Everyday Love

{Christmas 2011}

2012-01-07T09:50:00.007-06:00

Before Christmas really becomes a distant memory, I figured I'd better post about it! Here's a few pictures I took a few days before Christmas. Although we didn't really do much as far as "seasonal" activities go, we had a great time relaxing and spending time together as a family.

Christmas day itself was a little crazy. Since we had 9am church, Ben and I decided we wouldn't have Santa come until after church was out. There was just no option to try and drag the kids away from their new toys, and I didn't want to rush through presents inorder to make it to church on time. So we waited. We went to church. I came on and played Santa. Ben and the boys showed up a few minutes later and TA DA! Austin was SO excited!

We took a break about half way through. Austin and Logan enjoyed their toys some more and then we all took a nap. We finished opening gifts around 5pm, just in time for dinner. Austin and Logan both turned out to be a ton of fun! Austin really got into the excitment of it all and Logan just loved ripping open gifts haha. It turned out to be a great day!

{The Cleaning Waited}

2012-01-05T23:53:00.002-06:00

My house needs to be cleaned and organized... revamped, really. There are dishes in my sink. My floors need to be vacuumed and mopped and the boys bathroom cleaned. And our poor master bedroom. Oh. my. NO words. It's a disaster in there. It definitely needs major love...major attention. But none of that was important today.

I made an executive decision this morning. And when Austin got out of school, we did something we don't I do nearly often enough because I always find an excuse. I always think "another day, I'll have (interpreted make) time." For some reason today, it hit me. These days are numbered. My babies won't be babies for very long. They aren't going to want to spend quality time with me one day. And I'm going to miss it. Very much.

I remember when my older brother graduated from high school. I overheard my parents talking, and I heard my dad getting a little emotional, saying he wished he'd spent more time with him when he was little. Played catch a few more times, maybe more one on one games. I try and keep that in my brain and realize these moments I have with my children aren't going to happen a second time around.

So today, we went to the park. And I'm so glad we did.

Short sleeves.
No jackets.
Warmth all over us.

It was a sunny, enjoyable 68 degrees.
We played and played some more.

My favorite shot...

The single shot of Austin. Let's just say he was too busy being in heaven

These are the moments. Let me tell ya. I am truly blessed.

And guess what? The cleaning waited.

{Logan's Surgery}

2012-01-02T11:39:00.000-06:00

On Wednesday, December 14, Logan underwent surgery. He had what's called malrotation, but involved his stomach instead of his intestines and bowel. Basically his stomach was upside down and backwards. It's been such an adventure leading up to his surgery. Nearly all of his issues were due to his stomach being in the wrong position. His horrific reflux, recently started causing breathing problems because as it turns out, he was aspirating his stomach acid and that was in turn irritating his lungs making him cough like he was horribly sick. Poor little guy! I know how much heartburn sucks (I get it all. the time.), so I can only imagine what it would be like to have it irritating my lungs. Ick!

So we scheduled surgery. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the week before, Logan broke out in a very mild case of the Chicken pox; a side effect of the vaccine he'd received the week before that. Awesome. He certainly had a bunch of "issues" going on at the same time. Ben and our friend Josh, gave Logan a Priesthood blessing. The night before, I had a horrible time sleeping. I was so worried for my little nugget! And of course, you always think the worst scenario. As soon as my alarm went off (after maybe only an hour or so of sleep) I just felt instantly sick to my stomach. His big day had arrived. Logan and I got up bright and early and headed down to Children's Hospital at Medical City in Dallas. Traffic was horrible and it took us forever to get there. Nothing worse than being worried sick and having to sit with that feeling in rush hour traffic. Sucky.

Once we finally arrived, we were checked in and put in a holding room. It looked an awful lot like a doctor's office, which totally stressed Logan out. He wanted NOTHING to do with that room. Even if I was holding him, he didn't want to be in there. So we spent a good 2.5 hours walking the hall outside the room. He wanted to be cuddled and walked. I did get him to settle down for a few minutes and was able to snap a couple quick photos.... He was so cute in that little hospital gown.

They came in about 30 mins before we were called back for surgery and gave him "goofy juice". I guess this is something comparable to Valium for kids. Helps them relax and get over separation anxiety. By the time they called us back to surgery waiting, Logan was pretty relaxed.

Once he finally fell asleep, I laid him on his little crib gurny and kissed him good-bye. The sweet nurses both mentioned that they had little boys right around his same age and that they would take perfect care of him. They must have known I was fighting back tears. No mommy likes to see their sweet little baby getting wisked off to surgery, no matter how minimal it is. Their comments helped calm the moment.

Logan's surgery wasn't going to take too long, no more than an hour, which was good because my nerves were going crazy! I went and grabbed some fruit from the hospital cafeteria and came back up to the waiting room. It was there that I was humbled. VERY humbled. Almost immediately I overheard conversations about seriously sick children. Organ transplants...terminally ill kids. I immediately realized Logan's problems were so so small. Tiny. Microscopic even when compared to these other little children.

His surgery went off without a hitch. About an hour later, his surgeon came and out told me all had gone well. He said there was absolutely no confusion about what wasn't in the right place and that everything should be great! Awesome! Shortly after that, a recovery nurse came and brought me back into the recovery area. Broke my heart because as soon as we walked into the second double doors I could hear Logan screaming bloody murder. One of the nurses had him and was trying to calm him down, but he was dazed and confused and of course, coming out of anesthesia is never fun.

As soon as I took him in my arms and laid him on my chest he was calm. All he needed was his mama :). He slept for the next 3 hours or so on my chest. We waited around in recovery for what seemed like forever. It was crazy how busy that hospital was. Once we got moved to a room, Logan had started to be more alert. Right before we were moved to a room, his surgeon came and told me that depending on how Logan was doing, we maybe able to go home tonight, instead of the original plan to stay one in the hospital. I was super excited about that!

We sat around in the room for a little bit, and I called Ben and told him that he and Austin could come say hi. They were practically already pulling up to the hospital. Perfect timing! They came up to the room and we hung around for a little longer until Logan was given the ok to have liquids. He was not even remotely interested in the cran-grape juice the nurse has brought him, but practically chugged the blue raspberry slushy that Ben has brought up from the cafeteria! After he kept that down, he was given the ok for formula, and he chugged and chugged nearly 20 oz. in about 2 hours! Hungry nugget!

The doc came in around 6:30pm and gave us the ok to leave. Logan had been up and walking around and Austin and Ben headed out a little after 7pm, and Logan and I waited and waited to be discharged until nearly 9:30pm (almost immediately after Ben called and complained that we still hadn't been discharged after hours of waiting!) We headed home; which officially cheered Logan up.

Logan pretty much recovered immediately. He played and was up walking around and laughing the next day. Kids are so resilient. I kept him decently druged on tylenol with codine so that he wouldn't have much, if any pain as he get better. The surgery was a complete success from any view point. Logan is pretty much a whole new kid. He's had none of the symptoms he had prior, including puking/spitting up and asthma-like coughing. And he only has 3 tiny little incisions on his belly (one of which is in his belly button). We go back to the surgeon this week for a follow up visit, which the doctor told us is basically for a high five and a pat on the back :)

We are so grateful our prayers were answered and that all is going well.

{Merry Christmas}

2011-12-24T21:44:00.002-06:00

{One Year Stats}

2011-11-30T21:53:00.000-06:00

Logan has his one year check up yesterday, here's his stats:

Weight: 25 lbs. 8 oz. (75%-90%)
Height: 30.5 in. (75%-90%)
Head: 17.8in (25%-50%)

And what's a post with pictures? And well, since it's December tomorrow.... here's a look at some fun I had with Christmas lights.

{Happy First Birthday Logan}

2011-11-22T20:04:00.095-06:00

Totally wrote this post last week on Logan's birthday....and never published it, apparently. My brain is fried. I'm majorly behind on bloggin (like months!) and I'm still crazy swamped with things. Anyway, I've added to it to include his birthday celebration.

Our sweet sweet Logan turned 1 today!! Crazy to think about how quickly a year goes by. I really think Logan's first year went by much quicker than Austin's did. Probably because life is just crazy these days. Chasing 2 kids is double the fun; I cannot even think about what it'd be like to have more kids at this point. Although I'm sure it's not harder, just different.

Logan was a CHAMP when it came to his cake. We waited for Ben's parents to come into town for Thanksgiving before we officially had cake and sang to him. He was so cute. Just sat there while we sang to him, not really sure about what was going on. I was a little worried that he wouldn't really dig into his cake, but oh man did he ever! He really loved it. I was sad when we found out about his allergies because all I could think about was how lame birthdays were going to be for him. No cake etc. But I found an amazing recipe book for kids with allergies and they had a great allergy free chocolate cake and frosting recipe. Logan LOVED it.... but let's just say that it's all he knows, so of course he loved it haha.

I can't wait to do an official cake smash with him in the next few days. He was so into it, hopefully he'll really enjoy a staged one.

Dear Logan Love,

You are such a super sweet, easy-going, mellow baby. We are so grateful that you were sent to our family. We love and adore you and love to see you and Austin play together; you both love each other so much. We cannot wait to watch you continue to grow, but not too fast now, ok bud? Happy birthday little man! We love you!

Love,

Mom and Dad

{Dear Nike:}

2011-09-30T12:31:00.000-05:00

YOU ROCK!!!!!!!

{We Can Breathe}

2011-09-24T14:38:00.001-05:00

Thursday, I took Logee love to a pediatric allergist. I knew we needed a specialist. And I'm so very glad I went. HOLY BIG stress relief. Not only did he go over all the test results in detail with me, he explained everything amazingly well. I really think all Logan's pediatrician saw were positive numbers. And he just went with it. Nobody bothered to really check what the numbers meant.

EGGS

MILK

PEANUTS

WHEAT

Turns out, Logan is really only allergic to eggs and milk. Peanuts are to be avoided only as a precaution, since his number was barely on the positive side. His wheat numbers were .01 on the positive side. I explained to the dr. that I wasn't sure about him being allergic to wheat, because he'd had crackers and other foods that contained wheat... it was only when the food had had milk or eggs that he'd had a reaction. The dr. agreed that the positive result at such a tiny number was more than likely not a big deal. He told me to try it. Crackers etc are totally fine. Just make sure I didn't give him pure wheat (cream of wheat, shredded wheat etc.), which I wouldn't feed him anyway at his age. The best news of all is that Logan has a HUGE chance of completely outgrowing all of them by the time he's 3. The dr was actually super confident he will be totally allergy free by 3, if not sooner. Awesome! So let's just say that's a little more livable, and now that we know numbers and what they mean, I can breathe again. Turns out I think I can handle it.

{A Scary New Word}

2011-09-19T23:06:00.001-05:00

ALLERGIC

I would say that word is probably in my top 5 on my list of fears as a parent. Last Monday, I took Logan to have an allergy blood test done. He is finally old enough to actually test for allergies and this new blood test is more accurate than a skin test and yields results at a much much younger age. We have known that he was allergic to milk, despite the denial of it by his pediatrician (which still just full on ticks me off). I trusted my gut though and made sure he avoided milk, hence why I put him on SOY formula. (I refused to blame his problem on his "reflux" alone)

A week ago, we had some friends over for dinner. We had a pasta casserole, garlic bread etc. Logan of course was begging for bites, so I grabbed a piece of regular, white sandwich bread (plain, no seasoning or anything else) and proceeded to feed him 6 tiny baby bites over the course of about 3-5 minutes. Within just a couple minutes of his 6th bite, he puked a TON. About 5 minutes later, he puked again. Another 5 minutes went by and I was holding him (facing out, thank goodness!) and he had the most violent puking episode all over our kitchen floor, in front of our dinner guest who, of course, were still eating. Besides being embarrassed I was sort of panicking. I immediately grabbed the bag of bread and proceeded to read the label. MILK was listed as the very last ingredient. We blamed his so sad episode on this tiny exposure to the milk. Ben nor I took notice to the fact that his face was actually swollen, as were his hands and feet. (I remember that now looking back and after all the pieces have been put together, because we went over to another friend's house for dessert and they commented on how puffy & chubby he is.)

Monday morning came and I called to finally follow through with the diagnostic testing order the Dr. had given me after I took him in for a visit after he was having constricted breathing/coughing (we are finding out more on this tomorrow with MORE tests). He did so well with his blood test. He literally did not even flinch when they stuck the needle in his arm to draw blood. He must take after me, because Ben practically passes out at the thought of having his blood drawn. And then we waited.

Thursday, Logan's pediatrician's office called me with the test results. I could tell when the nurse said "Ok, are you ready for this?" And the fact that she told me to get a pen...eeek, I knew that wasn't a good sign. I took a deep breath and wrote as she spoke:

EGGS

MILK

PEANUTS

WHEAT

She stopped talking. FOUR. FOUR MAJOR things he cannot have. My mind started racing. About a million questions went through my head at once. I began talking and she interrupts. She asks what that noise was. Confused, I said "my baby." She asked me to hold the phone nearer to him so she could listen. He breathed and coughed. I asked if there was a problem. She asked how long he'd been doing that. I said on and off for over 2 weeks now. Randomly. We had yet to figure out why he sounded all congested/constricted suddenly, for no real reason. She told me to hang up with her and take him to the ER. WAIT! WHAT?!

We went to the ER. By the time we'd arrived at Children's Medical, Logan was perfectly normal again. Just like he was when I tried to take him to the Dr. for the same issue a couple weeks ago. I felt like I was going to lose my mind. They did a chest xray. Perfect. No a single thing wrong. No rashes. No fevers. Nothing. Then I fed him his bottle. 5 oz. in he begins coughing like a crazy, wheezing, and just plain sounding like he suddenly had bronchitis.

A pediatric pulmonary nurse came in and gave her take on the situation. She said kids this young may have asthmatic symptoms, but it cannot be diagnosed until later years. Her guess is that he aspirates tiny amounts of food/liquid when he eats. Fabulous. Just freaking fabulous! They gave us an inhaler and face mask etc. so that when this coughing/congestion/throw up fit occurs, he can have his airways cleared and be good as new. We're going to do a swallow study tomorrow so that we will actually know what is going on (fingers crossed!)

So back to Logan's allergies. Well, let's just say that I am lucky I spent a large amount of cash on a large diaper bag, cause I have a feeling I'll be hauling that sucker around for a long time to come. Three new fabulous things we've added to my bag that must always be with Logan in case of a reaction:

Benadryl

Epipen

Inhaler/face mask

Needless to say we are in for an adventure. How in the world do I keep my baby safe from the world? In case you are just an "eater" and not a "reader" you have no idea just how horrible his combination of allergies are when it comes to what he can actually eat. Something he is allergic to is in nearly EVERYTHING. And if it's not actually IN the product, it's processed in a plant that handles one of those foods, so he can't have it anyway because of possible cross contamination. I guess it's a good thing I happen to know a ton about nutrition, diet planning etc because he is going to need it.

The tiny silver lining is that he has the possibility of out growing these allergies. All of them have a good track record of young kids who've outgrown them, but the peanut (also the absolute most dangerous food allergy in existence) holds only a 20% chance of being outgrown. We're actually incredibly lucky that we have been able to have his allergies pinpointed so early, rather than just wondering why he pukes and cant breath all the time. We wont know exactly what his chances are until they re-test him again at 2 years old.

It's been mixed emotions from me. Sadness, frustration, irritation, and just plain pissed off. I vented to Ben that I am totally just devastated/heartbroken by all this. Now, I know that some of you reading this will think "oh their problems are sooooo small and simple"....blah blah blah. I've actually had a lot of people act like we found a splinter and it's no big deal at all. I totally think it's ignorance that allows people (maybe even you) to think this way. Read your food labels and you will understand. Even check out majority of gluten-free foods. Oh wait, what's that? There's DAIRY in it? Ya.... that means my child can't have it. And it's not just that he can't eat it. He cannot be around it because there is always a chance he could ingest it. We will have to change our entire diet as a family to some degree. We will have to regulate our food because we cannot risk him having a reaction. I'm not even sure at this point to what extent we will really have to change things up, but I do know that when you have a toddler who makes messes with food and a baby who crawls all over, there is a chance to ingest the very things that put him at risk at any moment. Potential death, you just never know how severe a reaction can be.

