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 

A Year In Review 2014 Edition

This will be a long post, but I promise it'll be mostly pictures. I won't be offended if you just look at all the pictures though. 

This year by far has been the best yet (though I know 2015 is going to beat it).

We spent winter semester hanging out with friends and having an epic married couples sleepover.

We played Betrayal at the House on the Hill, had lots of snacks and lots of laughs.

 We have been blessed with such great friends here in Rexburg and I will hate to go whenever the time comes. 

Oh and we built a fort!

Later on we went down to California to visit Garett's family for a weekend and to take a break from the Idaho winter.

I must say I love going down there to see his family and also the beauty that is southern California.

 Our friends Katy and Sam added a new member to their family, their cute puppy Marley. 

 In the srping my mom came to visit and we go to go to the drive-in theater. 

In the spring Garett and I found out we were pregnant with Joshua.

I have to say it was a beautiful surprise right before mother's day. 

Though that brought about morning sickness which lasted all semester.

I was taking ceramics that semester and throwing on the wheel made it worse.

I'm surprised I survived that.

(No that wasn't thrown on the wheel, but I'm not particularly proud of the stuff I threw)

We had our first appointment right before my birthday and it started to settle in that Joshua was really there, growing and becoming an awesome little person.

I remember my doctor telling me not to increase my exercise dramatically and of course I had a travel study down to Moab, UT the next week where we got 3 hours of sleep and hiked 15 miles. 

It was worth it though! 

I made some great friends on that trip and had tons of fun despite being sleep deprived.

Goes to show that you can still handle a lot even with being sick, or maybe I just got really lucky.

 After our 2nd appointment and making sure Joshua survived that semester as well, we decided to announce his arrival!

Garett graduated with his Bachelors in Microbiology.

And my dearest friend Haley married her love Bryce.

She made a beautiful bride!

Around our 2 year anniversary we went down to California and got to go camping at Carlsbad beach with Garett's family. I loved it and would do it again in a heartbeat!

I got to see Garett surf for the 1st time in 5 years and it was by far the coolest thing I've ever seen.

Surfing is a very attractive sport. 

Shortly after that we found out Joshua was a boy!

To prepare for Joshua we moved to a 2 bedroom apartment in our complex. 

For Halloween we continued our tradition of carving pumpkins with our friends Katy and Sam.

Not pictured is that his past semester Garett and I got to have a pretty fun game of D&D with several of our close friends. Garett was our DM and made it fun for all of us.

During Thanksgiving break Garett and I went down to Utah to see my family as well as Grandpa Bonds one last time.

He was thrilled to hear that his great-grandson Bonds was on his way. 

(FYI Joshua is the 1st great-grandchild to carry on Grandpa Bonds name, so he was pretty thrilled)

My final semester kept me busy with walking lots and climbing 4 flights of stairs every day. 

On the bright side it helped me keep my pregnancy weight under control. 

In December I graduated with my Bachelors in Photography at 37 weeks.

Then we played the waiting game over Christmas break.

Due to being so pregnant, Garett and I spent our first and only Christmas alone in Rexburg.

Luckily we had great friends (Ron and Bryton) to share Christmas day with.

Shortly after the new year I went into labor and gave birth to our son Joshua. 

Grandpa Bonds despite his health lived to see Joshua being born.

Though they never met in person it was wonderful that Grandpa Bonds got to see pictures of Joshua and his arrival into this world.

It was a roller coaster of a year thanks to Garett and I finishing school, making new friends and me being pregnant for most of it.

We had a wonderful year and loved getting to share it with such great friends and family!

We love you all and this year shall be even better!

-Megan

Joshua has arrived!

In case you haven't seen the millions of posts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, our baby boy has arrived!

Joshua William Bonds arrived at 3:45 am on Monday January 5th 2015. 

He was 6 lbs 8 oz and 19 1/2 inches long. 

He is absolutely adorable and I am happily biased.

I'll back up briefly though for a moment to explain how we wrapped up the end of 2014.

We got to finish the year out by seeing our dear friends Ron and Bryton get sealed, which was beautiful to see. We are so happy to have gotten to share that special day with them.

We then got to spend New Years with our wonderful friends Katy and Sam!

Below is the gorgeous Katy!

And of course Sam. Garett and Sam met on their missions to Zimbabwe.

Who knew that they would stay dear friends through both getting married and now us having a baby.

Honestly we spent New Years playing Terraria with them and getting them hooked on it. It was a fun filled evening with great friends and lots of laughs.

I guess this was the last picture of me pregnant at 39 weeks. 

 Little did we know that on Sunday January 4th around 4 am, my water would break and everything began to change.

After almost 24 hours of labor Joshua arrived to us. I think I'll do another post on my labor story. It was an exhausting one, but worth it.

I apologize for my swollen face, I ended up having to have a c-section and all those medications made me puffy. I can honestly say I was just tired and happy.

Garett immediately took to being a dad and it looks good on him.

Right after he was born they moved us to a small temporary recovery room that only had a chair for Garett to sleep in so I had him join me since I had just lost a bunch of weight and and room for him. He immediately passed out and so did Joshua. 

 And now for tons of pictures of Joshua. 

If you don't want to see a ton of pictures of my baby, then I am sorry for you.

Last week was honestly a blur. Garett and I were up for over 24 hours straight and pretty much no food and no rest. 

While we were in the hospital it felt like we were in a twilight zone. I never really knew what day it was and time didn't seem to matter since 

He mostly sleeps and eats, but even when he is asleep he is adorable!

When he is awake and not eating this is a common face of his.

He always looks like he is contemplating deep and important things that might save the world one day. I have to wonder what is going on in that brain of his. 

Like I said Garett is taking to his fatherhood thing.

Joshua's favorite thing to do is eat and then fall asleep in mommy's lap. 

=]

We love having in our lives! I have never been so tired in my life, though it isn't as bad as I thought it would be. He is precious and sweet and I wouldn't change a thing about him. Truly our lives will never be the same and we're excited for this new chapter. 

Thank you to our friends who came to see us in the hospital, to the sweet friends in our ward that brought us meals and to my dear mom for coming and helping us out for a few days. I can't wait for the rest of our family and friends to get to meet him. We love you all and thank you for all your well wishes and support. 

-Megan