Brad, Danielle, and Connor

Summer time

2011-06-16T14:17:00.001-07:00

It sure took a long time for summer to arrive, but I'm so glad it finally did (mostly - some days are still weird weather). We've been having a lot of fun:

Watching more of our woodland creature friends from our kitchen window. They always come down from the hills when it rains. And you can tell Connor wasn't exactly quiet - they are looking right at us in every picture.

Visiting the Jeppsons'. Connor snatching M&Ms from Grandpa Gotberg's hand, who thought it was hilarious.

Playing in the backyard, which mostly involves water or throwing rocks from the flowerbeds into the grass for Brad to pick up when he mows.

Our first visitors came to our house - our friends Matt, Christine, and Braden from California! We visited the Union Pacific Railroad Station and the Dinosaur Park in Ogden. Connor really loves having friends to play with.

Connor's friend Hannah's 1 year birthday party in Herriman. She was so cute, she just licked her cake. It was a party and a high school reunion for Brad rolled into one.

These are 3 of Brad's best friends from his glory days - Justin, Bret (Hannah's dad), and Adam.

It's been a great summer so far. We are looking forward to more fun in the sun.

Tomorrow is the big day

2011-05-13T12:24:00.000-07:00

Since we found out the house is officially ours, we've been cleaning, painting, and packing. Today we are finishing up packing and tomorrow we move in to Green. This is the most fun I've ever had moving. Normally I hate it, but this really isn't so bad (although we are both exhausted). I think it helps knowing we are moving to a more permanent location (so we won't have to do this again for a long long time), and we are really loving our new house. The more we are there and the more work we do on it, the more it becomes OUR house and the more we love it.

The mountains in Utah are gorgeous and the mountainous smell is delightful. We are looking forward to spending many nights picnicking in our backyard next to a fire pit (that we don't have yet). That may just be one of our first purchases.

We've been up to the house several times this week and I finally took some "present day" pictures. The pictures I showed before of a nicely groomed house are from when it was first put on the market to sell. Here is what some of the house presently looks like...

After much watering and fertilizing to get the grass to come back, the grass is still very scarce, but as you can see our pesky weeds are thriving. But not for long... weed and feed application is in a couple weeks. Mua-ha-ha.

Here's our one good patch of grass in the backyard. Everywhere else looks like the front yard. We are going to need a mower soon.

Here is what the rest of the front yard looks like - notice all the weeds and the random "wall" of trees growing at the front of our property. Not sure how we will get rid of those. You can see the 7-ft-tall rose bushes on the bottom right, but I'm up so high you can't tell they're that tall and really gnarly. They are.

Here is our view of the valley. It really sparkles at night.

While we were at the house last weekend painting, we were visited by some woodland creatures. These pheasants are beautiful and squawk in the small ravine/gully next to our house all the time. There are 3 in this picture. Can you see the one in the trees on the left?

We managed to get one room painted before we move in tomorrow (our bedroom). I plan to show a nice before and after in a couple weeks once we get all our new (to us) furniture in. But in the meantime, here are some other rooms not previously shown that are still green as can be.

Green formal living room.

Green enryway.

Green playroom upstairs (we had a sleep over last weekend so we could get some good work in all day Friday and Saturday).

One of the few rooms that isn't green - the office that I plan to make a formal dining room. The paper border is coming down for sure.

Lot's of work left to do, but the transformation will be awesome.

Here's Connor "helping" me pack this morning. He dragged and kicked this empty box all over our apartment for at least 20 minutes.

Happy Mother's Day

2011-05-08T20:38:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to wish all you mothers out there a happy Mother's Day. I am grateful to my mom and my mother-in-law for all they do for me. They are wonderful mothers and now the best grandmothers, and they are perfect examples to me of motherhood.

Today I was thinking about how blessed I am to have so many friends and siblings who are also excellent sources of knowledge and examples to me of good mothers.

May God bless all the mother's in the world today. May our houses be clean, and our children be happy and well-behaved. But not likely. Because a mother's work never ends, even on Mother's Day. :)

It's official!! The house is ours!!!!

2011-05-01T13:50:00.000-07:00

This post is a couple days late, but the last couple days have been busy. But good news!! We have a house now!! It finally closed and we found out on Thursday! We are so excited!!!!!

We will be living in Pleasant View, UT, and we are on a hill with a gorgeous view of the valley and the Great Salt Lake in the far distance. Now, mind you, the house doesn't quite look the way it does in the first picture (all these pictures are from online advertising the house for sale). It is a short sale and has been vacant for over 1 year so the grass is mostly weeds, the garden areas are mostly weeds, and the rose bushes at the side of the house resemble those surrounding Sleeping Beauty's castle under a spell. There is a lot of dust, dirt, and dead bugs inside too, but with some effort and a little elbow grease, we will have this place looking like new in no time! There are some repairs and updates to be done, including but not limited to PAINTING. Yep, first item on the agenda once the house is clean - get rid of all those green walls. That's probably next week or the week after. Stay tuned for some before-and-afters as I start decorating my very own house!!

Brad and I went up yesterday (Saturday) to clean all day (for about 6 hours) and change the locks on the house. I have to say, I've never enjoyed cleaning so much! Changing the locks was unsuccessful because we weren't given all the keys for the house at the sale, only the key that opens the back door. I guess the listing agent forgot she had them?? So we will do that Monday instead.

Now after much anticipation, here is what our new house looks like! We can't believe this is ours!

Family room - main floor.

Kitchen - main floor.

Living room - main floor.

Master bedroom - 2nd floor.

Attached master bathroom - 2nd floor.

One of the bedrooms - 2nd floor. (You can kinda see our view from that window, but I'll have to get a better picture.)

2nd Kitchen - basement.

View from our backyard (we don't have a fence).

We are the very last house on the street, so we don't have any neighbors immediately next to us. The next closest house is across the street in front of our house and across the street to the side of the house. Technically we are on the corner of 2 streets, but both streets dead end after our house, so it's kind of like a cul-de-sac. Nice for privacy and an unobstructed view!

Please come visit us! If you ever need a place to stay, I think we can find some room for you at our house!

Happy Easter

2011-04-25T21:36:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. We had a great Easter this year. We spent Easter Sunday with Brad's family, but our festivities started earlier in the week.

On Saturday, I decided it would be fun to make colorful cupcakes for our Sunday school class and Brad's family for Easter. I did the cheater way using cake mixes, but it made the process so much less work and, therefore, much more enjoyable. I made rainbow cupcakes and topped them with my favorite rainbow chip frosting. I don't bake very often, but I may start doing things like this more. They were delicious.

It was also well past the time for Connor to get another hair cut. After the last one a few weeks ago, I've been putting it off and putting it off. I finally got up the courage to torture my child. Brad helped. Brad had to physically (and forcefully) hold Connor's head still while I went at him with the clippers. The poor kid was crying so hard, he was bright red and sweating. But we got the job done. I didn't take an "after" shot because I was rocking a sobbing child. Just look at the family Easter pic below if you want to see.

After church in the morning, we drove an hour to Brad's parents' house, took our family Easter pictures, did an Easter egg hunt in their backyard, and ate dinner with Brad's family (Brian & Brenda, Brandon & Jenn, and Cami; Jeppson grandparents; and Aunt Orma-Jean).

I tried for 2 hours to photoshop flowers into the dirt behind me. I suck at it. Maybe my sister-in-law Jenn (who's brilliant) can help me out. This is more real anyway right??

The Easter egg hunt with Connor was a blast. He really liked finding the eggs, but wanted to hold all he found in his hands instead of putting them in the basket. He loved the candy (what kid doesn't?) and loved all the things the Easter Bunny put in his basket this year - a ball, pop rocks, bubbles, water balloons, crayons, and a toy car. We opened everything and played with them that day, and we've been doing bubbles every day since then. He requests them by name (bubbo) and when asked what bubbles do, he says "pop pop." Love it.

Notice all the eggs in his hands... he had a hard time picking up new ones.

Even with all the talk of the Easter Bunny, gifts, treats, and festivities, I hope we all remember the real reason we have to celebrate Easter. Just under 2000 years ago, our Savior Jesus Christ atoned for our sins, was crucified on the cross, and was resurrected 3 days later (Easter Sunday). In doing so, he gave us all hope. Hope in one day returning to live with God, our Heavenly Father. To live in the presence of our Heavenly Father, we must be perfect. There are no exceptions. Because, being human, we are imperfect beings, we would never have any hope at all of making it there on our own. If we come unto him, and repent of and forsake our sins, after doing the very best we can he will mercifully take our sins upon him and make up the difference. We can become perfect through Jesus Christ.

Typically Christmas is more celebrated than Easter. But if there was no Easter (meaning if Christ had not chosen to go through the Atonement) there would be no Christmas. There would be no reason to celebrate his birth if he did not fulfill his life's mission and the purpose of his miraculous birth. I know Jesus Christ is who he said he was - the Savior of all mankind. I know he was resurrected and now he lives with a body of flesh and bone. He lives! If we come unto him, we can be perfected through him, be resurrected ourselves, and return one day to live with our Heavenly Father who loves us. Happy Easter everyone.

One week later

2011-04-21T21:49:00.000-07:00

One week after all the craziness things aren't quite settled yet, but almost.

I got home from California last Thursday at 11 p.m. Friday morning 8 a.m. was the home inspection for Green House. We will have some work to do once we move in (including LOTS of yard work since the house has been vacant for a year), but fortunately the inspector didn't find any deal breakers. Hooray! We went ahead with everything, transferred some funds this week, and we are signing closing papers TOMORROW (Friday, April 22) at 3:30!!!

I know some of you are dying to see pictures, but I'm going to be mean and save them until we actually have the keys in our hands and it's officially OUR HOUSE. That should happen next week sometime. But here's a sneak preview:

This is the family room and kitchen. Notice the multi-green walls? And yes, that is green marble tile around the fireplace and green granite in the kitchen. This lady REALLY loved green.

Friday night, Brad and I went on a much needed (after 2 weeks apart) date. A sitter came at 6:30 p.m., dinner at Goodwood BBQ, minigolfing (I beat Brad by 1 stroke :)), and then strawberry-banana shakes from Burger Bar. Fun night.

Dad is also doing lots better. His scheduled checkup with the surgeon on Tuesday went great and the surgeon removed the wound-vacuum (the black sponge thing in his leg in the pictures from last post). YAY!!! That was a huge boost for Dad. He said it's really nice not to be hooked up to things anymore. (The hose from the sponge was attached to a bucket he had to carry around with him everywhere.) He is also getting stronger everyday. We are all so glad things are looking up.

This Sunday, which just so happens to be Easter Sunday, will be Connor's first Sunday in Nursery! He will be 18 months on Saturday. We have been sitting in nursery with him for the last couple weeks because he's only 17 months and he just can't handle our Sunday School classes anymore, so I'm hoping he will do ok. Our little boy is growing up so fast.

Also, some other exciting news that just came out in our families - my sister Ady and her husband Jono, as well as Brad's brother Brandon and his wife Jenn are both expecting their first babies!! Ady is due in October and Jenn is due in November. I can't wait to meet my new nephews/nieces and for Connor to have more cousins!!

It's so nice to have some good news in our family. It makes up a little for the last couple weeks. :)

And here's a cute picture of Connor from this week. He walked around half the day like this because he kept tugging at his diaper. I just love those baby buns.

It's been a crazy 2 weeks...

2011-04-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

**WARNING: This is an extremely long post. This is more for my records so if you don't want to read it all, you can look at the bolded statements to get the jist of what happened in the last 2 weeks.

Many of you already know that the biggest and scariest event of the last 2 weeks was that my dad was in the hospital. He checked into the ER three Fridays ago (March 25) because his right leg was red and swollen, and extremely painful. He stayed home from work that whole week prior because he couldn't even drive to work with it and finally checked into the ER on Friday afternoon. They admitted him and finally got him a room around midnight.

After blood work, cultures, and a lot of other tests, the doctors told us it was a very serious infection that wasn't only in his leg, but in his blood also. But they didn't know what kind of infection it was, and wouldn't know until the culture results came back. They started him immediately on antibiotics to try to knock the infection down, but his leg was so bad looking that everyone, including the doctors, thought it was probable he would lose his leg - and maybe worse, his life. We were all terrified at the thought of either. And so began the days and nights of worrying, wondering, and much praying. I checked in from Utah every few hours everyday with my mom or sister to hear how Dad was doing. There wasn't much good news. The back of Dad's leg eventually broke open and drained to relieve some of the pressure (which felt a little better for Dad) but this was not a good sign and the prognosis was still bleak. The infection appeared to be spreading further up his leg - it was now about mid-thigh. My mom asked any and all who were willing to participate in a family fast for him. Our entire family and extended family (including some friends and in-laws) did a family fast for my Dad on Tuesday, March 29. I have an increased faith and testimony that there is power in a family fast. Finally Tuesday night there was some progress (after the fast - coincidence??) and the infection backed off a little and the redness receded back down his leg. The infection was also no longer in his blood. We were all so relieved, but knew that this was only a small step.