It's OK for me to feel this way. It's OK for me to feel like Logan got dealt a really crappy hand, even if it's a near perfect hand compared to others problems. That's my right as a parent, just as much as it is for those who's children have disadvantages/disabilities of any kind. And frankly I think it's super inconsiderate to discount any amount of my feelings because it's "not as bad as so and so's", BAH!

Ok, I'm done ranting. Geese, I guess I had to really get it off my chest and put my feelings on a page. Anyway, I'm in the research/defense mode and finding our new normal. I don't feel like our pediatrician is really taking what's going on to heart, not because he doesn't care, but because I feel like his knowledge is limited on allergies. I mean come on, I knew my kid had a milk allergy, but he didn't want to hear it. So I'm taking Logan to a pediatric allergist. Someone who's whole professional life is focused solely on allergies. He will be able to really help us, in all aspects of our new normal.

One interesting thing I thought'd I'd share that I found during my hours and hours of research thus far: Kids who are exposed to SOY (remember how Logan is on Soy formula because he's allergic to milk) prior to the age of 3, but most especially those exposed before age 1, have a severe increased chance of developing a PEANUT allergy. Something to do with the high levels of proteins and the way the protein molecules are bonded etc. I haven't done enough research to really understand what the exact connect is, or if there really is a connection not just a correlation, but considering that soy is in just about everything also, and there has been an insane increase in peanut allergies, it seems to make perfect sense. I need to do more research.

Anyway, that's the excitement we've had these past few days. On to more tests and research. It's just going to take some getting used to and figuring out what works for us before it feels normal again.

{For the love of cuteness!}

2011-08-30T19:47:00.001-05:00

He's so gosh dang delicious.

{9 months}

2011-08-25T19:46:00.000-05:00

Logan just turned the big 9 months on Monday! I can't believe he's already 9 months old! I don't dare blink; his first birthday is just right around the corner. I think his infancy is flying by much quicker than I remember Austin's going. Maybe it just gets quicker and quicker with each child?

Here's just one from our mini session together yesterday. He's such a sweet little nugget! And I just love this little outfit... it was Austin's and I always thought it'd be cute for pictures.... I probably should have put him in it for his 6 mo pictures because he's really busting out of it, but we managed a few shots :)

His current stats:

weight: 22 lbs. 12 oz. (75-90%)
height: 28.8in. (75-90%)
head: 17.7in. (50-75%)

The biggest surprise was that he went through a MAJOR growth spurt from his 6 mo. appointment. He grew 2 inches and gained 5 lbs!! His pedi said that most babies his age grow, but not like that! That actually explains why his head has changed shape so quickly compared to other babies his age.

Some things he's up to these days:

*STARTED CRAWLING TODAY!!!! Yay (?) Haha, he's going to LOVE being able to "keep up" with Austin now.
*Loves loves loves to eat! Literally gets so mad if you put the spoon down or if you aren't "shoveling" it in fast enough haha
*Such a busy body. He's finds a way to get into trouble, even before he started crawling
*Major mama's boy! Pretty much screams bloody murder when I'm not "right there" (he'll get over it! lol. My poor sitters.)
*Just an overall sweet, squishy baby!!

And best news of all, we found out on Tuesday he is in the FINAL stretch (as in done in the next few days) of wearing his helmet (which he isn't wearing for pictures)! I can't wait to compare side by side the before and after pictures. I can see a crazy difference, but I'm sure looking at pictures will make it even more dramatic. Can't wait!!

{First Day of Pre-School!!}

2011-08-22T21:12:00.001-05:00

Holy I can't believe it. My sweet little Austin was officially off to his very first day of school. He's enrolled at the Early Childhood School through FISD and lucky him (me!), gets to go 5 days a week for 3hrs/day. Normally, I would't even bother with pre-school (GASP! I think it's actually just too TRENDY, haha) but Austin really does have a speech delay (which has gotten sooo much better in recent months) and so this will totally help him catch up, since he also gets to work with a speech therapist at school. He has been super excited about school for a while now and today on the way to school he was just beaming with excitement. His teacher seems super sweet and I'm sure he'll have a great year and learn all sorts of stuff. His class is only like 6, maybe 7, kids, which is fabulous. I snapped a quick picture of him before we got into the car this morning. Such a freaking stud if I do say so myself. :)

When I picked him up this afternoon, he was so excited to see me and said "school so fun!" Haha. Hopefully this will continue to be his attitude throughout his school years.

{Party: Happy #3 Austin!}

2011-07-23T02:46:00.001-05:00

Super late I know, but for sure worth blogging about :)

I thought I knew exactly what kind of party Austin would be having for his 3rd birthday long before he was anywhere close to turning 3. I had everything planned out in my head, down to the little details. But then I decided I didn't want my son's birthday to be just like a ton of other 3 yr old (or toddler aged really) boys parties. So I decided to go out on a limb...

Several months ago, Austin discovered the movie UP, while browsing through netflix on the xbox (yes, he knows how to browse netflix and turn them on, on the xbox/ipad/iphone etc. all by himself). I think it was instant love. He seriously has watched that movie probably well over 100 times. After watching him enjoy that movie, I knew exactly what I wanted his birthday theme to be. UP! And so I began.

Now, most parents probably wouldn't go to the extreme that I went to, but hey, he's only 3 once, and let's be honest, if you're gonna do something it may as well be full on amazing. Ok, well maybe not amazing, but I certainly dug into my creative bones to come up with his party. And even though it didn't come out near as awesome as I'd pictured it in my head, mostly due to the fact that I ran out of time, even after months of planning and that I'd already spent way too much time and money on it, I am so glad I did it. So cute. And totally memorable.

Of course for the center of the party decor, I knew we needed the house. But after searching everywhere on line, I came to the realization that one for purchase just simply does not exist. And that it was literally going to be a from scratch-in-my-head design. I got cardboard boxes we had piled up in the garage, electric scissors, my hot glue gun and went to work. I cut what seemed like a billion craft sticks and glued everything by hand to create shingles and texture. Pre-cut wooden squares were a heaven sent discovery. Well over 100 hours (rough estimate) later, It was done. It came pretty close to what I envisioned in my head. But it cold have been way cooler if I had had more time, lol. (like a couple months isn't enough, I must be freakin' nuts!)

Anyway, I literally did run out of time. All the cute little party favors and details I planned didn't get finished. Major bummer. Oh well though. It still turned out cute and we enjoyed ourselves. We kept it low-key with just our really close friends. Just they way we like it around here. As always, I wish I would have taken a few more pictures, but we were just too busy having fun.

Balloon wreath, made by me too :)

{Survival Mode}

2011-07-20T07:49:00.004-05:00

It's come down to pure survival at this point. The heat mixed with the nasty humidity is UNBEARABLE! Which is probably my number 1-10 reasons why I absolutely hate TX. I'm just miserable for probably 7 months outta the whole year. Our days are filled with lots and lots of movies and sitting in a/c with the widow shades drawn. The boys and I literally do not even leave the house. When I have to run errands or go to the gym, it's in the cover of darkness. Especially with Logan's helmet, it's just not practical for him to be out in this kind of weather. 17 days of triple digit heat, and with the heat index it's easily 112 outside. Ick.

Of course Logan and I don't mind staying in the cool, blinds drawn, a/c turned way down cover of our home, but poor Austin I think get's bored. He always wants to go outside, especially to play in his little pool. But even in the water, I think it's just too hot. I've only let him go out for about 20 minutes or so and only when Logan was sleeping, because there is no way for me to supervise him out in his pool and keep Logan inside, happy and supervised.

Or so I thought! Saturday, Ben came home from helping some people move. He was so exhausted from the heat but Austin wanted him to go outside and play in the water with him. So he and Ben were outside attempting to stay cool and Logan and I were watching them from the window in the back door, when it suddenly dawned on me. DUH! I walked over and put Logan on the rug with some toys and ran and grabbed the camera. I had realized that I could totally watch Austin and Logan at the same time, keeping both kids happy and cool if I sit on the kitchen table and look out the back door window, but not only that, I could also take some cute pictures of Austin playing in the water THROUGH the window. Now that might sound crazy, it did to me at first, but it totally worked out awesome!! I have a feeling these hot summer days will be a lot more fun for Austin since my genius discovery.

Can you believe those were all taken through a solid window in the comfort of my house!?

Of course, there are days when Logan gets to go out and enjoy the water with his brother. However, these are few and far between, because it is just simply too hot and sunny. But Logan really enjoys the water too. It's usually me who calls it quits because I am dying of heat and sweating to death and just want to get out of it.

{Shiner}

2011-07-19T07:36:00.002-05:00

Austin is a bit of a dare devil; what 3 yr old isn't? Last week, while we were upstairs watching tv, he was running around like his crazy self and totally biffed it and landed sideways on our coffee table we have under our projection screen. It took me a couple minutes to realize he had a major black eye, as the first thing I noticed was a dent above the opposite eye. All is well though and he's fine, but boy does he have a good shiner and a nice diagonal bruise across his face.

{Reflux Induced}

2011-07-18T10:33:00.002-05:00

Poor little Logan has had severe reflux from his very first day in this beautiful world. Because of that, I had him sleeping in an incline rocker, specifically the Fisher Price Rock and Play Sleeper. As a result of being in, what is very comparable to a car seat (it's got a hard back casing like a car seat), for much of his first few months, Logan's head became pretty flat and a little asymmetric. Having him in that sleeper was the lesser of two evils though, and I did all we could do to keep him happy and from basically throwing up everything he ate. Not to mention that he was comfortable, and he slept all night long from day 2 at home. His doctor mentioned about 2 months ago that his head was flat enough that we probably would want to look into getting him a cranial band to help it grow back into a normal shape. So like any loving parents do, we went ahead and got him the band, even though Logan barely (they may have actually fibbed the numbers just a teeny amount to push him over the line he needed to be on) qualified medically for one. All I could think about was what if his flat head caused some problem later on down the road and we could have prevented it by getting a helmet....and the fact that no girl is gonna want to marry some guy with a mishapped head haha. We have huge issues over here, let me tell ya! Luckily we have amazing insurance, who covered 90%, we ended up only having to pay $500, which is amazing, since these custom made helmets are like $5000.

So our sweet little Logan is now helmet baby, as of July 5. He has to wear it 23 hours a day, and I only try and take it off to clean it at night when it's bath time. I actually have tried really hard to not leave the house because the poor little guy just sweats like crazy in that thing if he's not just chilling at home. We take it off in the car too, because he just gets way to hot, even with the a/c blowing on him full power. They estimate him having to wear it for 12-14 wks, but even after only a week or so I can see some crazy progress. I'll post his befores and afters together. I'm excited to see the results.

He actually doesn't mind wearing it, which really surprised me. I thought he would pull at it etc. but he acts just as normal as he always has. Anyway, poor kid. The things we put them through! He'll be good as new in no time. He's still super delicious :)

And he's on the verge of crawling :)

{For Big G}

2011-07-15T23:57:00.002-05:00

This is for you Grandpa :) Thought you'd like to see your 3rd great-grand kid in action.

{Photography}

2011-07-14T15:14:00.000-05:00

Want to see my most absolute favorite session to date?? Check out my photography blog. Here's just a teaser.

{4 Years & Vacation}

2011-07-07T23:26:00.004-05:00

We celebrated 4 whole years of wedded bliss on June 30...

4 years of love, 3 moves, 2 kids and 1 home purchase later, we are still just as happy, if not more happy, as we were the day we walked out of the temple on that scorching Denver day.

This was the first time we weren't together to celebrate. My reason was because I got the privilege to attend/photograph the wedding of my super cute cousin, Chelsea, in Arizona. I flew out to Phoenix the Monday before our anniversary with just Logan. Yep, you read that right. Ben had Austin all to himself for 4 whole days. It's crazy how easy just a baby is after always having a toddler to handle. It turned out for the best to not have Austin there with me anyway, because my aunt and uncle are literally in the middle of renovating their house and it was basically a construction site, so it certainly wasn't a place for a busy 3 year old.

I have to interject a funny story, we actually didn't even have a working toilet (after only have 1 for the entire house working anyway) for a day and had to run to my aunts neighbor's. So funny! It wasn't terrible because I was the only extended family member staying with them, pretty much because I'm so low-key and easy going. Haha. For the record, those are, of course, my words, not my aunt or uncles! :)

Anyway, it was awesome to get to spend some time with some of my favorite people. And of course getting to attend a sealing on my anniversary was extra special. My cousin and her husband are perfect for each other, and madly in love. Truly perfect.

Be sure and check out my photography blog for more pictures of her wedding {coming soon}. It was by far the most awesome reception/party I have ever been to! Seriously so so fun!

So Friday, July 1 came and Logan and I were to head up to SLC to meet up with Ben and Austin, who had been hanging out in Park City since Wednesday. I was supposed to fly out at 1:55pm and some how my aunt and I got lost (she practically lives next door to Sky Harbor haha!) and I wasn't able to make my flight, even though I got there an hour before it was scheduled to take off, they wouldn't let me check in. Super lame. So I ended up getting re-booked for a seat on the 8:30pm flight, which got delayed. I finally made it to SLC, and we rolled into our hotel in Park City at almost 3am. The best part of the night was that I ran out of formula and food for Logan because if the delay and he screamed his head off the ENTIRE 2.5 hours from AZ to UT. Ya, super fun. And I was at a total loss because my kids are 99.9% of the time amazing travelers.

I wish I had more pictures from our time in SLC, but we were just crazy busy. The whole reason we ventured out there is because our awesome friends, Josh and Jennifer were sealed as a family with their 2 sweet little girls. The sealing was so tender and the girls looked super precious. I got to take some pictures outside the temple for them as well. :)

Before their sealing, we had lunch at the Garden Room at the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial building. It is still one of my absolute favorite places to eat and one of the things I miss about living in Utah. We had a great time overall and it was nice to get a way from the heat for sure. Park City was as gorgeous as I remember it, and our condo was great. We didn't do much else, other than hang out with Josh's family for a celebratory dinner the evening of Josh and Jennifer's sealing. I sure love going on vacation and I'm already ready for another!

{3 yrs & 6 months pictures}

2011-06-27T15:54:00.000-05:00

Can I just say that my boys are both pretty much as cute as they come. Here's some pictures that I took for Austin's 3 year mark and Logan's 6 month mark. Austin is just a little poser! He smiles and poses for the camera like he was born to do it. Logan on the other hand, well, if I have my camera he will not crack a smile for me for anything. It usually takes Ben or Austin making a fool of themselves behind me to get him to crack any sort of smile. But smile or no smile, they are both still just delicious. :) These are just a few; I took a ton. Imagine that! Haha. I'll try and post more as I get around to going through them.

{7 months}

2011-06-22T18:47:00.000-05:00

Look who's a whole 7 months old today :)

{Haircut}

2011-06-16T18:04:00.004-05:00

Logan got his first official haircut thanks to my most fabulous friend Holly last week. He hated it to say the least. You'd have thought he was getting shots or something. But, it was beyond time. I loved loved loved his fuzzy ball / look like I stuck my finger in a light socket hair he had his first few months of life. It all too quickly, turned into what I referred to as "donald" {donald trump, of course} hair.

{Life Captured}

2011-06-16T15:40:00.001-05:00

I've got a lot going on these days, between celebrating my big 25 bday a few weeks ago, and planning/preparing for Austin's #3 bday party, and of course a ton of other things like cleaning, laundry, editing client photos (+ a wedding with 1200+ pics!) and on and on and on ...rather than try and catch up on all the crazy, fun things we've been up to since, oh, about March, I'm just posting pictures of fun/random/life, with or without titles/descriptions. Enjoy!

MARCH

First time eating cereal. He hated it. I never could get him to eat it, so we just skipped that food.

APRIL

Toy Story On Ice

To Denver

First REAL ouchie

MAY

First day at the pool this summer. That's how we spent my birthday.

{Happy 3rd Birthday Austin}

2011-06-15T11:40:00.000-05:00

This sweet little baby is now 3 years old.

