Our Little Corner of the World

Keeping up

2012-01-09T21:19:00.000-08:00

Every time I get the hankering for catching up on friends' blogs, I always want to update ours too. I am torn between the "Do I document everything and tell lots of stories? Or do I just post pictures? Do I post a ga-zillion or just a handful?" Thus, I get behind in blogging. So, let's get some pictures up and we'll go from there...

Old town Sac has a great train museum that we frequent. We go at least once a month. Zoe has inherited her dad's love for trains.

Our own cute lil' turkey.

One of my dearest mission friends lives just a couple hours away and came to spend Thanksgiving with us and Black Friday (not the freakish 3AM type, later afternoonish type) shopping.

3 of the 4 cousins hanging out under a blanket that was old when I was a kid.

Zoe loves the "red ball store." Target. She loves running from ball to ball out front. On this day she said, "I sit down on yellow bumpies and mommy take a picture!"

Zoe can spend hours at the sink in our downstairs bathroom with her Toy Story figurines, giving them baths and splashing all over.

And Zoe in a bag.

We were a little hesitant to get these pictures, but I think the end result was great.

Zoe loves helping mommy in the kitchen.

A new love is 'Punzel. These are two 'Punzel dolls that her aunt Bon Bon brought over for her one evening.

Making sugar cookies.

Yay family!

Zoe in a rare still moment with Daddy.

Ryan surprised me with a limo ride to go look at Christmas lights. I'd never been in a limo before so I surprised to see a huge hummer limo ready to pick us up!

Thanks to Groupon, Zoe is experiencing gymnastics and she loves it.

A brief picture with Frosty led to weeks full of "I want Frosty! I want Frosty!" We wen to DI soon thereafter and found a snowman stuffed animal. Whew!

And Benson to wrap things up.

Falling into fall

2011-11-26T22:35:00.000-08:00

I love fall. I love fall in California. I think it's funny how we'll wear pants and a jacket/sweater and yet still wear our flip-flops too. It's too much effort to put on those dang shoes and socks. It's even more effort to put those dang shoes and socks on a two-year old. A couple of times I've let Zoe leave the house barefoot and have just brought her shoes and socks in the car because 95% of the time she'll just take them off in the car anyway. It is still a challenge leaving the house. Zoe is showing her independence so much now too. She gets into the car and her car seat by herself and also tries to buckle her own buckles. When we don't have to be anywhere in a hurry that's ok, but when we need to get going I don't have the patience for it. Sometimes I can bribe her out of it with the promise of jelly beans (I keep some generic jelly bellys in the glove box and they have come in handy more than once, plus I snack on them myself) or a beloved toy. I constantly remind myself: it could be worse. I've stopped carrying Benson in from the car in his car seat. It started straining my shoulder. That boy is 6 months and almost 18 lbs. Zoe didn't hit 18 lbs. until she was almost a year old. It's so funny how different those two are. Benson can almost sit up by himself too and as soon as he can, he'll be sitting in the grocery cart. Until then, he usually will ride in the moby wrap.

Benson at 5 months.

Zoe and our carved pumpkins.

All lit up and looking good.

So our stake really REALLY gets into the trunk-or-treat. There are people there decorating their cars hours before the event begins. I signed up to decorate our car this year. I'd never done it before and I don't think I'll be doing it again for awhile. I think it's best left to those that don't have little ones who would rather walk around. We did have a great evening, but I would have liked to walk around with my cute little family. This trunk-or-treat was held the Saturday before Halloween so we got 2 opportunities to get candy this year. Yeah!

Zoe's Me-Maw bought her this bee costume way back in April. It was perfect!

Zoe ate candy.

I passed out candy.

Benson passed out.

Zoe and her cousin Kira on Halloween night.

Devil baby!

Arf's cool glowing glasses and a dangerous pizza cutter.

Don't mess with us!