Before any of this happened, I was already scheduled to fly down on Friday, April 8 to visit my family and to take the third test of the PE Exam but my trip down couldn't wait that long. I bumped my flight to CA up 8 days so Connor and I flew out Thursday, March 31 so that I could be with my dad and help my family through this.

My original plans for the week before my exam were to do more studying and preparing for my test on the 9th, but it was instead filled with hospital visits, babysitting Connor and Jaxson, and more worrying. Claire and I switched off babysitting and visiting Dad, and then called a babysitter to watch the boys on days she had to work so I could go to the hospital. We always wanted someone to be with dad to keep him company and help him if/when he needed help. To top it all off, my parents are in the middle of remodeling their house because a water pipe broke and flooded their main floor in December. So the downstairs is all torn apart (concrete and exposed carpet tack strips everywhere) and there were workers constantly in and out of the house. We were basically confined to 2 rooms in the upstairs, which was hard on everyone but especially the babies. When we couldn't stand to be upstairs anymore, there was no where to go except the highchairs in the kitchen down stairs to stay out of the workers' way.

With me in town, my mom was able to go back to work - she was burning her time off too quickly and was already over her allowed limit. I took my study books to the hospital with me in an attempt to get some studying in before the test, but had a very difficult time focusing and studying at all. Finally a few days before the exam, we payed a babysitter to watch the kids during my babysitting shift so I could study for a couple hours. I was able to get in a few more study sessions before the Seismic portion of the Professional Engineering Exam on Saturday, April 9, but not much. I didn't feel quite prepared as I walked into the exam, but hoped (and prayed) that I would at least remember the things I had studied (even if I had studied them weeks before). I am so glad to say that I feel really good about the exam. I think I passed, but I have to wait 10 more weeks to find out for sure. I will be disappointed if I don't pass, but I definitely didn't study as much as I should have. I'll keep you all posted. It was such a relief to be done with the test! That lifted a huge burden of stress off my shoulders.

Later that Saturday was Jaxson's 2 year Thomas the Train birthday party at the park. It was fun!

The test wasn't the only thing I had to worry about that first week I was down. Our offer on Green was finally approved!! So while I was watching 2 little boys, visiting my dad at the hospital, and studying (or not) for my test, I was also trying to get quotes from lenders, shop for interest rates, sign all our paperwork and get the required bank statements and W2s to our chosen lender all from California via email or fax. It made things more difficult, but we got it done! It had to be done immediately because the bank wants to close by May 1!

Along these same lines, Claire and Sterling's offer on their short sale in Rancho Santa Margarita was also approved so they were doing the same paperwork as well as walk-throughs and appraisals during that first week. Congrats guys!

All through the first week I was there, Dad steadily improved. He had to stay in bed for the first 10 days he was there so when he got up to finally walk again, he was very weak. The first time up, he was only able to take a couple steps before having to rest, but his strength improved rapidly over the next several days. The physical therapists were very pleased with his progress. The week after my exam was more good news and he continued to improve and eventually started doing laps around his floor. During the 3 weeks Dad was in the hospital, he had a total of 5 surgeries to remove dead tissue from the back of his right calf. All of them were hard on Dad because he had to do a 24 hour fast before every one. On Thursday, April 14 the surgeons did one reconstructive surgery to put a skin graft from his hip over the wound. Connor and I flew back to Utah later that night. Dad was discharged from the hospital the next day (Friday) and has been at home since. My family didn't know he would be discharged so quickly (his insurance found out how long he'd been there and basically kicked him out) so my mom is scrambling to get him a hospital bed for the downstairs den. He isn't quite strong enough to make it upstairs, so he will be downstairs temporarily.

The black thing is a sponge packed into the hole in his leg with a vacuum attached to help the wound drain. Pretty gruesome, but this is looking really good! This is the day before he was discharged, before the reconstructive surgery.

Connor took Papa for a ride.

I am very grateful for amazing and skilled doctors and surgeons who helped Dad get better. Dad was a champ through the whole process. He never ceased being cheerful and optimistic, even endlessly joking with his attending nurses. The nurses took a vote on the last day Dad was there and said it was unanimous - Dad was their favorite patient. I know my mom's love and support really helped his mood too. I would be at the hospital all day with him, talking to and helping him and he would be in a good mood, but when my mom walked in, he lit up and was in a great mood. He needed her most of all. Through this whole ordeal, I was really able to see how much my parents love each other. I love that.

I'm so grateful Dad is ok. He is only 59 and hopefully has many more years left in him. My mom's parents died when I was very little and I don't remember much of them, only that they were sick at the end of their lives. All growing up as I listened to the stories my mom would tell, I always wished they were still around so I could know them. I want Connor and Jaxson to know how great their Papa Carver is from their own experiences, not only by our stories.

I love you Daddy! Keep getting better!

We were able to have some fun while we were down during the second week. I got to do a park day and GNO for dessert at Chili's with some El Segundo friends, and Connor and I went to Disneyland with Christine and Braden.

We tuckered them out.

We also took pictures with the Easter Bunny at the Mall across the street from the hospital. The boys were terrified so we had to sit with them for pictures.

High-5 at the end. The Easter Bunny gave him some candy. That won him over.

P.s. Brad was a lonely bachelor while I was gone. 2 weeks is the longest amount of time we've spent apart so far in our 5.5 years of marriage. But not to worry, he had his XBox to comfort him. He had beautiful flowers waiting for me when I came home. So nice.

Teach me how to Jimmer

2011-03-27T21:08:00.000-07:00

LOVE this!!

Ah, much better

2011-03-25T07:11:00.001-07:00

Today is a new day. I'm feeling much better, although Connor is still crabby. I can't figure it out. Maybe we are in the terrible 2's afterall.

Today will be busy, which I hope will help keep Connor occupied and happy. Dentist (for me) in the morning so he gets to spend a morning with Dad. Then we are looking at one more house. We are nearing the end of house looking, and quickly approaching house buying! We are hoping to hear back from the bank soon about Green House. We are thinking it will be next week sometime. Then we will start the closing process if all is well with our offer (which was their asking price so I'm hoping it will go through). Can't wait!!

Then tonight we have an Elder's Quorum activity. We are playing mini golf at the church and we are supposed to think up and set up one mini golf hole. Well, "we" quickly became "me." I'm used to it. And I guess I owe Brad for last night anyway. :)

It should be fun!

I spoke too soon...

2011-03-24T17:31:00.000-07:00

Remember this post? Ya, that didn't last. I was hopeful Connor's good mood was here to stay. Not so.

The last few days Connor has been so ornery!! He started teething again, which I'm hoping we are almost done with - for good I mean. Swollen gums, runny nose, drooling, chewing, crying. Well, all other symptoms have been gone a few days except for the whining and crying, which seems to go on and on. Grrr...

5 straight days of being yelled at, cried to, kicked, bitten, "mama mama mama mama mama mama," -- ENOUGH!!

So I came home tonight (Connor and I were out running errands), ate a really gross fast food dinner from KFC with Brad, handed Connor over, and grounded myself to my room for the rest of the night. My mom used to do this every once in a while when we were little and I totally get it now!!!

My nerves are frayed, I have zero patience left. It's time for a date night with myself where I get to watch movies and TV til my brains rot, and browse the free section of KSL and all my designer blogs til my eyeballs drop out of my head. Then I'll read myself to sleep and be a lot better for the day tomorrow.

But from my bed, I can hear Brad and Connor laughing and having a great time in the front room. And that makes me happy. I'm thankful Brad is willing to take Connor for an entire night when I'm at my wits end. I have a good and patient husband.

Why kids are like crazy people

2011-03-10T16:38:00.000-08:00

This article is too good not to post. I was definitely laughing out loud. Especially at some of the comments (#6, #12). Hilarious to think about grown people doing these things. Yep, they would be committed for sure.

http://blogs.babycenter.com/mom_stories/why-kids-are-like-crazy-people/?scid=weekender_20110310_toddler_B:3&pe=MlV3VUplcHwyMDExMDMxMA..

Ogden Union Station

2011-03-10T10:20:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday (March 5) Brad, Connor, and I went to the Ogden Union Station. They hosted a model train museum for one weekend. There were tons of model trains running on tracks, thousands more for sale, cool pictures of trains, men in conductor suits and overalls, a big steam engine that we could climb on, and even an old model car show. Admission was $6 each (young children are free), but a man gave us 2 of his family's extra tickets for free! What a deal!

Later that afternoon, we headed down to Murray, UT to visit my cousin and her husband. LaRisse and I went shopping at Gardner Village (and favorite pastime of our parents when we were younger) while the boy (Brad and Nick) stayed home to play Call of Duty together. Everyone had fun in their respective elements. :)

We met the boys for dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Salt Lake (which was delicious!) and then headed to The Sweet Tooth Fairy for dessert. If you've never been there, you are missing out on some of the most delightful cake bites, cup cakes, and cup-shakes (vanilla ice cream blended with your favorite cupcake) that you will ever taste in your life. That's a promise.

After we headed back to their house and put Connor to bed. The boys played more of their game while LaRisse and I talked and played nail salon. She did my nails with Shellac, which I absolutely loved!

It was a fun day. Thanks for playing with us Nick and LaRisse! We can't wait to do it again!

Fun and Games

2011-03-10T06:05:00.000-08:00

I wrote about Connor's play date at our house a couple weeks ago. Here are some of Connor's friends in the ward. Duncan (middle) and Bentley (right).

These boys haven't been back to our house again, but we have played with them a few times at the Library's story time. I LOVE story time! Connor likes the stories and seeing all the other kids there. After story time they get to do some free crafts and/or coloring. Connor will color for about 5 minutes before he's bored with it. At yesterday's story time they read stories about bunnies and then brought in a real bunny for the kids to pet at the end. Way fun! And FREE!

In an effort to find more things to do around us in West Haven (we are kind of out in the middle of nowhere), we have started the tradition of Taco Tuesday at Del Taco in our house! You can't beat 3 beef tacos for $1. Brad gets soft, I get crunchy, we bring them home and put our own sour cream and Del Taco mild sauce on them. Delicious. One of our new favorite traditions. And you just can't beat dinner for $3 or $4.

Now, I have a confession. Sort of a guilty pleasure. Brad has had his XBox 360 for a while. One of his favorite games is Call of Duty. He plays all the time online with his brother Brandon who lives in Orem. I actually think it's a great way for them to stay in touch - they have fun together, and Brad has never gone overboard like some guys you hear about skipping work or meals, missing sleep, never going outside. He usually only plays for an hour or 2 at a time, and only when Connor is sleeping. That's our deal (because I'm not fond of Connor seeing all that blood and gore, although it's not even as bad as some movies I've seen). Anyway, I'm a little embarrassed to say, I've been hooked! I've watched Brad play for so many hours, and I finally picked up a control and Brad taught me how to play. Now we play together a lot (with Brandon too). I'm getting pretty good! (Should I be proud of that?? Well, I am. :) ) We also play with some other members of our family - cousins, brothers-in-law, etc. It's actually really fun! Phew! Glad I got that off my chest...

Brad is allowed to finish his last game when Connor wakes up and Connor likes "playing" with dad for the last couple minutes.

Hair cut

2011-03-09T14:08:00.000-08:00

When we lived in California, I never had to worry about cutting Connor's hair. Claire always did it for me. And she's good. Really good.

But now I have to do it. I cut Connor's hair myself for the first time a couple weeks ago. I put it off as long as I could stand. It didn't turn out too bad (although I did notice later that I missed a few strands) but the process was slightly more traumatizing. For both of us.

I just used clippers on the 1/2 inch and 1 inch settings. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, I ended up chasing Connor around the bathroom shaving off 1 tuft at a time until the job was reasonably done.

Before:

The carnage:

After.

His hair is already getting long again. Another hair cut is still s few weeks out, but I'm not looking forward to doing this again.

Connor

2011-03-09T11:52:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I posted an update about Connor. He is 16 months old now and he is growing up so fast. He is well into toddlerhood, and everyday it seems he learns something new. He really seems to love Utah and the snow, which is a relief since we will be living here for the next long while. He is energetic and very happy a lot of the time these days. He used to be much more moody and difficult.

