Facebook free

I'm going Facebook free again for a while, so I'm going to try extra hard to post here fairly regularly. I'm not sure anyone still reads it except my mom, but at least I'm making an effort, right? :)

Right now, not too much is going on with my little family. Jeremy is hilarious as ever. He gets these silly ideas, like setting up his train tracks on our dog Lacie. It's a good thing she's so patient!

As Jeremy's speech continues to improve, he is getting ever more entertaining. I love hearing all his opinions on everything. His latest has been in the car. Now that the Christmas music is long gone, I've switched back to listening to soundtracks from musicals in the car. Well, the first time he heard Starlight Express, a musical about trains, he was hooked. He won't let me put on any other musicals! I'm not complaining, it's not annoying children's songs, it's actually music I like! I do wish I could have a little more variety, but all things considered, I lucked out! His favorite part are the races. The narrator, a little boy, counts down from ten, and... "Trains gone!" And then he narrates the race. It amazes me how much Jeremy actually understands, just from hearing the boy narrate the race. He tells me to drive fast like the trains, and of course gets excited when he hears the noise of the crash! I'm proud to be raising a little boy who is already developing a love for musicals. :)

Justin has been very busy with Boy Scouts. They are working on establishing the flag program as a fundraiser for the ward. With it being the first year doing it, there is a lot to do. He's had scout stuff every Saturday this month! I'll be glad when all the initial stuff is over, and it passes to just the boys doing their routes each holiday. I miss my hubby!

I recently got a new calling. I'm no longer the primary pianist (best calling ever!). :( Now I am the relief society activity chair person. I've been having a hard time accepting that this is really my calling now. I went from having a calling that helped me relieve stress, to having a calling that causes stress. I already miss just being able to go to the activities. Instead of them being a nice break, a chance to socialize and unwind, now they are a responsibility. I'm the first to arrive and the last to leave, and I feel like I have to be "on" the whole time. In charge. Available for any needs that arise. I'll adjust with time, I'm sure, but I'm still having a hard time. I'm just not excited to be doing it, and that makes it hard to be motivated. Okay, I'm done whining about my new calling now.

I have finally been feeling better, pregnancy-wise. I've had more energy, and I've been wanting to get out of the house more. My house is cleaner than it's been in a long time! There's still work to be done, but it really helps my mood to not have as much clutter around. :) Jeremy has been enjoying it too, playing with his toys more and just generally being more imaginative. And apparently my arm chair is a pool, so that's cool. :)

I can't really think of any other updates right now. I'll try to write down the cute Jeremy stories as they happen, because when I try to remember them, I keep coming up blank! Until then, have a bunch of pictures!

Merry Christmas!

What a wonderful time of the year, and so very busy!

In the past month, we've enjoyed so many wonderful things:

-A trip to Sedona (one of the best, in my opinion. My parents really planned ahead and had so many fun activities for the children, it cut way down on the number of fights and meltdowns with all the grandkids. Poor Oliver got sick, and Henry on the last morning, but aside from that, it was a nice, relaxed, fun time. I'm so happy we have this tradition.)

-A missionary homecoming. It has been so fun having Natalie home again, and Jeremy getting to know her, and vice versa. She keeps commenting how he's so cute, sometimes she just can't even handle it! Natalie, I know the feeling! Jeremy has such a fun personality, sometimes I can't handle it!. The day before she came home, there was also a proposal, so there's been the excitement surrounding that, too. It's been fun getting to know Travis' fiancée Anna. She's such a fun lady. My favorite experience with her so far is from Christmas. Jeremy got a tool bench from grandma and grandpa C, and she was so in love with it. She spent some time with Jeremy, building the little tool box it came with. I thought it was adorable to see her interacting like that with her future nephew.

-A birthday. Jeremy turned 3 on the 7th! I have a 3 year old! His birthday has been spread out over quite a bit of the month, with no complaints from him! He has loved getting to open so many presents, and they have seemed to just keep coming! He's been having a blast this month between birthday and Christmas. This will definitely be his favorite time of the year growing up!

