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Rob and Music and the Spoken Word

by on August 25, 2011 in Family Fun, james, things i love

On August 20, Rob, and his wife Ali came into town to go to a wedding. James hasn’t seen Rob since Christmas; he wasn’t sure about his uncle.

We went to Cheesecake Factory and Rob did everything he could to try to make James like him. He tried to get James to pound it, and he gave James his phone to play with and he let James play with his hair… He did everything. James still wasn’t quite sure, but by the end of the meal, he did sit by Rob and not freak out.

Rob and James

We then made our way down to Melanie’s house because Rob hadn’t seen her house yet. James really warmed up to Rob because Rob played ball with him. He loves anyone that will play ball with him. It was so fun to see Rob and James get along so well. For the rest of the evening, Rob had wedding events to attend, but we made plans to get together again the next morning (Sunday) to go and see my dad perform in Music and the Spoken Word.

Since you can’t take children younger than eight-years-old to Music and the Spoken Word, we opted to not try to find someone to watch James at the last minute and decided to meet my family in Salt Lake after the Music and the Spoken Word for brunch. We met the family at Market Street Grill in Salt Lake. (Because of the timing of the events of the rest of the day, we opted to break the sabbath and go out to eat instead of driving back and forth from SLC and Utah County. It was kind of a funny sight though, with all my family dressed up for church and going out to eat.)

At brunch, my family told us how the broadcast went. Turns out, my brother wasn’t very reverent. As the choir began singing Morning Has Broken, my brother loudly expressed that it was a terrorist song. (He told us the story as to why it was a terrorist song, but I don’t remember.) He was so impressed with the choir and loved the organ solo.

Then the family played with PhotoBooth on my iPad… Good times.

Mom and Rachel

Mom, Rob and Bryan

Oh Rachie...

Rach and Mom

Mom, Rachel and Rob

He came again for the Dew Tour on the 9th, but we decided it was not very responsible to take a newborn baby to a rock concert, so we weren’t able to see him. :( It was a quick trip for him, so he wasn’t able to meet Brennan, but they said they would come for Thanksgiving so hopefully he’ll see his newest nephew soon.

I love my brother and his cute wife. We don’t see them nearly enough.

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Turning Hearts to the Fathers

by on June 9, 2011 in design, things i love, think back

And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers…

Malachi 4:6

I love the idea of having a family tree in the home to always remember the wonderful heritage we come from. However, I don’t really like how family trees often look.

Then one day, I came across this cute shop: My Tree and Me and I fell in love. I loved their modern take on the family tree and wanted to do something like it (but not pay $120).

So I decided to make one of my own. Originally, I had thought that I was just stealing the idea straight from them (I saw the site, forgot to bookmark it, made one of my own, then found the site again), but it turned out that my idea was different that the specific trees they sell.

Here it is:

I love love love the way it turned out. I found a frame at Ikea that is 20×20 so I just need to get this printed and it will be a great addition to my living room. (I thought it was a little bit weird to post the first and last names of all my family on an open blog … I try to be safe about what I put up here … so I changed out the names for this post, but in the real tree it has all the first, middle and last names for James’ five generations.)

I toyed around with the idea of including more information like birth and death dates for each person (as applicable) but decided not to for right now. I just love how clean and simple it is. Maybe in the future I’ll expand it a little bit more, but for now I am very happy.

Now I just have to come up with another idea for baby #2. (who still doesn’t have a name. Guess we shouldn’t have used up all our grandpa names with james…)

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Becoming Independent

by on May 31, 2011 in james, movie monday, things i love

(I started this post and never finished it and posted it, but I love it so even though it is old, I’m still putting it up and just back-dating it)

Lately James has decided that he wants to do things all by himself. Especially when it is time to eat.

I don’t have a problem with him finding his independence, because I have another baby just around the corner and I’m okay with not having to do EVERYTHING for two babies. What I do have a problem with is how messy his independence happens to be.

He won’t even let me help him eat anymore. And he has to have his own spoon, no matter what the meal.

Eating with one hand, spoon in the other

I love watching him grow up and decide things that he likes and things he doesn’t like. One morning we were having yogurt and graham crackers for breakfast and he decided that he likes to dip the crackers in the yogurt. That was the only way he would eat them for the rest of the meal. He loved it.

He enjoyed every bite of breakfast

 

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5 Years

by on May 19, 2011 in me, things i love, think back

Sometimes when I think about it, I can’t believe it has really been five years since this day:

Our Wedding Day

Five years seems like such a long time, but it still seems like it was just yesterday that we entered the temple together and made sacred covenants and changed our lives forever.

As I was reading through the Ensign this last week and with the thought in my mind that our anniversary was coming up, I reread Elder Richard G. Scott’s talk from the Sunday afternoon session of this last General Conference, The Eternal Blessings of Marriage. As I read the talk and thought about my own feelings about the blessing that marriage is in my life, I was touched with something he said.