3 whole years! Where does the time go? Looking back, it all seems like such a blur. What's that saying.. "the days are long, but the years are short"? How true that really is.

Austin has turned into such a fun and adorable little boy. I know some parents really struggle with this age, but it's been a true joy with Austin, well, really since day 1. He has always had the sweetest disposition and is so tender at heart and it only continues to show more as he gets older. He shares so well with anyone, even with his most favorite toys. His little personality seriously gets cuter by the day!

Dear Austin,

Happy Birthday button bean! 3 whole years old!! What a joy and light you are in our little family. You made us parents and forever changed our lives for the better. We've learned and continue to learn so many wonderful and humbling things from you. Your sweet smile and tender concern for others always brightens our day. You never fail to remind us what's really important in this life. Thanks sweet boy! We love you so much! Happy birthday little man!

Love,
Mom and Dad

{6 months}

2011-06-03T18:40:00.002-05:00

(6 months to the day)

Our little Logan love hit the big 6 month mark on May 22. I forgot how fast the first year really goes, and how quickly they grow and change. At about 5 1/2 months, he went from not being able to sit, to sitting unassisted and able to play for hours at a time on the floor in like a day. Amazing. Crazy. I can't believe my baby is already 6 months! I've been really terrible about posting his stats, and I know when I go to do a blog book one of these days I'll have like a million post to come back and add, but at least I have them in his baby book.

6 month stats:
17 lbs. (Austin: 17lbs 10oz)
26.3 in. (Austin: 27in)

I am actually surprised to see how close my boys are in stats at this point. With Logan's horrific reflux issues that he had early on (which have since gotten insanely better, almost down to no spitting up at all) I figured he'd be suffering growth wise, but apparently I know how to feed 'em!

At 6 months he now:

*rolls both ways (although he doesn't do either very often, he's capable)
*sits unassisted and plays (I still put the boppy around him to prevent serious bonk-age <--totally a real word I just made up haha)
*eats solids 3 times a day. He literally will eat 2 stage 2 jar of baby food 3xs a days if I let him, and that's on top of drinking juice and nursing! He's already eating us out of house and home and he's only 6 months. I don't even want to think about what it'll be like in 12 yrs.
*his favorite foods are squash (& squash with corn), sweet potatoes and bananas. He pretty much does not like anything else. At all. Even the custard banana pudding and other amazingly good baby food. He's totally a food snob.And a boob snob.

I know this last one isn't the sharpest image, but holy funny face. He reminds me of the old man from the movie "UP". Haha!

{Life these days}

2011-05-26T00:55:00.000-05:00

.... has been full of crazy, self-induced busy days...much more to come on that later. In the mean time, enjoy a picture of my sweet little 6 MONTH OLD Logan, outside tonight enjoying the cool evening after that crazy night of tornadoes last night.

{Covers}

2011-05-09T14:50:00.000-05:00

Austin loves loves loves "covers". He loves to snuggle in our bed or his bed under the covers. And when he sits and watches movies, he wants his "covers". I couldn't resist snapping this picture this afternoon after I wrapped him in his covers. He's just so freakin' cute.

{Six Flags}

2011-05-07T16:53:00.000-05:00

A couple weekends ago we went with our friends Josh and Jennifer to Six Flags. We had a ton of fun! The kids loved the kiddie rides. The only thing that was just awful was the heat and humidity. Ick. But we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless. Us adults ended up just buying season passes because they were only like $20 more and so if we go 1 or 2 more times before the season is over (ends in Nov.) then we'll have gotten our money worth. Here's a few pictures from our day. We were there around 11am and left at almost 6pm. We "tailgated" for lunch, which worked out great because we didn't end up having to buy nasty, over priced food. We did buy over priced soda however, but that, of course, was well worth it. We're hoping to have a double-date, kid free night sometime in the near future. Here's some pics I took with my little p&s digital camera.

Tell me this isn't AWESOME! He was totally rockin' his hands in the air. haha. Too funny.

Even Logan was having a good time. The second half of the day I took him out of his carseat (which hooks to the stroller) and just let him sit in the seat. He did much better, and it was cooler (temp wise) for him I think too....worked out great.

By far my absolute favorite part of the day! It was soooo hot and Ben was dying. He and Austin wandered off for a minute while we were sitting in some shade cooling off, and comes back wearing this HUGE orange cowboy hat. Now, Ben is silly and humorous for sure (although many of you tend to only see his very serious business side.... I swear he has a big, good sense of humor) but this was way beyond anything I've ever seen him do. I about peed my pants I was laughing so hard. He looked so ridiculous. He just smiled and said I don't care, I have shade. Lol! For sure PRICELESS!

future MR. & MRS. Hahaha. We always joke that one of Jennifer and Josh's daughter's needs to end up marrying one of our boys. Their girls are sooooo stinkin' cute!

{Priceless}

2011-05-01T14:47:00.001-05:00

Still playing catch up here....

Ben and I have had our thoughts on getting Austin a playset now for a couple years; ya, we've practically been thinking about it since he started walking. But of course, all the really awesome ones start around $3500 and after a fair amount of research, I was thinking that was a low price! Haha. Then a couple months ago when I was in Costco, I saw the perfect playset. Simply perfect. The only downside was that, of course, we'd have to put it together ourselves. But how hard could it be, right? So I emailed Ben a picture and told him Austin went nuts for this thing while we were in the store.

A week or so later, after I'd continued to mention it to Ben, we went over to Costco to "check it out". Now, I know my husband. Trust me. If he's on board to "check it out" it's pretty fair to say that we will be purchasing it (that's happened with his car, my car, ipad, tvs etc.) Of course Ben saw how much Austin lit up for this toy and he just couldn't resist those pretty blue eyes. Here's an iphone picture of Austin and Ben leaving Costco. Austin was so excited that we were taking it home! (although I think he was a little bummed that it had to be "built")

The night that we bought this we got lucky, because my car was on it's way back from the dealership and Maris met us at Costco. Thank goodness we had my car and Ben's car, and of course that Ben took my advice and went for the BIG car when he bought me my car because we stuffed both our cars with boxes. It was crazy!!

So we got all the boxes home and sort of realized that we had just purchased a headache instead of a playset. It took me 2 hours just to put together a little bench. Why? Because NONE of the parts were labeled. Even Ikea labels their stuff. So each little thing had to be measured and compared to the description in the instructions. Needless to say, it was turning into a nightmare. Ben and I took it one piece at a time. Ben spent the entire Saturday before we went to Cali outside, working on it. Which is huge for Ben, since he rarely takes time from his work to do something like this...he'd much rather work, and pay someone else to do the manual work lol. I was super proud of him for doing this himself!

After we got back from Cali, Ben called our friend Josh, who's put together a couple of playsets. He and Ben spent another 2 very long Saturdays putting together and finishing the playset. Talk about having amazing friends! I'm pretty sure it would have taken insanely longer had there not been an extra set of hands helping, and of course, all the awesome tools Josh brought over and the ones he helped Ben buy that really sped their work up. Well, needless to say all the hardwork paid off. Austin LOVES LOVES LOVES this thing. He spends HOURS outside daily. It's usually one of the first things he wants to do when he gets up. Which is awesome for me, because he just goes out and has a fabulous time allowing me to only have to manage one kid while trying to get house work done etc. Totally priceless if you ask me.

{Mother's Day}

2011-04-26T01:54:00.004-05:00

Need a great gift idea?? Check out the great deal I'm offering over at ShutterView Photography!

Mother's Day is literally just around the corner. Of course, you could be traditional and get her the candy & flowers that every mother loves, or you could give her something she can truly cherish for years to come....

Mom & Me Mini Sessions

$115

15 minutes

preview gallery with 10-15 images

5x7 gift print

5 High-Res images {printable up to 5x7}

Evenings of May 6, 7, 13

Limited sessions available.

Contact me nicole@shutterviewphotography.com

for questions and to book yours today!

{SoCal Vacay: Feb 22-Feb 28}

2011-03-27T10:09:00.000-05:00

I'm playing catch up here.... Major catch-up! Like this fabulous-ness happened over a MONTH ago! Of course, it's still majorly worth blogging about though. See for yourself....

Ok, so quick back story here, Ben has a normal, corporate 9am-6ishpm job. He also owns a few businesses, one of which he contracts out his amazing computer programming skills through. (Yes, he literally works all. the. time.) Anyway, One of his recent clients was ABC, for which he designed software for a 360* camera that was used at the Golden Globes. They loved his work so much, that they asked him if he would be willing to do the same thing (super excellent for us, since his work was pretty much already done) for the Oscars. Of course he was happy about that! But that's not the best part. They wanted him THERE...like on the RED CARPET tux and all that there. What an awesome opportunity for sure. Well, Ben and I figured that since he was going to SoCal for the weekend, why not just take the whole week and make a family vacation out of it. And so we did! I immediately started booking/buying/planning, since we only had a couple weeks to get everything together and figured out.

We had a few hangups in the week prior to our leaving. Logan got really sick; and at one point after he turned a really scary shade of gray/blue, we rushed him to the ER where they monitored him and ran a bunch of tests. He was fine, they still aren't sure what it was.... a "reflux" moment, they guessed. And then I came down with a terrible ear infection. I just kept thinking it was going to go away, but it just kept getting more painful and the pressure was finally too much to handle. I ended up going to urgent care on Sunday evening. Luckily! The doc there wanted to give me a steroid shot because I was flying soon, but since I'm nursing, it wasn't a good idea. He put me on a z-pack instead. Ben and I were worried my ear drum would burst on the flight to Cali, but lucky for me it didn't. It was probably the worst flight ever though, since the pressure in my ear/head was crazy intense. Anyway, back to the story...

We flew out to Orange County on Tuesday and stayed in a really amazing double tree suite just up the road from, you guessed it, DISNEYLAND!! Now, at first I was a little skeptical of how things would go since Austin is still pretty young and Logan is only 3 months and nursing. And not to mention that I swore up and down I'd never take little kids on a vacation like this. But we had a blast!! Austin is right at 40 inches, so he got to go on a ton of awesome rides, including the Matterhorn! And he pretty much loved everything about it. We bought 4 day hopper passes to Disneyland and California Adventure and played and played. ALL DAY LONG. Literally open to almost close (9am to about 7pm!) My aunt Stephanie and her 2 oldest girls drove out from Phoenix last minute, which made this trip even better! We always have so much fun with them.

I didn't get a ton of pictures like I'd have liked to, well, because we were just plain busy having fun. Plus, I don't have a P&S and our DSLR is heavy and sort of a lot to lug around, especially since I already had a carseat, stroller, diaper bag etc. to drag around with us at the park. It was seriously a blast though. I'd never been to Disneyland and it was totally fun, but I have to say, Disneyworld was about a billion times better when I went there several years ago (almost 10 yrs! Oh man I'm old!). Like a billion times better. So much bigger, so much more exciting. I can't wait to take our boys there....when they're older....MUCH older. I'm sure we'll do Disneyland again though, since it wasn't that bad with our little ones.

Here's some pictures I did get...

My cute cousin Brittni's birthday was during the week, so of course my aunt bought her a cute hat that lit up and a Disneyland cupcake! We sang happy birthday to her while walking down main street as loud as we could and tons of people joined in on our tune. It was awesome!

Friday morning, Ben took a car service up to LA so that he could get started on stuff for the Oscars. My aunt, cousins, the boys and I hung out around Disneyland for a little while that morning. I had silhouettes cut of our family at one of the little shops there. It was so cool how the lady did it. She even used a side profile picture I took of Ben since he had already left. They are so cool! I can't wait to put together the idea I have for them.

Anyway, so we all drove up to LA early afternoon on Friday. Ya, it took us over 3 hours to get from Anaheim to LA. Soooo ridiculous. I think traffic may have been worse than usual because of the Oscars, but still, I would HATE to live there. I seriously think it's worse than NYC.

Anyway, Ben's work put us up in the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel right on the same property as the Kodak theatre, which means all the crazy, insane Oscar stuff was going on inside our hotel too. A large majority of the hotel wasnt open to the public. Ben had an all access pass (basically the highest pass you can get) so he got to go jump right in all that fun.

View from our room:

My aunt and cousins left after dinner on Friday night so they could drive back to AZ the next morning. The weekend was actually really great. No, I didn't get to go to the Oscars with Ben. Instead, however, the boys and I lived it up and ordered lots and lots of room service, which is of course, the best part about vacation. After eating room service for a week, I really didn't want to have to come home and cook lol. I liked (read LOVED) being able just pick up the phone and get all sorts of deliciousness delivered to my door. Who wouldn't love that though? We did brave the chaos a couple times when I loaded up the boys on the stroller and took them across the street to Mcdonalds....basically because I was DYING for a diet coke/ diet dr. pepper since the entire property we stayed on was Pepsi sponsored. After that chaotic experience I wised up and went the to gas station next door and bought a few bottles of my addiction and kept them in the mini fridge.

My dinner one night.... SOOOOO good! Except for the salad. I couldn't even eat it. Nasty Roquefort cheese ruined the flavor of the entire salad.

Ben got up close to a bunch of celeberities. He walked the red carpet a few feet from Gwyneth Paltrow and Sandra Bullock. He had a camera tag on his badge, which means he could take pictures, but other than just a few pictures he grabbed on his cell phone, he didn't take any...basically because he didn't want to look unprofessional since he was there doing a job for a client. He said it was for sure a really awesome experience. And he more than likely will get to do it again next year!

While Ben was hanging out at the Oscars, the boys and I chilled in the hotel room. I took advantage of the HUGE entire wall, floor to ceiling window that flooded our room with natural light and took a few pictures of the boys. Austin just loved watching all the cars driving on the busy street 17 stories below.

{3 Months}

2011-03-15T00:10:00.000-05:00

I'm super behind in bloggin about all our exciting feats, but here's a recent picture from Logan's 3 month pics. He's such a little squishy doll! We just LOVE him!!

I'll be back to blog more soon!

{Home Made Skills}

2011-02-16T18:02:00.001-06:00

I came across a site for children's room decor and really liked what I saw. For the most part, if I can buy something already made, I'm on board, if it's priced within "reason" or if it would take me an crazy amount of time/hard work to recreate it. I thought this shop had some super cute things. However, paying $30 for an unframed 11x14 that I could easily make myself using my saweet photoshop skills wasn't worth it to me. Plus, there were 3 pictures that I really loved and I knew would look super perfect in Austin's room, so we're talking upwards of $100 just for the pictures; small ones at that. And then I'd still have to frame them. But I'm cooler than that. So, after just about an hour in photoshop, I was able to recreate the ones I loved. And better yet, I made them 16x20 and used colors to totally match his room. Talk about pure custom work! Haha. Total cost for me? Just under $75. Printed & framed. Yay me!

FYI: It's hard to tell in the picture, but the darkest color I used on the pictures is actually a deep deep blue, not black. The frames are black, just like his furniture and accents.

{Brotherly... what?}

2011-02-12T02:53:00.000-06:00

Austin certainly seems to have entered a destructive phase these days. And poor little Logee Love has become the target (sorry for the poor quality...my blackberry was all I had within reach, and trust me, it doesn't do the damage justice in the least)

Let's just say Austin was lucky to have survived that morning.

{A Name & A Blessing}

2011-02-08T02:12:00.000-06:00

On January 30, 2011, Logan was given a name and a blessing by Ben. His blessing was simple. It was sweet. It was perfect. A wonderful lady in our ward took a moment to write down the words of his blessing for me, which I am so thankful for.

Logan Sawyer Humphrey

...We bless you that you will be a shining light to those around you and bring the gospel to them. We bless you that you will be able to serve a full time mission, and that you will be very successful in explaining the gospel joys to others. We bless you will humility and charity and that you will be able to set an example for your family...

I'm so very grateful to have a wonderful, worthy husband, who gets the honor and privilege of blessing my children. Our family is certainly blessed beyond measure. And of course, Logan is pretty much as adorable as they come.

{The Many Faces of Logan}

2011-02-05T15:11:00.000-06:00

I feel like I don't take enough pictures of Logan and he's growing up soooo fast! So now, just about anytime I can, I steal a few minutes to capture his cuteness! Isn't he just freakin delicious?

