Happy Birthday, James!

My baby is two! He requested waffles for breakfast, so I made up a batch from scratch since I ran out of mix (he eats a lot of waffles).  Then we cleaned the apartment (the kitchen in particular--making cake is messy business!).
If you sign up for the Birthday Club at Toys R Us, you get a few dollars to spend at the store. So we went and picked out a toy. He finally decided on a little tractor that makes big tractor noises (I'm secretly looking forward to the day when the batteries run out).
Then we came back home to get ready for his party.

The Tractor

Playing with his balloons

The Cake!

He was so excited to blow out the candles. 

Opening presents

To make the day even more perfect, he went to bed early in his big boy bed and stayed there all night. Yay James!

Two.

My baby turns 2 tomorrow. Where has the time gone?

May

is a crazy month for us. First my birthday on the 5th, then Mother's Day on the 9th, our anniversary on the 19th, Paul's birthday on the 25th and my sister's high school graduation on the 27th! Throw the move in there on the 21st and Memorial Day and it's just one hectic month!
For my birthday I went dumpster diving for moving boxes with Kim in the morning and went home and made myself a double layer chocolate cake. Paul came home with flowers and...a double layer chocolate cake. We had a lot of chocolate cake! It was probably the most laid back (aka boring) birthday I've ever had, but I didn't mind.

On Mother's Day Paul woke up and took care of James and cleaned before I even woke up. I love that man. Of course there were flowers  and these cute placemats from Williams and Sonoma :)

I made chocolate dipped strawberries for my mother. I wrapped a shoebox lid in nice wrapping paper, put the strawberries on parchment paper and then covered the whole thing in plastic wrap. I think it turned out well.

For our anniversary we went to Tucanos. We took James with us. We don't often get alone dates anymore. Finding a sitter is difficult, and we don't mind dragging him along.

Anniversary Flowers

Then there was moving day/days. Paul and I loaded up both cars with the fragile stuff and headed to the new place. It took much longer than I would have liked to pick up the keys and get the cars unloaded. We had a slight scare when we walked in that perhaps it was going to be too small for all of our furniture, but it all fits. Then we went to a few places looking for a U-Haul. By then we had to stop off for lunch, so we didn't start loading the U-Haul until probably 1 or 2. Luckily we have some great friends who came along to help us. It was still a very long and tedious process. Can I just say that moving with a little boy is NOT fun. Naps were missed, feedings were constant, screaming ensued from all the commotion and when we finally had the beds set up little James wouldn't sleep. He ended up in our bed, so none of us were well rested. The next morning we went over to pick up the last few things and clean. It turns out that there were a lot of last few things!

My dad brought his truck over and we were able to move everything but the fish. Being quite sick of going back and forth and still not being unpacked, we waited until Sunday to go get the fish. The landlord had said that he would pick up the key from us at our new place, but Sunday night he called and asked that I put them on the counter!! Soooo, Monday I had to go all the way back to Springville to leave the keys. It was so good to be out of there after all of that.

Helping me clean the fridge.

He "Helped" a little too much so we sat him in his stroller while we finished cleaning.

James has gone right back to his normal sleeping schedule and isn't afraid of the new place at all. In fact, I think he likes it better since it has proven difficult to baby-proof. I've finally unpacked everything and we even have our pictures on the wall. I admit that I'm quite homesick for the other place though. Not because there is anything wrong with this one at all, it's just that we lived there for a year and half. That is the longest I have been in one spot for nearly 5 years and we really made that place home. Now to make this place feel the same way!

For Paul's birthday I made chicken pot pie (his favorite) and a carrot cake. It was fairly low-key since James was already asleep.

My sister Rosilynn graduated from high school. She's the 6th child of 7, but the first to actually graduate. We were "homeschooled" as kids so she's the first to actually attend all four years and graduate. I'm so proud of her! It was way past James' bedtime by the time she finally walked, so he was unusually grumpy.

He kept going back for more and then would get super dizzy and laugh hysterically. He's a funny kid.

Then there was Memorial Day weekend!

Paul doesn't have school on Fridays so he got off early and we went to the park.  We've recently discovered an awesome park in Orem and I have been spending a lot of time there. After church on Sunday we packed up a lunch and went to the park again. Homework kept Paul pretty busy for most of the weekend, but it was nice to have him home.

He loves bananas.

In the midst of all this I forgot to get the car registration done!  So now I have to hope that I don't get pulled over for expired tags on my way to Jiffy Lube. Did I mention that May is crazy for us?
And then there were all the other random adventures of the month:

Christian's Massive BBQ

It snowed the first weekend in the new place.

 I went to IKEA with my sister and we found this fun toy rat. Kind of freaky if you ask me.

Playing at the new place.

Paul decided that we needed an ice cream break. He bought 2 Kong Cones. I have been eating Kong cone for days.

I'm not one to typically feed my kid a bunch of junk, but everyone has their first oreo at some point!