Maybe as he gets closer to becoming 2 he will start to show signs of the terrible 2's, but I almost think he had the terrible 1's instead. From my understanding, many tantrums are caused because children can't communicate what they want so they get frustrated and lose it. Long before Connor even turned 1, he cried a lot of the day (because he was bored, or frustrated, or wanted to walk, whatever) and I was exasperated at the end of almost every day. Brad would come home from work and I would push Connor on him because I just couldn't deal with him screaming at me anymore. That was hard on Brad, too, since he was tired from working all day.

But it seems we have now moved past a lot of that. He has been SO sweet lately! He is getting so much better at communicating his needs to me, and I have helped him understand that he doesn't have to cry, scream, and whine to get what he wants/needs. Now he excitedly says "mama" to get my attention. Sometimes he forgets and will start to cry, but then he'll catch himself and say "mama". I almost never have to remind him how to ask me anymore. Then he'll say what he wants if he knows how to say it (up, more), or he'll point and speak in jibberish to try to tell me what he wants. He definitely still has some meltdowns, which usually end with him screaming at the top of his lungs right in my face when I tell him he can't have or play with something off-limits, but those are now few and far between.

His speaking has come a long way in the past couple months, couple weeks even. He can now say hello (haya), Mama, Dada, eyes, up (up and please), yeah, all done, doggie (dah-yee), kitty, whoa, uh-oh, hot (temperature hot or hot dog), tickle tickle, and he can sign "more." He can also make 6 animal sounds - dog ("ro, ro, ro"), fish (smacks lips together), sheep ("baa"), monkey ("ah ah ah"), snake (moves tongue in and out), and cow ("moooom", sometimes sounds like a slow "mom" :) ). He can also point to his eyes, ears, nose, mouth, tongue, hair, fingers, hand, foot, toes, and tummy when asked. Brad and I get so excited when he does all these things. It's amazing how having a kid makes you appreciate such simple and trivial tasks like pointing to your nose.

He loves "helping" now too. He always wants to help me sweep the floor (which involves him keeping 1 hand on the broom and walking right through my swept pile, and he likes to push the broom himself too), doing dishes (putting clean tupperwear from the cupboard in the dishwasher), laundry (I hand him the wet clothes from the washer and he puts them in the dryer, and then sits in the middle of the dry, warm, clean clothes while I fold), kind of cleaning up his toys (he will help me put everything in his toy bucket and then dump it all back out again), and put on lotion (he rubs my knee when I put lotion on my legs).

One of my favorite new developments of all, he is now a snuggler! After he wakes up in the morning and from his nap in the afternoon, he will sit and snuggle with me for about 20 minutes while we watch a movie. If you know Connor, he has NEVER been a snuggler! Even when he was a tiny baby, if I tried to snuggle with him he only wanted to eat so he would cry.

His favorite activity inside is being chased around and tickled, and outside it's to run around and play in the snow or try to get in on a game of basketball with bigger kids. I'm constantly pulling him away because he tries to run right in the middle of their game, even if we have our own basketball.

It's unbelievable, and kind of sad, that my little baby just isn't a baby anymore. The time has passed so quickly. He is becoming a little boy, and nursery is only 7 weeks away! I guess it's time to have another?? (No, that's not an announcement.)

Update (longer than I thought it would be...)

2011-03-07T21:17:00.000-08:00

Now that we've been in Utah for a few months, it is feeling a lot more like home. We have had a few rainy days and it reminds me of the California winters we used to enjoy, snow-free. It has been getting a lot warmer (like 40s and 50s) and all the snow finally melted the day before yesterday, before it rained. I thought (or rather hoped) we were done with the snow for this year, but then today it dumped 3-4 inches within a couple hours. Sigh. Such is life in Utah.

We are enjoying this area, though. We love our ward and have made some great friends. Connor and I have been doing fun activities like going to the Zoo, visiting family, and attending Roy Library's story time every Wednesday. It's still a little cold for stroller walks, but the playground outside our apartment has been a life-saver when I just can't stand being inside anymore. The kid still really loves the snow.

Many of you have been asking how our house hunting is going. It is in full swing and we've already walked through close to 50 houses in person (and WAY more online). At this point all the houses are starting to look alike. Our definite favorite (the same house I talked briefly about a few posts back) is still our favorite. Actually, we have put an offer down on it! It's a short sale in Pleasant View and we have been waiting for 6 weeks so far for the bank to get back to us. Fortunately the price we offered was pre-approved by the bank for another buyer that walked away last minute. So it won't take the typical 6-9 months, like many short sales, for us to hear back (we hope). The listing agent for the bank told us we should have our answer within a few months of putting in our offer because the bank wants to move "fast" on this to get rid of it, and that was 6 weeks ago. In the meantime, we have been looking at more houses to make sure there isn't one we love more, but all this has only solidified our love for Green. (We call it "Green House" because every wall inside the house is green, but it is actually a big red brick house. And it's gorgeous.) Sorry, I'm still not going to post any pics yet. I want to save it for the exciting post and the big reveal when we close on it. Stay tuned!!

House hunting has been a fun experience. We are working with a great Realtor (which is free, by the way. The seller always pays the buyer's agent's commission) who has been great at getting us into tons of houses, has had some great advice of things to look/watch out for, and has even pointed out some potential problems in a few homes that we would have missed. It takes a trained eye. We have seen houses for sale by owners, short sales, houses in foreclosure; we have talked with builders about building a brand new house, and looked at potential lots to put a new house on; we've even participated in an auction for a house (it was a no-obligation auction - no money to put down at the start and really no risk to participate). It was a huge house, the bid started super low so we signed up (which was free). The price raised pretty high very quickly so we dropped out the first round. But hey, it all adds to the experience. It has been fun to imagine our future in each of the homes. But the only one we can literally see ourselves living in is Green.

Connor is growing up so fast, but I will post more of him in a separate post.

Brad's job is going well. He still works four 10's, with the exception being when he works overtime when clients come in for testing. Then he works five or six 10's (and sometimes even 12's). That has happened 3 weeks out of the few months we've been here. He likes what he is doing and enjoys the people he works with. He's also been playing church basketball. Good motivation for me to get back in shape too. (More on that later...)

Christmas in March.

2011-03-07T07:03:00.000-08:00

A few months ago when I posted about our San Francisco/Sacramento trip, I said I lost our camera after that trip in November. There was a 16 GB card in it that hadn't been unloaded since I put the card in the camera in early September. I was sick about all the pictures I had lost of friends visiting us, Connor's 1 year birthday, our San Fran/Sac trip, and so much more. Sick. Thanks to family and friends that took many great pictures at some of the major events, like Connor's birthday. I would have been even more devastated had we not had any pictures at all!

I am SO happy to say, our camera was found a couple weeks ago! Somehow it ended up hiding in my dad's car somewhere. The car wash guys found it and left it on the seat as they vacuumed out my dad's car one Saturday. We had already replaced the camera at Christmas time (that was Brad's present to me since I was so upset about losing it) but we found the old and were able to return the new 4 days before the return period was up. Hooray!!

So now I get to use that money for a new Christmas present. Christmas in March.

And what I love even more are the pictures and videos we recovered. Here are a few gems that I thought were lost forever.

Who doesn't love the GQ pose? With the thumb in mouth, makes it classic. Baby-chic.

Connor's first hair cut. Bye-bye soft, wispy, baby hair!

I thought I was going to be one of those moms, right on top of taking a picture of Connor every month next to same object for the first year of his life to chart his growth. Well, I'm not. So, instead, I decided it would be fun to take a picture of Connor next to Brad on each of his birthdays to see his growth in comparison to his giant-dad. That's manageable.

Connor "talking" on my cell phone while watching Nate Berkus on TV. He holds the phone at his ear now.

Always a classic.

Our sunset at San Pedro Rock on our San Fran trip. These colors are not enhanced. This is really what it looked like. Stunning.

Our family under the Golden Gate. No internet pic could ever replace this.

With our good friends at the Capitol Building in Sacramento. Again, no internet pic could ever replace this.

Thank goodness for honest car wash men. I could kiss them.

Claire, Sterling, and Jaxson came to visit!

2011-03-06T19:11:00.000-08:00

A couple weekends (Feb. 12-16) ago my sister Claire and her family came to Utah for a visit for Claire's 29th birthday. It was so fun to see them and play for a few days. Connor really loved playing with Jaxson again. He loves his cousin. We are sad they don't get to play so often anymore. :(

Saturday night we met them and our cousins Nick and LaRisse at Macaroni Grill in Salt Lake. It's always fun to get together with other family. Now that we live here, we will have to make sure to get together more often!

Sunday night we ate dinner at my Aunt Chris's house. Some of our cousins were there too and, as always, it was fun to see them!

Jaxson and Connor, with my cousin's son Craig.

Monday afternoon, they came to our apartment in West Haven. The boys played, we watched "Up", and ate some chocolate treats.

Tuesday morning we met in Park City to go sledding. The kids didn't have fun at all. Not sure why they hate it so much, but the adults had fun! After that we hit the Tangier Outlets for a little shopping and a delicious treat at Mrs. Fields.

Wednesday morning we went to Hogle Zoo together before they flew out that night. I love the Zoo. And Connor seemed much more interested than the last time we went when he was 9 months old.

A new way to pick your nose?? I guess it's more efficient... cuts out the middle man?

Go Cougars!!

I was such a fun few days and we miss them! Thanks for coming to visit us family!

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T21:43:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

Our date night this year was last Friday. Brad's parents offered to watch Connor for us while we went to Joe Morley's BBQ in Midvale (the sugar-back ribs are to die for) and then kept up our annual tradition of getting Love Potion 31 ice cream from Baskin Robins. It's always nice to have a date night alone with Brad. They are so rare these days.

Today my sister Claire and her family (Sterling and Jaxson) came over to play for a little while. They are in town for Claire's birthday until Wednesday. Connor is loving playing with his cousin again.

Tonight when Brad came home from work, I was greeted with a sweet Valentine's kiss. We were interrupted at our feet with "up" (Connor's new favorite word). Sigh. We laughed. Brad picked him up and put his other arm around me. Connor laughed, stiff armed me and pushed me away. Thanks, Happy Valentine's Day to you too, Son. It's a joke to him. He doesn't like me to hug Brad when he is hugging Brad.

I love my two boys.

I hope you all had a fun Valentine's Day filled with hugs and smooches!

I'm seriously addicted

2011-02-04T23:22:00.001-08:00

I can't help myself. I can't stop myself. I'm seriously addicted, but I like it so much I'm just not willing to stop. I'm up into the wee hours of the morning just looking at picture after picture (last night was 2 a.m.). I've downloaded probably a thousand pictures by now and saved them on my computer for future viewing and reference. It's gotten so bad lately that I'm ignoring my child just to waste away in front of my computer for hours at a time. My back hurts from sitting so long and I've even put off eating if Connor is asleep. I'm so hooked that I'm considering waking up early, before Connor is awake, just to have a couple more uninterrupted hours all to myself. And if you know me at all, you know from that statement alone that I am so far gone. Sad, huh.

Yep, I'm completely smitten.

With home design.

I CAN'T GET ENOUGH!! Drapes, rugs, throw pillows, wall art, reupholstered couches, painted chairs, refinished armoires, enough DIY projects to last me until I die. The most beautiful rooms (and homes) I've ever seen. I'm quite literally dreaming of completed projects in my sleep.

Unfortunately, this DIY and decorating talent does not come easily to me. Fortunately, I have found several interior decorating geniuses in the blogging world to copycat. And I have no shame in this.

I've been accumulating free furniture and other accessories from friends and family for my future home that I didn't quite know what to do with at first. But thanks to these DIY goddesses (found in my sidebar) I seriously can't wait to decorate my home with my own DIYs.

New updates, new friends, new experiences

2011-02-01T22:25:00.000-08:00

The longer we live here, the more this is starting to feel like home.

Brad and I were just called to be youth Sunday School teachers for the 16/17 year olds. We're excited to be team teachers and the kids are so good (and quiet). Connor will be in there with us too, until he goes to nursery in 3 months. By the way, we are in the Country Meadows Ward in the West Haven Stake - for now...

We had a Relief Society meeting (social) last Thursday so all the sisters in the ward could get to know each other (apparently our ward was split and combined with another ward just before we moved in). It was fun and very helpful for me since we are new here. And that also helps explain why not many people introduced themselves to us the first couple Sundays. They were all new too!

I met a few new friends at the RS social that have boys too, 13 months and 21 months old. Connor is 15 months. Perfect. Our first play date is tomorrow morning (Wednesday). We were planning to meet at the play ground just outside our apartment but it's FREEZING outside this week. It's currently 7 degrees but feels like -12 degrees because of the really cold 20 mph winds (according to the Weather Channel online), and tomorrow is supposed to be 20 degrees for the high). So we will meet in our apartment instead and stay warm. We can't wait!

