Catch up

It seems like every time I post, I am always apologizing about how long it has been since my last post! All it seems I ever do is do "catch up" posts. I wish I could be creative and blog often to update everyone about our amazing lives, but unfortunately, the fact is that we are just not that interesting! I think that is why I am so addicted to drama-ridden reality TV. There! Now you all know my guilty pleasure! Our life is so monotonous and normal and that is why it is soooooo entertaining to me to see other people having mental breakdowns or freak-outs on national TV. So the moral of the story is that between school, work, reality TV, and being a mom, there is just no time to blog!

So, sorry again friends, here goes another catch up

Well for starters: our baby is amazing and so adorable.

I mean really, how can you even resist a baby in dad's hat??

Also, you can see from the picture that he is standing/walking! It's a miracle because we thought he would never walk....he is kinda lazy and only does things if he wants to

So the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that kids have less than 2 hours of "screen time" per day. Well, call me a bad mom if you will, because I put my kid in front of the ipad or tv whenever I need "me time" and I am pretty sure it adds up to more than 2 hours/day. Must have inherited his love of TV from me...except his guilty pleasure is Toy Story 3, not Real Housewives.


For Halloween he was a Chicken and got sooooooo much candy. Wayyyyyy too much candy!

Other things of note:

• G gashed his eyelid open and had to go to Primary Children's for sedation and stitches. 7 stitches to be exact. Ever seen a baby coming off of Ketamine? I have now and there is nothing funnier than a "drunken baby"
• At any given time, we have at least 1 fort built in the basement for G. Simply because he loves them. He especially loves watching Toy Story in his fort :)
• We took family pictures, and it was a disaster. Don't ever want to do that again
• It may be shocking to most everyone, but Aaron sold his beloved truck "Little Brown". In it's stead we bought a Toyota Camry and a Subaru Tribeca. Aaron then proceeded to crash his car a month later. He was literally down the street from our house when it happened. We were thinking it would be totaled but no, we instead spent one month with one car while it was getting fixed in the shop.
  
• As stated in a prior post, I have been running a lot lately. However, I haven't run since it started getting cold (about September). Somehow my friend Nici talked me into doing a Thanksgiving day 10K race. Still not sure why I did it, but it was an incredible feeling to turn the final corner and take off in a dead sprint to the finish line. Once I could walk again (3 days later), I was glad I did it. May not ever happen again though
• This past weekend, we went to Flaming Gorge (as always) to stay in the lodge and chop a Christmas tree. This year, we found an amazing tree and had a great time. G especially loved hanging out with Grandpa (he has a new weird attachment to gpa) and actually started saying "gapa" on the trip.
  
• Finally, my fourth semester is almost done!!!!! And most importantly, my thesis is almost done!!!! I defend in 2 weeks and I have never been so excited for something to be over with. It's all downhill after that!

Sad to see it go

We had the best summer ever (minus summer school of course!)

I wanted to play with Grayson as much as I could and show him lots of fun summer things like

Swimming Pools

Garden parks

Seven Peaks with friends


SiDewALk ChALk

and of course plenty of tricycling

It is so fun having an "older" baby that shows excitement over little things and can begin to appreciate new experiences

Definitely sad to see summer ending

Can't wait for next summer!

Summer fun

What have we been up to?

Well…



Grayson has discovered his love of stuffed animals and carries them everywhere he goes



He’s been learning to read too… he’s so advanced




He loves to play “swimmers” as we call it, and we do it most every day




We also went hiking at Red Butte. Tent camping will be the next adventure



I have been a running fool. I am not training for anything, just “fun” running. I even got my five fingers so I could be included in the "running culture". The longest I have been so far is about 6 miles and it nearly killed me!



Aaron has decided he wants to train for Iron Man with our neighbor….except he doesn’t have a bike, so that might hinder things…

Fun hobby

I LOVE to take pictures. It is a new and fave hobby of mine. In a perfect world, I would give up medicine and take lots and lots of classes on photography and just take pictures the rest of my life. Lately, I have been taking pictures of my friend's families just for fun and practice. My friend Ami, from school, wanted 4 month pictures of her new baby, so we went out to Memory Grove for some shots. They turned out to be my favorite pictures yet!

Happy Birthday buddy!

Tell me he is not the most adorable one year old ever!




I am finally getting around to posting Grayson's birthday...which actually happened over a month ago! Sorry!! His birthday did not go quite as planned. Aaron's parent's have an acre lot and we really wanted to have it in their backyard so the kids could run around while we barbecued and played lawn games. Unfortunately, mother nature did not want to cooperate and decided to dump 6 inches of snow; annoying. So instead of a fun family play day, we booked the church and brought food there instead. It was still fun, but it would have been way more fun outside! I dare say that the highlight of the day were these...


This is the first time he ever had cake. He didn't go as wild as I had hoped, but it was still cute


On his real birthday, I let him do a cake smash in the kitchen so I could get some better photos

Loving the sunshine

Last week, it finally warmed up enough for us to have a picnic! Ever since Grayson was a newborn, I had these idealistic images in my head of a wonderful picnic on a amazing spring day with Aaron and I on a beautiful picnic blanket while we joyfully watch our child play on the playground at a gorgeous shaded park. With this image in my mind and finally when the sun came out, I asked Aaron "Pretty please can we go for a picnic??" after a few whiny comments, he finally agreed. So we went to the closest park, spread out our blanket and broke out some lunch. When we started, I realized this was not at all my fantasy. The "gentle breeze" was freezing (good thing we had coats in the car), mosquitoes were swarming and were attacking me, Aaron ate and decided he wanted to sleep, so while he slept I was fighting to shove real food down Grayson's throat before he ate the handful of grass he pulled up. Needless to say, he was determined to eat his grass, and he did, while still managing to pull the rice krispie treat out of the wrapper and take a big bite of that which them caused him to choke and vomit all over our picnic blanket....all while Aaron continued in the supine position while saying "just relax and enjoy the sun". Are you kidding me??!! When I get the energy up again, we will try once more....here's hoping!

At last...

IT IS DONE!!! (mostly)

After months of my house looking like this...


We can finally breathe a sigh of relief

We have been working tirelessly since October on the basement and we worked our little fingers to the bone to get it done over my spring break. There were many late nights...including a Saturday night we grouted until 3:30 am (gag). At one point I was positive that my hand was going to be deformed into a claw from wringing out the tile sponge for the 90 millionth time and I am sure we will both develop lung cancer now from all the fumes/dust/dirt we have inhaled for the past few months, but all the pain/stress/worry/xanax went by the wayside the day we finished and were able to lay on the cozy carpet of the basement and know that we were DONE! There are a few finishing touches we need to buy but all in all, I call it done

Ugly Sweaters

Ugly Sweater Party!

Two years in the making….

Had the neighbors over for a Thanksgiving dinner and the joy of seeing each other in terrific attire.

Dave was the clear winner as he doubled up on ugly sweaters….His best was too inappropriate for the camera…lol (still laughing about it). Kaylynn came in second with her awesome pink flamingo sweater (Really?! Who would have donated that to the DI??? It is way too cool of a sweater)

So much fun to see all the finds

Might have to make it an annual tradition