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.
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.
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.
I’m not a big scary movie person. I never have been.
When I was little my older brother and younger sister watched Gremlins and it scared me so much. I spent most of the movie behind the couch, hiding. I think since then, I’ve never really enjoyed scary movies.
I’ve seen a couple here and there, but things just hang in my mind for too long and without a doubt, if I see a scary movie, I’ll have nightmares about it. And it always seems that whenever I watch a scary movie, something frightening happens in my life to go along with it and make the whole situation worse.
Example:
In college, my friend Ashlie and I were invited to join my cousin Ashley and her friends for a movie night in Smith Park. When we got there, the sun had set and the park was dark. We sat on blankets and pillows and watched Poltergeist. Now, it would not have been my first choice of movie, but we were already there and stayed for the whole thing. After the movie, Ashlie and I went home and got ready for bed. As we were chatting, we flipped off the light and climbed into bed. Seconds later, the light turned back on…by itself. I don’t remember exactly what happened next, but I am sure it included screaming like babies and running from the room. That was probably just me though.
We discovered that there was a short in the light switch. As a makeshift solution until the apartment complex could fix it, we used tape to hold the switch all the way down so we could get some sleep. Although after the movie and our mysteriously turning on light, I don’t think that I slept very much.
That taught me to watch a scary movie in the park.
Another example didn’t happen to me, but I was an eye-witness.
My family was still living in Orem and my older brother decided he wanted to watch The Blair Witch Project. He spent the evening with his friends watching the movie. After it was over he came home and was telling my parents about how much the movie frightened him and how freaked out he was. I was sitting on their bed listening, but not paying too much attention because even him telling them about the movie scared me. After we were all done chatting, my parents told us to go down and go to bed. I followed Rob into the hall, but stopped to get something. He had already made it down the first flight of stairs and was getting ready to flip on the dining room light, so I stood at the top of the stairs and waited for the light. Just as he flipped the switch, the light bulbs flashed and burned out.
I have never seen my brother jump so high in his life.
And he squealed like a little girl. Thinking back about it, I still laugh.
So I think I’ll stick with comedies and romance for my movies of choice.
Our five year anniversary is coming up this month (May 19, if you’d like to send gifts just let me know). We have been debating what to do to celebrate. Because it is a big year, we thought maybe we should go on a vacation and get away somewhere.
We looked into shows in Las Vegas and thought about other places we could go.
Or… We could stay around here and celebrate by going to dinner or something and buy a new mattress.
In the end, after many long debates, we decided to get a new mattress. We found on last Saturday and decided to get it now. We upgraded from a queen to a king and it is WONDERFUL!
The first night we slept in it, Bryan climbed in bed and asked where I was. He reached over and touched my arm and said, “oh, there you are, at arms length away, just where I like you.” I laughed and laughed. We are not cuddly sleepers, we have to have our own space. The king bed does that so well we can both stretch out as much as we like and he still won’t be in my foot or elbow space…both of which are very important for me to have in order to sleep.
Our big problem is that we don’t have any bedding (we just bought a set of sheets and are using various blankets for right now).
The post said that it is available at Bed, Bath and Beyond in stores but not online. So I looked in the stores here in Utah valley and had no success. I’ve checked online and it is nowhere to be found so now i have to decide if I should wait and hold out for the bedding that I know I love, or should I just go out looking for something else that I can love and buy that for our bedding instead?
Hmmm.
What do you think? I’m kind of picky about things like bedding, so it might be better for me to hold out. Technically, the whole bedding set is going to be my mothers day gift, so I would love to have it before mothers day.
We had a wonderful Easter Weekend. While much of the weekend focused on James’ birthday, we still managed to squeeze in some Easter fun.
On Friday night, we were able to attend my dad’s concert for the Temple Square Choral. It was a beautiful concert. The songs and the order of the songs were reflective of our Savior’s last week on earth. A few of the songs were completely in Latin, but the Spirit was so strong. I am so happy that my dad is able to live his dream of singing with the Tabernacle Choir and sharing his Testimony through song. One thing that was extra cool, is even though we were pretty far away from the choir in the Tabernacle, we could still clearly hear my dad’s voice through all the other voices (probably just because we knew what we were listening for and we are so familiar with it (Bryan said he couldn’t hear it)).
On Saturday after James birthday party, we went over to my Grandma and Grandpa Walker’s for our annual Easter Party and Egg Hunt. It is always so much fun and there is always so much yummy food. This year we had sloppy joes, potato salad, watermelon, chips, dips and, of course, jelly bean jello salad (no jelly beans in the jello, just jello in the shape of jelly beans with whipped cream).
Much to my dismay, there was some spice in the sloppy joes that I had an allergic reaction to and I ended up needed to take some benedryl, so much of the evening is a little lost to me. But we did go out for a wonderful egg hunt and James was able to get in on the action.
Found it!
Got it!
Look Dad!
Because I was a little bit out of it, I didn’t get pictures of all the cute kids finding their eggs, just my own. But you can check out my aunt Kelly’s blog for more pictures. She’s more on top of it than me.
He only found two eggs before he was done with that game (and then we gave the eggs to someone else, he didn’t even get to enjoy the candy).
The Easter Bunny did join us Sunday morning. When I was little, the Easter Bunny always came on Saturday, and we celebrated with all the candy and things on Saturday, then Sunday the day was solely devoted to the Savior. I loved that. As a child and teenager, it helped me to recognize and remember that the holiday was about so much more than just the candy and pretty dresses. (It was actually later in my life that I realized that the Easter Bunny didn’t visit everyone on Saturday morning instead of Sunday.) Because of how it helped me to see the holiday, Bryan and I talked about it and that is how we decided we would like to continue to celebrate Easter with our kids. Because of the birthday party this year, it didn’t quite happen that way, but next year… the Easter Bunny will join us on the right day.