We went and looked at 12 more houses yesterday with our realtor. We feel grown up, but a little nervous too since we've never done this before and this is kind of a big deal - buying your first home. We have a definite favorite but we aren't quite ready to put in an offer until we've looked at a bunch more houses to make sure this is the one. I'll keep you all in suspense of what it looks like until the deal is sealed...

So, on that note, to be continued...

More of the same

2011-01-26T21:38:00.000-08:00

So yesterday we didn't go outside like I wanted to because it was snowing a lot of the day (3 more inches, all stuck). Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions. We will be taking more walks and going to the library to pass some of the cold winter days we have left.

Connor and I tried to make the most of another day inside with blocks, Teddy, and bathtime.

I have to admit, snow is very pretty. Connor and I stood at the window and just watched the snow fall for at least 10 minutes.

Connor's favorite toy right now is his legos. He LOVES throwing them around our apartment (he likes the sound they make clanging and clacking on the tile) and disassembling things I build for him. I'm considering buying him those mega blocks so he can build more things himself. These are still a little too small for his tiny hands.

Today was a lot better (as far as getting out of the house). Since it was sunny today, I decided it was a good day for some errands. Connor and I went to Barnes & Noble to return a book, and we stopped to play with their train set and pull a few childrens' books off the shelves in the kids' section. Later in the evening when Brad was home, we quickly ate last night's leftovers and headed out to look at 2 houses in Pleasant View. They are beautiful homes, and we have more appointments set up for this Monday and Tuesday to look at about 10 more. This is surreal!

House Locked

2011-01-24T21:37:00.000-08:00

I'm missing the warm winters of So.Cal. I'm feeling house locked. We've been outside only a couple times since we've been here to go to the playground in our apartment complex, but it's just too cold to be out for very long. Even with warm winter clothes on (how do you keep your face warm??).

I think tomorrow I'm gonna go for a walk with Connor in his stroller. I'm just gonna do it. It might be miserable on the way back, but I can't be inside anymore.

I want to be out, but still inside somewhere else to keep out of the cold. Any suggestions that a 1 year old would tolerate?? Maybe I'll look up the local library...

First Overnight Visitor!

2011-01-22T22:11:00.000-08:00

The few weeks we've spent in our apartment have been a little lonely. It's been nice to have Brad's family close. We've been down to see them several times, and a few of them have come to see us as well. But getting to know people in our ward has gone much slower than I expected and Connor hasn't had any friends to play with either. (Hopefully that will get better when he goes into nursery.) I have really been missing my family and El Segundo friends.

We were all so excited when my sister Ady came up to stay with us for a couple days this week (Jan 20-22). While she was here we mostly just hung out, but we also went to dinner at Chili's, went sledding (down the backside of Milton Cemetery down Hwy 84), and rented Robin Hood (with Russel Crow, Kate Blanchet) from Redbox. Connor loved seeing his Auntie. Thanks Ady for coming to visit!

Connor didn't love sledding. He wasn't cold, but I think us screaming as we slid down the hill scared him. He only seemed to cry when we started sledding.

Driving home, kinda wet and cold. Beautiful sunset.

Teddy Bear

2011-01-20T10:19:00.000-08:00

We bought Teddy at a garage sale over 3 years ago before we had kids, anticipating that one day our kid would love it. (Teddy was only $2 at a garage sale in Long Beach!) We stored this huge thing in our house for 2 years without a child to enjoy it. It was well worth it. This is how I find Connor in his room when he is ready for a nap. He snuggles right in.

By the way, did you know my kid likes bell pepper? Neither did I until yesterday.

Our new home

2011-01-20T09:56:00.001-08:00

West Haven is our new home for now. But maybe not for long. We have identified a couple cities that we want to look for houses and we are planning to look at some in the next couple weeks.

But for now our 2 bed, 2 bath, 1000 sq. ft. apartment (with a walk-in closet and washer/dryer!) in West Haven, UT is our home. We love it. Connor seems to love it too. He really loves the snow - is he my son??

After stomping through the snow with Dad. Just look at that face!

I love that there is a play ground in our complex.

Dinner and a really cool car.

2011-01-20T08:42:00.000-08:00

We had dinner last week with Brenda's Uncle Paul and Aunt Ramona whom we haven't seen in a while.

It was great to see them again.
We had BBQ ribs for dinner, my favorite.
They have a beautiful home.
And Uncle Paul has a really cool car.

Check this out! It's authentic, he restored it himself. People follow him on the road yelling to him if he wants to sell it. He said he would take me for a ride when all the snow melts.

December was busy. Don't believe me??

2011-01-19T13:48:00.000-08:00

Early Carver Christmas
Since Christmas Day this year was the Jeppsons', my family did ours early. So December 12 we all gathered at my parents' house for the Carver Family Christmas.

We played with the new toys for the rest of the day - warm clothes and beanies, legos, books, adorable rain boots, movies, candy, etc. etc. Thanks everyone for the gifts!

Disneyland
As soon as we knew we were moving to Utah, I was determined to go to Disneyland as much as possible. Connor and I went 3-4 times each week with our friends and family. We love Disneyland.

Small World is spectacular at Christmas time.
Connor snuggling with Auntie Ady.
Silhouette of the Smiths (Matt, Christine, and Braden).
Our friends LeeElle, Cohen, LeeElle's sister Kerilynn, and her son Jaxson (spelled just like my nephew!).

Moving
After our early Christmas weekend, we headed back home to El Segundo Monday morning for the final few days. Box hunting, packing, taping, marking, pushing, pulling, organizing, cleaning, loading, sweating, and finally driving away Wednesday morning. Fortunately, we had a lot of help. Brad's mom and sister flew down Monday morning, Brad's dad flew down Tuesday night, and some ward and work friends came to help as well. Thank you everyone! WE COULDN'T HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT YOU!

Wednesday, Dec. 15 Brad headed north with his family, one of our cars, and the moving van. Connor and I (and our second car) headed south to be with my family for another week.

Our El Segundo home. That is (was) our window.

Reunions (and more Disneyland)
I'm glad I got an extra week with my family and they got an extra week with us (ahem, Connor). Jaxson and Connor had fun together and we went to Disneyland 3 times more.

Breakfast and Sesame Street.

That weekend, December 17-19, was our Reeve (Mom's side) Cousin Reunion. Dinner at my parents' house, white elephant gift exchange, Disneyland 2 days in a row, and eating at Club 33. Christmas trips to Disneyland is a tradition we've had since we were little.

It POURED the entire time we were there. From the very beginning, we were all sloshing in our shoes. But it wasn't enough to keep us away. We still had fun, even if it was the most miserable fun we've ever had. :)
I held Connor like this the ENTIRE DAY. If I put him in his umbrella stroller, he got soaked. He actually stayed pretty dry. I didn't. 8 hours of this and my back was killing me.
DesiRee, LaRisse, me, Ady.
The rain relented for 1 hour while we ate lunch. That was nice.
Tower of Terror. Top right corner.
Splash.
Club 33.
Tram ride to the car. Ready to go home. Done being soaking wet.

Goodbyes
The following Monday (Dec. 20) my El Segundo friends took me out to the Melting Pot. Goodbyes are so sad. I really miss these girls.

(Clockwise from left) Karen, Laura, Tanya, me, LeeElle, Amy Jo, Ginger.
Connor and Cohen in matching jammies. (Thanks John for watching them.) Connor really misses his friends too.
Christine, Braden, and Diana (Christine's mom). We miss them too.

Jeppson Christmas
December 22nd - Connor and I flew to Utah. (We left our car in CA for New Year's.)
December 23rd - Made gingerbread houses with Jeppson girls.
December 24th - Big Jeppson family dinner/party which included karaoke, lots of family, and the flu virus. Also opened Christmas presents with immediate Jeppson family.
December 25th - Merry Christmas!! Big Gotberg family dinner/party with white elephant gift exchange. I didn't go because I caught the flu from the night before (also lost 5 pounds that day). Lucky me. Brad and I opened our gifts to each other. He got me a new camera (to replace our lost one), and I got him a Dewalt cordless drill.
December 26th-27th - Relaxing and still recovering from the flu. (Brenda also got it these days.)
December 28th - Fly home to California for New Year's.

My handy work.
Being devoured a few days later.
Total destruction.

New Year's
Brad, Connor, and I flew back to California on Dec. 28 to spend New Year's with my family (we already bought these tickets to spend Christmas in Utah before we knew we were moving, so this was our "home" ticket). We drove back to Utah Sunday, Dec. 2.

Lots of time with grandparents.
The park.

The Getty.

Driving "home" to Utah
We left my parents' house at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 2. We wanted Connor to sleep as long as possible before we had to stop and let him out. Well worth it - we made it all the way past Vegas to Mesquite where we ate breakfast and walked around a grocery store for an hour. We only had to stop once more in Nephi and then we made it all the way to Brad's parents' house in South Jordan. THAT is the way to travel with a 1 year old!

Our gorgeous sunrise as we passed Las Vegas.
In the state of Utah.
The blessed sight in the back seat for 80% of the trip.

We are finally here and past all the holiday craziness. Utah doesn't quite feel like home yet, but give it a few weeks. We will be starting our house hunting soon...

Carver Family Pictures

2011-01-19T10:40:00.000-08:00

Our Carver Family Pictures were taken at RSM Lake this year by our friend Jill Facer. They turned out cute! Thanks Jill!

Connor loves his Daddy.

All ten.

My parents never looked so good.

Claire, Sterling, and always-smiling Jaxson.

Cutest couple Ady and Jono.

Just the girls.

I love my family.

Thanksgiving

2011-01-19T08:45:00.001-08:00

We had a very enjoyable and relaxing Thanksgiving with my family this year. The home-cooked Thanksgiving food was delicious, as always. There were a total of 12 of us with my brother-in-law's parents that joined us. Good food + good company = good day.

After our feast around 1:30, a few of us tried to walk off some of our dinner around the RSM lake near my parents' house. Gorgeous. The boys even tagged along to play nerf football around the girls as we walked and talked. Connor took a nap at home.

Jaxson even got in on the football fun.

Touchdown!!

Teaching him the "down" position.

Then he tackled Uncle Jono.

Later that weekend we went to the Laguna Hills Mall to take pictures with Santa in their "Dear Santa, I can explain" shirts. The kids weren't exactly thrilled. Connor was unsure of the big guy and fussed a little (and, of course, wouldn't smile). Poor Jaxson was terrified. However, both kids still had the right mind to take the candy canes Santa gave them!

Practicing.

And we took more pictures of them in their Christmas jammies.

We also went to Dave & Buster's for dinner and games that weekend at the Spectrum in Irvine. Connor's favorite part was playing in the fountain outside.

As always, we have so much to be thankful for. We have loved living in California and have been very blessed in our job opportunities. We have wonderful friends and families that love and support us, and we have been mostly healthy this year (until Christmas, that's another post). We are ever-grateful for the gospel and for our marriage in the temple that allows to be together always.

We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving too.

San Francisco, Sacramento

2011-01-18T16:55:00.000-08:00

Our annual family vacation this year (just the 3 of us) was to San Francisco and Sacramento. We got really cheap flights ($29 each way!) thru Southwest several months earlier and we left Thursday, November 4th. We visited the San Francisco sights (drove south to Half Moon Bay to see a GORGEOUS sunset the first night, then Lombard Street, Telegraph Hill and Coit Tower, Alcatraz, Golden Gate Park & Bridge, Fort Point, Bay Bridge, SF Giant's Stadium, Pier 39, Fisherman's Wharf, Ghirardelli Square, drove across the Golden Gate into Sausalito, cable cars, and Chinatown) until Sunday afternoon when we drove 2 hours to Sacramento.

In Sacramento, we stayed with our good friends, the Bairds, and had a great time visiting the Foresthill Bridge in Auburn (tallest Bridge in CA at 730 feet) over the American River, the State Capitol Building, and old town Sacramento on Monday. Monday morning was also Chelise's birthday and we had waffles topped with chocolate ice cream for breakfast. What a great tradition!

We had a GREAT family vacation. Here's the sad part. The week after we got back, we lost our camera. It makes me sick. All the pictures we took in San Francisco, of our family under the Golden Gate Bridge, at the Capitol building, and with our friends are all gone. I guess we'll just have to go back and visit again someday!

Here are a few pictures anyway. A couple were taken by our friends in the Sacramento school house. The others are courtesy of the internet. I tried to find pictures that were similar to ones I took in an attempt to replace some of what we lost. In fact most of these are the exact same shots and angles that you would have seen from my own camera.

Half Moon Bay, San Pedro Rock in San Mateo County at sunset. Breathtaking. Serene.

Lombard Street

Coit Tower

Alcatraz

Golden Gate Bridge over Fort Point.