-Lots of Christmas festivities! This one will need broken up, too. There has been too much fun for one paragraph!

-A parade, riding in the fire truck. One of my favorite memories from this year. Jeremy got such a kick out of going to the fire station, seeing the great big fire trucks. He didn't want to go up on top of it, but he loved riding inside and throwing candy at the kids on the street.

-Christmas eve with the Maroneys. Lots of fun, especially going to see the temple lights. Jeremy has loved seeing the Christmas lights everywhere this year, so walking the temple grounds was a great treat for him. It was especially endearing to see him holding hands with my mom, looking at all the beautiful lights, pointing out the red spiders, and saying he was going to eat them. He's such a silly boy, I just love it. :)

-Christmas day. What a day! Jeremy was so delighted by his motorcycle from Santa. He spent all morning scooting around the house. Justin and I had gotten each other a rocking chair as our big present, so I had only gotten Justin a few small things beside that: bike lights, a headlamp, a blast match thing for lighting fires. He, on the other hand, ignored the budget and surprised me with a beautiful Greg Olsen print. It's called Angels of Christmas, and it made me cry. It's such a sweet painting of two little kids placing different pieces of a nativity. I love it.

After our Christmas, we headed to my parents' for Maroney Christmas. More presents were exchanged, most notably, the beautiful Greg Olsen prints my parents got for each of their children. My walls are going to look so good once I hang up my new paintings! The print from my parents is called Traveling By Book, it's a boy reading a book, looking up into clouds that look kind of like a castle. My family knows just which prints to pick to pull at my heartstrings.

After Maroneys, we headed to the Clements, where we started our Christmas festivities with a family nap time. Jeremy fell asleep on the way there, so we laid him down, then Justin and I took a nap, too, along with several other family members. After about an hour I got Jeremy up, and we did presents. I already mentioned the tool set Jeremy got, that Anna was so enamored with. Justin got an easy-up, and I got a water bath canner set. I'm excited to make all sorts of sauces and jams in it. :)

Today we celebrated with the extended Clement side. I got to meet Justin's aunt and uncle Robin and Jason. They live in Oregon, and came down to visit. It was a pretty laid back visit, with lunch and lots of visiting. Jeremy loved their trampoline, of course. He spent most of our 3 hours jumping on it, despite it being rather cold and windy today.

It has been such a busy, wonderful month, full of great memories, and I'm looking forward to this coming week to veg out and catch my breath!

One other exciting event this month was finding out that we are having another baby boy! It will be so fun watching Jeremy and his brother grow up together, hopefully best friends more often than enemies. :) I know it'll be crazy with two boys, but I'm so exciting for the adventures that await. Being pregnant has certainly added a degree of craziness to the holidays, since I've had a lot less energy than normal, but thankfully the awful "morning" (all day) sickness subsided just before Sedona, which was the start of all the holiday busyness. All the same, I'm excited to have a less busy schedule for the next little bit. Maybe I'll be able to do some of the things around the house that I need to get done before baby comes!

Christmas time is here!

It has been pretty crazy around here lately. We've had several sicknesses come through this house, making the busyness of thanksgiving week even crazier. Luckily, we were pretty much all feeling good for thanksgiving. Jeremy was a bit run down, but his cold waited to really hit until the day after. Poor guy, we didn't realize how sick he was getting in the morning, while we were running around doing shopping. We dropped him off at Justin's parents' house in the afternoon, so we could do some toy shopping, and apparently he just sat on the couch and watched the Lion King, super lethargic. We got him home, and discovered he had a little fever. Poor guy.

Today he's still been fairly sick, but he has enjoyed watching me put up Christmas decorations. He helped put ornaments on the tree, and had a blast. His ornament for this year is a storm trooper, and he had so much fun playing with it while we fluffed the tree branches. My favorite part was when he laid the storm trooper in a sleigh ornament and told me he was sleeping. I just love his imagination.