{2 Months}

2011-02-03T00:54:00.002-06:00

Sweet little Logan aka Logee (lo-gee)-Love, Gogee (go-gee, as Austin has come to call him), Logee or Gogan hit the bit 2 month mark! He's so adorable, I just can't get enough!

At his 2 mo. well check ( Jan. 27) his stats were:

weight: 11lb. 7oz. (funny to us 'cause he was born 7lbs. 11oz.)

height: 23.3 in.

head: 15 in.

We're happy to see that he's gaining weight. His reflux issues are getting better, but are still here. He'll probably always be a puker as a baby.

He's such a sweet little man! I have to say that I just adore the baby phase. For sure my favorite stage. Logan is a champ! He's still sleeping through the night. He's been doing that since day 2. Crazy huh? I guess we're just uber lucky. My pedi was shocked to hear that, especially since he's got one of the worst cases of reflux the doc has ever seen. The only down side is he nurses about every 2 hours, which makes my days a little less productive. But hey, I'll take sleep over being able to clean my house etc. any day. He's already getting uber chunky legs and cheeks! I LOVE me a fat baby!

Things he's doing at this time:

* Smiling

* Cooing

* Turning his head when he hears our voices

* loves loves loves baths, just like Austin still does
* Pretty much spends his days lookin' super adorable and making us smile

We're still working on getting enough tummy time. With his reflux, laying down for any reason results in puke city. Poor little man. But we've come up with other ways. Like chillin in the jumparoo, bumbo or moby wrap.

It's so fun to watch him grown and change! Holly and I hung out everyday last week and by the end of the week she told me it was nuts how much he's changed in just a week! I think I'm going to have to start taking a picture of him everyday! He's already growing up too fast! Soon he and Austin will be causing mayhem together :)

Here's a couple videos of him smiling and such that Ben shot with his iphone (I cannot wait to get mine!) today. He's seriously getting so cute!

{Business Changes}

2011-02-01T14:43:00.000-06:00

I'm super excited to finally be re-launching my photography business. It's seriously been a crazy couple years and I've finally found my groove. Exciting things are happening this year. Go ahead and check out my new website and blog design by clicking on the image above.

{Upsized!}

2011-01-25T17:59:00.001-06:00

It's BIG. Black. Beautiful.

We finally took the leap and purchased a true, room for growth, tons of space family car. I seriously thought this day would never, ever come. I've been trying to get Ben on board for one of these babies for a year or more now. While Ben likes them just as much as I do, he couldn't understand the need to make the upgrade when our current family size fits in either of our cars. I couldn't understand the need to wait until our family gets bigger. Then it finally clicked with him! I kissed my BMW goodbye and we are now the proud owners of 2008 Cadillac Escalade ESV. I'm pretty much beyond so super super excited!! If you live here in the Dallas area, you seriously need to go visit Maris Opfar over at Sewell Plano. He's awesome and an honest/trustworthy salesman (And I'm not just saying that cause I'm friends with his wife :) ). SO so happy we purchased through him. Now I just have to come up with places to drive that are further than my usual places of Holly's house/walmart/stonebriar/costco/7-11 so I can truly enjoy my shiny new toy! Yay!

{Denver & Such}

2011-01-14T16:58:00.000-06:00

Life has seriously been so busy lately, but sooo much fun! Last Tuesday, one of my most fabulous friends, Katrina, came to visit. I was so super excited to see her! It'd been a whole year, and we both couldn't believe it'd been that long. It's rare that we're in Denver together these days because she's in grad school on the east coast. Katrina and I grew up together (friends since 6th grade) and have remained wonderful friends all these years. She's awesome!

It was so good to see her! We hung out, did a little bit of shopping, tried some new restaurants and just had fun. We didn't end up getting an updated picture while she was here (dang it!), so I'm posting a couple of my favorite old ones :).

Katrina was here until Saturday; luckily she left Saturday, because I don't think she would have gotten out due to the crazy snowy weather we got Sunday. Thanks for coming out pookie! It's always so fun to see you!

Sunday night Ben's dad flew into town on business. We were lucky to get to see him and brought him along to dinner with none other than Jennifer and Josh and Scot and Holly. Austin loved seeing his grandpa Humphrey for sure. Sorry, no pics from that night.

Monday morning the boys and I flew to Denver. I know, most of you probably think I'm outta my mind for taking a 2 yr old and a 7 wk old on a plane by myself. And to be honest, I totally thought that myself! It wasn't near as bad as I thought though, mainly thanks to this heaven sent stroller I bought a few months before I had Logan, and because we got EXTREMELY lucky on the plane itself. Both there and back our flights weren't full, so I was able to put Logan's car seat on the fight, in a seat, and Austin was in a seat of his own as well. Miracle for sure!! Both flights went really great. Austin behaved himself incredibly and I'm sure everyone on the flights were surprised when neither of my children were even remotely disruptive, especially after getting some major glares while waiting to board. Let's face it, nobody likes screaming children on a flight and seeing one parent traveling alone with a toddler and newborn in tow is a recipe for disaster. So happy that wasn't the case this time though!

I took a little trip over to Denver so that my grandpa could see Austin and meet his third great grandkid. My grandpa flew out from WY in the middle of December to watch my little brother graduate from Colorado State (shout out to the little bro for such an accomplishment!) and I called him to make sure he'd still be hanging out in January so I could come visit. Being the little schemer I am, I called my aunt Steph in Phoenix and told her she should fly out to Denver too. She was on board. We didn't tell my mom, only my dad since he was the one picking us up from the airport. The surprise fell short when another one of my aunts showed up at my parents house just a few minutes before we did and asked my mom where WE were. Whoops. Oh well! We all had a great time. It was super cold, like 11 degrees one of the days, that we didn't leave the house once we'd gotten there. It was fun to just hang out and do nothing and of course to see all my family in the Denver area.

Austin had such a great time with my parents. He certainly loves his grandparents. He really liked "Big G" as we refer to his great grandpa, and says Big G soooo cute. And of course he always enjoys playing in my dads truck and honking the horn.

Logan, of course, liked him too :)

The past couple years when we've gotten together with my grandpa, we've made sure we've gotten pictures of everyone together. This year was no different. Since it was freezing cold and covered in snow outside, we just went into the living room and took some quick snap shots. Props to my aunt who learned super quick how to run my camera! It was so chaotic trying to get even the simplest of shots. The kids just were crazy. But I think they turned out great, all things considering. I'm sure we'll all be treasuring these photos. Here's just a few.

Me and my gigantic brothers, huge aren't they?

I may have to photoshop Ben into this one.

{A New Year}

2011-01-04T22:07:00.002-06:00

To ring in the big 1-1, we got together with friends at our house and partied like rock stars. Well, maybe not rockstars, but we sure had a great time! Holly and I decided this is becoming an annual tradition. Last new years was actually the very first time we'd ever hung out, and now we're best of friends. Crazy to think it's been a year, although I feel like we've been friends forever. Josh and Jennifer joined the party this year, which of course, just adds to the fun. We kept it pretty low-key, with pizza & wings and of course waaaaaay too much junk food, which the kids couldn't seem to get enough of. We mostly played kinect games all night, while the kids ran wild. At midnight, we toasted and kissed our spouse. We made it to about 2:30am, when the kids finally had a meltdown and it was time to call the night....I know some of you think we're nuts for letting our toddlers stay up that late and that's why you weren't invited :) It was a fabulous night! Thanks Holly & Scot and Jennifer & Josh for ringing in the new year with us!

Holly playing dance central on Kinect

Josh and Scot

Austin enjoying probably his 100th oreo ball

Josh showing us how Kinect karaoke is done

And classic Holly, being her fun and crazy self!

One of the things on my resolution list this year, taking more snapshots of our everyday moments. I definitely don't pick up my camera as much as I should; so I'm going to certainly make a priority of that. Today I took a fair amount of pictures.... but here's one of my favorite....

Here's to a fabulous, pictureful 2011.

{Christmas '10}

2011-01-03T20:18:00.003-06:00

We're gonna play catch up here....

Ahhh, Christmas. How I truly love it. The best part this year was seeing how excited Austin was when he came down the stairs Christmas morning. I can't wait for the next couple years because he'll be really fun! Plus, we have some really great gift ideas for when he's older.

Santa treated us all well this year. Austin was pretty much spoiled rotten between both sets of grandparents (thanks!!) and us. I really think he loves each and every present he received.

My mother in law knit me a freaking amazingly cute beanie and fingerless gloves, which I LOVE!

Ben and I got a Kinect, which was a "family" gift, although Ben, of course, still claims its my gift. I gave Ben some new Michael Kors ties, among other things, and he treated himself to a major shopping spree at Jos. A. Bank, getting some new dress slacks, french cuff shirts and other business man things.

My favorite gifts this year would have to be my Dyson ball and P90X. I also got a bunch of other workout things, including a kettle bell set, which I love love love! Ben and I figured I'm probably one of a handful of women (wives, especially) in the world who's excited when I receive household cleaning accessories and workout supplies. Ben's brothers said Ben is basically telling me to clean the house and get skinny. Haha! I love it though. And I do need to clean and get SKINNY, which makes it even better lol.

We didn't do a Christmas dinner this year. By the time we got done opening gifts (we started at 11am when we all woke up) it was almost 2:30pm. So we just decided to get ready and go out to IHOP. Fabulous idea! I'm sure that will become our new tradition.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

{1 month}

2010-12-29T01:55:00.005-06:00

Time sure flies! It's already been an entire month since Logan was born. Looking back now I actually feel like it's been a crazy blur. It's been pretty smooth adjusting to having 2 kids. I can't really complain that I haven't been getting good sleep, cause Logan is simply a pro at sleeping. He's still sleeping through the night. Certainly counting myself blessed.

We may be getting enough sleep, but we've for sure had our hangups in another department. So, basically since day 1 Logan has been a puker. Some babies are just like that, as I've been told far too many times. But there was just something telling me that not all is well. A mother just knows when her child is doing something that isn't their normal. Something didn't feel right to me about it.

At Logan's 1 mo well visit (Dec. 23) his stats were:

weight: 8 lbs. 11 oz. (25%)
height: 21.5in. (50-75%)
head: 14.3 in. (25%)

So anyway, I mentioned my concerns about him puking to my pedi again, as we had discussed his almost constant puking at Logan's 2 wk well check. My pedi didn't seem too concerned still, but I pressed the issue further. I told him that while Logan may not be projectile vomiting according to "medical" standards, he was forcefully vomiting (projectile as I'd define it) everytime he ate, either during his feeding, or immediately following. Sometimes it happens more than once during a feeding. I told him that I just knew something was wrong.

We'd discussed before that he may have an intestinal block, which wasn't allowing his stomach to empty, so instead, he was just getting super full and throwing everything, from the current feeding and anything from the previous feeding, up. While he didn't seem concerned, because Logan had in fact gained weight, although I credit that to my having to feed him just about every 1.5 hours.

Anyway, our pedi ordered a upper GI scan to really check out what was going on. That was what I wanted to hear. SOMETHING. Finally. We were going to know what was really happening down there. As he left, I picked Logan up off the table, and was immediately soaked in puke from the bottle he'd had just 10 minutes prior to getting called back into the exam room. I felt sooooo awful for my little man. And on top of that, the nurse walked in and told me that he couldn't have ANYTHING to eat for the next 4 hours, until after he'd had his scan. WONDERFUL! My kid just threw up everything he ate, and now you're telling me he has to wait more than double the amount of time he usually waits until he can eat again? Sweet. NOT.

To save typing about a few boring/hellish/screaming baby hours, I'll just cut to the chase. I called Ben and told him he needed to meet me at the Pediatric Imaging place and explained what was going on. Long story short, we showed up for our appt time 20 minutes early, hoping they could get us in sooner. 40 minutes AFTER our scheduled time, we are called back. Needless to say Logan screamed nearly the entire time we were in the waiting room because he was starving to death, which was beyond frustrating for me. I just felt so awful for him.

Ben waited with Austin outside the imaging room since Austin wasn't allowed to come in. I stripped Logan down and they wrapped him up and strapped down to a papoose board. He was fed barium through a bottle (thank goodness he was STARVING and he'll take a bottle!). I stood there with the specialist as we watched the barium flow into his little body. Immediately I notice a problem. Not more than a couple inches down his throat, his esophagus is swelling and expanding as he sucked down the barium. The specialist says to stop feeding him. We watched as his esophagus continues to contract, even though he's not sucking on anything anymore. VERY little barium had gotten through to his stomach already, and his esophagus was slowly emptying. By far the craziest thing to see.

So what's the diagnosis? Basically Logan has an extremely severe case of reflux. His is opposite the problem most babies have, and is actually very dangerous to him. His esophagus doesn't empty properly because the muscle at the end of it is underdeveloped. So instead of it being wide open as he eats, it's pinched shut, allowing food to flow to his stomach at an extremely slow pace. The biggest danger at this point is his esophagus rupturing or tearing because of the stretching and contracting.

The specialist made the decision to give Logan time to grow out of it. Which I am 100% for. If he doesn't outgrow it by 6 mo. they will probably have to go in and surgically correct it. As far as what I have to do to help him, I have to nurse him in as upright a position as I can manage, stop and burp him about every 3 minutes, and then keep him upright for about a minute after he burps. Then go back to feeding again, repeat until he's done. And then keep him as close to 90* upright for at least 1 hour after feedings. Let's just say that feedings have gone from 30 minutes to nearly an hour, repeated every 2 hours. Sounds like a ball huh? I haven't been getting too much done lately, but I'm sure things will adjust themselves.

We're really just grateful that it isn't anything so severe Logan has to have surgey immediately. Had it been an intestinal problem, 100% he would have been in surgery asap, which would have just been sooooo sad. I'm keeping positive, and doing all I can to do help him through it. It's just sad because he cries and cries when I take him off while he's nursing to burp, because the poor little guy is starving since food takes so long to get into his belly and fill him up.

Anyway, that's what's going on around here for now. We're for sure counting our blessings that we were able to figure out what's going on and reminding ourselves that it'll hopefully get better everyday.

{THE Reason For The Season}

2010-12-25T20:24:00.001-06:00

May we all remember the true reason for the season.

Merry Christmas!

{Just in case...}

2010-12-23T08:20:00.003-06:00

we missed you!

{Early Christmas Hilarity}

2010-12-16T17:31:00.000-06:00

Seems that every Christmas since we got married (this is only our 3rd one together, so we may still be trying to get the hang of it), Ben NEVER has a list of anything he'd like to see under the tree. Which comes with the territory I guess, since he is just one of those people that will buy what he wants almost immediately when he realizes that he wants it. Let me share an example...

We bought an xbox 360 on a whim (a SECOND xbox 360, if I may add) simply because Ben wanted to be able to watch netflix in our bedroom and/or be able to play his games if I wanted him to be by me when I wanted to rest or sleep. Then just a month or so later, randomly, and on yet another whim, Ben suggests over dinner at Chilis, that we should head next door to Best Buy and purchase a blu-ray player, because it'd be "awesome on our 120" screen" (I swear that is a direct quote). Sure. A blu-ray player isn't expensive, so why not, I say. Shame on me. I should have seen it coming. Once we were in the door, it wasn't a "blu-ray" for much longer and it quickly became a PS3. Of course it did. So now we have 2 xbox 360, a Wii (which we just HAD to have as soon as it came out, yet rarely play anymore), and a PS3.

So, you see what I mean? Needless to say, gifting to him isn't exactly an easy task because if he wants it, he has it that moment or it's coming via next day shipping thanks to amazon prime. Anyway, back to my point. This year, when the xbox kinect came out, we didn't run right out and buy it. While both of us thought it was cool, yet neither of us seemed for really wanted it so bad that we had to have it right then and there. Of course, like all trendy things, the kinect sold out everywhere. A few weeks ago, we decided we should get one. Of course we couldn't find one from a retailer, only private sellers online who were selling them for $100+ more than retail. We gave up and figured we'd get one after Christmas, when they'd be more available.