Pier 39 & Fisherman's Wharf

Ghirardelli Square. It was raining this day so we got hot chocolate and free Ghiradelli Peppermint squares, yum.

The famous cable cars, and Chinatown. We saw both a couple times. (Side note: the streets in San Fran are crazy steep. Look at the "wall" behind the cable cars!)

Foresthill Bridge. We (the boys) spit and threw airplanes off the top.

California State Capitol.

State Assembly room in California State Capitol.

The Governator's office.

Old Town Sacramento.

Old Town Sac. school house.

Our friends' kids Kalem and Paxton.

Connor and his little friend Pax (and Kalem) were very cute school boys. (Fast forward 18 more years and maybe this will be the scene in the MTC!!)

We drove back to San Francisco that night to catch our flight at 7 (but our flight was an hour and a half late). It was a great trip. I'm missing the pictures I took, but looking forward to going back again to take more!

Halloween Time

2011-01-14T12:05:00.000-08:00

Halloween time was a little crazy. Connor's birthday was the week before, and I took the PE on the Friday and Saturday before Halloween Sunday, so there wasn't much time for elaborate costumes. But we had a great Halloween nonetheless. We visited the Pumpkin City pumpkin patch and petting zoo in Laguna Hills with my family, briefly stopped in to our El Segundo Ward Halloween Party, and went Trick-or-Treating with my family on Sunday. Connor, of course, loved the little bit of candy he got.

Connor loved chasing the chickens around.

And he was fascinated by the goats.

This is at our El Segundo Ward Party on Saturday, October 30. This picture was taken 20 minutes after I got home from taking the PE in Pamona. I was EXHAUSTED, but so happy it was over! (Here and here are the results, in case you didn't see.) We only stayed long enough to say hi to a few friends and take this picture. The best costumes we could muster were Connor's dinosaur (given to him the year before by his Auntie Ady), and our black and orange. That's all I was up for. After this, we went out to dinner and then I went home and crashed.

Trick-or-Treating in Rancho Santa Margarita with cousin Jaxson (the cutest pirate there ever was). Connor was a very cute dinosaur with shoes.

Connor is 1!!

2011-01-13T11:46:00.001-08:00

October 23rd marked 1 year for Connor! I can't believe he has grown so fast. I really did try to appreciate every phase, every stage throughout this year. The quiet nights of rocking and singing him to sleep, the first smiles, the first steps, the first words, are all things I told myself (in the moment) I never want to forget. But all these phases quickly pass as his learning continues and progresses. Now he is 14 months old, running everywhere he goes, adding new words to his vocabulary every day. And we love him more than ever.

On Saturday, October 23 we had a party for him at our apartment in El Segundo. In attendance was my family from Orange County (Mom, Dad, Claire, Sterling, Jaxson, Ady, and Jono), my Mother-in-law Brenda from Utah (she arrived in town that day to watch Connor for me the week before my PE Exam), Brad's cousin Jake and his wife and daughter, Brook and Alice, from LA, and our friends Christine and Matt Smith and their son Braden from Orange County.

We started the party at 4 p.m. at Kansas Park down the street from our apartment. All the kids (Connor - 12 months, Alice - 15 months, Jaxson - 18 months, and Braden - 2 1/2) had a great time playing in the sand, sliding down the slides, and throwing balls around. After playing for about an hour, we moved inside to eat dinner (burgers and dogs), open presents, and eat cake.

The theme of the party was dinosaurs (partly because Connor's nickname for a while was T-Rex) and all the kids got a party favor paleontology (plastic) bucket with a shovel, a few toy dinosaurs, fossils (rubber bouncy balls with toy dinosaurs in the middle), (pop)rocks, dinosaur (easter) eggs filled with candy (M&Ms and jelly beans), dinosaur droppings (tootsie rolls), and bubbles (just because every kid loves bubbles). It was fun to see all the kids playing with their toys.

The kids had a great time helping Connor play with his new toys. He got so many new toys - blocks, cars, trains, several books, clothes, a little toy barn with animals and people, musical instruments (maracas, tambourine, mini symbols, and triangle) to make plenty of noise, which he LOVES, the list goes on and on! We aren't going to need to buy toys for him for a LONG time. We still haven't pulled out half of the stuff he was given. Thank you everyone! And Happy Birthday Connor Baby!

Even though I think this is the most unflattering picture I have ever seen of my child, I think it's hilarious. So I had to include it.

And here are a few pictures to show how much Connor has grown his first year of life. It's crazy to look back 1 year ago. I forget how small he was.

Newborn

1 week

2 weeks

3 weeks

1 month

2 months

3 months

4 months

5 months

6 months

7 months

8 months

9 months

10 months

11 months

12 months - Birthday boy!

And now at 14 months

Fun Fall Photo Shoot

2011-01-13T10:28:00.001-08:00

If you remember this post from a couple months ago, you remember how excited I was to potentially get some great pictures of Connor for a great price. Well I was not disappointed. In fact, we got so many cute and professional pictures of Connor, I had a really hard time picking which ones to give to all of my family for their photo frames that desperately needed to be updated.

Here are some of my favorites:

Of course we had to get one drooly,

one silly,

and one with his most favorite toy - Auntie Ady's phone.

I absolutely LOVE these 1 year pictures of Connor. And better yet, they were only $20!!! How could it get any better?? If ever I am in the area when Sarah is doing a promotional shoot like this, I am totally there!

(There is a link to Sarah Hull's blog in my sidebar if anyone is interested)

First Angel Game!

2011-01-13T09:44:00.000-08:00

Connor went to his first Angel Game at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, CA on September 20, 2010. We went with a huge group of our El Segundo friends and had a great time. And what's even better, we beat the Texas Rangers 7-4! Baseball games are always more fun with great company and a winning score!

So many posts to catch up on

2011-01-13T09:17:00.000-08:00

Since I've been on blogging hiatus since September, I have so many posts to write about that simply cannot be left out. My child's 1 year birthday for one (really, what mom misses that one?? Apparently, this mom...), our move to Utah another, and then there are all the holidays - Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's. So bear with me as I play catch up on the busiest 3 months of our lives.

We are all busy and the longer I go without writing, the more daunting it is to start up again. But all excuses aside, I'm glad for the accountability of a blog. I love looking back and remembering the fun things we've done as a family over the years that would have otherwise been forgotten.

Good news, bad news, good news, bad news

2011-01-12T21:51:00.000-08:00

The good news is I PASSED the CA Surveying Exam!
The bad news is I failed the CA Seismic Exam.
The good news is I get to go home to warm, sunny So.Cal in April!
The bad news is my life will again be consumed by studying for the next 3 months.

The scores for the other two tests of my PE Exam finally came tonight! Just as I predicted, I have to retake the CA Seismic Exam. I was desperately hoping to be one of those 5% that pass all three in the first go-around, but no such luck. I'm very glad, though, to have 2 of the 3 exams passed and now I can just focus my study time all on 1 subject (instead of 7 as when I was studying for all 3 exams). I have 3 months. No problem.

I just hate the idea that I will have to endure another 11 week waiting game when this test is over in April. I've decided I hate waiting for exam results...

The next CA Seismic Exam is Saturday, April 9. CA friends and family, get ready to party the week after!

The results are in... (some of them)

2011-01-08T08:03:00.000-08:00

I have some reporting to do. We had a great Christmas and New Year's, and there are several blog posts required to satisfy all we did in 2010 because of my recent lack of blogging, but before all that there is something much more exciting to share.

Some of you may not know that on Friday, October 29 and Saturday, October 30 of 2010, I took the Civil Engineering, Professional Engineering (PE) Exam in Pomona, CA. The PE Exam consisted of 3 separate tests with a total of 180 computational engineering questions and 13 hours of testing that consumed 10 months of my life (and depleted most of my sanity) by the time all studying and testing was finally finished.

The 3 tests included in the PE Exam are:

Civil Engineering 8 hour Exam - all day Friday
California Seismic Exam (2.5 hours) - Saturday morning
California Surveying Exam (2.5 hours) - Saturday afternoon

These exams were very difficult for me. The PE Exam was like taking a final exam on my entire undergraduate education at BYU. I graduated from BYU 3.5 years ago, and some of those classes I have not taken in 7+ years! The CA seismic Exam material was completely new to me as I have never taken a class in that. Ever. To make matters tougher, the pass rates on each of the exams is only 35%. Which means the fail rate is 65%!!! 2/3 of all engineers that take any one of the exams will fail... (The exams are all pass/fail.)

I am beyond excited to tell you that I PASSED the Civil Engineering 8 hour Exam!!!! HOORAY!! I'm so excited!! I have waited 10 long weeks to find out the results of this multiple choice exam (go figure that it takes so long). Unfortunately half the waiting continues as I still haven't heard about the other two CA Exams.

Here's more exciting news. Now that we are living in Utah (which, like 90% of the U.S. states, only requires its engineers to pass the Civil 8 hour Exam) with a little paperwork, I am a licensed Professional Civil Engineer in the State of Utah!!!

Since I would like to also be licensed in the State of CA in the event that we move back there someday, I'm hoping I passed the other 2 CA exams as well. As I said, I'm still waiting on those results. Unfortunately, the odds are against me in passing all 3 the first time around. Only 5% of first-time test takers pass all three exams in one shot. Sigh. Although I worked hard and my fingers remain crossed, I am preparing myself to have to retake one of the exams (most likely the Seismic Exam since I'd never seen that material before the exam).

Of the 3 tests, I am most relieved that I (at least) passed the huge 8 hour Exam. 8 hour tests are a pain, to say the very least. 2.5 hour exams are much more manageable. I'll keep you posted about the final 2 exam results! Hopefully they won't prolong the agony of waiting too much longer!!

A special note: I have to thank so many people that helped me study for and pass this big 8-hour chunk of the PE Exam. My husband and parents for encouraging me (and pestering me at times); my Mother-in-law Brenda for flying down to watch Connor the last week before the exam so I could hit the books hard in the last few days; my co-workers for giving me much of my study material; my friend Jared, whom I studied with from January thru March and gave me limitless study and exam advice; and two of my El Segundo friends Tanya and LeeElle for watching Connor several hours a day during the last 3 weeks leading up to the exam. All of your support and sacrifice to help me is so greatly appreciated and I absolutely could not have done this alone. Heavenly Father has certainly blessed me with so many wonderful friends and family. I just hope I will have more good news to share with you soon to show your sacrifices were not in vain! THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!

Just so everyone knows...

2010-12-08T11:13:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since I last posted. Life was crazy leading up to my big Civil Engineering Exam at the end of October and it hasn't slowed down since then.

I have a lot of posts to catch up on from the summer and recent holidays, but before all that, there's one thing I'd like to make sure all our friends and family (that I don't see everyday) know.

Long story short Brad, Connor, and I are moving to Utah!

Brad found a new job with Boeing in Ogden, UT and we are moving there in 1 week. We will be living in West Haven, just west of Ogden across I-15. Crazy, unexpected, and definitely unforeseen until 4 weeks ago. This was a very quick decision, but it wasn't without deep thought and consideration for all our options. We REALLY love living in El Segundo and had planned to be here for at least the next 5 years to finish Brad's Master's Degree and 2 year work commitment, but because he will be able to finish all that in Utah (because he will still be working for Boeing) and because we will be able to buy a house, this is a good decision for our family right now.

We are so sad to leave my family, all our friends, and this beautiful area, but we are so excited for the opportunities that await us in Utah. Not to mention, all of Brad's family is in Utah and I will have several aunts, uncles, and cousins close by, as well as my grandparents a short drive away in Idaho.

Thanks to everyone who have supported us in this big life alteration. Endings are sad, but beginnings and change are exciting. This offer is open to any of you who will be in the Ogden, UT area - if you ever need a place to stay, you are all welcome in our home.

To all our friends and family in Utah, get ready to play! Here we come!!!

It's been a great summer...

2010-09-08T09:51:00.000-07:00

There were so many fun and noteworthy activities we did this summer. Many of them I blogged about already, but some of them slipped through the cracks and I failed to blog about them. So here are some of the activities I missed. We had a great summer and are sad it's now over.

In April (10-21) when Connor was nearly 6 months old, he had his first swim lessons at Richmond Street Elementary School. It was more to get him used to and comfortable in water (and to get out of the house) than actually teaching a 6 month old to swim. We signed up with my friend Becky and Connor's friend Kevin, who is a couple months older than Connor. The swim lessons were twice per week (T/Th) for 2 weeks. Our instructor's name was Moses. We had a great time.

**************************

With El Segundo's free Beach shuttle during the summer months, how could we not visit the beach?! We visited El Porto in Manhattan Beach several times during the summer with friends and had a great time.