James did enjoy his Easter basket Sunday (okay, because of the benedryl trip I was on Saturday night, the Easter Bunny didn’t even visit us until after James nap… so it was about 2 pm by time we pulled out the chocolate).
What's this?
Neat!
There's something in here...
hmmm.
James did enjoy his first bunny peep. (The video is a little long. It took a little while for him to decide to open the egg with the peep inside, so even if you don’t watch it, just know that it was adorable. There isn’t much that James does that isn’t adorable to me though…)
It was such a wonderful day and such a wonderful weekend.
I can’t believe that it has been a whole year since my little man joined us in this world and changed my life forever. Can you believe how much he’s grown?
Baby and Mommy
James is 1!
Sometimes it boggles my mind. But I’m sure all mom’s feel that way.
I had big plans for the party, but was sick most of the week before so I accepted the fact that my little guy wouldn’t actually remember if all the food followed the “Monster” theme, if there were games, if I made cute invitations or anything. (Man the blogging world really gives you guilt sometimes if you let it…I absolutely loved this monster party and wanted to do cute things like that and Friday night I was feeling horrible that it wasn’t going to turn out as the dream party I had in my head. But after a good night’s sleep, we moved on.)
For food, we had yummy chicken salad croissants, chips, dips and fruit. We also had cake balls (with little eyeballs to make them monster balls), whoopie pies, ice cream and cake.
I was so proud of how the cake turned out. Since I had wanted it to be a monster theme, really the only things that ended up following the theme were the cake balls, the cake and a gift bag I found at Target. But the cake was awesome!
The Monster Cake
(Kind of like Mike from Moster’s Inc, but blue) I had the vision in my head and was just so glad that it turned out. My cakes don’t always turn out looking like they are supposed to. But this one did. Melanie and I finished it just in time. (how sad that I left the cake as the last thing that I did. ha ha) Thanks Mel!
James absolutely loved opening the presents.
what's in the bag?
It looks exciting!
More fun things in bags?!
This bag is as big as me!
Can I play with them now?
It was so fun to watch him get so excited about each of the presents and want to play with each of them as we opened them. It worked out really well that everyone put the presents in bags. He loves to pull things out of bags and containers and boxes. It was all too cute to watch. He received lots of fun books, shoes and clothes, bathroom basketball sets, a big ball for outside, golf clubs and a bathtub bubble maker. Thank you everyone!
After all the bags were empty, we had Uncle Kevin and Aunt Aubrey bring in their gift. We were sure it was going to be a hit.
A ball pit!
The Phelps' grand kids loved it
Maddy sharing the balls
James tasting the balls
It was very exciting
After presents it was finally time for the all important cake. James didn’t really enjoy it.
He's not sure...
This was as far into the cake as he got.
And he HATED having the frosting on his hands. As soon as it got onto his hands, he would rub it on his stomach. So we tried cutting him a piece.
But he decided he only wanted the whoopie pie.
Yummy!
Happy Happy Birthday to my little man!
A big thanks to Kevin and Aubrey for the wonderful pictures!
It is 8:15 right now and I wish I was asleep, but I’m not. Sweet James woke up this morning at 6:30 (which I don’t really mind because between 8:30 and 6:30 he doesn’t make a peep) and wanted a bottle. I almost pushed Bryan out of bed telling him I was too tired for 6:30 and that it was his turn. I changed my mind and got up. Hoping James would go back to sleep so I could go back to sleep, I gave him the bottle while he still was in his crib. (While sitting on the floor, I slide my arms through the bars and hold the bottle for him — kind of awkward and weird, but it works.) he didn’t even finish the whole bottle before pushing it away and turning away from me. Hooray, he was going to go back to sleep so I could.
I climbed back in bed and … Nothing.
I tried so hard to fall back to sleep, telling myself to just sleep I was tired and … Nothing.
*sigh*
So it’s too early and I wish I was asleep. So I guess I’ll write on my blog, which has been sadly neglected lately.
(I am, however, still in my bed, still in my jammies, wrapped in a blanket, hoping sleep may still come for a brief time before sweet James decides it is time to actually get up.)
Last night I woke up three times with heartburn. I guess it is time to try something stronger than Tums.
While I have been sitting here this morning, something loud has hit our bedroom window twice. It scared me, so I pushed Bryan awake to help me investigate. Turns out, the boys behind us are playing with bb guns this morning. The window isn’t broken. Thank goodness.
There is a group of boys in the neighborhood that are about 10 years old. They are friends. Some live in the house across the street, some live in the house behind us and some live in the house just next door to the north of us. Our yard is their direct pathway to each other’s houses. They are rambunctious boys who like to dress up in camo and sneak around chasing each other yelling and screaming along the way (this morning is the first time I have seen bb guns).
I have had many a chat with them.
At 10:30 one night, in my jammies I walked outside and told them my baby was sleeping right in the corner where they were running and screaming. I asked them so stay out of our yard after dark so they didnt wake my baby. They were polite. They didn’t stay out of the yard but they did become quiet as they ran past that side of my house.
We are finishing our yard this summer. And getting a fence. I’m excited.
Well, happy Sunday morning to you all! I guess I’ll go eat breakfast since I’m awake anyway. I hope your Sunday is filled with joy, peace and enlightenment.
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.
