Goodbye grandparents and hello new brother-in-law!

I love my grandparents, and they are off to serve another mission, this time in the Nauvoo temple! I'm excited for them and think it will be an awesome/amazing experience. Thanks you two for all you do! We love you tons! (oh, and thanks for letting us hangout with you ALL weekend long)

We actually had a great weekend in Murray. Friday: parties, Saturday: yard work, run and yummy dinner at the Asian Star and Sunday: setting apart, church with the grandparents (which included a great farewell testimony from them both AND David Archuleta telling us how cute Jack was), after we had an incredible dinner with the Smiths and playing in the yard. It was a great weekend and was hard to come home and leave these wonderful people. We will miss you.

Oh, and Natalie, ya, she suprised us all by having this beautiful thing on her finger by Monday afternoon! We're so happy for her and William, thanks for letting Emily and i steal you last night! We needed to know details...ya know how it is :)

lions and tigers and bears...

Okay, so there weren't any lions or tigers...just bears. But they were babies and they were oh so cute. It was fun to see the bears at baby animal days...

The big red and white is back! It's almost as good as new and just about street legal. Oh we're so happy to have this truck back.
Jack is really loving eating lately. Lol, this happens only sometimes when he can't seem to stop grabing at the spoon, funny boy

The other night I was talking to Emily on the phone. I told her i'd better go so i can pay attention to Jack and then put him to bed. She thought i said i was going to take pictures of Jack and then put him to bed (like it was a nightly ritual or something) anyway, i thought it was a good idea so i took some pictures and put him to bed. These are what i got.

And last but difinatly not least is Jack making his latest favorite sound. I love it!

just pictures

Jack Loves his new high chair! And we love Jack (have i mentioned that lately?)

Oh little 7 and a half month old sits like a pro :)

And he loves his toes. I do too...

Lol, cute little boy

gosh i love my little boy

the deep end

I'm doing it, i'm dropping off the deep end.

Let me explain:

-Growing up i thought my mom was a crazy health nut (she was)
-Now i'm turning into one

I guess my mom made an impact on me. I like to think it was for good. I guess i've always been kinda weird myself. I've always like learning about health, this is one of the main reasons i chose to get my degree in Exercise Science. As useless as the degree is, i still enjoyed learning about it. Now i have my own family, and since i get to be at home and a homemaker i get to make food decisions for all of us. A few weeks ago my mom had me read "The Green Smoothie Girl." Her ideas weren't really that foriegn to me (we're been drinking green smoothies for years) but her explainations were helpful and because of those explanations i decided to do some experimenting with my own health. I'm always been as "healthy as an ox" according to doctors but i've also ALWAYS had alopecia. In my mind, something wasn't fitting together. If i'm so healthy, why does my hair fall out? That has been the questions for years. That is still the question now but i've finally decided its time to take matters into my own hands and see if i can do something about myself. And since i don't want to start buying tons and tons of pills or vitamins or spend thousands on treatments, i figure the one thing that i can afford to change is my lifestyle.

I'll let you know how it goes. For now i'm trying to eat mostly raw foods with some cooked but no meat and minimal dairy (yogurt). My experiment involves eating this way for 6 months and seeing how i feel--4 and a half more to go. So far, i feel great. has it been the cure all? I don't know, only time will tell. But for now, i'm looking for ideas that any of you might have on recipes, gardening, sprouting, dehydrating and anything else that might be part of my, and consequently, our (poor John) new lifestyle.

Oh yeah, i couldn't blog today without sharing my latest favorite picture in the whole wide world. Here ya go :) I LOVE MY BOYS!

sunday thoughts

Yesterday in Relief Society our Bishop taught a lesson and encouraged us to read the talk "The Effects of Television" by Elder Ballard. Today i read it. It is great. The talk was given in 1989. He spoke about the need to choose carefully the things and programs we allow in our homes. I couldn't agree more and i dare say, its worse now than it was 21 years ago. He discuses the phrase to be in the world but not of it and suggests that instead, we think about this poem:

All the water in the world
No matter how it tried
Could never sink the smallest ship
Unless it got inside.
All the evil of the world
And every kind of sin
Could never damn a human soul
Unless we let it in.

The choice is our own. It starts with us. Boyd K Packer said "You may not be able to control things out there with others, but you can control things here, inside of you."

We are creatures here on earth, we have tendencies of "the Natural Man" but it is up to us to give our best effort to overcome the natural man. That is what i believe earth life is all about. Nobody is perfect but if we are constantly striving to overcome our natures we will succeed. We will be happy. Our relationships will be healthy. Elder Ballard says:

We can live in the world, brothers and sisters, without letting the world into us. We have the gospel message that can carry men and women buoyantly through the “mist of darkness” (1 Ne. 8:23) to the source of all light. We can raise children who have been taught to discern and to make personal righteous decisions.
The Lord does not need a society that hides and isolates itself from the world. Rather, he needs stalwart individuals and families who live exemplary lives in the world and demonstrate that joy and fulfillment come not of the world but through the spirit and the doctrine of Jesus Christ.

We live in the world, but we get to choose whether the world will live in us. Thank goodness we have that choice and oh how i hope i can teach my children to want to make good choices.

still catching up

We went to Baby McLean's baby blessing while back in sanpete. It was great, and McLean looks adorable! Here's some pictures of Jack with his closest cousin :)

We tried getting a picture of them hugging. This is what we got

This one is Jack wondering why he can't roll over. Funny boy.

Biking! -by popluar request :)

So we bought a infant bike seat on Ksl and finally got it all hooked up. We love it! We just need a little warmer weather. But here's Jack on one of our short rides. He seems to like it, except for the wind :)

Good times, we sure love our little man. And we LOVE to be outside, bring on summer, we are ready!

I know i do this...