Real genuine smiles from both the girls. Zoe can say "cheese" until the sun goes down, but trying to get her to say it AND look at the camera AND actually smile is a much harder task.

There's that moby wrap I love!

We took the girls trick-or-treating in my aunts' neighborhood. It's a nice place and we figured it'd be a good way to break Zoe into trick-or-treating. We soon learned she didn't need any breaking in! At the first door we knocked, the lady, who was my aunts' neighbor, opened the door and without hesitation, Zoe just walked right in! She wanted to stop and eat the candy after each house but we taught her that to maximize her candy stash, we'd have to do all the walking and then eat the candy later.

Happy Halloween from the Nickels!

It's cute now. I hope it's still cute in 5 years.

I think she was in heaven.

Cousin playtime.

Happy boy with big beautiful eyes!

Mommy and her favorite little girl.

Papa and lil' Benson.

This boy is so ready to crawl. Either that or he's working on his 6-pack.

Who dunnit?

2011-10-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

For our anniversary, Ryan had a surprise evening planned for us. We are celebrating our 3rd anniversary this year. We were married on Halloween and we knew by planning it thus, that we'd rarely get to celebrate our anniversary on our actual anniversary. Hey, I'm ok with that. For months Ryan has been wanting to take me to this dinner murder mystery aboard the Delta King in Sacramento. However, it's not something you can just walk on to the ship and do as a last minute activity. You have to make reservations, weeks in advance. A couple weeks ago we decided that we'd celebrate our anniversary on the 21st and that was the perfect opportunity for Ryan to go ahead with the plans. We were both excited for the evening. He knew what we were doing - I didn't. I was a little apprehensive because we had to leave the kids at home (Zoe was actually at Grandma's and that's no problem), and Benson can be a little tricky to get down to sleep. My brother Jared was willing to watch him. Benson also doesn't take a bottle real well so I was a little worried about how things were going to go at home. Jared assured me all would be just fine. Let's just say that when we got home at 10:30 that night, Benson was in bed and asleep. How much crying/screaming/wailing he did, I'll never know. Anyway, Ryan and I had a great time at the Suspects dinner murder mystery.

I don't have a wall-eye in real life. I just like to pretend sometimes.

Neither one of us had ever been to anything like this and had no clue what to expect. Our hostess was a little fireball of a girl (you'll see her in one of the pictures below). She was funny and helped everyone have a good time. I was expecting the lights to turn down low and that there would be a stage for the performers. But, ah, part of the act was that some of the performers were acting as regular guests and sitting at the dinner table so there was no stage. Everything happened all over the place. So they set this whole thing up telling you that we would witness 3 murders and that through clues we could try to figure out whom killed whom and why. Everyone was a suspect. Ryan did get picked on a little by the hostess, but like almost everyone else there, he was a great sport about it. As far as trying to figure out the murder mystery, I was lost. Ryan took really good notes and had some good ideas about who dunnit, but he didn't get it either. However, not all was lost. We did leave that evening with an award. And they only handed out 3 awards. The other 2 were for people that figured out the murder.

Lemme explain what our award was about. Each person got a list of the names of everyone in that room. There had to be at least 150 people there. On this list it was noted if someone was there celebrating a birthday or an anniversary. As the evening was wrapping up, the hostess, Dottie, was reading over the names of those who were celebrating birthdays or anniversaries. Ryan and I decided that when she read our names, we'd stand up, clink our root beer bottles together, and start madly making out. Hey, according to many, we're still newlyweds. Why not act like it? So, our names are called out and here we are making out in front of over a hundred strangers. Lots of hoots and hollers, let me tell you. The award we won that night was called the Dalton Award. It was named after the ship owners son and was for the person/couple who were really good sports. In the beginning of the evening, like i said above, Dottie picked on a lot of people and they were all good sports. However, we won that Dalton Award for being good sports and for finally stopping making out. Ladies and gents, I give you the Dalton Award:

Yep, just a little 5 inch trophy that now adorns our mantle.

