Let's Play Ketchup

Ha, ha... nice play on words huh? You thought I was serious didn't you?

Okay, well lets see. Last week was pretty good I guess. Tuesday night I got a call from one of my old friends Melissa Lindsey whom I used to work with in UT, and she and her friend were basically stuck in the Atlanta airport and after a series of delayed and then cancelled flights and needed a place to stay that night until their flight left first thing in the morning. Of course we obliged because we love visitors and also, if it was me I would hope and pray that someone would take me or us in as well! Luckily the MARTA (Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) is about 10 mins from our house and comes and goes directly from and to the airport. They finally got to our house around 10:30pm and then first thing in the AM (around 6:30) I took them back to the MARTA station. It was a short and sweet little visit, luckily we had a bed for them to sleep in and the house was fairly clean! (All of us at 6:30am)

That started my day off. I took the day off for two doc's appts that I needed to take care of. So Ben and I headed to my first one and afterwards went home and both ate and then took a nap. It was GREAT, I love napping with my little buddy. And I think he secretly LOVES to sleep on our bed. But seriously- who wouldn't? It's like the most comfy bed EVER. I was fighting a headache and hoped it would go away, but it didn't. Anyway- since my other doc's appt was all the way downtown and a pain to get to, I decided to leave Ben at the daycare for a few hours so he could eat and not have to be toted around everywhere. It also gave me a little break too. I will admit though, I did feel guilty. I knew he was in good hands though. I am paying them anyway after all! After my doc's appt, which confirmed I STILL have an ear infection after a good month or more, I went and got my feet done. I TOTALLY needed that. I haven't had a pedicure since I was pregnant which was really almost a year ago! After I did that I went and got some stuff for Ben and got myself a Oreo Milkshake from Chick-fil-a which if you haven't had one, you haven't lived, and then went and picked Ben up. I only had him there for a total of 3 hours, so it wasn't too bad. We went home after that and my friend Jenean, who is a massage therapist, came over and gave me a delicious little massage which has decreased my headache-factory output quite a bit. So basically, it was a "I deserve it" day, and it felt good.

The weekend was filled with more bathroom stuff. Mostly Ryan doing it. He's a champ and my hero. He is so dang handy and smart with that kind of stuff. He grouted the floors during the week and so he was able to start to tackle the tile on the wall. And wow... what a mess. This is what was discovered beneath those (probably) 28 year old tiles. It's a DANG good thing we're redoing our bathroom!!! It was basically tiled on top of drywall on top of more drywall. So, over time the grout had come out and water had seeped in and destroyed the walls. Ryan had to tear the lower half of the walls out and luckily the studs weren't ruined. The insulation on the outside wall had to be replaced as well, but other than that it was an easy fix. Ryan already put up the green drywall last night, which I guess is water permeable, and is almost ready to get the backer board up and start tiling. Have I mentioned my husband ROCKS? Because he does. I love him lots. SO... Stage 1 was the floor which I will have to do some before and afters later. Stage 2 was the demo of the shower tile which is done. Stage 3 will be to put up the new shower tile. Stage 4 is sealing all the tiles since they're tumblestone. Stage 5 will be putting in the new vanity and toilet and other needed items; mirror, cupboard, toilet paper holder, etc. I'M EXCITED TO HAVE A NEW BATHROOM! It'll look awesome when we're all done.

Well, Ben will be 5 months the end of this week! I can't believe how fast time has gone. And I have loved EVERY minute of it, hard and easy. Overall, we again are tremendously blessed with such an amazing little guy. He is such a good baby and I thank God every day for not only the opportunity to be a mother, but to have such a wonderful little spirit in our family! We are feeding him cereal mixed with jar food (fruit so far) here and there. Last night he tried Peaches in with his cereal last night and he liked that a lot better than when he tried bananas. I think the naners also made his tummy hurt, so I probably wont do those again for a while. He is doing well with tummy time, he laughs so much and talks up a storm, he's starting to try and roll over completely, and I think he could be teething soon. He's growing out of a lot of his clothes, although he's almost 5 months and still fits in some of his 3 month clothes! He's a little guy as my sister Shauna says! But really, are we surprised with how short his mommy is?! He even let us go out on a double date with our friends the Bundersons the other night while Ashley and Jacob babysat. We think the routine we've got him in really helped in being able to leave him that night. It was kind of sad not to put him to bed for the first time though, but we had fun- we went and saw Dark Knight and it was good. Here are some picts from lately.

This is his "I just woke up" look. I think it's so cute! Here he is with his Auntie DJ, both napping together! SO CUTE!Uh... so, Ben's mom is a dork and forgot to put the RIGHT leg in the RIGHT pant leg hole. I'm special, I know.

It's amazing to me also how much he's changed, and yet the different things that have stayed the same.

Here is he is at about 3 weeks old and now.

That's all for now I guess. We'll probably have more to update on as the week goes by. Especially on the bathroom. I will post some before and after pictures.

