Baby Dos and Don'ts

Please check out this link:

http://www.newbornbabyzone.com/baby-care/the-dos-and-donts-newborn-baby-care-pics/

It will make you laugh.

Thanksgiving 2009

I'm not really sure what's going on here. He looks like a serial roll killer.
This year we have a lot to be thankful for. Adam has a great new job, we moved into our beautiful dream home, our boys are funny and delicious, and we have a female offspring on the way...what more could we ask for? We are also so thrilled that we're now approaching Christmas and it's easier to focus on the Savior, His birth, His sacrifice, and what it all means to us. We recognize our many blessings and are so thankful for them.

Disney World Part 2

We had a few extra days on our military discounted tickets from the summer that expire before Christmas so we decided to make a quick trip down to Florida to use them up. I use the term quick loosely because 8 hours in a car with a 4 year-old and a 2 year-old doesn't go by very quickly. Especially when the 2 year-old decided to potty-train himself the week before so he had to go every time the car went under 45 mph.

We got to the hotel Sunday night and went straight to bed. We were so tired and were all asleep but about 8:30. The next morning we went to Animal Kingdom and spent most of the day there. The boys loved seeing all the animals on the safari and playing in the dinosaur section. We also saw the Finding Nemo Musical, which was way better than I thought it would be. One thing that we did this time that we didn't do in May was take the train to the petting zoo. We probably should have left that undone. It was a sad sad petting zoo. I was disappointed that Disney doesn't take better care of the animals there. It was just as sad as all the pumpkin patch petting zoos we've been to where the animals have matted hair and are stuck behind a little gate with no room to walk around. Bridger knows what I'm talking about:
One of the boys' favorite parts was riding the tram and bus when we need to get to another park or ride.

Monday afternoon we made our way to Epcot to ride the few rides that the boys would like. They love the Nemo ride and seeing all of the marine life in the aquariums after the ride. We went to a few of the different countries and just walked around.
Tuesday we went to the Magic Kingdom- my favorite place. Since I am large with child, I could ride on any adult rides anyway so we just did whatever the kids wanted to do. We waited for 40 minutes for a 3 minute Dumbo ride and we went on the carousel, which I normally would never do, since I can do that at every fair that comes to town. We also loved Mickey's PhilharMagic, Peter Pan, the race cars, and Pirates of the Caribbean all over again. I wish we lived closer so we could go more often. It really is a magical happy place.
Trying our hand at removing the sword in the stone. Bridger was ticked that he couldn't get it out.

Check out those neck muscles!

This is Bridger at nap time. He is such a good napper. When he was tired, he would ask for his sunglasses and for my jacket to hang over him and would lie down and go to sleep. It also gave me a chance to sit down and rest while he napped.
On a side note, we had a rather unpleasant experience with Bridger. Dad, you probably don't want to finish this paragraph. Just a warning. He has been doing really well with potty-training but was afraid to go number 2 so while we were at Disney World, he just held it all in and by Tuesday it had been 4 days since he had gone. We had to cut Tuesday a little short and run to the pharmacy to get some "things" to take back to the hotel to take care of it. It was really sad but made him feel so much better. He is now a champion at going to the bathroom and isn't afraid to tell you so.

Guess What We're Having?

I would have posted an ultrasound picture, but it was pretty graphic. Seriously.

We are SOOOO EXCITED!!!!

Jacob and Laura

Here are a couple of the wedding pictures from my brother's wedding. Is that not one of the cutest couples you've ever seen? Good job, Jacob. Good job.

Finally

I'm a little miffed because I just wrote half of my post and for some reason it disappeared and it hadn't saved itself. What's with that?

This month has been pretty busy for us. Besides trying to get our new house organized, we took a nice trip to Utah for my brother's wedding. It was great to meet Laura and to see her and Jacob get married. My family rented a house in Salt Lake so we could all have meals together and spend more time together. My grandparents also stayed there, which was great because I haven't seen them in a long time. They are still so funny and I loved getting to spend time with them.

My mom was in a bad car accident while we were there and my little brother's car has gone to car heaven. She was miraculously fine after the accident, although the shirt she was supposed to wear for family pictures got a big black seat belt mark across the front of it so that was unfortunate. I'm so glad she was okay. It could have been really bad, but she was protected. Plus, she's really attractive, okay?

After my family left, we still had a couple days to spend in Utah so we went to Thanksgiving Point and went to the dinosaur museum and Cornbelly's pumpkin patch. It was really fun for the kids, but I still don't see how they think it's okay to charge $10.95 a person just to get in. Even grumpy pregnant women who know they aren't going to ride any of the rides have to pay. We also drove down to Provo and went to Cafe Rio and the BYU creamery. Lots of memories there- and I decided that I wouldn't mind living in Utah with my family. As a single student at BYU, it was pretty lame, but there are so many things for families to do there. Also, we forgot our camera so as soon as Kimball sends me the pictures he took for us, I'll post them.

When we got home from Utah, we had a surprise birthday/going away party for our AWESOME friends, the Livseys. We have been friends- more like family- for 4 years and the military has ripped them away from us. Hannah has been an amazing friend and I already miss her a lot. Isn't her baby Mia yummy? You should see her smile. And yes- I sure did take a picture of their van driving away from our house...I was (am) sad, okay?