Connor didn't like how cold the water was. That ended our swimming in the ocean for the day.
LeeElle and Cohen. Cohen was fearless. He loves the water!

Amy Jo and some of the kiddos.

Connor loved playing in the sand.

Our entire gang on the way home from the beach. We filled the entire shuttle!

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August 8-13 Brad, Connor, and I drove up to Utah to visit Brad's family and for the Jeppson family vacation at Scofield Reservoir (near Price, UT).

Before driving down to the reservoir, we spent a few days at the Jeppsons' house and visited Brad's grandparents at their house.

This was Connor's favorite toy while we were there. A toy cash register that Brad used to play with when he was little.

On Monday night (Aug. 9) while we were in Utah we went to a Bee's game in Salt Lake and saw our friend Amy Jo and her cute daughters Ashley and Taylor. Ashley, who is 4, was the star of the game when she sang "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" for the 7th Inning Stretch. She was great!

Later in the week, we drove down to Scofield. All of Brad's immediate family and most of his extended family on the Jeppson side was there. Most of the family camped in tents by the water, but we stayed in a mini motel with Brad's grandparents so Connor would be warm enough. It was FREEZING at night, but very nice during the day. We went boating, water skiing, tubing, wave running, motorcycling; we played games and told stories; and I was able to get in some studying for my PE Exam coming up in October. Some of the time I was the one to stay behind to watch Connor so I studied while he took naps. We had a great time, and it was fun for many of Brad's cousins to finally meet Connor.

This is Brad's little cousin Ryan. He and Connor were inseparable - they were so adorable together!

Brad's cousin Nick and his fiance Fabiola (Fabby), and Brad's Aunt Jan holding Connor.

This is Ryan's older sister and Aunt Jan's daughter, Alyssa. Connor really loved her too.

Brad's cousin Matt, Alyssa and Ryan's older brother, also had fun playing with Connor.

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My El Segundo ward has some very athletic people. Many of them (including my bishop) signed up for the El Segundo Summer Slowpitch Softball League and asked me if I would play with them. My bishop's son Scott and Scott's wife Emily put the team together. It was a blast!! We played 10 games and ended up placing 2nd out of 6 teams. We almost had first place, but we lost our last game to the best team in the league. But we almost had them! The final score was 10-7 and the tying run was on base! It was your typical 2 outs, bases loaded, but we couldn't make it happen. Ugh. It was great, though. I always love me some good softball games!

My bishop is on the left. Scott is the one with blond hair on the right.

**************************

This summer was so much fun. Now the next 2 months will be devoted entirely to studying for the PE. The test is at the end of October and the closer it gets, the more nervous I become. So you probably won't hear from me much before then...

Wish me luck!!

Twenty-Something

2010-09-07T09:36:00.000-07:00

Twenty-five to be exact. My birthday was last week on Sept. 1. Long story short, it started out ordinary, then got a little better, then turned to crap, then got better again. You can stop reading now if you are satisfied with that, but I want to document all that happened.

I woke up and went to work. Nothing work-related went any better or worse that usual - meetings, paperwork, report-writing, etc. Ordinary.

Brad called me at work to wish me a Happy Birthday, sweet, and some Facebook friends posted their happy birthday well-wishes on my Wall. Thanks everyone! A little better.

I went home and Connor did his usual drop whatever he was doing and run (walk) over to me for a hug and kisses. Love that. We played, ate lunch, and drove Ady to her apartment in Orange (her car broke so she was driving our truck, she got hers fixed, returned the truck and needed a ride home). Connor slept almost the whole 1.5 hour car ride, waking up only 10 minutes from home. (Side note: He's going through a phase right now that I don't think will pass any time soon- he doesn't like to be inside for any long length of time. He gets bored quickly and, consequently, becomes fussy and trouble-seeking.) So since he was awake, I decided to make a trip to Michaels to look for Young Women invitation supplies. Mistake #1.

I put him in his umbrella stroller, thinking that would keep him somewhat happy for a little while because he loves stroller rides. Wrong. As soon as I stopped to look at paper, he wanted out. Fine. There was nothing on that isle that he could really hurt or get into, so I turned him loose. In a new place he is good about staying next to me so he just played with the swinging metal price tags on the paper trays while I found the paper I needed. He followed me into the next isle where I was looking for brads and, wouldn't you know (although I'll never understand why), they put rows and rows of stickers and trinkets on the 0-2 ft level. Naturally he wanted to get into those so I held his hand and kept him just out of reach of the displayed items, knowing I didn't have much time until he would start protesting. Well, "not much time" was about 20 seconds. He started fussing, went boneless, and sat down on the floor. I, trying to be the I'm-not-going-to-put-up-with-this-behavior parent, let go of his hand and said (rather calmly), "Ok, you can sit on the floor and cry then," and walked 2 steps away. Well, if you remember this post from a couple weeks ago, you remember he can stand up on his own now. The first boneless tantrum was because he couldn't have what he wanted, but it didn't take him long (in fact only once) to figure out that if he went boneless and sat on the floor I would let go of his hand, which is what he wanted in the first place. I didn't realize what he was doing until he did it twice more - my kid is already smarter than me. So when he did it a fourth time, I tried to stand him back up with the hand I was holding but he wouldn't put his feet down. There was an older lady at the end of the aisle watching with amusement (she was quite literally laughing) as I held my 10-month-old suspended in air by the hand with his feet and legs held straight out in front of him saying, "Connor, stand up. Put your feet down, stand up." After 10 seconds of this, I just picked him up and held him - which he really didn't want. After being stiff-armed and screamed at, I determined it was a good time to leave. I hurried to the cash register, paid for the items I managed to pick up before all this started, and we left. This was the downhill turn in the day.

When we got home we started playing with some toys. I had just checked my email and set my laptop back down on the floor (Mistake #2). I walked over to his toy bin to get more of his toys out for him and he dashed behind me straight to the computer and knocked it over (we stand the laptop up on its side so it doesn't overheat). It killed the laptop. It froze and wouldn't restart, though I tried several times. I was sick the rest of the day thinking that I just lost all the pictures, videos, and journals from the last several months (fortunately we backed everything up on our external hard drive in April). And, on top of that, Connor was bored being inside so he was fussing and whining. I should have left the house again and went to a park or something, but I was just too tired by this point.

Brad had to work late that night so he got home right at 7 when it was time for me to leave for mutual. I remember saying something along the lines of "have fun with that" and walked out the door. Fortunately, mutual was a blast. My friend's husband is a lifeguard at the beach so he took all our young women on a tour of the Lifeguard Headquarters on the Hermosa Beach Pier. Very cool and interesting! We had fun talking to the lifeguards on duty, hearing all the stories, and seeing the trucks and gear they use to save people. Our refreshments that night were cupcakes (my favorite kind - fun-fetti cake mix with rainbow chip frosting!) made for me for my birthday by one of my young women. I love these girls! So the day was getting better. Then we walked back to my car to go home and there was a nice happy birthday present from the cops on my windshield - a parking ticket. Sigh. Happy freaking birthday (minus $50).

I dropped my girls off at their houses, and ended the night opening my presents from Brad. He got me a 16 GB camera card (so our card doesn't fill up so fast from all the video I shoot), another camera battery (because I'm always complaining that the only one we have dies when we are out and we can't charge it - it doesn't take regular batteries), and tickets to see Young Frankenstein at the OC Performing Arts Center in a couple weeks. At least the day ended on a very good note.

I just went to bed after that so nothing else could go wrong.

Thankfully, that day wasn't quite the disaster I thought it was since Brad has been able to get all the files off the computer, but now we're in the market for a $400-$500 laptop. That, plus the parking ticket, and all the presents Brad gave me made for one of the most expensive days we've had in a long time. Happy birthday to me...

Cute Fall Pictures for a Great Price!

2010-09-01T09:52:00.000-07:00

I just found this blog through a friend's blog. This photographer is doing mini fall photo sessions (in Long Beach) for just $20! You get 15 minutes of picture time and 10 edited photos on CD. You can't beat that!

Here is the link to her blog post about it. Take a look at her pictures - very cute! Several of my friends from Long Beach have been her subjects in the past. (There is also a link to her page on the right side of my blog.)

http://sarahhullphotography.blogspot.com/2009/08/pumpkinfall-mini-session-fyi-sign-up.html

I'm planning to go on Friday, Oct. 8th in the afternoon. Anyone care to join me?

5 Years Strong

2010-08-26T10:51:00.000-07:00

I must give Brad the full credit for this year's anniversary. I, admittedly, FORGOT!! In my defense, I was aware that it was coming up within the week and I never forget the date, I just hadn't consciously nailed down the day. During church the Sunday before our anniversary, I agreed to feed the ward missionaries on Thursday - which just so happened to be our anniversary. I realized my mistake before leaving to go home a couple hours later (because Brad asked me what I wanted to do on Thursday), but Brad caught it before me and fixed the situation without me knowing.

Then he proceeded to plan our celebrations for Thursday (including a babysitter for Connor) and kept me completely in the dark. He asked our friends Sean and Ginger to watch Connor, and they are also the people that agreed to feed the missionaries for us that night - thank you, thank you!!! After Brad got home from work, we headed toward Long Beach, stopping at a grocery store to get sparkling cider and gold fish (I was hungry and we planned to eat dinner after). He took me on a gondola ride through Long Beach Harbor because he knew I loved the one a few weeks before in Vegas. It was a romantic, hour-long boat ride at sunset (even though our gondolier didn't have a great singing voice), and it was fun to see all the ridiculously expensive houses on the water and hear all the history of the area. After our gondola ride we called Sean and Ginger to make sure Connor was doing ok, and he wasn't. He has been clingy lately. So we drove home, put Connor to bed, and made ourselves a nice pasta dinner at 9 p.m. It was a fun night.

This is the most expensive house sold on the water to date. It sold for $13.5M and - get this - it's a SUMMER HOME for the owners. That means they have another house (maybe several!!) elsewhere to live the rest of the year!! Where do people get all this money?!

This is the house that inspired Barbie's Dreamhouse.

Breathtaking.

The traditional and modern gifts associated with the 5th wedding anniversary are wood, representing strength and a solidified relationship, and silverware, representing connectedness. Both of these represent our relationship very well at this point in our marriage.

Brad and I were married in the Salt Lake Temple 5 years ago on August 5. In the last 5 years, the two of us have completed 6 years (combined) of school, lived in 5 apartments, held 7 different jobs, been on countless vacations and weekend getaways, and added one new member to our small family. We've had a lot of ups and a few downs. Because of most of our experiences together (and in spite of a few others), our relationship is stronger than it's ever been.

In these 5 short years, nothing has brought us closer together than Connor. We love him. He is a compilation of both of us and we love teaching him, playing with him, and watching him grow. He brings so much more happiness into an already happy home.

Happy 5 years to my best friend Braddy! Wood is known to be long-lasting, so here's to many more years together!

PUPPPs

2010-08-23T23:26:00.000-07:00

One of my friends was asking about some of my pregnancy/birth stories and I sent this to her. I thought I would share to see if any of you had a similar problem with your pregnancies.

Oh boy do I have some pregnancy/birth stories to share!!! I think PUPPPs is a good place to start. No, not the cute, brown, furry kind. PUPPPs (Pruritic Urticarial Papules and Plaques of Pregnancy) is a rash that very few women get, usually late in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy, and the cause is unknown. One study has shown that male fetal DNA can be found in skin biopsies of the rash and, since 70% of women with PUPPPs give birth to boys, a new hypothesis is that male fetal DNA acts as a skin irritant. PUPPPs is also usually the worst with your first pregnancy, but usually goes away shortly after birth. However, for some unlucky few (we're talking 1 in thousands), it can last up to 1 year postpartum.

Meet one of the unlucky few.

During my pregnancy with Connor (my first pregnancy), I noticed by belly was starting to get itchy half way through my 3rd trimester. I just chalked it up to the fact that my skin was stretched more than ever (and was still in the process of stretching) and was, therefore, extremely itchy. While that may not have helped the situation any, that wasn't the real reason.

Immediately after Connor was born, within the first couple hours, my legs got so itchy I literally couldn't stand it. The bed sheets were like torture because they made my legs and feet itch so bad. I asked the nurse what was happening and she said sometimes that happens when the epidural is wearing off and that it should go away within a day or so. And it did. Until a week later.

1 week postpartum, my shins and thighs started to itch uncontrollably and were covered with pea-sized to quarter-sized, raised, welt-looking bumps. Within 3 days it had spread to my calfs and the soles of my feet and the itch was unbelievable. I've had mosquito bites, poison oak, and other similar rashes/bites, but this surpasses them all x1000 and until you've had PUPPPS you can't even imagine how itchy you can get. None of the lotions or hydro-cortisone creams I had helped at all and it was only getting worse as time went on, so I called my doctor (and the only reason I waited that long was because this began on a Friday night so I had to wait out the weekend).