Busy Weekend

Wow. What a weekend. Friday night we got home and Ryan started pulling things out of the bathroom. He tore down the sink/cabinet, took out the mirror and some other things. I don't remember what I did... probably just cleaned up a little around the house and took care of Ben.
SATURDAY... whoa doggy. What a day. Ben woke us up at 6:45am hungry, so we just decided to start the day. By the time 10:45am rolled around we had woken up, fed Ben, started on the bathroom, I washed the dishes, made breakfast, started laundry, took Ally to the doctor and then to the groomer, gone to the store for diapers and formula, fed Ben again and was on the way to the tile store. We were at the tile store for about an hour and a 1/2, then on the way home we stopped to see Ryan's dad at his work. After we left there, the groomers called to say that Ally was ready to pick up. So rather than go home we decided to get her, but since we were in that area why don't we stop and get Ryan's hair cut? OKAY! So, I stayed in the car with Ben while Ryan got his hair cut and then we picked Ally up and went home... finally. But it didn't stop there, no sir... we had a toilet to take out, the door to the bathroom, more laundry (oh my- our house was SO full of laundry... my sister offered to help fold while I ironed), I cooked homemade spaghetti, had to feed Ben of course, there's probably more that I can't remember- but it was CRAZY I tell ya! Needless to say, we were EXHAUSTED by the end of the day. Then Ben woke up a few times in the middle of the night. And Ryan couldn't help because his back was so tweaked out from carrying a million pounds of tile and mortar and toilets and this and that. So, my sleep tally wasn't great, but church was! It was just the spiritual upliftment that I needed. And Ben was great for all of church. I only had to take him out twice- once to feed him during Sunday School and the other for playing too noisily in R.S.!!! We got home and did some more cleaning up and then I plum ran out of energy and had to lay down while Ben was napping. So I slept for about a half hour. Then started dinner. Our usual group of friends came over dinner at around 6:30 and we had them over until close to 10pm. It was a nice day. We're just both super tired now! The house is clean though. The laundry is mostly put away, but there's STILL MORE TO DO! IT NEVER ENDS! The bathroom is getting done... all is well.

P.S.- He rolls over!!!! YAY! This was the highlight to my visit with him on my lunch hour today! I was so excited to see him do this! It was the first time I've seen him roll over and I got it on video! Thank goodness for totally radical cell phones.

POST 225

• I STILL hate the sound of fingernails being clipped at work.
• I have a photography website... suggestions welcome. http://www.hyphotography.ifp3.com/
• My beautiful sister in-law is famous! And rocks the Casbah!
  http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=3775214
• We're going to start to remodel our bathroom this weekend.
• I got a new phone and it's GREEN! YAY! My favorite color!
• This week has tricked us several times into thinking it was Friday WAY before it really was.
• Ally has stopped being weird about her surgery and is going to get her check up tomorrow. I think she will be grateful to have the blasted cone off her head, and we'll be grateful to give her a bath! SHE STINKS!
• I love my family. Not just my little me, Ryan and Ben family- but my parents, siblings and their spouses and the grandkids. They're all such wonderful people.
• I bought high heels for the first time in my life. This is kind of scary to me. I needed some "grown up" shoes though. And if you're wondering why this is monumental for me, I am 29 years old and wear a size 2 in LITTLE girls. So high heels before finding this website were not an option.
• We woke up at 7am this morning when we normally wake up at like 6:20 and I was still able to take a shower and somewhat do my hair, feed Ben and get him dressed, get bottles made for the daycare and get out the door and to work on time. I don't even think I forgot anything either! Wait... did I lock the dog up? Yes... phew!
• The bamboo plant at my desk is GINORMOUS. I'm so proud of it. It's growing up so quickly... kinda brings a tear to my eye.
• It's slow at work today, and we're all bored and we just want to go home. Yeah, that's not going to happen.
• I AM A CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE ADDICT.
• I love our new iMac.
• I love, love, love when Ben sleeps 9 hours. The last three nights he's slept from like 9:30 or 10 until we wake up in the morning. (Although last weekend he woke up every hour two nights in a row... cuz he was a little under the weather.)
• We were talking about sushi just now at work, and some girl was saying she wasn't okay with them making it with their bare hands and the other girl said "They all do! You just have to pray over it and move on!". Too funny.
• Did you know there's a "national underwear day"? Yup, it's August 5th... Freshpair.com told me so. And they're the founders of it.
• Ben can put his binky in his mouth all by himself now. Not ALL the time, but he's done it a good handful of times. I think he's about ready to roll over too. He LOVES to sit up too. And he's such a happy, good little baby. We have been tremendously blessed to have this little guy in our lives.
• That's it. That's all I got for ya. Peace out Napoleon.

okay! okay! an update already!

Well, I guess it's time to update. And yes, I'm still working on getting a slide show of pictures done from our trip to UT. Life has been quite hectic lately. Our house is a mess. A long holiday weekend. Friends over to visit. Photoshopping wedding photos I took. Getting together a website for the photography. Getting the dog spade... just a lot going on.