He has been getting more and more talkative, which has been fun. We were driving the other day to go to a store. As we turned off our street, he said the store was that way. Being silly, I said, "No its not! No stores this way!" He responded "Yes the store's this way. Mom, you're crazy!" He's right. I am. :)

Hopefully pretty soon we'll all be feeling better. At least Jeremy is still funny, even when he doesn't feel well. I just hope this cold of his is the last sickness we get this winter. I'm ready to really enjoy Christmas time!

Hello, world!

It's been over a year since I've blogged. Wow. This last year has been eventful, too!

Let's see, in December and January, we moved back to AZ. Most of the people who read this already knew that, but now it's on my blog, too. :) We bought a house, exactly 6 minutes from both my and Justin's parents. Jeremy loves being close to cousins. He is always asking to go visit Henry's house, or Samuel's house, or Abbie's house.

He's almost 3 now, which is just crazy! He had a blast at Halloween. He's starting to really get holidays. He dressed up as Mickey Mouse, I was Minnie, and Justin was Goofy. I put everything together myself, and was quite pleased with how they turned out! I even made the ear headbands and goofy hat myself!

He has a lot of different interests, but his biggest is, unfortunately, tv. He's obsessed. I try to limit it, but I'm not always the best. He loves Mickey and Star Wars the most. Star Wars kind of surprised me. He's still so young! But he pretends to be a storm trooper or Darth Vader and shoot the bad robots. He doesn't seem to quite grasp that Darth Vader is a bad guy.

He also has a knack for turning anything into a play gun. The best was when he grabbed my hot pink high heels. He was "pewing", then told me that he was actually shooting pie, with his pie gun. He shot it directly into my mouth. Too bad it doesn't really shoot pie!

He is also very energetic. He loves taking Lacie, our dog, on walks. He loves running into the couch from across the room. He loves running in circles, especially if there is something to run around. Even if it's just a shoe on the ground, he will run endless laps around that shoe!

I'm going to try to post more updates regularly (we'll see how that goes), and I'll include more about me and Justin in the next one. Right now though, it's Jeremy's nap time, and I'm tired too. :)

Look! A bunch of random pictures!

Pictures of a cutie

Just some pictures of a cute boy to start off your weekend right.

A call to arms... er, fingers!

I've been feeling a little homesick lately. I think it's mainly because my best friend, who happened to move into the ward I'm in a week before we did, is about to move out. We clicked so instantly, and became so close in such a short time, I'm certain we were meant to be in the same place at the same time. Because of this, I always kind of assumed we'd move out around the same time. Since I found out she's moving, I've really been itching to move back home.
Unfortunately, that's not always how it works.

This is what he does when I say "Say cheese!"

So, I'm asking for your help. Yes, YOU. You, my family and friends, who are reading this blog right now. As soon as you finish (or before, whatever), go and write a blog post. Let me know what's going on with you. Keep me in the loop. Pictures are an extra bonus, and will be rewarded with extra points. Yep, points. Points kind of like in Whose Line is it Anyway, where the rules are made up and the points don't matter. :)
Now I realize I can't ask this of you without doing it myself, so here's a blog post, complete with pictures!

We pulled the couch away from the window so he can play in the gap. He loves it. He doesn't love the dust on his finger in the top right picture.

Lately, Jeremy has been obsessed, and I mean OBSESSED, with anything that goes. Cars, planes, trains, boats, you name it. I've been amazed at how quickly his vocabulary has grown in that regard. He started with car, for anything that has wheels. Then he added bike, since we bike a lot. Next was boat, then, surprisingly, motorcycle. He doesn't say the whole word, just "cycle", but still, I think it's impressive! Next was choo choo, for train, then bus, and then truck, although that one is still hit or miss. I think it's amazing that a 1 and a half year old has 7 words for different forms of transportation. Maybe this bodes well for my dad, and he'll finally have one of his own grandchildren develop an interest in racing with him.

