So... what's going on?

I know. It's time for an update. There really isn't much that's been going on in OUR life, however a lot going on in our family's lives.
-have a family member that's been in the hospital with health problems which is never good.
-my parents have FINALLY sold their house in Logan, UT after having it up for sale for quite a long time and are waiting to hear about a house they put an offer on in St. George, UT.
-because of this, they have been under the gun to get their WHOLE house packed up, and THANK GOODNESS FOR SHAUNA! I wish more than anything we could be there to help. It's hard living so far away.
-my sister Delinda is in Luanda, Angola Africa and has already visited and spent time with our family in South Africa, both Johannesburg and Cape Town. I don't think she even KNOWS how envious most of us in the family are that she gets to repeatedly have that experience. I am so glad though that someone from the Collier family can make associations and relationships with them besides mom.
-our home front: Ryan has successfully installed the toilet- or as we refer to it, the twa-lette. :) Now what's left is the vanity, caulking, tub faucet, mirror and other accessories. I'm pretty dang proud of my guy for doing all of that on his own. It's been a trying experience, but I think for the rest of the time we're in that house he will always be proud of his work!
-Ben WANTS TO CRAWL. He doesn't have time for sitting up, but is doing better at it. They're practicing with him at school and we do a lot of practice at home too when we can. In fact today at lunch he was doing quite well on his own. It's possible he'll be breaking in some teeth soon too. He's getting so big so fast. He also is starting to give kisses, of course with his mouth wide open! He's a loving and happy little guy. We are so grateful for him!
-we are having (Aunt) Ashley and Jacob watch Ben tomorrow so we can go to the temple. It will be super nice.
-I posted for another position with in my company a couple days ago. It's time to change up the scenery a little and get some different work experience. I also am seeking for management who understands parenthood. So, hopefully, if it's Heavenly Father's will- it will go through. Let's keep our fingers crossed.
-Heather (me) is thoroughly enjoying the cooler weather, but not Ryan. I am super excited to be able to sleep with the window open at night, which we are convinced has made it extremely difficult to get up in the morning! I LOVE IT!
-we have LOTS of fun Fall-ish things planned for our future weekends. The State Fair, the Apple Festival, the Pumpkin Patch, possible camping trip, picnics, Ben's first Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner! This is me being excited!

This is me lately. I am so darn forgetful. I told Ryan this morning that lately it seems that it's requirement for me to forget at least ONE thing a day. The day before yesterday it was my purse. I left it at home, on the kitchen table. Today it was my deodorant (I've made a conscious effort to keep my arms down today!). Ben needed diapers on Monday, I had them in the back of the car... I didn't remember I had them in there until I got a lovely note on his chart asking for them and reminding me!!! Ever since I had Ben, and maybe even while I was pregnant with him, I have become SO forgetful! I used to be able to think of EVERYTHING- I was on top of it! Now... not so much! It's SO, no like SOOOOOO annoying! I feel so unorganized, even if I make myself organized. Make sense? Even if I plan things out- I'll still forget something. Maybe it's because there are just too many things and people to remember things for. Goodness, gracious. I was at the doc's office a couple weeks ago and I had Ben in his car seat on the floor while I was checking out. One of the nurses came over to distract/play/gaga at him so I could focus on the task at hand. After I was done- I started to fret because I couldn't find my keys.... I was looking everywhere... saying to myself "Where are my keys? Oh no, did mommy lose her keys?" (Yes, I'm referring to myself as Mommy to Ben now.) The nurse politely said to me while patting my shoulder "your memory WILL come back someday honey... it just might take a while". What a relief to hear! Mostly because I'm glad I'm not the only one! Oh well... I look forward to that one day.

Labor Day in Florida

Because it's easy and you don't have to look at a bunch of pictures you may or may not want to see, I am just doing ANOTHER mosaic of our trip to FL. We had a really good time with the Woodsons. It's so great to know we have a friendship with them that will last forever! On our trip we got to go to St. Augustine first, and had a wonderful time there. We got rained on, but it was a fun little adventure. Not 5 mins later it cleared up and we got back to being tourists. We went to the Castillo de San Marcos Monument, we walked up and down the "town strip" and stopped by for a quick picture at the light house. After we got to the Woodson's, we went to the beach a couple times (even though at one of the stops we made there really was no beach! The hurricanes made the water really rough and the tide really high). We went to the pool in their neighborhood a couple times and Ben LOVED it. He had a blast in his little crab floaty. Ryan & I got to go on a date to my favorite restaurant and did a little shopping. We had a lot of fun!!! It was so wonderful and relaxing and we just love it there. Ryan keeps saying he wants to move to FL someday so we can be close to the beach. We will see! I am really grateful that we are so close to the ocean living here in ATL... it's really not too far away. Speaking of far away, Ben did AWESOME on the way down. He slept most of the time. Now on the way back it was a little more of a struggle. Probably because it was daylight and we did the full 8 hour stretch (which turned into 10 hours with stops and eating). He wasn't completely awful though and he did sleep a lot. It was just annoying for him I think. Anyway- we look forward to going again next year!