Here we are with our lovely hostess Dottie and our Dalton. Dottie and I are making kissy faces. I don't know what Ryan's doing. He's trying. We had such a good time that evening. The food was good, the entertainment was great, but being there with my best friend and building new memories was the best part of all. I love you Ryan!

Nursing strikes, 3 kids, and Zoe's first anatomy lesson.

2011-10-05T20:58:00.000-07:00

A week ago, I discovered what it will be like to have 3 kids. My sister and her husband, who are avid Baltimore Ravens fans, took a trip out to Baltimore to watch a football game. Yes, they are that die hard. They traveled across the country for a football game. A game. Not a game and a wedding or a game and traveling to other cities - a game. Now, they did live in Baltimore for a number of years so they have friends there, friends who are also Ravens fans. Fuel for their fire. Regardless of their football fanatic status, they were gone for 5 days. Their daughter, Kira, is a sweet girl and she and Zoe love to play together. Due to my job title (awesome-stay-at-home-mom), and because I love my family and want to help out how I can, we offered to watch Kira during those days. She got dropped off on a Wednesday night, stayed with us Thursday and some of Friday. On Friday, her aunts Kris and Bonnie took both of our girls for their first sleepover and on Saturday my mom picked up both the girls for a night at Grandma's house. Share the wealth, right? Grandma brought the girls back to us on Sunday evening and then Kira's mom and dad came and got her Monday evening. It was quite a challenge getting 3 kids out of the door in the morning. During the time Kira was here with us, Benson had a well-baby checkup. Thanks to my friend Alicia for hanging out with us, that ordeal was a lot easier. While Zoe and Kira do play well, there are moments when one girl wants the other to play (or not to play) with a certain toy and vice versa. Right now, Zoe doesn't share real well. Everything is hers. And since Kira was on Zoe's turf, the possessiveness was even more evident. For the most part, the girls got along great, but there were moments where I think Zoe was on Kira overload. The first night the girls were up until 10:00 pulling on their Woody and Jessie doll strings. The next night, they went to bed without the dolls. Nap times had to happen in separate rooms or else no sleeping/resting would have happened. We went to the park and to the store and other things to get us out of the house. Overall, it was a good time and a learning time for me. However, I believe that having such a change in our home environment influenced a very painful couple of days for me. Story continued below.

Kira and Zoe

Do you see how cute that boy is? Well, for a couple days, that boy was causing me lots of pain and even more frustration and worry. Grandma had the girls on Saturday and Sunday. Ryan and I were looking forward to a quiet weekend with Benson and the opportunity to watch our church's semi-annual General Conference. Oh, but things weren't quiet at all. Benson refused to eat. Each time I tried to nurse him, he would turn his head away and flail his arms all around. This wasn't totally out of the norm because there have been days when he'll go for 6-8 hours w/o eating and then pick back up where he/we left off. Not so this weekend. He ate at 8:30 on Friday night and then not again until 10:30 the following morning. I don't know how/why, but he nursed that morning, and I'm grateful he did. But each subsequent feeding was refused. There was nothing else I could do with my backed up milk supply than pump. We tried to give him bottles and those were often met with refusal as well. Ryan, bless his heart, was able to get Pe-pe (his nickname) to drink from the bottle. So for the most part, my worries of him starving and/or dehydrated were quelled. I still couldn't figure out why he wouldn't nurse though. I hadn't changed/used perfumes or lotions or eaten anything that I hadn't eaten before. I even took him to a chiropractor to see if he was out of alignment which could potentially cause him pain and therefore lead to his not wanting to eat. After the adjustment, he still wouldn't eat. Darn it! I called my lactation consultant (whom I am SO grateful for!) and she asked if Benson had had any big scares or accidents lately. Nope. Was he sick or did he have a fever? Nope. No diarrhea, no vomiting, nothing. The confusing thing was that Benson was still just his normal happy self! The only time he was upset was when I was trying to force him to nurse. Oh, he's just a baby, but man can he make noise and be strong when he needs to. My LC was perplexed also. She encouraged me to look on a couple websites for something called a "nursing strike." Bing! From what I read, a nursing strike can last from 2-4 days and things that can bring it on are a change in the home environment and stress in the home. Bing again! We'd had an extra person (Kira) in our home for a number of days and while I didn't personally feel stressed, I'm sure I was. Somehow that caused his nursing strike. On Sunday night I decided to have some quiet skin-to-skin time with Benson. I didn't try to nurse him, just wanted to be close to him. Well, guess what that little boy ended up doing? Nursing! Yay! I was so grateful. He woke up that night and nursed again and things have been pretty normal since then. Whew! I NEVER want to go through that again.