Playing with toy cars on top of my kitchen aid bowl

I wasn't sure if I was going to broadcast this, but I gave Jeremy a haircut last night. My dad HATES it when any of his kids cut their kids' hair, but it was getting pretty scraggly. I didn't want it to be too short though. The last time I cut it, I used the longest setting on the clippers, and it was WAY shorter than I wanted it to be. So this time, I was brave, and used scissors. My first ever hair cut not using clippers. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out! And my dad didn't even notice (or at least didn't comment) from the picture I sent last night. I only sent the "After" picture from below.

Before and after. Much less shaggy now!

Jeremy has also been very interested in helping lately. He'll put his bib where it goes after dinner, he'll help bring plates and silverware to the kitchen from the table, and he loves throwing away garbage. He's pretty good at keeping it to things that are actually trash, but occasionally I'll find the bag for his toy blocks in there, or something else that isn't garbage. I try not to dissuade him from helping, though. It's adorable, at any rate :)

Helping rake up the leaves

 Thanks for reading! Now go write your own blog post, so I can feel more connected to my AZ roots!

Good news... We're still alive!

It's been a LONG time since I've blogged. Oops! Having a toddler really eats into your free time.

I also don't have many pictures, because the SD slot on my computer broke, and I only occasionally take the time to transfer pics from my phone. I should really do that in the near future.

But I'll include the few that I've emailed myself for various reasons.

In March, we went as a family to Disneyland! It was an absolute blast. Jeremy loved every minute of it! We were very careful to take him back to the hotel for his mid-day nap, and that was totally worth it. Sure, we lost a few hours of Disney time, but it meant that the time we did have after the nap, we could actually use effectively!

Jeremy's favorite part was seeing the characters. He was at that golden age where he wasn't afraid of them yet. I think he'd be terrified of them now! He had just learned to say "doggie", so Pluto was a big winner for him. We saw him MANY times over the course of our time there :)

He was also really good at the rides. We took him on Pirates of the Caribbean several times, and Haunted Mansion once, and he did great. I had never gone on Pirates and paid so much attention to all the animals. But when that's all you recognize, that's what you get excited about. It was so cute to see him point them all out.

Triking with Grandma

Feeding the goats at the zoo. Can you tell he's an animal lover?

 We also went to AZ on that trip for my Papa's Celebration of Life. We were really grateful we could make it to that, and it's always great to see family. Jeremy also enjoyed the crackle-fest at the memorial.

Lately Jeremy has been picking up a lot more words. He's getting really good at animal sounds. Just in the last week or two, he's learned horse (neigh), cow (moo), kitty (meow), and car (vroom! and go!).

He also has become obsessed with bikes. We recently got a bike trailer, so we can take him out on bike rides. He would rather play with the pedals and chain on the bike than sit in the trailer, but he's gotten really good about staying in there and keeping his helmet on.

I'm also super busy right now. I just got a new calling as the 2nd councilor in the Relief Society Presidency, so I'm in charge of planning all of the evening activities. I spent several hours today getting things organized, but it's going to be hard finding enough people to be on the activity committee.

I also just started an 8 week fitness challenge. My best friend Essi's family is doing it, and she invited me to join up. It's the first one I've heard of where it isn't based purely on weight loss, so I decided to join in! You get points for doing or not doing certain things, and it's all fairly easy, just a matter of doing it and keeping track. The hardest things are exercising 5 days a week for 30-45 minutes (or more), and not eating any sugary/sweet treats 6 days a week. We're in week 2 right now, and so far I have a perfect score! That'll change on Friday though. Justin, Jeremy and I are going camping with Essi and Mark, her hubby, and I'll definitely be breaking the rule to not eat after 9pm. It IS camping, after all!

That's all I have for now, but I'll try to update more often as time permits.