"Go Go"

Guess what!

We moved about a month ago!

There are still no pictures of our apartment because it is never clean during the daylight hours, which is truly a shame because we get some great natural light here.

One morning I will be proactive before Joshua wakes up and destroys my hard work and take pictures of our new home.

In the midst of moving and unpacking we decided to take a 24 hour trip up to Idaho to see our niece get baptized.

Despite being completely exhausted from leaving at 4:30 in the morning to make it on time (if but barely) we had a blast!

Garett and I are in love with Idaho and going back is always a treat. 

Getting to see family was the icing on the cake and getting to play in the river was the sprinkles on top of it all.

Joshua warmed up to all his cousins and aunts effortlessly (probably uncles too but I wasn't always paying attention) and of course his grandparents. He found out one of his cousins would carry him around and take him outside so I think they are probably best friends now.

Then to top it all off we got to play in a river!

I thought Joshua was going to die of happiness from splashing around and throwing the biggest rocks he could find. (Note the HUGE diaper full of water and rock in his hand. We didn't bring any pool diapers so he got to enjoy an incredibly heavy diaper full of water, it was almost as big as him by time we changed him)

It was a nice, but a fast trip. The weather was perfect and the company was wonderful.

Since then we have been working on settling into our new routine. Garett works evenings which is an adjustment, but probably for the best. We all kind of get grumpy in the evenings, but when it is just Joshua and I we handle being grumpy a little better together. 

Though since we've been here Joshua has become even more of an angel 

(I didn't think it was possible!)

The pictures are from this past week where Garett has been teaching Joshua (and me) how to long board. Apparently I ride goofy (meaning I ride with my right foot forward). Garett rides normal, but kicks mongo (meaning he pushes off with his front foot instead of his back which is much harder and awkward) 

It is Joshua's new favorite thing and he would make Garett ride around the parking lot all day if he could. Sadly daddy gets tired after awhile, but we have lots of fun when we can.

Having settled in I have decided children are a lot like fish. They need the proper sized living quarters for their energy and growth.

We just came from being with family that has a nice sized house, to a 2 bedroom apartment.

This means our small fry goes a bit stir crazy when there isn't enough to explore. 

We have 2 options to help with this.

The 1st is we have a balcony which is lovely and easy to access (only downfall right now are the bars are not as close together as I would like, but we are getting some netting for my peace of mind).

The 2nd is taking walks to the playground or the nice big lawn over by the church (depending on the heat and mommy's energy levels).

The other day we took his cart with us on our walk which ended up with him pushing for the 1st block and then me carrying him and his cart the rest of the time. Oh well, it was still fun.

Joshua is learning lots of new words lately.

His favorites are Eye Brow

"I" which means yes (we have decided he is a pirate)

"Go go" from the Dr. Suess Cat in the Hat show

"Dog dog"

"Ding ding" from trolley on Daniel Tiger 

and "bye bye"

He also said his first sentence yesterday which was "Go bye bye" when we had to leave the play ground and he kept saying it as we walked away. 

To be fair we were at the play ground for a long time and it was nearing bedtime.

Overall this move has been great for us. Joshua has been better behaved, mornings are now family cuddle time while we watch cartoons together and snuggles are frequent. 

Joshua is learning to help more around the house including turning his sound machine and night light on and off at the beginning and end of each nap/bedtime/morning which actually makes putting him to bed much easier.

We still don't have everything down perfectly, but we're getting there one day at a time.

I'll leave you with a fun video of Joshua and Garett riding the long

board together.

-Megan

Double Rainbow, What Does It Even Mean?

If you get that reference you are nerdy and I love you. 

Last post I covered Joshua's accomplishments at 11 months old and of course he's a completely new person at 14 months.

When people ask how old he is I say "1" and they look at me like "Um no I meant in months". Don't make me be one of those moms! So for all you moms who need his exact age he is 14 months today.

Anyway I'm pretty sure right after I posted in December that he learned to walk the next day.

Joshua has fantastic balance for his age and can even run. (I mean it's not a jog or anything, but he can move fast, especially if the fridge is open) 

Guys he learned to walk 3 months ago and now he can basically run. 

Is that not crazy?

I wish I could name all of his little accomplishments which mean the world to me, but it being late and me feeling sentimental, I think I will focus on the cute things he does.

He loves to be tickled and play hide and go seek.

He tries to blow on his food before he eats it, because that is what mommy does.

