just cannot be sad or feeling sorry for yourself when you get to laugh and dance with this baby!  He's been sick this last weekend, and even though he's still a major snotty-nosed baby, he is obviously feeling much better.  And good enough, in fact, to jump, jump, jump!

Life's good when you choose to be HAPPY!!

Just ask Jimmie.

Singing, singing

Jimmies new favorite thing to do is sing. He just kinda sings little songs to himself while he plays and crawls around the house.

We sure love this boy!