1. me and Ben at the monument (fort)
2. the lighthouse
3. Ryan and Ben with the beautiful ocean behind them, also at the fort.
4. rainy leaf
5. Ben's first trip to the beach
6. toes in the sand
7. daddy and Ben playing in the pool
8. laying out at the beach
9. cool fountain in St. Augustine
10. Me, Ben and Jill
11. Cute boys Seth and Ian
12. Sleeping on the way home
    

He likes to roll and I think he's thinking that he might want to crawl sometime soon.

The Halloween/Fall Candy Arrives...

All I have to say is YUM. Pumpkin Spice Hershey's Kisses people!!! It's like have a little mini piece of pumpkin cheesecake in your pocket!!! Well, don't put it in your pocket cuz it could melt and then things WILL get messy, then you'll get mad at the Pumpkin Spice Hershey Kisses and then you'll have a bitterness towards them and you need to love them as much as I do. So put them in a nice candy jar or bowl and have them as accessible as you see fit.

Sup?

We got Ben's 6 month pictures at Portrait Innovations this weekend. The pictures turned out pretty good- mostly because he's the cutest thing EVER... but I wasn't super impressed with our visit. We (Delinda and I) were late because I thought they were in the mall and it turns out they are NEAR the mall, not in it. So I called to let them know we were late and while on the phone asked if I needed to schedule for another time or if I could still come in. She said they weren't "that busy" and that we could still come. We got there around 12:15 and our appt was for 12. My first frustration was when on the phone with them I asked the girl where they were and she just kept saying we're here by Ross or by Target. This is how our conversation went:

Me: "so those are RIGHT next door to you?"

Her: "well they're down the street"

Me: "Can you tell me what's right next to you?"

Her: "well, we're near Panera and Carter's"

Me: "okay, so Carter's is right next to you?"

Her: "No... it's close to us though."

Seriously- she could NOT just tell me what store was exactly right next to her store and was getting annoyed with me because I kept asking. Anyway- luckily we found it. And when we got there we waited and waited and finally at about 1pm I decided to just leave, and right then someone came to get us. It wasn't just the wait that made me want to leave, the people were SO rude! They were rude when I asked if there was a time frame of how long it was going to be. Also, Delinda was sitting next to me on the couch and one of the workers said something to me about how much longer it was going to be, then as I was talking to Delinda asked if her she had an appt. I said "she's with me" and I guess the girl didn't hear me (and obviously didn't pick up that we were sitting next to each other talking) and asked Delinda AGAIN and I said "She's with me..." and kind of gave her a look. Her response was "okay! I was just wondering!" and walked off all put out. Um, okay...? Anyway- the photographer was new and she did a pretty good job. The lighting was a little crazy- but the pictures turned out fine. Luckily Ben was AWESOME and obviously smiled lots. But by the time we were done, he was hot (it was warm in there) and hungry. We waited for the pictures to be uploaded and the photographer told us it would just be like 15 minutes. Well, 15 mins had come and gone and she was just sitting at the front while we were sitting next to the computer that had our pictures up wondering why we weren't looking at them yet. By this time it was around 2, and so I asked her if we could look at them and she looked at me (again put out- and this was a different girl than the first) and said "my manager has to go through them with me". Hmmm. WHY? So finally we start looking at the photos, and the manager comes over to "help". He's not letting the new girl do her thing at all, kept picking different pictures for us to look at then she picked- really kind of being rude to her and making her looking bad. He's also telling me the different package options and not making ANY sense about it at all, and then again acting put out that I don't understand. SO, anyway- the moral of the story is, I'll never take Ben or any of my other kids there to get pictures again. Luckily the pictures did turn out well... but you're probably asking why didn't I do them? Well, I wanted pictures in a studio, and I don't have a studio or good enough lighting yet. SO I'll have to figure that part out for future photos. Anyway- hopefully other people wont have a bad experience with them- but for the one over here at Perimeter, I wouldn't suggest it.

Ryan took Ben to his 6 month check up and he's doing really good! He's still in the 25% for both weight and height, but between the two he's proportionate. That's what he gets for being born to not-so-tall parents! He's trying to sit up these days, I bet with in a week or two he will be. He's also rolling ALL over the place and his new favorite thing is to be on his tummy. He only rolls on his left side though... makes me wonder if he's going to be a lefty! No teeth, YET. And he's just a good kid. We've had two almost 12 hour nights of him sleeping. Although a couple of times during those two nights I've found him either somehow sleeping on his tummy or sideways in the crib. He's a cutie pie.

Okay. That's all. OH WAIT! Ryan is like 2 or 3 tiles away from being done with the tub!!! He rocks. Well, okay technically he still needs to seal them, then grout and then seal them again. But they're all up! He's amazing, that man of mine. Delinda leaves for Africa (Johannesburg, Angola and Ethiopia) this weekend for 3 months. We will miss her TONS.

Okay, NOW that's all. We're boring. :)

Finally! Our Utah Trip!

I, like my friend Jessica, am a big fan of One True Media. Here is our slide show of our trip to Utah, FINALLY! Sorry, it's kind of on the long side.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Can you believe it?

Happy 6 Month Birthday little man! (Yah- I know it's not the best picture of him in the world... but it was taken today- and that's what really counts!)