And thus my master plan unfolded! I checked amazon everyday because I knew they'd get more in stock, it was just a matter of time and I figured if I just kept checking, one of these days I'd be successful. Yesterday was that day. There it was, in stock, at retail price, and ready to ship. I bought it, and got super excited that I finally had succeeded at getting Ben something he wanted.

Then about 5pm yesterday evening, the UPS guy shows up. 4 large boxes are dropped at my door, all addressed to Ben. Being Christmas, I knew better than to open anything for fear of coming across a gift of mine. So Ben comes home, we eat dinner and I mention the packages. Two were gifts to us all from Ben's parents, sent wrapped, so they are nestled nicely under the tree, the other was 2 new studio lights Ben ordered. Which left 1 remaining.

Ben asked if I wanted to open a gift early. My first question to him was, is it my only gift because if so, I'd wait until Christmas. He said no. So I dug right in.

You probably know what's coming...

I opened the box only to find a Kinect and 3 games. I burst out laughing and handed the box to Ben and wished him a Merry Christmas. He sort of looked at me like I was being ungrateful and I continued to laugh as I asked him if we should keep this one or the one that would be here on Friday. We had a good laugh that we both had gifted each other the same present, especially since they've been so difficult to find. Luckily, amazon hadn't processed my order just yet, so I was able to cancel it before it shipped. Christmas morning would have been insanely hilarious had we both opened a kinect.

We hooked up the kinect and tried it out. It's AWESOME! If you have a new xbox, get a kinect. SOOO fun!! We were dying laughing and sweating like crazy because of how much it makes you work. It's awesome!!

Anyway, just thought I'd document what happened, cause I'm sure I'd forget all about this in a few years. For sure a super funny moment in our marriage.

{3 wks...}

2010-12-14T18:10:00.001-06:00

And he's sleeping AMAZINGLY. Averaging 6-7 hours straight a night. An incredible 9 straight hours last night. He's actually only had 1 "newborn" night since he was born, getting up every couple hours. Luckily, it's only been 1 night. **Fingers Crossed** We aren't counting our chickens before they hatch just yet, but way to go Logan love!

These were taken yesterday morning. 3 whole wks. Can you tell just how much the photographer in me is lovin' having a newborn around? :)

{Brotherly Love}

2010-12-14T02:50:00.002-06:00

I don't think life gets any better than this.

{Logan}

2010-12-10T15:12:00.000-06:00

Wanna see more of this adorable little tiny squishy? Check out my photography blog!

ShutterView Photography

{2 wks. Down}

2010-12-09T18:36:00.000-06:00

And I've survived. Well, 2.5 wks actually! Lol. Life has been a little bit crazy, but nothing too super chaotic. Austin seems to be adjusting well, although he certainly loves throwing tantrums when he doesn't get his way just like a typical 2 yr old.. Logan sleeps decently well; he slept 7 hours straight last night, which I was SUPER grateful for. I don't think I've ever missed sleep so much. Lol. Although, really, he only is usually up twice, but that's still a lot when you've been used to sleeping for like 12 hours straight for a couple years now. I'm lucky though because Austin still takes a good 3-4 hour nap, so I can crawl back into bed usually and rest up if I need too, which is wonderful. The biggest hang-up we've had so far is me getting mastitis, which totally sucks, but it's gotten so much better since getting on antibiotics. Thank goodness! The only problem is I think that the antibiotics upset Logan's stomach and everytime I finish nursing him, he (projectile) vomits almost everything he just ate. I found that out the hard way a week or so ago, at around 4am when I was sitting in bed nursing him and he soaks himself, me and my side of the bed with puke. SO fun. Major Ick. Oh well, this too will pass :)

Logan had his two week check up today. 8am doctor appointments are so not meant for me. Seriously. Anyway, here's his stats:

weight: 7lbs 10oz. - 25% percentile
height: 20.5in - 50% percentile
head: 13.9in - 25% percentile

I told our doc about Logan throwing up as much as he does and he thinks he may have reflux. Who knows. It's hard to judge when there are other influences going on in my body. I've kept him elevated after feedings and whenever he sleeps since day 1 at home, and I give this credit for him practically sleeping through the night. We'll see how things go. If Logan doesn't gain at least a pound by his 1 month check up, they're going to do an ultrasound on his belly to make sure his intestines are blocked, which could also be a reason he pukes so much.

So not much else has been going on around here lately. Lots of diaper changes. We've take a potty training break, since Austin just refuses to poop on the toilet, but he'll pee like a champ. So I stuck him back in diapers. We'll try again in a few months.

Last week, we took Austin to the Ronald McDonald train exhibit at the North Park mall. It was pretty cool. Austin loved walking around an looking at the trains. It's not a very big exhibit, and I think it was $6 for adults and $3 for kids (age 2+) but it's for a really great cause, so it was worth it. I only got a couple pictures from our visit. Here's one of them.

We're really trying to make extra effort to do things that are geared towards Austin and are fun/special, out of the ordinary so that he doesn't feel too neglected as we adjust to having Logan around. Austin really is doing well over all though. Hopefully all continues to go well.

{Thanksgiving & Other Randomness}

2010-12-02T16:42:00.002-06:00

Between my parents, Ben's younger brother, a crazy 2 year old and a new baby, my camera didn't make an appearance during Thanksgiving day/dinner. Here's my only shot remotely "Thanksgiving" related from the day before.

Austin had a really great time helping my mom make pumpkin pies.

Thanksgiving was great though. We had a fabulous dinner, prepared 99% by my parents (mom). We were super thankful to have family come our way, it always makes the holiday much more enjoyable.

And now for the randomness....

Flowers I got and a gift basket Ben's work sent when Logan was born....

I also received an AWESOME edible arrangement from my parents, complete with balloons and of course chocolate covered fruit. I failed to take a picture of it because in my crazy post baby brain, I was just super excited to eat it, and we dug right in. Dang it.

I also got what I consider a "push" present "from" my hubs. Let's just say that good things come in Coach packages. :)

This is how Logan has spent much of his time.

Which has made me super grateful for this; seriously the best $50 I've ever spent.

Austin is all about helping to feed Logan anytime I pump and give him a bottle. Logan's been a champ at nursing and taking a bottle, which is great for me!

Austin is seriously crazy about Logan, which is so cute!! These are from the other night.

He even tried to share his iphone with him....Logan didn't really care lol.

And here's a couple from the other morning when Logan was just chillin' in bed with me :)

{6 days new.....And the Birth}

2010-11-28T23:58:00.002-06:00

Our little Logan is a whole 6 days old now. The last 6 days have gone by so quickly, it's crazy! I can't believe Logan's a week old already tomorrow. Before life gets so super busy (we're practically having constant company until the end of Jan) and I forget all the fun, minor details of Logan's wonderful birthday, I figured I better write it down. So from the beginning....

November 22, my scheduled induction date, couldn't have come soon enough for me. Even though I wasn't due until Nov. 28 (today!), the last 3 weeks or so of my pregnancy had been really hard for me and of course I was super anxious to meet our new little man. However, as the big D-day approached, I became more and more stressed/anxious/scared/overwhelmed at the thought of having another child. The birth is what I feared most, not so much the adding another child to our family part.

When I went to my 37 week appointment (Nov. 10) , I was dilated 3 and already 50% effaced. I was certain that Logan would be arriving sooner than what we were planning on paper. As another week went by with very little signs of labor, my thoughts of an earlier birthday for Logan slowly dwindled. At my 38 week appointment (Nov. 17), my Dr. didn't really talk specifics of where I was at, and I was a little frustrated with that because I was so ready to deliver and had gone to my appointment hoping she'd send me to the hospital. I left the Dr. that day pretty disappointed. Ben had stayed home from work that day as a "just in case", so he was also a little bummed too that we weren't heading to the hospital to meet our sweet little man.

My mom arrived on the evening of Nov. 20 so that she could help me with all my last minute preparations and of course be around if I happen to go into labor earlier than my induction date. We spent most of the weekend getting things ready and shopping for Thanksgiving and doing some final shopping/cleaning for the baby. I feel so blessed that I was able to have my mom come out and help out. It was a huge stress reliever to know that Austin was going to be well taken care of while I was in the hospital.

Sunday, Nov. 21, the stress/anticipation of it all really began to hit me. I felt like I was having a little bit of a nervous breakdown. All my worries and concerns seemed to hit me at once. I finally fell asleep around 2:30am, only to have to wake up a few hours later so that we could be at the hospital at 7am. Before we left our house to head to the hospital, Ben gave me a Priesthood blessing for comfort; my nerves were crazy! It's funny how much more scared/nervous I was for round 2 of child bearing than I was with Austin, obviously because I knew exactly what it was I would be going through.

We got to the hospital around 7:20am. I joked with the nurses and my doctor that I thought about not coming because I was really nervous. They laughed and told me it wasn't going to be that bad. By the time they nurses got me settled and my IV running, it was like 8:20am. My doctor came in and checked me, and I was almost at a 5 and 80% effaced. So she broke my water and had the nurse start me on a very slow dose of pitocin. The nurse told me they didn't want me to deliver too quickly because my doctor was heading to a c-section and would be busy for the next little while. Ben and I broke out his laptop and started watching 30 Rock on Netflix.

My contractions began and weren't too bad for the first little while, but about 40 minutes later (and after nearly breaking Ben's hand on a major contraction) Ben ran and told the nurse I needed my epidural. Man, I LOVE an epidural. Within a few minutes I was getting the good stuff and starting to feel better. I whole body was shaking so bad before I got my epidural, I'm not sure if it was from nerves or the physical shock of what I was going through, but within minutes of getting my epidural the shakes went away and I was feeling better.

About 10:20am I started to feel a lot of pressure and then suddenly I had an overwhelming feeling of nausea. I told Ben I was going to throw up and he ran and got a nurse. She handed me a bucket and I tried the "mind over matter" so that I wouldn't throw up since I hadn't eaten anything since about mid-night the night before. I told the nurse I was feeling a ton of pressure and she quickly checked me and told me "don't push! I've got to go get the doctor; we're gonna have a baby!"

When I heard that, I got crazy nervous and scared. Could I do this again? Would everything be smooth and would Logan arrive safe and healthy? About 9 million thoughts like those ran through my head within seconds. Just a few minutes later I pushing and after what seemed like an eternity, Logan was here. Ben leaned down and kissed me and told me it was super fast. Apparently what had seemed like an eternity for me was actually under 5 minutes. I probably pushed 7 or some times. It was crazy! I couldn't believe I had just had another baby. They placed Logan on my stomach and I got to see my sweet little boy for the first time. So many overwhelming emotions. I love the feeling of meeting my child for the first time. Amazing.

Everything got cleaned up super fast. I didn't rip at all and my doctor was shocked by how little I had bled. Probably 10 minutes after Logan was born, Ben and I were left alone to enjoy him. Crazy how fast everything happened. We're so grateful for how everything turned out. Truly a miracle.

And now for some photos.

Love the "goals for today" :)

In labor

Ready to push!

So happy he's here!

Austin wasn't really sure what to think at first

My super proud mom

Austin was already in love with his baby brother

{INTRODUCING.....}

2010-11-22T23:41:00.003-06:00

Logan Sawyer Humphrey

born November 22, 2010

10:43am

7 lbs. 11 oz.

20 in.

After 2 hours of labor,
a wonderful epidural,
and just under 5 minutes of pushing...
he was here.

He's here and he's perfect.
Super white blonde hair and blue eyes, just like Austin had at birth.
Of course, MANY MANY more pictures to come, and the birth story.

{Logan's Nursery}

2010-11-16T23:08:00.000-06:00

Did you catch that? I called our baby by his NAME! Yes! We finally decided after much debate and sorting through a long list of potential names, and we're going with Logan Sawyer Humphrey. We love it.

So here's Logan's "finished" nursery. The only thing that's missing are some (I'm sure there will only be about 200 billion or so) newborn pictures I'll be taking and putting up after he's born; other than that, it's finished. Take a looksy....

My attempt at being artistic...hand painted name.... not that it's amazing but I'm proud of it.

His blessing shoes.

We're super spuer excited to meet him! I'm scheduled to be induced this next Monday, the morning of Nov. 22, if I don't go sooner (fingers crossed that I do!). At my appointment last week I was dilated 3 and 80% effaced. I'm actually a little surprised that I'm still pregnant. I have my last appointment tomorrow and I'm crossing my fingers I'll be at a 4 so I can just hop on over to the hospital next door and give birth. We'll see, if not, it's only a few days longer. I'm super excited, anxious and a little bit scared/nervous to do this all over again (and by this I mean the actual giving birth part, haha). The motherhood part wasn't/isn't hard the first time around, and I'm betting it's gonna be just as awesome as it has been/is with Austin, even though it'll be different and perhaps a little harder because it's double the work. But raising kids isn't exactly rocket science, so I'm not really too worried. Ben gets a week paternity leave from his work, starting whenever I have Logan and on top of Thanksgiving vacay next week, he'll be around for a week and a half. He's actually "working" from home today and tomorrow "just in case." Yay! Not to mention that my mom comes on Saturday, and my dad also flys out here the day before turkey day. So we'll have plenty of help adjusting to 2 kids. I can't wait!

{Life's Little Moments}

2010-11-11T22:40:00.001-06:00

I feel like I never ever brake out the camera and just snap pictures of Austin doing his thing. We played outside for a couple hours the other day and just had to grab the camera. He's becoming such a little ham. I love it.

And a few more from a lazy Sunday afternoon last week.

{The Belly}

2010-10-31T19:54:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Ben made me be the model for our photography meet-up group. I was a little hesitant, since well, let's just be honest and say that having my picture taken when I'm prego is so not on my list of favorite things to do. But I agreed to do it anyway. Ben only took like 6 or 7 shots to test lighting....these are the 2 that I like.

There were some ideas I wanted to try out in the studio, so I made Ben take a few today. This one's my favorite. I'm pretty sure this one and the full body one above will be printed and hung in our house. I have a few other ideas for outdoors that we didn't get to play around with yesterday, so assuming I won't have had my baby by this next weekend, we'll be heading out again to take some more.

{A Favorite}

2010-10-14T16:48:00.000-05:00

So I've been meaning to take Austin's 2 yr pictures for months now. He's just almost 2.5 now, so I'm certainly behind, but I didn't want to even attempt them until it was cooler out. We tried for about half an hour today. It's hard for me to get his attention and get the shot right etc. We'll be trying again this weekend probably when Ben can be around to entertain/control him while I take the pictures. But today wasn't a total waste. Here's my favorite.

{Our Boy's New Rooms}

2010-10-06T12:35:00.008-05:00

These rooms have been on my to-do list ever since I found out I was pregnant. Finally, in the middle of August I began. I wanted to have it finished before I went to AZ, but it didn't happen. So finally a couple weeks ago I got the chance to finish it. I've known that I wanted to do an argyle design in Austin's room ever since seeing a totally different version of it in a model home last summer while visiting my parents in Denver. I LOVE LOVE LOVE argyle. Like LOVE it. It's by far the cutest boy pattern out there. Not to mention, totally preppy, which is 100% my style anyway. I didn't want the design to be way to overwhelming or super color specific, but rather neutral, yet still preppy and "older" (as in un-2 year old room design) and something that Austin (more so me) could live with for several years to come.

Here's some pics of Austin's room I took along the way, sorry, I didn't take one before I taped the diamonds on the wall, and I forgot to take some near the end.... Anyway, I'm super in love with how it turned out. I'm so glad I'm done with the painting! It literally took me forever. For those that are curious, the diamonds are 24" wide x 36" high. One thing to note, is that any texture on the walls makes it nearly impossible to get a perfectly straight line. Being the psycho that I am, anytime I paint a line, it has to be perfect, meaning that I go back over the line edges with a 1/2" brush and touch up every single spot so that it's much more perfect than it is with the tape. It's a LOT of work, so if you ever wanna do stripes/design, be prepared to spend time on details.

And the finished product.... Feels sooooooooooo good to have this crossed off my list!