Then it was Adam's birthday. He's 29 now. I am married to a man who is almost 30. It feels kind of gross. I'm too young to be married to an old guy. We had a little family dinner/party to celebrate. He requested a root beer cake so I made his cake and I feel no shame in the fact that I stink at making and decorating cakes. I have tried to do cute stuff but it never works so I think I'll go back to the easy 9x13 pan method.

He's special. But he is seriously my favorite person ever. His hilarity might be the reason my bladder isn't so controllable anymore.

I guess for posterity's sake I should post the obligatory carving the pumpkin pictures. In theory, it's a fun little activity. In reality, it's hard and gross and messy. I love the pumpkin seeds after we season them (we found an awesome recipe!) and cook them.

Adam remembered a project he did as a child, which in itself is a miracle because he can't even remember even BEING any age younger than 16. So he decided to do it with the boys. They thought it was pretty cool and I thought it was pretty cool that I didn't have to do anything to decorate our trunk for the trunk-or-treat except hang their cute skeletons.

Just as a bonus, here is a picture of Bridger after he put my socks and his train conductor hat on.

After we get some hopefully decent pictures of the boys in their costumes tonight, I'll post them. I'm pretty excited to go trick-or-treating with them and then eat all their candy while they sleep.

We're In and I'm Out

We haven't had the internet or a home phone for almost 2 weeks now. I think I've had enough non-technology time. I'm ready to be back in the loop. We are in our new house now, which we love. We are having some wiring problems, hence the no phone and internet. In order for me to write this post, Adam plugged a very long phone cord into the computer and ran it out the window to the outside phone box. It looks really ghetto. Still no home phone, though. We have to wait for the electrician to come (again) and fix stuff.

We have been busy hanging curtains and getting angry at shelves that don't want to hang right. I really forgot all the things (and expenses!) that come with a new house. Hopefully it will be done soon.

The other big news is that I got release as our ward Relief Society president. It was just the right time. It was a challenging two years for me but now I feel like I can have any calling and be totally fine with it. I just feel sorry for the new president. It's a tough place to be.

We haven't taken pictures of anything for a really long time so no photos- sorry, Mom.

We are heading to Utah soon for my brother's wedding and we are really excited to see everyone.

Just Wondering...

How can something this small make someone so sick?
Fetal hosting is not a walk in the park, but it always ends up being worth it.

Dinner Time

This is what our daily dinner routine consists of:

1) Making delicious food. I am a very picky eater. I make things that most people like because that's what I like. Nothing really weird or gross. I'm talking normal stuff like spaghetti and pizza and chicken dishes and soups. Good stuff, okay?

2) Getting the kids to the table. Usually there are threats involved and some whining on their part. It's like they don't want to eat. Okay, they really don't.

3) Once prayer is done, we dish out the food. There is usually loud crying or complaining or even screaming about what we are putting on their plate. Again, not alien weird food. Normal good food.

4) More threats, bribes, or whatever we can think of to make them eat.

5) None of the aforementioned methods work.

6) When dinner is over, we both sigh and hope that tomorrow's dinner time doesn't come too soon.

So now that we have established the norm, let me explain what happened tonight. We had spaghetti. I make yummy sauce that even has a little sugar in it. Who doesn't like sugar? We also had peas and garlic bread. The crying came when the sauce went on the plates (they like to eat just plain wheat noodles). More crying when the peas went on the plate. Threats, anger, etc. We finally got Bridger to open his mouth for a bite of THREE peas. He immediately started grabbing at his mouth trying to scrape the peas out his mouth. They wouldn't come out so he put his finger down his throat to try and get them out and he gagged himself and threw up his grape juice/noodle mix all over himself. Immediately after spewing he looked at Adam and with the most threatening devil face he could muster said, "NO! I don't like it!" Then more crying.

Brody fared a little better in that we forced him to take ONE bite of peas and ONE bite of noodles with sauce and he kept them in his mouth/digestive system.

To those of you with older children, when does this end?

And also, anyone wanna come over for dinner?

House Pictures

Some of you have asked about our house. It is going really quickly. It should be done in a few weeks, but we aren't moving in until September 25. Adam's new job/getting out of the military kind of complicated the loan process so we have to wait until then to close.
Here is the house right after the landscaping was put in. It's kind of a weird angle, but it's to show the tree all the way to the left there. It's a Japanese Maple and I love it. I can't wait to watch it get bigger each year. Also, in case you're wondering, they don't stain the door until the very end. It's not going to be yellow.

So the vinyl is in the bathrooms, the hardwood is going in this week and the carpet next week. Then all that's left is the cabinets and it will be done. We can't wait until we can move in and have more space.