Zoe reading to Benson.

Guess who loves Toy Story?

Lead me, guide me, walk beside me. Help me find the way. Teach me all that I must do.

I think he wants to be Elton John for Halloween. We're working on the costume, but seem to be running low on sequins.

So I was going to go in to the whole story of how Zoe learned today that boys have a penis and girls have a vagina, but decided against it. It just didn't feel right. It's totally innocent, but I just didn't want to have our blog flagged for inappropriate material. Suffice it to say, Zoe had her first anatomy lesson today.

Zoe's 2nd Birthday

2011-09-18T22:44:00.000-07:00

I did my best at documenting Zoe's special day. We celebrated her twice - once on her actual birthday and then again on the following Saturday for her party.

Morning cookies for breakfast!

A little tummy time with her brother.

Opening her gift from great Grandma & Grandpa Nickel.

I couldn't resist.

Playing with the packaging.

Great Grandma & Grandpa got her a doll that comes with its own potty.

Here she is trying to sit on the doll's potty.

Oops! How did he get in here!

My silly little girl.

We had a Toy Story themed party for Zoe. She loves that movie!

Opening presents! Lots and lots of Toy Story goodness.

That is some fun wrapping paper!

Hmmm.... what to wish for on her 2nd birthday?

I think it's going to come true.

Yep, it came true.

So, we missed August

2011-09-09T16:02:00.000-07:00

I really don't know how people blog weekly, if not daily. I think I need to start scheduling it into my calendar so that it gets done. I know there's non-Facebookers out there who are just dying to know the updates on the Nickels. This one's for you. Now let's get some pictures, and maybe video, up.

A little pool time in the back yard. Zoe LOVES the water.

Zoe also loves popsicles.

Zoe's cousin Kira lives about 15 minutes away so twice a week they get together for play dates.

Zoe also also loves cookies. Geez, she really is quite like her mommy.

This little boy smiles to no end. He makes me so happy!

Wrapped up in a blanket holding a toilet paper storage device. Gotta love toddlers.

Honorary sheriff at the Sutter County Fair.

Noticing the piggy's bottom.

Honorary bike cop.

At the somewhat-lame-and-overpriced-especially-when-there's-hardly-any-animals Sacramento Zoo.

Strutting her stuff in mommy's shoes.

Aaaahhhhh..... spaghetti.

With her Super Zoe cape on, it's time to get down to business.

We go to the mall a lot to play.

And when the mall isn't an option, the bathroom sink works pretty well.

Benson doesn't do a whole lot of entertaining things right now, so just put up pictures of him lying around. I'm enjoying the "Hey, he's still where I put him!" phase.

Mother hen and her little chicks. Cluck cluck.

Benson's baby blessing day.

A cute naked baby.

June and July

2011-07-24T21:32:00.000-07:00

Pit stop at CJ's before getting to our camping ground in Santa Cruz.

How much you wanna bet she'll love Elton John when she's older?

Outside of Pizza My Heart in Capitola.

Our little campfire chic.

A pause along the boardwalk in Santa Cruz.