Sometimes he puts his food on the lid of his sippy cup and then eats it off of there when he goes for a drink. We think he is trying to us it like a spoon?

Every morning the first time he says "All done" he actually just wants a drink and will keep eating until his cereal is done.

He loves spicy food, which I find odd for being a year old, but hey who am I to stop him from eating sweet and spicy chicken?

He likes to carry things around like the recycling bin, trash cans or his stepping stool. The other day the recycling bin was in the bathroom and the bathroom trashcan was behind my bedroom door.

Since it has started to warm up here in Utah, Joshua loves going to the park and I more or less have to drag him away from the park. (Well once I put him in the stroller and start walking he is fine)

(This is him being taken away from eating dirty snow and going home)

He loves going down the slide on his tummy, and not even the baby slide, he likes the BIG slide.

I always wonder if he knows how much Garett and I love him.
The joy he brings to us is incredible.

About a year ago I posted my feelings of Joshua in our lives after only 8 weeks and how much our love has grown....these cute little things are just tiny examples of why our little munchkin is so great.

We have a fun habit of brushing our teeth together every morning.

Good habits start young right?

Did I mention he likes climbing?

He climbs all over everything, so much so that we have rearranged his room recently.

It was partially due to an old poopy diaper in the crib....but also due to him being close to climbing out of his crib.

Recently we have gotten to see lots of cousins.

Joshua isn't sure what to make of Julie yet, but he seems okay with her.

Miriam was much more of a challenge for Joshua though. She liked to play with all his toys and took a bath in his tub and he wasn't too happy about it at first.

But eventually they got along pretty well. 

I have a feeling they will be driving each other crazy for years to come.

P.S. They are 7ish weeks apart and I think that's rather cool.

I think Miriam wore him out, especially how hyper she gets when she takes a bath.

That girl might love baths more than life itself....I am not even kidding.

After they left Joshua was bummed, but we tried to make up for it a month later by going to Rexburg.

Joshua loved our friends apartments because there were endless amounts of things to touch and pull off, move, etc.

We had a blast staying up playing League of Legends with our friends and having a marvelous time.

We even stayed up late like we were teenagers! Oh to stay up until the wee hours of the morning and then be able to sleep until noon the next day....

All the same we had fun and our angel of a friend Bryton made us this sweet charm before we left!

I am still ogling it and feeling spoiled!

How we miss our dear friends and hope one day they we can all live relatively close to one another.
Though the dream will always be to be neighbors.

Now to conclude this post with a handful of pictures of Joshua for I am his mom and therefore I must take a ridiculously large number of photos of him.

I wish I could explain my love for him. People always say the reason they don't want children is because they smell and cry all the time, but let me tell you, there are a million more wonderful reasons to have children and these pictures show just a few.

This is from yesterday. Joshua was teething and not feeling well and he just hung out with me on the couch and even let me cuddle him. Days like yesterday make my heart melt.

How can I not look at that face and want to give that little boy the world?

Did I mention we have a few games?

One is when we sit up against the wall, Joshua comes up behind us and makes us move then sits down on the floor behind us.

The other is that he likes to lay on our faces....

I will leave you with this photo that sums up my entire world.

I fully believe I am the luckiest lady in the world and I would not trade these boys for anything.

Being a mom really is the greatest. Yeah there are hard times, but there are far more wonderful, fun, silly and all around grand moments. I call Joshua my little angel, because he is a gift from God.

I can't imagine my life without him. It truly is incredible how much a little person, that has only been on this earth just over a year, can change your world and heart forever.

Thank you for all those who have been apart of our lives and adding to our joy in this grand adventure of life. We love you all and hope to be better at keeping you updated on our meanderings.

(Is it too late to start a New Year resolution in March?)

-Love you all,

Megan 

Tis the Season to Forget Everything

If I told you how many times I have been to Walmart recently, I would be ashamed. I have been nonstop busy for the last month, with Christmas presents and starting to become a little crafty. (i.e. attempting to make nice Christmas presents, I hope you like yours Catherine! Also there might be a small hole in the wrapping paper....try not to peek...) and an almost 1 year old, my life is chaos. I am finally starting to enter the phase of "Wow this is why moms are always tired".

Speaking of which, Joshua is 11 months old! He is basically ONE and that is insane!

I am not really good of doing the month to month posts of what my child has learned to do, so I will try to cover the last 3 months right now.