First Day of School

Brody started school today. He went to a preschool last year for 3 days a week/half days but this year he is going 5 days a week for 7 hours a day. It is the Georgia-sponsored Pre-K program, so it's free, which is nice. He didn't get into the nice elementary school pre-k class so we enrolled him in the next best thing- a day care that also provides the Georgia Pre-K approved curriculum. It's not a clean place or an organized place but I am trying to have a good attitude about it. I'm really hoping Brody will like it. Today when he got home, I asked him what he did at school and he told me he couldn't remember. I asked him what he had for lunch (he's not allowed to bring his own lunch so he has to eat whatever they give him) and he couldn't remember. So who knows how it went. I'm sure he'll be fine.

Bridger was excited to drop Brody off at school and then later said he wanted him back. Bridger and I had a good time. We had a little while when we were both kind of bored and wonder what to do without Brody to play with. Bridger is way happier and nicer when Brody isn't around. Bridger even took a 3 hour nap, which gave me 3 hours to nap and have quiet time. It was amazing.

New Job

Adam is finally done with the military. He started his new job yesterday. He is working in the same building as before, only doing something a little different with his language and he is now a civilian contractor. He gets to PICK OUT what he wears to work. No more Navy janitor uniform or the girly crackerjack one either. He gets to go to work with a beard and long hair and if he really wanted to (which trust me, he doesn't) an earring. It is liberating for both of us, actually. No more random pee tests, no more seminars about not doing drugs or raping people, and no more Navy Pride Day.

So here is Adam on his first day of his new job wearing snazzy civilian clothes.

I'm not sure why this creepy Easter Bunny picture is the only one I can find of him wearing his Navy janitor uniform.

We really have been grateful for the opportunities that the military has given us. We have met amazing people and friends that we will have for the rest of our lives. Adam has learned a lot of skills, gotten his degree for close to free and learned a few languages too. We have been really blessed. Now we are looking forward to the blessings of civilian life!

So can you tell I'm excited?

Family Pictures

We had a service auction for Enrichment in May (or was it June?). It was a lot of fun. I knew what I wanted to bid on right when I got there. Sherrie and Jay Johnson are amazing photographers in our ward. Sherrie donated a photo session. I snatched that up as fast as I could. We cashed in a couple of weeks ago and went downtown to the Riverwalk in Augusta. Go to their website for a small taste of what they did:

http://picturethepossibilities.blogspot.com/2009/07/jessica-and-adam-family.html

Brody's School Blanket

Brody is starting the Georgia-funded Pre-K program this year. It is freaking me out that he will be at school 7 hours a day, 5 days a week as a 4 year old. It seems crazy. But what seems more crazy is me- when he's home all day. You can't really beat free preschool. So anyway, they have nap time at school and each child is asked to bring a blanket to keep at school for their naps. Brody doesn't really have any blankets- he never got attached to one as a baby like Bridger did. My friend Hannah gave me the idea to go to Joann's and let him pick out his own fabric for a blanket to take to school. I know- she's smart. When we were going to Joann's, I asked what kind of blanket he wanted and he said he wanted a sheep blanket. There was no sheep fabric, but luckily he spotted this map fabric and immediately changed his mind. Then he picked out the blue backing. I made it today during his nap so when he woke up, he was really excited to lay down with the blanket on him. He laid it out and pointed out everything that is on the different states. Now I'm just worried that he won't nap at school because he'll be too excited about the "pyramids" in New Mexico.

Myrtle Beach

We went to Myrtle Beach in 2006 when Brody was 15 months old. We had a blast so we decided to make another trip there this year during Adam's terminal leave before he starts his new job. We made it to the beach twice, Ripley's Aquarium, and the water park there, Myrtle Waves. We got a lot of sun and had some fun. Vacationing with a 2 year old and a 4 year old doesn't ever amount to 100% fun.

Funny story..we pretty much ate every meal out since our hotel room didn't have a kitchen. Once when we were sitting at the table eating, Bridger climbed under the table and wouldn't come out. He kept telling us to leave him alone and that he was going to stay under there for "a yil bit". He just sat there under the table for like 10 minutes. Then we realized that he had soiled his diaper under there. He was too embarrassed to do it in front of us. When I said that happened, once, I meant thrice. Three times he crawled under the table to do his business and wouldn't come out until he was sure he was done. You'd think he would be ready to potty-train. Well he's not, okay? We've tried. He hates the toilet.

Also, every time we went into the elevator at our hotel, Bridger said, "I want to go down the alligator!"

So anyway, here are the pictures:

Friendly sawfish at the aquarium.

In front of the aquarium.

These boys love each other. They don't always act like it, but I love when I see the love they have for each other in the things they say.

Bridger in the sand dog.

I thought this was creepy, but who doesn't love a creepy sand creation?

Adam built this sand turtle and the boys had fun collecting shells to put on top.
Adam's creations- sand turtle, Lightning McQueen, and sand castle. I think he liked playing in the sand more than the boys did.
Brody and I had so much fun jumping over the waves. I love the Atlantic Ocean. It is way warmer than the Pacific. Also, how thrilled would that lady behind us be if she knew she was on the internet?

Brody finally got the courage up to brave the BABY water slide at the water park like 30 minutes before we had to go. It took 3 hours of convincing. Then he went over and over and over again. Bridger- not so much.

Where have you been all my life?

In One Week....

...our new house went from looking like this:To this:
To this:We move in September 25. We can't wait!