If you haven't seen "The Holiday" you won't know what this is about.

The ward Pancake Breakfast on July 4th.

Driving Miss Purple Flower

Another pretty dress day for Zoe.

Benson will be inheriting a lot of pink things from Zoe. Poor guy.

A rare "mommy and daddy only' moment.

There's no place like home.... there's no place like home.... there's no place like home.

The kiddos

2011-06-15T20:56:00.000-07:00

Our little diva on the catwalk.

She loves bath time too.

My talented friend Shannon made this cape for Zoe.

Kisses from big sister.

Zoe and her friend Kate (who just moved to Denver =( )

Zoe still sleeps in this same position, with her arms back behind her head. Looks like it's a family thing.

A little blurry, but that's probably how the world looks to him.

Two things Zoe loves: being outside and popsicles.

Love this picture.

And here's the story

2011-06-05T14:11:00.000-07:00

Due date: 5/19/11

Actual birth date 5/25/11

Since Zoe came 10 days early, I had been anticipating (hoping) that Benson was going to come early also. When he didn't come early, I thought, "Ok, well, he'll come within a day or two of his due date." I'm not a huge believer in due dates, and with the birth of Benson, I'm an even bigger doubter. I know they're not exact dates, but in the case of my kids, they were off by a week.

All that aside, here's the story of Benson's birth.

5/24/11

11:00 PM

Ryan and I had just finished reading together on the couch downstairs. We went upstairs to get ready for bed and my back felt sore. I'd felt similar pains in the past and thought it was the same pains. Not so. The pains kept coming back and I knew that I wouldn't be able to sleep through them. I determined that they were contractions and I proceeded to call the hospital's labor and delivery department to see whether or not I should come in. I was having a hard time even just talking through my contractions and already they were pretty close together. The nurse I spoke with said to come on in. Here we go! I gave my mom "the call" and told her we'd be going to the hospital. Ryan contacted his family and let them know what was happening too. I called up my friend Alicia and asked her to come stay and "watch" Zoe (who would be asleep for the next 8 hours) and as soon as she got there, we took off.

As with Zoe's delivery story, we were on the freeway in the middle of the night and had no traffic to deal with. It took us just over 10 minutes to get to the hospital. We were there by midnight and the contractions were getting stronger and stronger. In the car I told Ryan that I already knew I'd want an epidural and I'd want it as soon as possible. We got checked in and the fun began. Questions asked, needles poked, catheters administered. What the!?! Ooooh, I hate catheters. I had to have one when I gave birth to Zoe and had a terrible and painful experience with that. Sometimes I think they do them just because. I was already in pain from the contractions and now knowing that a catheter was coming, I was not looking forward to that. Through tears and much squirming, it was finally administered. It was more painful than my contractions and I was so glad when it was over. After all these preliminaries, they finally decided to admit me. Oh, well thank goodness! I'd have been a little more than angry if they told me to go home. By then my mom had shown up. Before long they took me up to what would be my delivery room and within 15 minutes the epidural was administered. I was much more comfortable by that time.

I had an awesome nurse named Melaney. She was fun and would sit and talk with us about the most random things. She would still get her work done too. Having her there made our experience so much more enjoyable. For the next couple of hours it was a waiting game. We were waiting for the baby to move further down and waiting for my cervix to become more dilated. I was numb from the waist down and my legs felt like elephant legs. I was comfortable though and that's all that mattered. Ryan's sister and mom were on a train up to Sacramento and other family members were being made aware of Benson's imminent arrival.