And now for our baby's room..... we may not have settled on a name yet for the baby I'm cookin', but his room is 99.7% done. I can't totally finish it until we have a name....but you get the idea. His room went way faster than Austin's did. I started/finished this past weekend. Holy cow. I whipped his room out in probably 10 hrs total.

{State Fair}

2010-10-05T23:31:00.001-05:00

This past Saturday we ventured to the state fair. It was our first time and we had a lot of fun. We kind of picked a sucky day to go because it was the Texas/OU game, so needless to say there were a LOT of crazy/drunk/tail-gating football fans everywhere. It made for extra long lines at the ticket booths, but once the game started things were better since the fair emptied a little.

We ate some food, although nothing super "famous", not even a corndog. We did have a funnel cake though....certainly not worth the 8 "tickets" aka $4. Ya, we spent a LOT of money ($15/ea just to get in)....it's funny how when it's tickets you just hand them over without really thinking. But when we were on our way home, Ben and I laughed about really how expensive everything was. For example, we rode the ferris wheel, ya, at 12 tickets/$6 ea. (Austin didn't even ride free cause he's over 34"), it wasn't worth it. We went around twice before the ride was done. But oh well, it was cool to see Dallas from the top.

The best part of the day was when we made our way to the kiddy land Ben took Austin on a ton of rides, including a pretty decent roller coaster. Austin LOVED every second of it. We got there about 1pm-ish and didn't leave until about 5pm. Austin was a CHAMP. He actually only had a slight tantrum while we were getting food because he was starving. But after that he just enjoyed being in the beautiful weather and taking in all the sites. After Ben and him got off the last ride, Austin hopped in the stroller and was asleep within minutes, and slept all the way home and until almost 9pm after we got home! We for sure wore him out. As much money as it cost us, I'd do it again next weekend, just to see Austin's reactions to the rides he went on. He really had a great time.

{New "Family" Car}

2010-10-03T18:15:00.001-05:00

For the nearly 4 years that Ben and I have been together, Ben has driven a sports car (except for our NYC time, where he suffered with my awesomely sweet, still my absolute most favorite car I've ever owned, Accord). He loves sports cars. And I was pretty sure he'd always have one, even though it's obviously not practical when you have kids (unless we were to have 3 cars, but that's a bit excessive at this point). Last Saturday, Ben finally took the leap. He jumped out of his "sports car" comfort zone and traded in his Porsche Boxster for a Porsche Cayenne. HUGE step, right? lol. Not really. It's not like it's a minivan (not that we ever plan on buying one of those...ever...ever) but it certainly is better than a 2 seater that proved useless once we had Austin because if my car needed an oil change or something, we never had a backup car that we could all fit in. Anyway, it sure is pretty right? It's super fun to drive! I'm actually a little jealous, although it's not like I drive a clunker, but new cars are always better...but anyway I'm just grateful that we now both have cars we can tote kids around in! We're becoming such grown-ups...hahaha.

{2 YR OLDS}

2010-09-19T23:39:00.000-05:00

Austin is well behaved like 99.8% of the time (strictly in his actions, because he for sure has a 2 yr old attitude). He's almost completely self-entertained and can usually be left unattended watching a movie and playing with his cars. It works out great for me because I am still able to shower, do housework etc. without having to worry about what he's getting into next. I know, we're totally lucky on that. Most kids are not like that at all, but Austin is. So when he actually does get into something he's not supposed to, it's almost more funny than anything. Yesterday, Austin had one of his 2 yr old moments. He somehow managed to get a hold of a very large, nearly full bottle of baby powder off the top of the changing table. When I discovered him, he was just lounging on the end of his bed watching Toy Story 2, acting like everything was normal, drinking from his sippy that was completely covered in baby powder. When he turned and looked at me as I walked into the room he had a huge, cheesey grin on his ghostly white face. I was sort of in shock, but as I looked around I just started to laugh...so hard I just about peed my pants. I couldn't even get mad at him, he looked sooooo funny and it just caught me completely off guard. My very first thought was "get the camera!"... I was just bummed that Ben was at a shoot and I didn't have anything but my blackberry to take pictures with.

Thank goodness he went for the OLD tv we don't even use anymore.

All in all I think we got extremely lucky. Austin kept the powder mostly confined to the inside of his room, except the changing table and hall closet door. Had he walked around the couch, there were 3 laptops open, sitting on the couch, and thousands of dollars worth of entertainment equipment right at his level (we're waiting for a new media cabinet in the mail to lock everything safe) that he could have destroyed with his baby powder antics. Lol. At least it was only baby powder. I've heard of kids doing much much worse!

{Life Size}

2010-09-17T15:45:00.000-05:00

While we were in AZ, Ben fell in love with my aunt and uncles 92" projection screen tv. He's always wanted one; we'd actually talked about getting one when we first bought our house, but never took the leap. Well, apparently all Ben needed was a little shove in the right direction from my relatives. He immediately started researching and comparing projectors and screens....

Well, Ben left AZ 2 wks before me, since I hired to shoot the wedding of my aunt and uncle's friend, and I came home to this....

I gotta admit, as much as I was almost 100% against getting this setup, it's pretty sweet to watch tv and movies in 120 in. of HD. At first we just thought we'd use it for movies and Ben wanted it to play his xbox360 on too, but the tv quality is amazing, so now it's all we watch. We kept out 58" screen tv behind it, although I bet we never turn it on again. I actually would like to hang the tv in our family room downstairs and sell the slightly smaller one in that room now, but who knows what we're gonna do. The things husbands do when their wives leave town, I swear! Lol. :)

{2 am ramblings...}

2010-09-15T02:11:00.000-05:00

It's 2 am.

I can't sleep.

My mind is racing.

My head is aching.

My heartburn is raging.

The dishes are done.

And the kitchen is clean.

Even the floor has been mopped.

I need to edit too many sessions.

I have way to much to clean and organize.

And tons of other random housework to do.

I have an early (to me) doc appt just a few hours from now.

Maybe my body is already adjusting.

All the nights full of a crying newborn I have ahead of me.

Who knows.

Sleep would sure be nice.

{AZ Fun}

2010-09-09T02:03:00.000-05:00

Austin and I have been hanging out in AZ for 2 weeks now (Ben was here with us for the first week) and we still have about a week to go!! Super fun. More to come on our adventures later... But I just had to share some pics I snapped of him yesterday when my aunt's new fridge arrived. Apparently, a fridge box is a super fun place for little kids to play in..... even when it's like a 115 outside, which btw, I just LOVE because it's dry and awesome!!! Even though it's been like upper 80s/lower 90s in Dallas, it's still uber humid and that's just what I cannot stand....anyway.... what I totally love is that Austin was totally cheesin it up for the camera!! I may get lucky when I get home and finally do his 2 yr photos!

{Richmond Family Reunion 2010}

2010-09-06T06:10:00.001-05:00

While everyone else is blogging about their kid's first days in the new school year, I'll reminisce and do a long over due post about my family reunion we had at the end of July...ya, I know....I'm SUPER behind in bloggin.

My mom's family gets together every other year for a family reunion. We've been going to a place in Northwestern WY just outside Yellowstone Park in the Shoshone National Forest for years now (I think 2000 was our first year up there) and everyone loves it so much! Each family has their own cabin and we just get to hang out and play while the staff does all the cooking etc for us. It's a pretty sweet deal.

Anyway, this year did not disappoint. Austin and I drove up with my parents from Denver and on the way up there we were able to stop at our halfway mark (after only 4 hrs) in Casper, WY and stay at a hotel so that we didn't have to make a long 8 hr drive in one day. The hotel we stayed at was one that I always thought was cool on our many, many long drives through WY when I was growing up. It was a really cool hotel! We went to dinner, swam, chilled in the hot tub (sucks that I only got to stick my feet in), slept in super comfy beds and had a wonderful breakfast before we headed out the next day to our reunion. It was great. Here's a pic I took of the inside of the hotel itself....sort of reminds me of Great Wolf Lodge here in TX.

Our reunion was a week long, Saturday to Saturday. Mostly we all just hang out and play cards and catch up on each others lives. In years past there were TONS of us up their; my mom has 6 sisters and 3 brothers and they all have a family, all together I think I have 36(ish) cousins, of which I am like the 6th or 7th oldest. As the years have gone by, less and less of my cousins show up, and this year 8 the 10 kids in my mom's family showed up throughout the week and only a handful of my cousins (basically all of the one's who are still have to go with their parents on vacation) were there. Anyway, those of us that were there had a lot of fun, although having a toddler who wants to just run around outside made it a little less fun for me, since I just wanted to sit and play cards and games with my aunts and uncles. I couldn't just let Austin run around unsupervised because of a few small things, like grizzly bears and an electric fence around the perimeter of the camp to keep out the grizzly bears....but we had a good time nonetheless. Austin spent most of the week getting as dirty as possible, playing outside in the cool weather and eating tons of junk food. I think he was in total heaven.

At first Austin just wanted to watch those of us playing on the 4 wheelers, but soon enough my dad had him loving everything about them and wanting to go on more and more rides.

Here's some random pictures from our week up there, although I didn't really take too many. I did do some senior sessions for my cousins that are graduating this year, and another photo session with my awesome grandparents... Anyway, enjoy.

Gotta love sleeping in a cabin vs. tents!

Apple-sized marshmallows are awesome for smores!

And of course, we got to spend a couple days visiting with my awesome grandpa after our week in the mountains, which is always greatly cherished time.

{26 WKS}

2010-08-17T21:04:00.006-05:00

Ok, I know that all my very avid readers out there...hahaha, I literally burst out laughing as I typed that cause I'm pretty sure there maybe like 6 of you! hahaha. Anyway, to please the few of you that I know have asked me for a prego shot... the baby has officially made his mark in bump form. Ya... I'm really 26 wks. Crazy. I know. For those of you who I know are thinking "she's sucking it in!" Have you ever tried to "suck it in" while being prego? Doesn't work... don't worry, I really do have my days where I totally look more prego, I just carry in my hips (hence why the split second I'm prego my hips spread out) and he just squishes all my organs outta the way, which makes me uber uncomfortable and causes such horrific heartburn I could cry. But I guess my babies like to play hide and seek, sometimes I see them really well....other times not so much... but I've only 98 days to go.

{Big Boy Bed}

2010-08-12T08:56:00.003-05:00

Austin spent his first night in his new big boy bed 2 nights ago. He LOVED it, to say the least. He was a little scared and cried for just a second after we laid him down but I think that was because I have his new bed in one of our other bedrooms and not in his room. I'm going to repaint his room, so for the next week-ish he's stuck sleeping in what will be our new baby's room.

Austin never learned how to climb out of his crib, or if he did, he just never got out of it, so I never had to worry about him waking up and and being able to wander around without me knowing it. In order to prevent that from happening now, since he can open the bedroom door, we stuck our gate in his doorway, that way if he happens to wake up and trys to escape, he's still gonna be trapped because he can't get over or under the gate.

He looks so small in a queen bed all by himself! I'm sort of a little sad to see my little baby growing up, but it's for sure time. I didn't want him to feel like our new baby was "stealing" his bed after he's born, so transitioning a few months ahead of time is the best way to go, at least I think so. We decided to go with a queen mainly because it's the most practical thing and because I totally can't stand toddler beds. I think they are a waste because kids can't stay in them too long and not to mention the hideously cheesy bedding that is way to much of "phase" orieneted, like toy story or cars. ICK. Plus, for us, since we have family (my mom) come and visit fairly often, we can use Austin's room as a guest room whenever someone comes to visit and they can sleep in a real bed, rather than on an air mattress.

I'm excited to get Austin's room painted and finished. I've finally decided how to do it, which makes me even more excited.

{Nesting Bug}

2010-08-11T08:46:00.003-05:00

I'm not sure what it is about this pregnancy, but for some reason, I've been hit with the nesting bug HARDER and way earlier than I ever did while prego with Austin. I literally went from a person who just could live with the unorganized mess that is everyday life to someone comparable to one with OCD. I got home from CO just a week ago, and since last Wednesday morning I have practically not stopped cleaning/organizing. It's almost a sickness really. Lol. My poor husband. I've all the sudden turned into a crazy cleaning psycho and I get really ~~upset~~ pissed when I've cleaned and organized things and Ben or Austin touch or move something. Here's a look at my now, nicely organized pantry. I won't even start to shame myself by showing you the before picture.

I even had a break down the other night because our less than organized closet was driving me crazy to the point of tears and I told Ben the only solution was to go out and buy a dresser (which we haven't owned since we moved from NYC). But not just any dresser, I wanted one that just happen to be part of a whole new bedroom set. I think Ben is just at the point where he humors me rather than fights my often irrational requests. So Friday night after we had dinner, we went to the furniture store and ordered the entire new king sized bedroom set I had my eyes on. Of course it really was necessary that we got a new bed because Austin needs to come out of the crib, and giving him our queen is the most logical action. (I'm so not for those dinky toddler/child beds with cheesy bedding).

We had our new furniture delivered on Monday morning and I just am in love!! Anyway, I feel so much better now that our room is getting so much more organized. I told Ben we're like "real" grown ups now, you know, haha, with all matching bedroom furniture instead of the cheap and random Target/Ikea pieces.

Here's the before...

And the after. Oh how I love it....

I bought our King bedding the day after we bought our bed, and of course I just had to see how it looked on a bed, so that's why our king stuff is on our old bed.

Well, off to clean/organize some more now. It's totally become a sickness at this point :)

{What We've Been Doing}

2010-07-20T21:16:00.001-05:00

Austin and I didn't just fly to Denver for 'fun'. In fact, we came because we scored a steal on tickets...the best kind! We didn't have to pay for any of it! lol. My older brother and his wife (and her parents) went to Cozumel for a week to celebrate their 3 yr anniversary but they needed someone to watch their 8 month old son. Which is where I came into play. My mom was supposed to be back at work, she's recently had shoulder surgery, and so she wouldn't be around in the afternoon/evening to watch my nephew. So I'd been hired to play "nanny". Coincidentally, the day after I got here my mom had an appointment with her specialist to be released, but he didn't think she's ready, so he told her 3 more weeks before she's be allowed to return to work. Of course that means that my brother paid for a portion of tickets (he went in on thirds with 2 people that hired me for photos) that he didn't really even need! Funny funny. We have a family reunion next week, so rather than just stay for a week and then go home, I decided to stay long enough to hitch a ride with my parents to WY for our reunion, rather than catch a flight from DFW to MT and then drive to WY from there. Brilliant I know.

So this is what I got to enjoy everyday last week.

Austin actually really LOVES Andyn. Which is great, and of course it's good practice for what's coming in a few months! 2 boys will for sure be fun. Of course I always laugh when people who don't have girls say "boys are so much fun!" haha, that's cause they don't know better lol. But for now, boys it is.

We went to Chucky Cheese one night, and Austin wasn't really sure what to think. He played a few little games, but my dad and I totally spent majority of the tokens on games we wanted to play. Austin walked away with a few cheap prizes and my dad got a card for a free pizza and token dinner since it took almost an hour to get out 1 large pizza. I'm sure we'll be going again before we're done visiting.

Another thing that has become a "must do" everyday is "driving" my dad's '72 chevy. My dad inherited this truck from my grandpa a few years ago and is practically in near new condition. My dad remembers going out with my grandpa when he was about 11 and buying this truck new. My brothers and my dad think it's the coolest truck ever...and apparently Austin is already in love with it. He loves to sit in it and turn the wheel as fast as he can (it doesn't have power steering, so the wheel doesn't lock) and honk the horn. Last week, my dad took Austin for a little ride in the truck down to Dairy Queen for an ice cream cone. I think he was in heaven. :)

On a FABULOUS side note, Ben got a really great job here in TX last week. Amazing benefits, wonderful pay, and just overall perfect for Ben. We are super super super excited, especially since we aren't moving (which I'm actually excited about and sort of bummed at all at the same time). We are extremely blessed in so many ways, and are so very grateful to our Heavenly Father for providing a way for us to provide for our family. 2 weeks of job hunting seemed like forever and a huge burden has been lifted for sure. Since I'm in Denver, a celebration dinner has to wait, but I certainly celebrated with my mom and did a "little" shopping at A Pea In A Pod to ring in the new job!! :)

{Denver Zoo}

2010-07-10T14:49:00.003-05:00

Austin and I flew to Denver on Wednesday and are gonna be hanging out with my family clear until August 3! Yesterday we went to the Denver Zoo with my mom, my aunt and my cousin. This was Austin's first time at a zoo, and he did alright. If anything, he loved being out in the sunny and cool 85 degree weather nearly all day long. He didn't really know what to think about the animals, but sure had fun running around with my little cousin, who thankfully, chased him all over so I didn't have to :)

I figured since I'm gonna be on vacation for like a month I may as well blog about some things as they come so that I don't have an entire month of fun to catch up on!