I saw my OBGYN and she recommended I see a dermatologist because she didn't have any idea what the rash could be (which amazes me because she sees pregnant women all day every day!). The dermatologist also shrugged his shoulders the first time I saw him and sent me home with a stronger prescription strength hydro-cortisone cream and told me to take Benedryl for the antihistamine. Neither worked at all, and the Benedryl just made me groggy. I went back to the dermatologist several days later and he said he thought it might be PUPPPs - a very rare pregnancy rash that he's never actually seen on a patient and never heard of lasting this long after birth (this was 2 weeks postpartum). He also said there's really nothing that can be done except wait for it to go away. He prescribed some even stronger creams and lotions anyway, none of which helped in the slightest, and said it would most likely clear up in a week or so. I didn't think I could last another week as I was starting to (quite literally) scratch my skin off - I was making myself bleed.

I went home immediately and started reading about PUPPPs online and found several online posts from some women that said they had PUPPPs too. The longest any of them said they had it was 6-8 weeks until I read a comment on a post from another girl who said hers lasted 1 full year. A YEAR?!?! I was horrified. I hoped and prayed that mine would stop in a couple more weeks.

1 week, 2 weeks, 3 more weeks (so 5 weeks total) went by and there was absolutely no relief, although ice helped a little (I just left ice packs on my legs until my skin was numb of all feeling). The itching was worse than ever and trying not to scratch was IMPOSSIBLE. I was waking up several times a night because of the INSATIABLE itch. All I could do all day long was scratch and, of course, that helped it spread. Never before in my life have my legs, stomach, sides, arms, and neck itched so badly, and the worst of all were the soles of my feet and the palms of my hands. At one point (I think about 6 weeks into it) I didn't care if I bled and, in fact, I kept itching more thinking that if I could get it to hurt, it wouldn't itch anymore, or at least not as bad - that's how bad it was. I knew pain would be better than the itch, but that didn't make the itching stop either.

2 months came and went. It turned into 3, 4, 5... and here I am, 10 months later, and I'm still itching. Fortunately, it has gotten immensely better. The worst of the itching peaked around 6-8 weeks for me and, slowly, the itching subsided for longer and longer periods of time. I started only itching a few hours a day, then only a couple times per week. Now, at 10 months postpartum, I go through an itching spell about once every 2 weeks and it usually only lasts for about 30 minutes to an hour. I'll keep you posted about whether or not the itching stops at the 1 year mark...

Needless to say, pregnancy does some pretty crazy things to your body!!! Did anything like this happen to anyone else?

It's Official

2010-08-20T20:35:00.001-07:00

So, a few posts back I posted videos of Connor taking several steps on his own, and not crawling. He doesn't know how to crawl, like most babies, so he isn't able to move over to something, pull himself up, and then let go to walk on his own. When I said I didn't count the first 2-3 steps he took on Father's Day, it is because Brad and I have had to set and balance him on his feet then let him go, and he would do a controlled fall toward the other of us, taking 2-3 steps in the process. If he had crawled, pulled himself up, and walked even 1 step before falling, I would have counted it. But he didn't. I counted his first steps (on July 9) when I did (even though we still had to set him on his feet) because the 15 steps he took that night were much more than a controlled fall. They were actually very balanced and coordinated, and he did it several times in a row. He has been getting better and better ever since.

Well, I thought he would eventually have to learn to crawl to a chair, pull himself up, and then walk to become a true, independent walker. I guess Connor is as stubborn as his mom - he proved me wrong:

It's official - he has skipped crawling entirely. He stood up on his own from sitting for the first time on Friday, August 6 while I was trying on clothes in a Target dressing room. Naturally when I needed him to sit still, he walked on his own. That is just like him. He still doesn't know how to crawl, so maybe he will learn when he's 2 and pretending to be a dog during playtime?? Either that or he'll be one goofy-looking dog inch-worming his way around the house.

I have the happiest boy now that he is fully and independently mobile. He grows more confident every day and is now independently walking almost everywhere. The only reason he doesn't walk everywhere we go now is because he is easily distracted and we are still working on "come here" and "follow me." However, now are starting the tantrums when we say he can't go somewhere or touch something. I thought these weren't supposed to start until they were 2?! Or, at the very least, 1! Childproofing is in full swing...

Bonk!

2010-08-20T20:23:00.000-07:00

Connor got his first real owie while we were in Vegas. He was walking between Brad and Uncle Brandon. I was working on the laptop when Connor unexpectedly walked to me, tripped, and hit his eye on the corner of the computer. Brad and I didn't think he hit that hard until we saw a tear drop twinged with blood roll down his face. We were SO SCARED!!! But (thankfully) it turned out to just be a cut at the corner of his eye. His eye swelled up immediately and I totally thought he was gonna have a black eye. But it turned out that it looked the worst right after it happened. It actually healed fairly quickly - it was gone within 3 days. I'm glad kids are resilient.

About 12 hours later:

Then while we were in Utah for the annual Jeppson Family Vacation a couple weeks ago, we were picnicking at Bridlevail Falls when he lost his footing, scraped his cheek on the metal picnic bench and slammed his head on the concrete pad below (I heard the thud, ugh). This was taken a couple days after so the bruise on his cheek had mostly gone away.

He's also fallen in the tub and pretty much everywhere else in the house too. When he's walking and he starts to lose his balance as he gets close to an object he pulls what we call his "brace for impact" face. He's gotten several goose eggs now that he's started walking for real, and I'm sure there are many more to come. He is, after all, a boy...

Zoolander

2010-08-20T19:40:00.000-07:00

Fantastic Article

2010-08-18T12:14:00.001-07:00

"The Rise of a New Generation of Mormons" - This is a really great article that my mother-in-law showed me while we were in Utah last week. This is an article published in the Financial Times on July 9, 2010, written by James Crabtree from the UK. It's also worth noting that James Crabtree is NOT a Mormon.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/938ff454-8a32-11df-bd30-00144feab49a,dwp_uuid=79169f56-17f0-11df-91d2-00144feab49a,print=yes.html

With all the bad press we as Mormons have gotten recently over Prop 8, it's really nice to see that some people notice the good we do and still hold a high opinion of us.

And I really love that he gives BYU the credit it deserves. So many people think that just because it's a "church/religious school" it isn't tough. Let me tell you, it's tough. The average ACT score and GPA for admitted students is 28.2 and 3.8, respectively. And many people I have talked to (including my husband, sister, and several friends) say that BYU was much tougher than the schools they are currently attending (which include USC for a Master's Degree, and Cal. Poly Pomona - another very tough school to get into). BYU demands excellence, and high moral and ethical behavior from its students, and I think a lot of people write off BYU before looking at the stats of BYU's programs in comparison to other top schools in the country. If you care, you can check out the BYU Wikipedia page under "Rankings" a little ways down the page, or the BYU Facts Page - BYU Rankings 2008.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigham_Young_University

http://yfacts.byu.edu/viewarticle.aspx?id=181

Anyway, I love BYU (if you couldn't tell). It has prepared me for my career as an engineer and for life. But even more than BYU, I love being a Mormon. It doesn't matter what others say or think about me or my religion, I know it is true through my own study and prayer and I will continue to stand by it.

Vegas, Baby!

2010-08-02T08:47:00.001-07:00

The weekend of July 16-19 Brad, Connor, and I were able to escape for a weekend to Las Vegas. Brad's brother Brandon got a cheap hotel rate through his work ($200 total for 2 couples to stay in a 2 room suite for 1 whole week). Brandon/Bird and Jenn are from Orem, UT so it was a great place to meet in the middle. We only had enough vacation time to stay Friday thru Monday night (still a good deal for us - $100 for 4 nights of hotel), but they stayed a few extra days after we left. We had a great time gallivanting along the strip (even though it was a blazing 118 degrees some days - ick!) and, of course, eating ourselves nearly to death at several of the Vegas buffets. Las Vegas really is the city of gluttony - I think I gained 5 pounds in those 4 days...

We left Friday morning around 10:30 a.m. and arrived in Vegas around 3:30 p.m. We checked in at the Royal Resort hotel just off the strip where we met up with Bird and Jenn and relaxed for a little bit. We then headed straight for Paris and the Eifel tower. We were able to see the Bellagio fountains from the top of the Eifel tower (accompanied by Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On"), which was spectacular, and the lights and activity all along the strip is also fun to see from so high.

Saturday morning we slept in (this is vacation, after all), ate breakfast in our hotel room, and then Jenn, Connor and I went to see the Bodies Exhibit at the Luxor while the boys visited the Maserati Showroom at the Imperial Palace. They didn't allow pictures to be taken inside either exhibit, so these are the best we got. The Bodies exhibit was fascinating!! I've never learned so much about the human body in such a short time! After, we made our way to the large aquarium tank in the Silverton hotel where we watched a mermaid pet and hug the sting reys - crazy! Then we walked around the Bass Pro Shop, looked at all the hunting gear, and played with the duck calls to kill a little time until the Silverton dinner buffet at 4 p.m. This buffet was delicious (and we had 2 for 1 coupons)! Steak, prime rib, BBQ ribs, crab legs, shrimp, sushi, fried rice, salad, desserts, etc. etc. etc. We practically had to grease our sides to fit through the door and then roll ourselves back to our hotel room for the night. I don't think I've ever eaten so much, and I never plan to again - it was painful. We sat in our hotel room the rest of the night to undertake the near impossible task of digesting all that food, played with Connor, and watched a movie (Disturbia) before going to bed.

I know this picture is really blurry (all of them were because the flash didn't work with the glass), but you get an idea of how the sting reys were like her pets - they were swimming all over her! She literally bear hugged them 3 or 4 times while we were there, but I couldn't get a good picture of it.

Sunday morning we woke up a little earlier and headed to the Venetian hotel around 9:30 a.m. for a gondola ride. It was extremely romantic, and our gondolier sang beautiful songs of love in Itallian, including "Balla Notte" (This is the Night) from Lady and the Tramp during our ride along the quarter mile indoor Grand Canal. Connor was captivated at his singing, and the gondola ride, I thought, was the highlight of our trip. Our gondolier called Connor Piccolo Bambino (Little Baby) and Capitano the whole time. It was cute. We then walked around the shops at the Palazzo (connected to the Venetian) before visiting Madame Tussauds Wax Museum in the Venetian where we had fun interacting with many stars. It's crazy how they can make wax people look so real! Then we ate at the brunch buffet around 1 p.m. in Terrible's hotel and proceeded to stuff ourselves again (another 2 for 1 deal), although this buffet wasn't nearly as good as the Silverton's.

Connor was mesmerized by our gondolier's singing. This video doesn't do our gondolier's voice justice. It was beautiful, and very romantic.

You can also take a gondola ride outside along this beautiful canal.

The ceiling in the Venetian. Gorgeous.

In the elevator going down to see Madame Tussauds Wax Museum.

Bird and Jenn walked the red carpet with Brad and Angie.

Brad took on Shaq.

I was a Bond Girl.

Brad rode Evel's bike.

Bird gave Tiger some golfing pointers.

Connor hangin' with Snoop.

Simon and I critiqued some American Idol singers.

And Connor joined the wild wild west. (This one is for my dad - the biggest John Wayne fan of them all.)

Sunday afternoon Brad and I wanted to go to the Stratosphere to ride the rides on top, but the one we wanted to ride was closed for maintenance so we ended up walking around the gift shop instead. Bird and Jenn offered to watch Connor for us that night so Brad and I could have a date night. We all went to pick up our show tickets and eat dinner, which consisted of jalepeno cheese pretzels from New York Pretzel and Haagen Dazs Bailey's ice cream shakes - so good (we were still a little full from the buffet earlier in the day) and then Brad and I saw the Blue Man Group perform at the Venetian that night. This show definitely wasn't what we expected, but it was fun and interesting. And the music was incredible.

(This picture is from the wax museum, but this is really what they look like during the show.)

Monday morning, we went out for breakfast at Denny's on the strip (we just couldn't do another buffet) and finished off our Vegas weekend. Then we walked along the strip to M&M World (I had no idea there were so many M&M themed objects - we're talking 4 stories of M&Ms and M&M merchandise!) and then headed over to the New York, NY hotel where we walked around, shopped, and cooled off for a bit. Later, we headed to the MGM Grand to see their lions and then visited the famous Gold and Silver Pawn shop (from the Discovery channel TV show Pawn Stars). I totally didn't expect it to be so packed!! On the show it's always so empty! The last thing we did was visit the World's Largest Gift Shop across the street from our hotel - it really is the world's largest!! It's HUGE! They have everything you could ever possibly want as far as Las Vegas souvenirs go! Brad, Connor and I stopped by Panda Express for dinner before hitting the road for home.