So i know i do this, no posts for a while, and then i try to catch up all at once. Sorry about that. But here's some random pictures of our Jack man whom we love so much :) Watching a movie with mom. Silly boy, he doesn't like his toys these days. He likes to play with things that we play with. Movies, credit cards, cell phones, wooden spoons, pens... those are his favorite toys. Remind me to not spend money on kids things...ever :)Just chillin. Probably wishing i'd let him play with my camera (i do draw the line somewhere)

Oh ya, another favorite toy, magazines. He loves them.

 He still loves the exersaucer. Even more now than ever. Its one of the only things that he is pretty content in on his own. Oh how we love his smile.

Jack makes us smile and laugh constantly. We love his laugh and would do almost anything to hear it. I can't believe he is 7 months old. Time flys. At 7 months old Jack:

-Still sleeps swaddled

-Laughs and giggles and smiles constantly

-Eats rice cereal and try's some other things

-Finally rolls over easily. But only to his back from his tummy. He's capable of both but why in the world would he want to be on his tummy? He doesn't, i assure you.

-Still loves walks and going on adventures with his parents

Oh, and we took him swimming for the first time a couple weeks ago and he loved it!

Huge bathtub = Pure bliss.

It was so fun! Here's a few pictures of that

Just chillin, he loved the floater, he definately thought he was prettty cool :)

Lol, he looks terrified. He isn't.

We're testing the baby floating theory.

The resuts: Babies float, everything except their heads.

My Before and After

This last weekend we went to Sanpete to visit. While we were there my mom gave us this old high chair that we got (I can't remember from who...maybe bridget? If so, thanks). Anyway, i'm was excited to re-do it and here's the result! Before: (Left)

After :) (P.S. It is red. The flash in the picture makes it kind of look orange, but it isn't)

Goodbye truck......hello garage!

Well, John 72' is finally out of the garage and onto bigger and better things. Its getting fixed! I'm so excited. I think John's excited too but it all happened so fast i haven't had a chance to ask him yet.

Last week were inspections for our apartment. Apparently, we're not allowed to work on vehicles on the premisis. (who knew) So 2 days ago we got a letter on our door "3 days to remove truck (with motor and oil etc.) or vacate." Second vacate notice in 2 months (the other? a misunderstanding, all straightened out) (Lol, i'm laughing as i type this because i've been trying to get that truck fixed for a year now but i guess the vacate notice was a little more threatening than myself) Anyway, since we're not allowed to fix it here John decided that we're just going to have to have somebody else finish the project for us. John's a little bummed because this is something that he's wanted to do. He took the motor out, took it apart, and ordered all the parts. He's so busy he just hasn't gotten around to putting it all back together and was planning to this summer. But oh well, this way it will be done soon. We're happy about it. Honestly, i love that truck, lots of good memories in that truck. I'm excited to take it for a spin here in a few weeks and i would imagine, John's pretty excited too.

So goodbye for now. We'll miss you but look forward to seeing you again, good as new :)

On my mind. February 16, 2010

- Today John was home....a lot. Tomorrow he'll be around even more. I'm excited
- When it comes to the "blessed" category, i feel like we're number 1.
- My baby is halfway to one. How did this happen???? Tomorrow, we'll find out how much he weighs! I can't wait!
- My sis broke her leg. Bad. Her coming to stay with me so i can help take care of her? AWESOME.
- Backed up our computer today (thank your tax return), so happy/relieved that we finally did. I think our computer is well on its way to giving up the ghost...
- February 16...hopefully only 29 more days til spring....pretty sure thats all i can handle.
- Jack is fun. He laughs and smiles and sleeps and eats and pretty much already know's exactly how to steal our hearts. Lately, one of my favorite things he does is cries. But only a certain type of cry. He's got this thing going where i can tell he's just crying to be heard and if you pay attention to him, he tries hard not to let you know that he is actually really quite happy and just wants you to play with him. Its hilarious.
- Our dryer quit. We're getting a new one. I'm super excited :)
- Cleaning? Whats that? Its been so long since i've tried it that i can't really remember.
- Valentines? It was awesome. Our fort this year was cozy and fun. Our neighbors/friends were lucky enough to come join us for a movie in the fort...good times. :)
- My favorite food lately is a bad one. If you've never tried toritilla's, butter, cinamon and sugar, you've got to. They are to die for. all microwaved (25) and rolled up... hmm my mouth is watering just thinking about it.
- Rock climbing is so fun. Thank your Jordan for getting me back into it. Probably one of my most favorite things to do.....ever...
- I've pulled my guitar out recently. Its been so fun to play again. It had been a while and my fingers are starting to toughen up again. It feels good.
- I'm running again. I'm so happy to be exercising. Seriously, exercising makes me so happy.
- Just finished reading Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I really liked it and would recommend it. Thanks for those who recommended it to me.


In case your wondering by now if any of this rambling has a purpose. It really doesn't. Its just whats on my mind today. And i figured is was high time for another post.

Teeth

No, Jack is not getting teeth....that i know of anyway. But today i just was catching up on blogs, and there was definately a theme, everybody's kids are sprouting teeth! I just read 5 blogs, and four of the five were talking about their babies first teeth coming in. Kind of funny.

Although Jack does not have any teeth yet, we did just try feeding him rice cereal for the first time a couple of days ago and lets just say, he hated it! It was hilarious. I got it all on video but with the video camera and i don't know how to get that onto my computer. But just to give you an idea, he was gagging before we even got the food in his mouth. lol, funny boy. We love our little Jack man, and he's getting big. I think we must of just skipped over the rolling over stage because Jack still hasn't done that much but he is sitting up all on his own. It fun to watch him because you can just tell he feels like such a big boy. He's so fun. And right now he's talking to me, so i'd better go talk back!