Time was passing and I was trying to get some sleep. It's funny how the nurses come in, do their thing, tell you to get some rest, and then 20 minutes later another nurse comes in to check something else. And doesn't anyone write anything down? I can't tell you how many times I was asked who our pediatrician would be and where their office was. They sure don't want you to have any energy for when the baby comes. Melaney told me that when I started feeling like I had to go poo to let her know. That was the magic sign. I was doubtful that I'd be able to feel that sensation with all the numbness going on. But lo and behold, I felt it right around 10:45. She came over and said we'd be doing some practice pushing. I did one practice push and she said, "Ok, I know that you hate this, but I need you to not push until we get the other nurses and doctor in here." I'd told her earlier how much I hate that doctors and nurses tell you to stop pushing and doing what your body knows it should do. Because I liked Melaney so much, I listened to her and we waited for the other medical staff to show up. Apparently that practice push was more than enough to know that Benson would soon be out. It took about 5 minutes for everyone to get there and then we started pushing. I pushed twice and then Benson came out. It was so quick. Much quicker than I thought it would be. They immediately placed him on me and that's when the tears began. I was overwhelmed with a peaceful and happy feeling and so happy to see my beautiful baby boy. I got to hold him for awhile before he was taken to be cleaned. He was born at 10:53AM and the rest of the day was spent bonding with my new son, oh, and being interrupted by nurses to take my blood pressure and check his heart rate and do this and do that.

All in all it was a great experience although again, as with Zoe's delivery, I was so ready to be gone and to get home.

Baby Benson

2011-05-31T14:34:00.000-07:00

Pictures now, story to follow later.

Stats:
7 lbs. 11oz.
20 inches long
May 25, 2011
10:53 AM

Sorry to make you strain your neck on this one. Forgot to turn it.

Zoe's first Easter egg hunt

2011-05-17T16:49:00.000-07:00

It's about throwing up (fair warning!)

2011-05-11T19:59:00.000-07:00

So I realized that the last post was a bit of a rant. Maybe it didn't come across that way, but I remember not being in the best of moods when I was writing it. That's probably not a good time to be posting things about family life and such. I recently caught up on some friends' blogs and the challenges they're having with motherhood and with life in general and it totally made me feel like I wasn't alone.

It's only Wednesday and already this week has been a long one. Our little toaster has finally gotten sick. She's almost 20 months and this is the first sickness she's had. Sure, she's had her share of runny noses, but not full on throwing up each meal accompanied with a fever. It started on Saturday. When we got her out of bed, I noticed that there was a pool of wet by her pillow. I thought, "Oh, maybe she was having fun spitting or blowing saliva bubbles while waiting for us to come and get her." Then we had breakfast. It wasn't too long after that that breakfast came back up. We'd had plans to go to a working farm/petting zoo, so we decided to go check that out. That took us all of 7.3 minutes to do. There wasn't that much to do there. We then went over to Sam's to get some groceries. We have a book that we read to Zoe and on one of the last pages one of the characters is eating some grapes. Whenever we get to that page, Zoe always makes the sign for grapes, indicating that she wants some. And I always have to tell her that we don't have any grapes. At Sam's club that day I decided to get her some grapes so that the next time we read that book and she asked for them, I could cheerily reply, "Oh yes, let's go downstairs and get some grapes." Zoe could hardly contain herself in the shopping cart and wanted some grapes. Knowing that she'd given us back her breakfast, I wanted to her to eat. She chowed down on the grapes and we eventually got back home. Not too long after, guess what came back? The grapes. Oh goodness. We put her down for a nap and tried to feed her dinner later, but she wasn't all that interested in eating. And now, a few days and loads of laundry later, I can't remember if she did throw up that night or not.