I have no power to describe the peace and serenity that come from the assurance that as I continue to live worthily, I will be able to be with my beloved Jeanene and our children forever beacuse of that sacred ordinance performed with the proper priesthood authority in the house of the Lord.

I echo Elder Scott’s feelings and know that words can’t fully describe how wonderful it is to know that our family can be forever. I feel so thankful to know that I can be with Bryan for all eternity. As we sit together on the couch and talk about the mundane things that happened during the day, I am filled with such a peace and wonder knowing that as we live worthy, these simple yet joyful moments never have to end.

I love Bryan more today than I ever have, and know that our love can continue to grow in the many many more years we will spend together.

The temple sealing has greater meaning as life unfolds. It will help you draw ever closer together and find greater joy and fulfillment.

-Elder Richard G. Scott

 

 

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Bubbles!

by on May 18, 2011 in james, things i love, wordless wednesday

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1-Year Pictures

by on May 17, 2011 in james, ten things, things i love

This last weekend we ventured out and had some pictures taken to commemorate James’ one year birthday. We were so ready. We made sure that he had a nice long nap, ate a big lunch and had everything he needed to be happy through the whole photoshoot. We brought some toys and distractions to keep him smiling and busy while a stranger with a camera got up in his grill.

Everything was perfect. Then, just as the photographer was setting up the lighting and getting ready to take the first picture, James tripped and bit his lip.

It was tragic.

And his little sad face was so heartbreaking. But he started to give us little smiles.

Then he got a little confused and thought we wanted him to pose for a fashion magazine.

Then we pulled out some balls from our ball pit that we brought and he was in heaven.

In the end, I think we got some really cute pictures. My little guy is so handsome.

I can’t believe how big he looks and is getting. Time flies.

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It’s Finished!

by on May 16, 2011 in things i love

On Mother’s Day we officially have lived in our house for a whole year! I can’t believe it has been that long. It seems like we just moved in and I still find myself calling this house our new house. Now it is really really official though, because we finally finished the yard.

The house we built in 2007, but none of the previous owners finished the yard. With James walking around and me getting larger and larger by the day, we needed an outdoor area to play that wasn’t the park down the hill. So we went to the home show at the South Towne Expo Center and got lots and lots of business cards and started interviewing and getting bids.

It was kind of exciting to see what people thought would be good with our yard. We didn’t know what we wanted so we let the landscapers give us their thoughts. After hearing some ideas, we decided we didn’t want anything too crazy. Neither of us have green thumbs so as little maintenance we could get would be best.

It was totally finished on May 6, 2011 and I love it. It looks beautiful, but is still pretty simple. (I think I would have been excited if it were just all grass.)

Here’s some before shots (taken by the lovely Aubrey Phelps on the day we moved in last year):

And here’s the final product:

We choose some nice plants that will flower and add color a little later in the season, and some pretty flowers that will come back each year as well.

In the backyard we completely fenced in the yard and just did a lot of grass with 3 trees for shade and privacy. And in the next week or two we are going to have a company come out and put stairs off our deck into the backyard. It’s going to be wonderful! The deck is only a couple of feet off the ground, but for some silly reason, the builder didn’t put stairs to get from the deck to the yard. So it’s pretty close to perfect now, but as soon as that is done it will be extra perfect.

I’m so excited for warm days playing outside, eating otterpops. Hooray! Bring on the summer.

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We love Blue!

by on May 6, 2011 in me, things i love

We went to the doctor this morning and found out that a beautiful baby BOY will be joining our family!

(Okay, the 3D image that they showed us did not quite look beautiful, it looked like my baby’s face will be made of oatmeal, but I know he’ll come out beautiful. (I’m not a fan of the 3D images… at least not this early in the pregnancy.))

We are excited. James is going to have a best friend to be with and help him make messes and pull everything out of every drawer in the house. They are going to be the best friends and I’m sure the worst enemies. Now we’ll have two tornadoes crashing through our house instead of just one. I’m sure they’re going to have so much fun together.

While we were in the ultrasound office the tech showed us a lot of different things that I don’t remember seeing with James, so it was pretty cool. She asked if we had any feelings about what gender the baby was and Bryan and I both kind of felt like it would be a girl (the lack of crazy morning sickness had me wondering if a different gender was brewing in my belly). So she stopped and had us look at the screen. “Well, can you tell what it is?” she asked.

I looked and there it was: a little boy.

After she showed us a few more pictures to make sure we were seeing what we thought we were seeing. James was going to have a little brother. Bryan pointed to the screen and told James to look and he looked up and clapped.

It was so cute. I guess he knew all along and is excited for his friend from heaven to come and join him. :)

It’s going to be a great adventure.

We will be going back around week 34 to get another ultrasound to check something on me that could have a possibility of complicating labor, but nothing to worry about.

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