First things first, Ben went swimming for his first time two weekends ago. I was hoping to have taken him when we went to Utah but we never had time or were near a pool long enough. Anyway, we went to Ashley's house and took him in the pool there. He seemed to like it... he was kind of neutral I guess. He didn't fuss unless we had him facing the other direction away from us. We just need to keep taking him and getting him more and more used to it.

I got an ear infection last Monday and decided to stay home. Taking the baby to the doctor with me was kind of an ordeal- but it was nice to be with him all day long.

Ben is getting SO big! We had his 4 month check up yesterday and shots. That was the first time I've had to witness the shots happen, and I felt horrible for the little guy. I got a little misty eyed, he was not happy. But he only cried for a minute and was pretty tough. He's in the 25th percentile and as the doctor says "perfect"... but I already knew that! He's eating more and more and I swear he grew a ton over the weekend. He slept a lot and ate a lot. He does that when he has a growth spurt. We tried a little bit of cereal. But since I didn't know how to make it, it was a little too thick. He didn't seem to hate it once he got passed gagging on it! We'll start giving him little bits here and there before bed.

He's been trying to sit up for a week or so. He'll sit on my lap and make his way in to a sitting up position somehow. I told Ryan I wanted to get him a Bumbo seat to help with strengthening his back, so last night we went to Babies R Us and had him sit in one they had out for display and he LOVED it! He was just giggling away! So we got him a LIME green one. And we put him in it when we got home. OH MY GOSH that kid is so stinking cute!!! I'm not biased or anything! Ha, ha! He just makes my little heart pump love blood.

We had an enjoyable 4th of July. It was pretty darn laid back and just what the doctor ordered. We had a little BBQ with Jacob and Ashley and then went and watched fireworks a few minutes from our house. Ben was not particularly interested in them, and just wanted to eat and then fell asleep right away... all while the fireworks were going off! Us grownups had an enjoyable time though. It was nice to keep it low key. Next year we'll probably have a good party though!

And yes, we got Ally spade. Wow. She's kind of a wimp. And right now SHE STINKS. The cone isn't really working very well, she still manages to reach her wound... but not as good as she hoped she could. I get very impatient with her and I'm trying to learn to deal with her better. I love her to death, but... yeah. Anyway, I took this picture of her Sunday night. NO this is NOT an action shot. She was seriously laying like this for a good amount of time. Clint was over with Ash and Jacob for dinner and noticed it! Too funny!

June 17, 2008

A couple of you asked for some details on our special day at the temple while we were in Utah. We decided that while we were out west, we'd go ahead and get sealed as a family. Last time we were in town Ryan and I decided we wanted to be sealed in the Mt Timpanogos Temple. When I lived in UT it was the temple in my district and I grew very fond of it, and for Ryan the outside of the temple attracted him. So we prepared. Ryan was ordained with the Melchizedek priesthood, then on the 7th of June went through the Atlanta temple and received his own endowment. His best friend Michael was his escort. We had friends from the ward there as well and it was a neat and different experience for Ryan. Then on the 17th of June, the day the temple re-opened, we were sealed. We had to push the time back because my brother John and his family were driving up all the way from St. George and their car overheated and they had to turn around to get a different car and then start all over again. Also, my best friend Andrea had a temple recommend debacle that you can read about here, and so it all worked out perfectly. Little did we know though that we needed Escorts when we got to the temple- luckily my family all walked in about the same time we were needing someone to come, and we quickly snatched John for Ryan and my mom for me. It was special to have my mommy there, she helped dress me and got to hold Ben during the ceremony and had a special experience there. Ben was wonderful during the ceremony- and didn't start crying until after it all ended. Having him there, on the alter with his hand on ours made the whole ordinance so tangible and real to me. Our precious boy was sealed to us and everything made sense. The cute sisters that watched him brought him in dressed in white and they looked so proud. They took him out as well, and we met them down at the nursery so we could all go out and take pictures in our white clothing. They were wonderful, and he was spoiled because he was the only child in the nursery!

My WONDERFUL sister in-law Samantha hosted an open house before hand for us and went to so much trouble to get tables and chairs and table cloths and lots of food. Our family took a good portion of the room, and I appreciate all the trouble she went to for us. She even bought a cake for Ryan's birthday the next day that we were all able to dig in to when we got home.

Shauna made it special for the kids and lit fireworks with them and they had a blast. The sparklers were a hit. I hope its a good memory for them.

It was a beautiful, wonderful day- and one we will never forget. We had such great love and support from our family and friends that were there to attend. And we are grateful to John & Claudia and the kids for travelling so far to be there with us. And I'm relieved we have sealed our little family together finally. It was as if we had put together a puzzle and waited for a while to put in that last piece. Our little puzzle is complete and it's so reassuring and comforting to know we will ALWAYS be together, FOREVER!