Here's some pictures from our afternoon at the zoo.

Austin enjoyed a lot of this...

Checking out the elephants with grandma

{Change}

2010-07-04T17:00:00.001-05:00

This last week has been crazy. Sort of a whirlwind, actually. I guess I'll start from the beginning.

Last Friday, Ben got an email saying there would be a mandatory meeting at work that following Monday. After he forwarded that to me, I just knew in my gut what was going to happen.

Sure enough, Ben lost his job. He said that they sat all the employees in the conference room and said that the company was being closed and that everyone was to clean out their offices and go home. They said that they were going to consult one on one with each employee to discuss severance etc. over the next few hours.

When Ben's turn came, light at the end of the tunnel became visible. The board of directors offered him not only a severance package, but a private contracting position for the next 3 months or until all the assets of the company are sold off on top of it, paying slightly more than he had been making. And they said they'd throw in a nice bonus if he'd fulfill his end of the contract. So that was a HUGE blessing for sure.

I guess worst part of it all is that we no longer have insurance and we've had amazing insurance during his employment with this company. So being 5 months prego and losing that really sucks, especially when I can't get Cobra or anything similar because the comanpany that laid off has to still be in existance, and they arent. We pay for private insurance for Austin, we have since he was a newborn, so this doesn't effect anything that might happen to him.

Things aren't as bad as they seem though. Since Ben doesn't have a job now, our options have opened up. We have always said that we didn't want to be in Texas forever. So what a better chance than now to leave and move on to potentially bigger and better things. Ben's posted his resume here and in both the Denver and Phoenix areas, although we really only would want to stay here or move to Denver, unless of course a nice, fat job was offered in Phoenix, since we've go family/friends there as well as Denver.

So who knows at this point. It's only been a week and Ben's phone has been ringing off the hook with phone calls from recruiters, even some from Denver. We continue to have faith that the Lord will take care of us and provide for our needs. So we'll see what life brings in the next little while. Whatever it is, I'm sure it'll all work out for the best.

{What We Already Knew}

2010-07-03T22:40:00.003-05:00

No big fat surprise here...

IT'S A BOY!!

I actually thought I'd be a little depressed to find out we're adding another boy.... everyone'd love a girl... But I wasn't. Funniest thing is that when the nurse put the machine on my stomach, IMMEDIATELY his legs were spread and there it was, without a doubt, a boy. Haha. We laughed pretty hard because this kid obviously wanted to show us right away that he's a boy and he kept his legs apart the entire time. We drove all the way to Arlington on Tuesday to get my ultrasound because it was only $45 at this ultrasound place and I didn't want to wait until I get home from CO in at the beginning of August to find out and that's when my next OB appt is (LONG pissed me off story). So I just searched out an ultrasound business and booked an appt. It was actually a great experience. Better than any doctor office or hospital ultrasound that's for sure.

So we're excited! Austin will for sure have a fun time with a brother so close in age. Now if only we could come up with something to name this hunk of baby (suggestions welcome!), we'd be set! I'd post a picture for you all to see, but I still really don't have a baby bump... just huge boobs, wider hips and a few extra pounds of weight....lol, gotta love pregnancy....maybe at 25 wks there will be something worth showing off to y'all, but I swear he's in there lol :)

{3 Years...}

2010-06-30T23:43:00.006-05:00

3 years ago, on this very day, I went here....

to make sacred covenants...to marry the man of my dreams.

We ate and danced the night away...

and he showed off his talents in way that melted my heart...and we fell even more in love...

Ben and Nikki Wedding Song from Nicole Humphrey on Vimeo.

We rode off into the sunset to live happily every after...

And we do. Marrying Ben is still the best decision I've ever made. Through the thick and thin, I love him more today than I ever could have imagined.

Thanks for 3 amazingly wonderful years Hans and here's to an eternity more! I love you!

{Happy 2nd Birthday Austin}

2010-06-15T21:56:00.009-05:00

Austin turned the big 2 today! Crazy I know! He's grown from this tiny, freshly baked, precious baby...

Into a crazy, sweet, hilarious, rambunctious, studly toddler...

We celebrated tonight with our bestest buddies Scot, Holly, Ryan and Scot's buddy Tyler by ordering pizza, getting our laugh on, and finished with cake and ice cream. Austin got some generous gifts. Totally low key. Just how I think it should be. I'm so not one of those mom's that has a party for my child and invites EVERYONE in the ward/school class etc. That's just not my style, and I don't see that changing...ever.

These are the only two pics we got from tonight because Ben was filming to test a bunch of our new video equipment. I guess that means we'll just have to buy another professional DLSR so we can video and have pictures. :) Oh and apparently Ben and I both don't know how to spell Birthday. Lovely huh?

Happy Birthday to my sweet ~~baby~~ little boy. We love you so very much Austin!!

{Austin's 1st Movie}

2010-06-15T00:59:00.003-05:00

A couple weeks ago (June 4), Holly and I took Ryan and Austin to see Shreck 3. I was a little unsure about how he'd handle it, but he did really great. MUCH better than I would have even guessed actually. He got a little nervous when we walked into the theatre because it was dark and he had no clue what he was in store for, but relaxed once we sat down. The only problem was that we went to a theatre with folding seats (the Cinemark in Allen) and he just isn't big enough to sit in those, as we figured out immediately after I set him in it and it folded on him. lol. So I had to hold him. We decided to go there because it was only $5 flat rate for movies before 4 and the big AMC is like $6 for kids and like $8 for adults and I didnt feel like paying that for a movie I wasn't even sure Austin woud watch. When we go see Toy Story 3 this week, I think we'll got to AMC, since those seats don't fold. lol. Thanks for a great time Holly and Ryan. Can't wait to take the boys to see Toy Story 3!

This is one was the only 'movie' picture I got of Austin while we were there. Boy does he just love his popcorn. :)

{Seattle & My BIG 24!}

2010-06-12T18:15:00.000-05:00

Warning: ANOTHER really really long post.

So after Austin and I got back from Denver, we literally had less than 36 hours before we were to be back at the airport to head to Seattle. I emptied our suitcases, did laundry, repacked some of it and added some warmer clothes (since it was in the low 50s -low 60s our entire week), attempted to pick up my house a bit and off we went... This was May 25.

So Ben and I chose not to buy Austin a ticket to Seattle because in all the times he's flown, he's fine with sitting on our laps, and usually there is an empty seat next to us, so it works out great. Well, not this time. We were using air miles we have on US Airways, and since they don't fly to Seattle direct, that meant back to back flights, about 3 hours each. Lovely. And to make matters worse, 3 of our 4 flights were 100% full. And after our first flight there, we realized that Austin is just much too big to be squished on our laps during a flight, especially when the people in front of us reclined their seats, taking up even more space. I'm sure they were pissed since we had very little room to control Austin's love of kicking the seatback and pulling down the tray table.

We decided that we'd just purchase a ticket for him for our return, but we had this whole huge problem where wires got crossed and the ticket never went through. So when we got to the airport to fly back home, they still had him as a lap child and the flight from Phoenix to Dallas was now overbooked, meaning it'd be useless to buy a ticket because he wasn't guaranteed a seat anyway. So we saved our $300 and decided to suck it up again.

Anyway, the suckiest part we experienced was on the way to Seattle from Phoenix. Our first flight went well. Austin slept the whole time and Ben and I both dosed off too. After we landed, late of course, we barely stopped and picked up some pre-made sandwiches at some little deli shop in the airport and ran to our gate, barely making it on the plane. When we took off from Phoenix, we were feeling pretty lucky, Austin was in a good mood and things were going smooth, even though it was a packed flight too. Well, we got about 1:25 minutes (halfway to Seattle) into the flight and then the pilot comes on and says they can't land in Seattle because the plane has something wrong with the defrost mechanism (I guess the cold weather freezes the plane on the way down and if it doesn't thaw immediately it'll crash). So we had to turn BACK around to Phoenix. So we basically flew to Seattle and never left Phoenix, which made our second flight of the day 6 hours long. I thought I was going to lose my mind. Austin would have been a saint if we wouldn't have had to turn around, but he struggled a bit when we boarded a new plane to Seattle like 30 minutes after we landed back in Phoenix. Needless to say, we were sooooo over traveling when we got to Seattle. I was in such a pissy mood, Austin was ready to just run around like a crazy man and Ben was just plain tired.

We (I) had scary/funny/panic moment after my in laws picked us up from the airport. We had 2 big suitcases, a carry on, our camera backpack, Ben's laptop bag, a stroller, and Austin's car seat for baggage. We waited curbside while Ben's dad ran and got the car and then we loaded in the van and left. It wasn't until we got to Ben's parents house like 45 minutes later and unloaded the car that I asked Ben where the carry on suitcase was. He looked around and said this was all that was on the curb. I almost went totally crazy at that moment. I had a wave of emotions just wash over me at once, I didn't even know which one to act on. I just started chuckling and saying SERIOUSLY?! PLEASE tell me you're kidding?! Then I almost broke into tears. That suitcase was Austin's. EVERYTHING was in there. Diapers, clothing and most importantly, my laptop. Yep. LAPTOP. With a LARGE majority of client pictures waiting to be finished along with a ton of other things.

Ben and his dad immediately jump back into the car and head back to the airport. I just started praying that it would be there. A long hour later, they come home SUCCESSFUL! It was right where we'd left it. On the curb. TOTAL MIRACLE. What's funny is that they stopped a security guard and asked what would happen to the bag if it'd been left unattended and the guard said they would confiscate it immediately, and yet, there it sat, just 15 feet in front of the van. I'd never been so grateful and happy to see a suitcase in my life.

Ok, so enough background story! Lol. I just had to share a small portion of our wonderful travel experience.

So the next day was the BEST day of the whole trip (year). Why? Cause it was my BIRTHDAY! This was the first vacation we've taken since our honeymoon where Ben actually took vacation and was going to be entirely work free. However, on my birthday, he got a call at 6am from his contracting job in NYC (it was 9am there) pleading for his help. So Ben being the wonderful man he is, got up and saved their butts by working for 8 hours. I woke up late and was greeted by my fabulous husband saying "Happy Birthday my Sweet". Oh happy day to ME! (I LOVE my birthday btw).

So we got up and decided to lounge around downstairs in front of the tv with Austin, and Ben's dad comes down and tells us his brother's been puking up blood for hours (he'd had a minor surgery the day before) and that he needed to go to the hospital. It was totally scary for all of us. His poor brother spent our entire trip in the hospital getting test after test and they finally figured out what was wrong with him. Thank goodness. He's doing better now.

Anyway, so my in laws went to the hospital and we just chilled at home with Austin. Ben was a little bummed because he wanted to go do something fun for me, but we couldn't leave because Austin's car seat was in the van, even though Ben's mom had lovingly left us her car to use. The fun stuff started when my MIL came back later that afternoon and treated me to a mani/facial at a local spa. HOLY AMAZING!!! I'm seriously addicted to facials now. It was one of the best hours of my life. Seriously AMAZING. I think I'll be having those quite often now. And of course, I always love a manicure! So that was just awesome.

Later that night we went to Claim Jumpers for my birthday (part 1) dinner. Unfortunately, my FIL and BIL weren't able to join us, but Ben's other brother Luke did come and it was great to see and catch up with him. Of course we got the HUGE (like 7 or something giant layers) of chocolate cake as my birthday cake. It was fabulous!

So the next day (Thursday) my birthday celebration continued. Ben had a brilliant plan to take me to Seattle all day, get a hotel in the city and come home the next afternoon. But, when his brother got admitted to the hospital, we decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to have his mom watch Austin over night since we knew that Joe needed his parents and we didn't want to put them in a sucky situation. So we minimized our plans.

Ben and I took off to play in Seattle while my MIL had some much needed bonding time with Austin. We had such a BLAST! We had dinner reservations for dinner at the Space Needle, so we just hung out to kill time. The weather was so great. Cloudy, low 60s and very little rain. It was awesome. Every time we've been to Seattle, I always want him to take me to Pike Place Market on the wharf. It's a public market where they throw the fish, it's really cool.

So we walked around there for a while and then decided to go to the Seattle Aquarium, which was alright, but overpriced ($17/person!) for what it was, but we still had a good time together. After that we still had a couple hours before dinner, but we were both a little hungry and so we stopped at a little restaurant on the water and shared some fish and chips. Then we headed back to the car to go over and check out a camera store called Glazers. It was pretty cool; I'm sure Ben would have stayed there a lot longer if he could have!

Next we headed over to the Space Needle for dinner. I'd never been there before and have always wanted to go, so it was pretty awesome. We had a great table sitting us next to each other, facing the windows, so we had a constant gorgeous view. Dinner was amazing. 1000% AMAZING. Ben ordered steak of course, which he said was the 2nd greatest steak, only 2nd to McGuire's in Dallas. We had a really great artichoke dip for an appetizer and I just had a bowl of clam chowder (which was one of the best I've ever tried; the best was in Boston on our honeymoon) and a salad (which was NOT good, but whatever).

The absolute BEST part of the meal was our dessert!! Ben had placed an Orbit sundae on the reservation, and they brought it out with 2 candles in it. He whispered/sang happy birthday to me in my ear and I made a wish. Seriously such a cute moment. The dessert was on top of a thing with dry ice, so it smoked all over! It was sooooo cool. Everyone was just staring at us when they brought it out, it was pretty funny.

After we finished eating, we went up to the observation deck and took a few pictures. We didn't get any good pictures at the top because we had to use my crappy nikon thanks to our neglect of charging our camera batttery (it died right after the dessert shots). Anyway, If you've never been there, I say spring for the meal and eat there. It's like $17/pp just to go to the observation deck, but if you eat, it's included. The menu is pricey (one of the priciest meals I've ever enjoyed) but the food was great and it you certainly get a gorgeous view with your meal. Anyway, dinner was super great. We decided to end the day with a movie and we saw Robin Hood, which was long (3hrs) and different than I thought it would be, but still pretty decent.

That was seriously one of the best days I've ever had. It was just so fun to get away for a bit and relax. Totally took us back to our dating days. We had so much fun....laughing and being silly. Total giddiness. We just have such a blast together. Reminded me of why I fell so madly in love with Ben so quickly....Simply put, he's just plain amazing. For sure a birthday to remember. Thanks Ben! :)

The rest of the trip went great as well. Friday we just hung out with my MIL, got lunch at Red Robin, did a little shopping at a local mall and just hung out. Saturday was really a lot of fun. It was the first time Ben's parents hung out with us and we had so much fun. We had planned on going to the zoo, but after stopping off for fish and chips at the wharf, we decided the barely 50 degree rainy weather just wasn't zoo weather. After we got done eating, we let Austin throw the rest of our fish and chips at the sea gulls. He had a blast with grandpa and was super excited about it until we went and bought more fries so we could video it, and then he wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. It figures. He was so cute! Bummer we didn't get video, but I guess pictures will just have to do.

After lunch we all went bowling. Now let me just say that I'm not a terrific bowler. I do alright, but am I no pro. Ben and his dad are both great bowlers. We played 2 games...the first game I bet Ben but lost to Ernie. BUT TOTALLY REDEEMED myself during the second game and beat everyone. Ernie's one of the best bowler I've ever known (not that I know a ton of great bowlers haha) and I beat him. Proudest moment of the trip for me! Overall scores I came in a close second and Ernie took the gold.