Being Silly.

...and it doesn't take much imagination to know what's going on in this one.

A Very Merry Christmas

Christmas Baking

All of my sisters came over for our annual Christmas Cookie Day. Here are some pictures of the goodies we made.


My sister Roxanna made a manger scene out of her cookies. I thought it was cute.

And my sister Reanna made these morbid, scary cookies. As usual. My favorite would have to be the prune eye cookie though.

I got brave this year and made bon bons. I always thought they would be difficult to make, but these were so easy and fun! I love how they turned out.

Christmas Festivities

What a great Christmas we had this year! Thanks to some amazing family and friends James made out like a very spoiled little boy. We didn't know how great it was going to turn out because we woke up on Christmas Eve to a very cranky James. One of his eyes was swollen shut and oozing and he was totally miserable. We had plans to go to the annual Christmas movie with my family but ended up in Urgent Care instead. As it turned out the poor kid had a double ear infection that had spread to his eyes and throat. I felt so horrible because the only indication he had given that anything was remotely wrong was tugging at his ear a few days before. After that it was off to the pharmacy for antibiotics and ear drops. Add a dose of tylenol and he was peacefully sleeping in no time flat. We spent the rest of our day catering to the baby and later on we went for a drive and looked at Christmas lights. When we came home we watched Christmas movies before heading to bed.

His eyes were so sensitive to light on Christmas Eve that we had to put his sunglasses on inside the house! He was happier when they were on because he could still play.

James doesn't get how to open presents on his own. He loves to crinkle the paper, but when it came to actually opening them he needed a little help. We would help him unwrap a present, show it to him and then put it aside so he could open another one. This method really made him mad because we kept giving him toys and taking them away. About half way through he had had it with opening and just wanted to play, so Paul and I opened the rest and Paul put all the toys together.

After the medicine kicked in on Christmas Eve. You can still see that his left eye is red and puffy. Poor baby.

Great Grandma Cohoon sent him this sled. SO cute.


Christmas Morning

James got so many presents I don't think I could list them all, so here's a picture of his presents:

For Christmas this year we set a budget that PAUL didn't stick to. Stinker. He sold his books and added it to his budget without me knowing. He bought me a Franklin planner. And not just any planner, but a Jean Chatzky Financial planner! I am SO stoked about this gift. It may seem silly to some, but I currently have been organizing my life out of several binders and folders. Being able to have everything organized is such a relief. I LOVE my gift :) He also got me a box of chocolates. All caramels because they are the only ones I really like. I also got a couponizer (a coupon organizer) from my awesome almost-brother-in-law. Oh, and a sewing machine from my dad. I'm SO excited to finally have a sewing machine. I can not wait to try it out.

I got Paul the Joseph Smith Papers. He's been wanting this book forever, so I broke down and bought it for him. I also got him some cologne by Versace. Mmmm. He also got a watch from my parents and a charging station from my sister.

After our Christmas at home we went over to my parents for Christmas dinner and gift exchange with my brothers and sisters. It was a nice relaxing holiday but I can't believe that Christmas is over and it's time to take down all the decorations. I'm always sad to take down my tree. I love all the lights. I'm also going to have to come up with new things to entertain James. We have been truly blessed this year and I am so grateful to so many people. I hope you all had a happy Christmas!

2 Months

James hit the 2 month mark last week. He was all dressed up after church and in a chipper mood (to bad he wasn't in that mood during church) so we decided to take some pictures of our little boy. He loved the attention. We had 2 cameras going at once. Here are a few that we took. Isn't he so handsome? :)

Big yawn!

I have no idea why he does this, but it makes me laugh.

My favorite. He's SO happy and giggly.

I love his little fists. He kept wiggling and would face-plant into the sofa.

Our Growing Boy

James is over a month old now. Sometimes it seems like we brought him home yesterday, and others it seems like we've had him forever (although, sometimes I think this feeling is derived from lack of sleep). It's so much fun to watch him develop his little personality. He had a checkup yesterday and Paul and I were guessing his weight. I said 10 pounds, Paul said 10 pounds 6 ounces. We were both way off. He is now over 11 pounds (and 3 ounces if you want specifics) and continues to eat like crazy. His eyes have turned light blue and I'm really hoping they stay that way because they're SO pretty. He'll kill me in 15 years for saying he had pretty eyes, but oh well. He has horrible reflux and gas (the last one shouldn't surprise me considering who his daddy is) and it's taken us a while to find relief for him. We tried gas medication, but it just wasn't cutting it. We finally discovered the miracle elixer that is Gripe Water. It's a homeopathic medicine for colic and I'm telling you it's a lifesaver!! I let him sleep on his tummy during the day when I can watch him, which seems to help so he's now a relatively happy baby, except at night when he turns into a fussy monster, but we love him anyway :)

All clean in his little robe. He LOVES baths.

Lifting up his heavy little head.

1 Month old!

Our little cutie!