Joshua crawls super fast so my day is mainly spent chasing him around and making sure he doesn't kill himself because he gets into EVERYTHING! Make up, the computer, pulling up the vent out of the floor, the trash, the cords, pulling things off of end tables, opens drawers and pulling everything out, the trash, pulling the toilet paper off the roll, the water bowl and did I mention the trash?

Just recently I was trying to finish my breakfast half asleep (this is surprisingly not normal) and I look over to see he is covered and trash, and not the just paper and easy things to get off. I mean crumbs and other sticky things galore. So he got his bath a bit early.

He LOVES baths! To the point that I just let him crawl around in the tub for 30 minutes until the water is half cold and he seems like he wants out.

Just the other day he figured out how to turn on the shower though. I should preface that with the fact that I let some water trickle out of the end of the spout at the end of his bath so he will look up and I can rinse his hair.

It seemed ingenious until he figured out he can turn the water to freezing and turn on the shower...now I just have to be more careful and it's more of a game/battle.

Oh and the stubbornness! He now is starting to throw fits when we tell him not to touch things. (Boy oh boy....but luckily this is pretty rare)

He tries to climb on everything. He frequently uses me as a stepping stool. He has been climbing up the stairs for a long time, but recently he learned to climb down the stairs and how to get off the bed/couch (mostly) safely. He's fast and strangely careful about it.

He can basically walk. He took 7 steps the other day. He is constantly trying, but I think he likes to try when he thinks no one is looking. It's rather funny.

Also pretty recent is hugs! This started probably 3 days ago but I think he is starting to give hugs and I am loving it!!!!!!!!

This is probably my favorite of his new habits. I miss how he used to snuggle me, so hugs are one step in the right direction. (Though I have come to terms that snuggling may not come back again until he is officially a toddler and probably only when he is sick, but hey I can dream right?)

Along the line of awesome things, is that he eats solid meals now all the time. He still nurses a little bit, mainly before naps and bed. He has cereal for breakfast, and then eats whatever I eat for lunch and dinner. He loves stuffing and bananas and most things. (He HATED baby food, like truly hated it, so that made 6-8 months kind of complicated for me). I had it all planned out in my head that I would start introducing baby food at 6 months and slowly over the next several months transition him to real food, but he threw that idea out the window.

He eats tons though, he can eat a whole can of chicken noodle soup, seriously this kid is insane. It baffles me that he is such a petite baby for how much he eats.

Sadly no teeth that I can see, but I am not good at checking...but I am not too worried. Joshua has proven to me time and time again that he will only do things when he is good a ready. An example is crawling. He could have easily been crawling at 6 months, like he was ready, but he didn't care to learn. He finally decided basically over night to learn to crawl about a month later. When he decides to learn something, he learns fast but no one is going to rush him.

So I honestly expect to wake up one day and he will just be walking perfectly everywhere because that is Joshua.

He sleeps 10pm-8am and I am actually mostly okay with that, but he takes 2 solid 2 hour naps a day and is on a really nice schedule so I can't complain.

Why I feel so busy is because I can only get things done during the 1st nap time. The 2nd nap time is mainly getting things cleaned up before Garett gets home.

We did get to see Garett's family for Thanksgiving this year. It is always great to see them since they are rather far away.

We are also planning on being there for Christmas. We were supposed to go last year but because Joshua was on his way, traveling was out of the question.

Garett is working tons and tons and we were doing pretty well at saving up money, but Christmas slowed that down a bit as it always seems to do.

He also just finished applying to grad school for Microbiology which means we will be biting our nails until sometime early next year when we figure out where on earth we are going to be moving to. We've applied to schools all around the country so we could end up anywhere.

I think that covers most of everything that has happened recently. I would blog more, but like I said, my window of productivity is pretty small.

My Tiny Obsession

Warning: This is 100% a mommy obsession blog over my favorite little person.

Aka lots of pictures (and even some videos) of Joshua being awesome!

Joshua has changed a ton just in the last 2 months.

He rolls EVERYWHERE and is pretty close to crawling.

He loves to eat his dad's nose.

I don't really know why, but it's cute.

He really loves his daddy, especially when his daddy tickles him.

This is probably my favorite shirt of his. 

Who doesn't love the classics?

Joshua has gotten really good at sitting up and playing with his toys.

He can't get into the sitting position by himself yet, but he's got time.

That face kills me! *swooning*

A few weeks ago we started to introduce baby food.

He doesn't seem to care for most of except applesauce.

He likes it apparently only when I feed it to him though (he spits it out for anyone else).