That night we ended up meeting up with some of my in laws good friends that Ben knows very too. We went out for Thai food and then headed back home to play a growling game of hearts. Of course my family's version of hearts is a little different because we don't limit the number of players, we simply add more queens and another whole deck. We had a blast. And for the record, I took the gold in this game. We all had so much fun! Light hearted teasing is always a part of it and everyone was such great sports.

Sunday we headed home and didn't have too many hang ups on the way, besides a really really rude stuardess, but I digress. We had so much fun, especially Ben. It's amazing how much that guy can relax when he lets himself! :)

The end! :)

{Denver}

2010-06-06T16:00:00.007-05:00

So this is a little past due, but here we go anyway.... fair warning, this is a long post, and some of you probably don't care to hear about my trip, totally fine with me, feel free to stop reading now!

On May 17, Austin and I took off to Denver for a "surprise" visit. My mom had been telling me how much my dad has missed Austin (nobody misses me anymore haha) and so we found a relatively cheap ticket and off we went. Little did she know the surprise was on her, I'll explain that in a minute. So, my dad was totally shocked and surprised when he pulled up from work and saw Austin playing in the front yard. Totally happy to see us. We had fun that night, sat around eating food and my older brother and his wife came over with my cute little nephew. I took his 6 month pictures and we all just hung out and chillaxed.

So the next day, I woke up totally excited, so excited I could hardly contain my secret any longer. My mom had to go to physical therapy (she had shoulder surgery a few months ago) and so it was the perfect time for me to pull of my surprise. My favorite Aunt Stephanie and her oldest daughter Chelsea has cooked up the plan for them to come to Denver the same time as me. We've been talking about getting together and partying it up for like years now because it's always just me and my mom or me and my aunt, never all of us together. And we all get along so great. I have to say that I just love being an adult because when I get with my mom or my aunt it's like we're just friends, not even that I'm a daughter/niece or that many years separate us. It's sooo fun.

Anyway, so they flew in about 20 minutes after I dropped my mom off at p.t. and made it to the airport just in time for Steph and Chelsea to come out with their bags. I was so excited to see them. It took a little while to get back to the therapy office but luckily my mom's session was running longer than planned. So we just strolled on in there and Austin and I walked back and acted casual while Steph and Chelsea sat in the waiting room in "hiding". My mom just went on checking out and even glanced once at my aunt without noticing and then I busted out laughing and she took a double take and realized who they were. It was so funny! Probably the best I've ever done at pulling off a surprise because I seriously suck so bad at keeping secrets. I just get so excited that people can usually read it on my face and figure things out quickly. I held me own pretty well this time I guess.

We had so much fun from the get go. The rest of the day we just hung out, did a little shopping and talked talked talked. I didn't take too many pictures because I didn't want to haul around my camera, just a few with my 5 year old super crappy nikon p&S (this camera is the reason I will NEVER EVER EVER buy a Nikon again...pure CRAP).

One of the nights, my parents treated us to dinner at a place called Casa Bonita. It's a fun place for mexican food with cliff divers and such, although looking back at when I was growing up that place seemed sooo much cooler and more fun. But of course we all had a fantastic time. Here's a couple pictures I snapped that night.

And probably one of my favorite pictures ever...this strip from a photobooth at the mall. There was a whole group of us, including 2 of 4 my other aunts that live in Denver and all their kids. I think there was like 14 of us in our group hanging out that day. We walked by the photobooth and I grabbed Steph and we jumped in. We were laughing so hard before it even started. We both came sooooo close to peeing our pants and had major tears streaming down our faces from laughing so hard by the end. Probably one of the most hilarious moments, and I'm not even sure what was so funny, but oh man, we about died lauging. It was freakin great.

And that's the end. So much fun happened in those 6 days. I love going to visit my family. We always have such a crazy blast, even when we aren't doing anything. Austin and I are going back on July 7 for an entire month!! I'm super excited!!

{Just One}

2010-05-31T18:17:00.004-05:00

I've got a lot to catch up on, but 2 vacations back to back left me with a ton to do. Austin and I were in Denver 2 wks ago for 6 days and then less than 36 hours after getting back home we all (Ben got to come play with us this time) jumped on a plane and went to Seattle for another 6 day get away. We got home last night around midnight. Yep. LOTS of laundry etc. to take care of first before I get to re-cap our last crazy 2 wks. For now just enjoy a picture of Austin chillin' at my in-laws in Seattle. He's such a little stud if I do say so myself :)

{Twinners?}

2010-05-13T18:50:00.000-05:00

Nope. Not this time anyway.False feeling on my part. Although, who knows if I really felt like I was having twins. I've never been prego with twins, so who knows. Just one squishy, healthy, peanut of a baby baking in my oven. Totally saw the baby punching and kicking around during my ultrasound today. Made me smile.

So anyway, just to humor myself....here's some of my favorite things to eat lately.

1. Anything and everything that has to do with antacid. Yep. Ahh the heartburn. Pretty much the #1 thing that lets me know I'm prego LONG before peeing on a stick would tell me. I get heartburn a ton normally, but from almost the instant I'm prego, it's like a billion times worse. Maalox, Rolaids/Tums and of course Zantac will be my best friends until birth. Oh and just a little FYI for my fellow heartburn sufferers, if you lay on your left side your body naturally blocks heartburn and it goes away. Great for us pregos who are supposed to be sleeping on the left side anyway. How perfect!

2. Pickles. Ya, this tends to be a "typical" prego thing. I love them, even more than normal. Along with black/green olives. My favorite thing to do with pickles? Dunk them in peanut butter or make pb/pickle/banana sandwiches. Yes. You're reading that right. Peanut Butter, Pickles, and Bananas on bread. Seriously. Cannot. Get. Enough. Love. Them.

3. Water. Yep. I literally drink 3-4 54oz. water jugs a day. It just tastes soooooooooo good. I love water anyway, but I just cannot get enough these days. Oh, but it has to be purified and taste good. Most restaurant water does not pass the test and tap water certainly isn't acceptable.

4. Light Activia yogurt. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. Those yoplait frozen smoothie mixes that you just add milk to are truly amazing as well.

5. Fresh fruit. Too bad it's not really in season just yet, the granny smith apples I've had have been good. I'm UBER UBER UBER craving fresh peaches. But those are good until July. Bummer. Sugary canned/jarred ones won't even come close to cutting it.

6. Orange Juice. This is just a catch 22 because I've never been a fan because it always has given me heartburn, even when I was younger. But the tropicana kind with TONS of pulp is sooo delicious. I just have to chase it with Maalox. What a combo huh?

7. Vanilla Almond / Honey Nut Mini Shredded Wheat cereal. SOOO good. Milk irritates my heartburn too, so usually I eat the cereal dry, by the handful.

8. Eggs {and toast}. Scrambled, fried, hard boiled. I like them all.

That's about all that I really love to eat these days....

My DO NOT EAT/DRINK list is MUCH MUCH MUCH longer. I'll save you and just name a few...

1. Beef. In ANY form. I will for sure throw up.

2. Chinese Food/Panda Express. Again, I'll totally vomit.

3. Soda. Yep. My die-hard, diet coke/diet dr. pepper loving self has been silenced. It just doesn't taste good. At All. Of course, when water is nasty or unavailable, a soda will do.

4. Ice Cream. WAY to much heartburn. Although I have given in to a couple ice cream cravings, only to regret it almost immediately.

5. Sweets. Which is soooooo NOT me. I love sugar/junk food. I ate peanut m&ms everyday when I was prego with Austin. Now it literally makes me wanna throw up even just thinking about eating it. Totally nauseous.

And the list goes on and on....and on.

This pregnancy is totally different than last time. I'm sure they will all be different. I was only sick once with Austin and only a teeny tiny bit of this nausea crap. The heartburn was the same, but this sickness stuff I've never experienced. Although it's not as bad these days, but if I eat/smell/drink the wrong thing, I'll be sick the rest of the day. Crazy, I know.

Anyway...the baby's healthy and cooking.

{Everyone's Wondering...}

2010-05-05T19:25:00.006-05:00

And I guess the cat's kinda outta the bag. Apparently when your boobs grow like 2 cup sizes in a couple weeks and you start wearing lose shirts people start to wonder... and it's true. No denying it.

Just like everyone else and their mom....

we're EXPECTING!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously. When I say everyone I mean practically everyone. It's totally the trendy thing to do here.

Like 7 people I know have announced it in the last week or so. Pure CRAZINESS. But glad to know that I'm not the only one that's getting fat.

And that doesn't include the numerous amounts of already months in progress pregos.

It's like a PANDEMIC.

So GLAD to get it out. Found out at exactly 4 wks. Has driven me crazy for these last 7 wks.

I'm due November 28. Probably will be induced earlier. Ya, don't so much care to get to that UBER prego-ness feeling. Ick.

And I don't really think having a baby ON Thanksgiving (Nov. 26) would be so much fun.

We'll totally find out what we're having. Drives me nuts not to know now.

Yep. The fun has only just begun.

Don't really care if it's either gender.

Ya, we'd like a girl, but it'd be fun for Austin to have a bro.

Healthy and perfect is what we want.

I'm hoping for (feeling like) a 2 for the price of 1 kinda deal. Yep. I sort of feel like it may be twinners.

No real reason why, just have had a hunch for almost a year now that I would have twinners next and that feeling became crazy strong when I found out.

Yes, twinners run in my family and skipped a generation. It's my generations turn. (total MYTH btw, but still fun to use as a reason)

Who knows. Could just be crazy thinking. Next weeks sono will tell.

We're super excited.

{Vacay Dreams}

2010-05-03T11:56:00.003-05:00

Ben and I discussed the idea of taking a wonderful cruise this next month. The details are still being worked out, but the one we're scoping out is out of Miami for 7 nights making stops at these ports of call: George Town, Grand Cayman; Roatan (Isla Roatan), Bay Islands, Honduras; Belize City, Belize; Cozumel, Mexico. Ahhh pure heaven I tell you.

(Caribbean Cruise May 2007 - Cozumel, Mexico)

Even though we've already been to Grand Cayman and Cozumel on the first cruise we took together just before we got married, We LOVED Grand Cayman and would be willing to suffer through Cozumel to be able to go to Honduras. Plus, Belize sounds cool, so why not. We're working out the details. I keep bugging Ben about it and he really wants to go too. So hopefully next month at this time I'll be packing bags full of swim suits and suntan oil. I LOVE CRUISES!!!!!!! We just have to figure out who's gonna be watching Austin while we play for a week!

{Naked As A Jaybird}

2010-04-29T20:11:00.002-05:00

I'm so not one of those moms that freaks about my kid being naked. In fact, I'm the one running for the camera trying to catch him before he realizes he's being watched. A little nakedness never hurt anyone. Plus, wearing a diaper all day, I'm sure it feels great to just let it all hang out.

His favorite thing is to run to the fence and yell "doggggggggggggie". Our neighbors have 2 large dogs and Austin loves peaking at them through the fence.

{Texas Bluebonnets}

2010-04-23T00:42:00.006-05:00

People down here go nuts for these bluebonnet flowers. Find a decent sized patch anywhere and you're bound to see tons of parents taking picutres of their kids/photographers taking pictures of clients etc. I'm not die hard in love with them, sure they're pretty, but whatever.

Anyway, at the request of a client, I was set to do a photo session this morning with an adorable little girl in a local bluebonnet field. The shoot never really happened, the poor little girl was having a rough day and just wasn't in a picture taking mood, so we rescheduled. I happen to have Austin with me today because Ben had to go to work for a meeting, and Holly's outta town, so he got to play my little assistant. Anyway, I figured while we were there, why not snap a few of Austin sitting in the flowers. Mind you, my kid isn't so into having his picture taken these days. It usually takes lots of chocolate, diet coke/mt. dew, candy, fruit snacks etc. to get him to sit still, and if I even want a smile, Ben has to be acting like a fool behind me while I snap pictures. But we were on our own today. So I plopped him down and told him to watch the cars going do the road behind us. He lasted about 2 minutes before he was done and didn't even crack a smile once. Oh well, this shows just how much I have to work at getting his cute little smiles without them being crazy snap shots of him running around like a maniac; those are always easy to get.

As soon as he saw me whip out my camera, he tries to hide.

And then he just tries to ignore me.

Finally he gives me that "are we done yet" look.

[Dreamin'}

2010-04-21T22:55:00.005-05:00

I'm on the hunt for a new car. Whether or not Ben actually buys me one, well that's a slightly different story. I'm wishing, hoping, dreaming for this customized beauty....

This is the Lexus LX 570....and well, they start just under $77,000. Of course, the base model just won't be good enough, cause I'll want all the extras...which makes this beauty just under $87,000. I keep telling Ben that my big fat 24 bday is coming up and what a better gift than to have this gorgeous thing with a big fat bow sitting in the drive way? I told him to sell his Porsche and keep my BMW for himself while gifting this to me! Brilliant, I know! Don't worry, I'm sure I'm just dreamin...for now I'll just sit here and drool. :)

{Tired Of Church?}

2010-04-18T17:29:00.002-05:00

Apparently Austin was. This was today, about half an hour into Sunday School. They stole me from primary to grab a sneak peak, it was funny! Ben had been in there just minutes before and snapped a picture. Good thing, this is so flipping precious!

{These days}

2010-04-15T22:49:00.013-05:00

Ben went and got the new iphone 3G S last week, because we thought he old one was busted. Funny how after we spent $400 on a new phone/protection plan/etc. the sales guy was "magically" able to fix Ben's old phone. We just laughed about it, because Ben wanted a new phone anyway, and it saved us from having to buy Austin an itouch for his 2nd bday (I know that some of you reading that think we are NUTS for wanting our kid to have something like that at his age, but get over it, because we do) in a few months because now he can just play with Ben's old phone. But these days, one iphone just doesn't do it for Austin. He needs both. I think our kid's a genuis. He works that iphone like he was born to. It's incredible. And he doesn't just push buttons, he literally plays the games that are on it, flips through the apps, takes picutres, browses through the pictures, knows how to set ringtones, add favorites, set alarms, etc. You ask him to play a VERY specific game and he goes right to it. We even moved apps around and asked him to find them because we thought maybe he'd just memorized where they were, but nope, he didn't even stumble finding them. He used to call people when he played with Ben's phone, which was the main reason we wanted to get him an itouch because it'd be all the benefits, without the phone part. But now, Ben old phone functions the same way, since it isn't activated, so it's perfect. Anyway, Austin LOVES that he has his own phone. Keeps him very occupied, and plus, I think it's made him seriously so smart. (I don't understand why some parents are SO anti-video games etc. I think it's great problem solving/motor skills/etc. Plus, Ben was such a gamer growing up and look how much of a successful genuis he is! lol.) Too smart for his own good sometimes. This kid can figure out anything. We love that he loves it.

So some other things going on these days... we all have a favorite blanket in our house. My grandma started a tradtion that has since been discontinued because there were too many grandkids to keep up with, anyway, she used to make quilts for us when we graduated high school so that we'd have a nice blanket to use at college. Everyone of my relatives has always loved the one my grandma made me. It's the softess fabric and like shabby-chic print, very cute. It's been one of my favorites since I first got it. Even still it is the blanket we all want to snuggle in. It's big enough for all 3 of us, which is great. Austin's crazy for it. He even wanted to take a nap with it, in his crib one day, but it literally took up all the space in his crib and I was afraid he was going to "drown" in the blanket during his nap, so I told him it didn't go in his bed. Anyway, Ben is often found wrapped up in it during the day when he's working from home, and whenever he is, Austin just thinks it's soooo funny and snuggles with him and jumps on him etc. Today, Ben started a new game. He was wrapped up in the blanket and pulled Austin around our family room while he hung onto the tail end. Austin was laughing so hard. He loved it! These are the moments of our life that I just totally love and cherish. Don't mind Ben's scruffiness....he's worked like 60 hrs in the last 4 or so days...apperance is the last thing on his mind.

Oh, and PS, I'm sure some of you are thinking that Austin is never dressed. Well, you're right. Rarely do I put clothes on him, only if people are coming over (usually only just for photography clients), or if we're going out. He just LOVES being naked. I don't blame him. I'd run around naked all day too if I could.