Connor grabbed the butter on the plate right when we weren't playing close enough attention. He had fun, but the cleanup was a little messy.

Walking to NY, NY (you can see the Statue of Liberty in the background). It's not everyday you see Freddy Krueger and Buzz Lightyear chatting it up. They must have been dying in these costumes. It was a very warm 119 degrees that day!

Don't know what this guy is doing... or thinking.

We saw Rick from Pawn Stars working at the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop! It was very exciting.

I should have taken a picture of the entire gift shop from the outside. I swear it was 3 blocks long and the inside is FILLED with Las Vegas souvenirs - everything you could never want.

Connor did not want to take this picture, if you couldn't tell. He didn't want to be picked up because he just wanted to walk. This is the best we got.

Happy again.

It was a great weekend, a nice break from work, and a fun place to meet Bird and Jenn in the middle. Can't wait for next time!

Step by step

2010-07-23T09:17:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't been around Connor lately, he is walking now! For the last several months, he's been working so hard at walking well when you hold both his hands, then he dropped one of those hands and practiced some more, and now he can walk on his own!! Although he took his first 2-3 steps on his own on Father's Day, we are counting his first official steps on July 9 when he took 15 independent steps between me and Brad. (The 2-5 steps before then were more of a controlled fall, so we didn't count those.) He was 8 months old!!! Now, all he wants to do is practice walking. He is so determined to be running around with his older friends! We still have to hold onto one of his hands most of the time, but the support he gets from us now is minimal. He is going to be walking by himself in no time, and then the real trouble will start. Here are a few videos of his new skills taken over the last couple months:

Because bending over and walking with him has been putting so much stress on our backs, Brad and I devised a system that makes everyone happy. He could do this all day (and he does)... (In my defense, I don't normally dress like this - I was dressed up to go to a line dancing enrichment activity, but I didn't end up going because Brad got home from work really late that night. And as if my looks weren't white trash enough for you - yes, that's a fridge in our living room. That's another story entirely.)

On the flip side, look how well Connor still doesn't crawl, although he is getting much better. What kid walks but doesn't crawl??

Connor is 9 months old today and he is happier than ever (except when you sit him on the floor when he wants to walk - then he'll really let you have it). He is so much fun. His newest skills (besides walking) include clapping, socially laughing (if you laugh, he will sometimes laugh back), stooping to pick things off the floor while standing, standing by himself with no support, and he does this shy gesture where he tucks his head into his left shoulder while smiling at you. Don't know where that came from, but it really is cute.

He's a good kid, albeit strong willed - he certainly knows what he wants and when he wants it. But I know that will help him later in his life. We love you Connor baby! Happy 9 months!

El Segundo Farmer's Market

2010-07-15T20:41:00.000-07:00

I absolutely love living in El Segundo. It is, by far, my favorite place Brad and I have lived (we've also lived in Provo, UT and Long Beach, CA - which is saying a lot because Long Beach is another really great city to live in). I won't get into all the reasons why I love it in this post, but I will share one.

My friend Becky and her son Kevin go walking with Connor and me every Thursday to the El Segundo Farmer's Market on Main Street. Even if I don't buy any of the delicious produce, it's so fun to walk around and enjoy the free samples of fruit. When we went on Thursday, July 8 the city was hosting Environmental Awareness groups with booths set up. One of the vendors there was the Aquarium of the Pacific with a trailer containing tanks of fish, lobsters, star fish, sea urchins, and sea anemones, most of which they let us touch! Connor had a fun time playing in the water and he was intrigued by the different textures of the urchins, anemones, and star fish. It was a fun afternoon! Thanks for going with us Becky and Kevin, and thank you El Segundo!

4th of July, First Annual Reeve Cousin Reunion Extravaganza

2010-07-09T10:36:00.000-07:00

Connor and I just returned from a great week-long vacation in Utah fun-filled with immediate and extended family over the 4th of July holiday weekend. This is going to be a really long post - we did so much in only 1 week! Brad wasn't able to come up with us. He had to work during the week and then he planned a boys' weekend with my brother-in-law Sterling to go motorcycling up the coast.

What inspired this week away was a cousin reunion. On my mom's side of my family (the Reeve side) there are 9 girl cousins all within 10 years of age. Every year for the past several years, we have enjoyed getting together as we have all gotten married one by one. Fortunately, almost all of us are married now. Unfortunately, that means we no longer have an excuse to get together every year. So we gave ourselves one! We made plans at last year's weddings to get together for this year's 4th of July as our first Annual (or Semi-Annual - we haven't decided yet) Cousin Reunion (July 2-5). We all had a blast!

In order to spend some time with Brad's family while we were there, Connor and I decided to go up the Tuesday before (June 29). Connor loved playing with his grandma, grandpa, aunts, and uncles. This is what we did all week:

Connor and I landed in Salt Lake around 5:30 on Tuesday afternoon. Connor did fantastic on the flight!! He did cry for the first 5 minutes or so, but I think it was from being over tired. He slept the whole way there after that - lucky me. Brian and Brenda (G'pa and G'ma Jeppson) picked us up from the airport and they had so much fun playing with Connor that night. Wednesday Brian had to work so Brenda, Connor and I just played at home for the day.

Thursday morning my mother-in-law Brenda, sister-in-law Jenn, Connor and I drove down to Cedar City to visit with my sister-in-law Cami who is currently attending SUU. We went for a short hike (very short - the trail was closed) and all the girls saw Much Ado About Nothing that night at the Shakespearean Festival. If you are going to be in Cedar City this summer, I HIGHLY recommend this play! I normally like the Shakespeare plays, they are fun to go to and a nice evening out. But this play is above the rest - it's hysterical! Before our 3 hour drive back to Salt Lake Friday morning, we all woke up early (6 a.m.) for a hike up a slot canyon in southern Utah. It was beautiful and Connor loved riding along in his hiking backpack that Grandma Brenda bought for him! Thank you thank you!!

These two are my absolute favorites! Benedick and Beatrice. They were endlessly hilarious!!!

Friday afternoon around 3, I met up with all my cousins at Fashion Place mall in Murray, UT for a pedicure to kick off our cousin weekend, and Grandma Brenda watched Connor for me (thank you!). After our pedi, I picked up Connor and met my cousins and the rest of our families at a Thai food restaurant near the mall. There were about 20 of us, including 3 babies. It was a party !! We also met my cousin Erika's baby Stella for the first time - what a cutie!! And my sister Claire made little memory books for all the cousins with many pictures of the fun memories we've made growing up together. It was very sweet of her and very fun to look back and remember.

Saturday morning we all met at Hogle Zoo and walked around for about 2 hours. Then we ate sandwiches, strawberry salad, potato salad and chips for lunch at my cousin LaRisse's in-laws' beautiful house close by (where all the babies were able to take naps). Later that afternoon my sister Ady, cousin Noelle, Connor and I drove up Mill Creek Canyon for a short hike that took us up and around the front side of the mountain to a look out point that overlooked the entire Salt Lake Valley. It was a little difficult for me (there is something to be said for oxygenated air at sea level vs. thin air in the mountains!) but it was well worth it and so beautiful. After the hike, we headed back to Noelle's house in Sugarhouse for a big cousin BBQ - burgers, dogs, grilled peppers and asparagus, salad, chips, lemonade, pretzel M&Ms. So so yummy.

This giraffe was awesome. He was so considerate to stand at the wall so we could get a good height reading, and for whatever reason he kept licking the wall. Kinda weird...

What would it be like to be this tall??

Ever wonder what the animals see??

Not exactly sure what Connor is doing in this picture... L to R: Me and Connor baby, DeAndre, Noelle, Claire and Jaxson baby, Adrienne, LaRisse, DesiRee, Erica and Stella baby. The only cousin missing is Angelique, sister of Noelle and Erica. We missed you Angelique! (All the sisters/kids are color-coordinated.)

Halfway up the trail, Noelle offered to carry Connor in his backpack for me. I would say she was able to handle the extra 25 lb. load because she lives in higher-altitude Utah, but it's really because she is in much better shape than me. Thanks Noelle! He rode with me back down - the easy part.

Grill Master Jason.

The 3 babies together - Stella (3 months), Jaxson (15 months), Connor (8 months).

Stella with her dad Jason.

Sunday morning we drove out to Sundance for brunch at the Foundry Grill and then Connor and I drove back to Salt Lake to visit with Connor's great grandparents Gotberg and Jeppson for a couple hours. Then we drove back down to my Aunt Chris's house in American Fork for a Carver family 4th of July BBQ - BBQ chicken, corn on the cob, salad, rolls, BYU chocolate milk (oh how I miss this!!) and homemade ice cream - always delicious. Connor also got to play with his great grandparents Carver and my cousin Nikki's black lab puppy Ranger. So cute, so full of energy! We also met my cousin's new baby boy Craig for the first time and took some cousin pictures. He is so adorable!

Great Grandpa Gotberg (David) - I think this is who Connor gets his piercing blue eyes from. Don't know if you can tell from this pic though. Try clicking on the picture to make it bigger.

Great Grandma Jeppson (Mildred).

Great Grandpa Jeppson (Trent).

The puppy kept knocking Jaxson over because he was trying to play so Jaxson was afraid of him (Connor was ok around the puppy because I was able to hold on to him so he couldn't be knocked over). Anyway, Jaxson was playing with a spray bottle and as soon as he realized he could squirt the puppy, it was sweet payback - from the safety of one of our laps of course. Unfortunately, the puppy was game and he knocked over an unsuspecting Jaxson a few more times after this. Poor guy, but it was slightly funny. :)

Great Grandma Carver (Patricia).

The entire Reeve clan (my mom's side of the family).

Monday morning was more relaxing. My cousins all got together in the morning for a workout with Noelle's fitness instructor. I heard it was brutal - I didn't join them for this one. My father-in-law Brian had the day off and Brad's brother Jordan and his wife Jenika were down from Wyoming, and brother Brandon and his wife Jenn were up from Orem to visit with me and Connor (ok, just Connor - I know where I stand now :) ) so I thought it was better for us to stay home and play with all of them. It was great to see everyone, but I didn't think to take many pictures of everyone! Oh well, sorry guys. But I did get a great video of Connor and Uncle Brandon playing together! Then later that night Connor and I met up one last time with all my cousins and the rest of our families for yet another BBQ at my Uncle Ross's house. Swiss mushroom burgers, fruit salad, lots of other sides, and my Uncle Doyle's homemade pies - lemon, chocolate, cherry. Too good, I wanted to eat all night. After the BBQ, Connor and I headed back to the Jeppsons' where we said goodbye to our siblings and Brian, Brenda, Connor and I lit 2 small fireworks - only 2 because Connor was TERRIFIED. Poor guy. I'm a great mom though. I thought to grab the camera and snap a picture before I went to console my son. I know, mom of the year...

Connor's aunts, uncles, and grandparents were all so nice to literally run Connor around everywhere all weekend (that's all he wants to do these days) and he was so happy and excited that he would just keep his legs running even when Uncle Brandon lifted him in the air:

Is this not the sweetest face you've ever seen? I just love Stella baby!

Sheer terror. I felt so bad, but I wanted to light another one to see if a non-whistling firework would be any better. It wasn't.

Tuesday morning a few of the cousins (Ady, Claire, LaRisse, and I) met for breakfast at Mimi's Cafe in Murray. Everyone else had to go back to work. After breakfast, LaRisse, Brenda, Connor and I took a tour of LaRisse's Periodontics office (it's a beautiful office and she is going to be a partner soon!) and then we all drove down to BYU to eat ice cream from the creamery, and visit the BYU bookstore where I bought Connor his very first BYU hat. Later that day Connor and I flew home. Connor was a champ on the flight. He didn't sleep this time, but he was just laughing, playing, talking (sometimes loudly) and smiling at everyone around us. We made a lot of friends on that flight.

Connor and I had a blast all week. It was so full of activities that we almost needed a vacation from our vacation, but I was so sad when it was over. Can't wait for the next cousin reunion! We hope you all had a great 4th of July!

Why I love living in California

2010-07-09T10:31:00.000-07:00

Brad and I really enjoy living in beautiful, sunny, temperate Southern California. Where we live, it rarely gets above 75 degrees and it never drops below 50 degrees, even in the winter. Occasionally, our weekends are highlighted by drives up Malibu Canyon in the evening, and there is just nothing more beautiful than the ocean at sunset. Watching the moon rise over the water is similarly breathtaking. I love living here...

(P.s. None of these photos have been enhanced. These are straight from my digital camera to the blog. CA is just that beautiful.)