He has a jumper/bouncer toy that he LOVES.

He will bounce for hours on end until he is ready to nap.

On the 4th of July he got to see fireworks for the first time.

Baby logic: "Oh big explosions......cool......"

*mom sneezes* "Ahhhhh! I must burst into tears!"

Anyone else get that logic?

We've started a fun little tradition of bringing him in our room when we're trying to let him relax before bed. We watch a little show on netflix while he sits in bed with us until it's time for bed and then we have his bedtime routine. 

He's a pretty chill baby boy.

He doesn't mind just hanging out with daddy while he reads. It's pretty sweet.

This kid is pretty great!

I've decided 6 months old is when they really start becoming addicting.

He's so fun and spunky and I feel incredibly blessed to be his mom.

He is the best little person ever and I cannot imagine my life without him.

For your patience here are some videos of him playing and laughing:

On a side note he likes to fake cough and make spitting noises...

(Sometimes those mean "no")

-Megan

All Sounds and Excitement Here

Having an infant means that change and growth is a daily occurrence and you never know when your little one is going to do something new for the first time like smile, coo, laugh, or grab his feet and try to eat them.

One thing is for sure, there is rarely a dull moment in our house. 

Joshua is a pretty happy boy. He'll smile at pretty much anyone that smiles at him first. 

He loves to fall asleep in Garett's lap, especially at church.

Joshua is truly the most amazing little person and our lives are all the more richer with him in it.

I will admit, I am his favorite (because I am with him all the time and I feed him) and I soak it up. I know it won't last so I try to enjoy it as much as I can. He is my own personal cheer leader and it is the best. Motherhood is like having super powers. Once or twice Joshua got really upset to the point that even Garett couldn't sooth him, but once he handed Joshua to me he was fine. It was kind of magical! Though I felt a bit bad that Garett couldn't help, it was also kind of awesome.

He has a way of making every day brighter and better.

It is not to say that it isn't hard, but the hard days are few and far between. More often than not my days are filled with sweet babbling and giggles. 

A week and a half ago Joshua rather suddenly started laughing and babbling all the time.

He had had small little semi-laughs before, but now it is full on giggling and sweetness.

He also has a goal to shove as many fingers in his mouth as possible.

Since it is finally warming up here Garett and I have started taking walks with Joshua. He normally ends up falling asleep because it is often too bright or windy for him to enjoy fully. But he tries to look around as much as possible before dosing off.

Life is truly amazing with our little guy, I don't say this to brag, but to say how grateful I am for our little boy. I hope anyone who reads this that is pregnant or looking forward to starting their family in the future may get some hope that life won't be as hard as they anticipate. 

I remember people telling me that I was never going to sleep again, get in daily showers or have any alone time ever again. I felt like towards the end of pregnancy people tended to point out only the scary points and it kind of bothered me.

So I am here to say though it is not that bad, honestly there are way more great days than bad. Yes, more often than not I am somewhat sleep deprived, but holding my sweet boy as he smiles at me makes it all worth it, even if some of those moments happen at 5 o'clock in the morning. I imagine any parents that read this understand.

The love and joy I have in my heart for my little family is incomparable. Words cannot fully describe my love for our sweet little Joshua. All that I can really say is that I would never go back, never!

I feel like I had never truly lived until Joshua joined our small family. Motherly love (and probably fatherly love too, I can't vouch for it) is incredible, incomparable and indescribable. 

I apologize for getting mushy, but how can I not? I guess maybe I am sharing this because motherhood tends to get a negative rep in the world today and I don't want people to fear it or look down on it. I want everyone to be thrilled about it! I know that sounds silly, but I mean it. It's probably because I love being a mom so much that I want to share that joy with the world. When you have a good thing, you want to share it. 

I know there are probably plenty of hard days ahead, but I also know there are going to be tons of wonderful days ahead. So for moms that might be having a rough day, I hope you can remember some sweet times with your kids. For those that are pregnant, I hope you are excited and thrilled to be a mom, because it is AWESOME! And for those who might not be there yet or for awhile, maybe you can tuck the excitement away for when your time may come, maybe now you won't be as scared of motherhood.

To end I have 2 small videos, one of Joshua laughing (though I apologize, it is not his best laugh. Those are harder to catch on video) and the other is of Joshua babbling to himself/his toys. The reason you can't see his face always, is because if he notices my phone he will get quiet so I kind of have to hide.

I love you all and hope you are having a splendid week!

-Meg