The following day was Mother's Day (which Ryan totally rocked and made me feel so special!) and we were a little apprehensive about going to church. We decided that we'd go for at least the first hour and if things were ok, we'd stay for the 2nd and 3rd. Yes, we go to church for 3 hours. Zoe was pretty cranky during that first hour so we went home after that. I decided to go back for the 3rd hour because they were having a special brunch for the moms and ladies in the ward. On Mother's Days past, we're lucky to get a crumbled cookie or a plant (that I would end up killing), so I knew there was no way I was missing out on a brunch. Awesome! Before we ate, there was a little lesson and a lot of the ladies were sharing about the different challenges that we face as moms. One of those big ones is comparing ourselves to others. Oh, am I guilty of that. And it's not like I'm comparing myself to one person in particular. Oh no, I'm taking the best of what I see in others and creating a whole new person that has only these "best of" qualities and then compare myself to her. Oh, she makes a home cooked meal every night. Oh, she sews and makes clothes for her kids. Oh, her house is so cute and clean and decorated. Oh, she goes to the gym everyday and looks fabulous and you'd never know that she has 3 kids. Why do we torture ourselves? Being a mother in and of itself is hard enough, without all the comparing. And then not only do we compare ourselves, we compare our kids and think that it reflects on what kind of parenting we do. A never ending vicious cycle! I can't say that I will never compare myself to anyone again (although why I'd continue to torture myself is beyond me), but that discussion with those ladies really opened up my eyes to how rewarding and challenging motherhood is. I love it. I truly do, but I want to have a sick day once in awhile.

Back to Zoe. She didn't throw up at all on Sunday or Monday so I thought we were in the clear. Oh yeah, she did have a fever of 101.3 on Saturday, but that didn't last long and she hasn't had one since. Tuesday rolls around. Tuesday morning Zoe scarfed down a bowl of oatmeal in about 4 minutes. I chalked it up to her being hungry from the previous day (again, she didn't eat much for dinner - she's never been much of an eater) and was more than willing to let her eat more. About 45 minutes later the soggy Quakers came back up. Only this time it was tag team action. We had one barf session, and then about 15 minutes later, it was like a family reunion and all the oats were back together. Poor little Zoe just stands there and lets it come out and then goes on her merry way. That's one thing that's so hard for me to understand why she's sick is that if she's not barfing, her demeanor is just like her usual self, for the most part. She has been a bit more clingy and huggy lately and I gotta admit I kind of like the huggy Zoe. When she's feeling fine I can hardly get her to give me a hug so it's nice when she does want to snuggle. She took an early nap on Tuesday and I didn't know what to do with myself. I tell myself that if I wasn't 39 weeks pregnant that I'd be into some project, but I wonder how truthful that is. I'm used to her taking her afternoon nap and that's when I'll nap too, but a morning nap from 9-12, I get bored! I know her little body needs the rest though. So, she got up eventually and I fed her something for lunch. Or at least tried to feed her something. There's only so much you can do to get a toddler to eat. Now, had I offered her licorice, jelly beans and ice cream, she totally would have taken it all down, but that's not the kind of stuff I want to give a little sickie. Whatever I did feed her for lunch came back up and she napped later in the day. This time I was ready for my nap too. Ryan got home and we had dinner and I think Zoe just had some cold cereal sans the milk, oh, and some pineapple. That's right, because later as we were sitting on our back porch enjoying the evening, that came back up too. At least the pineapple did. That was an easy clean up job with the hose, thankfully. It wasn't long before she had a bath and we put her to bed. Thankfully she has been sleeping through the night. We've still been having wet diapers too so there is some fluid getting through her.

Ok, so I thought, "Hmmm.... Saturday barf day, Sunday and Monday no barf. Tuesday barf day, Wednesday and Thursday no barf." If only.... I did finally get smart and put out a huge blanket in our living room (where we've been spending A LOT of our time lately) and it paid off today. We're renting and I'm getting tired of cleaning up barf from the carpet. I kept Zoe to a strict BRAT (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) diet today and still it wasn't staying down. She had waffles for breakfast (the BRAT diet started later) and most of that stayed down. She ended up throwing up while I was in the shower - no fun! - for her or me!, but I was happy to see that it wasn't her entire meal (it'd been at least 2 hours) and thought that her body had to get some nourishment from the "wa-wa!" (please watch the video on the previous post). My best friend Alicia came over a little bit later (she brought flowers! so sweet!) and kept me company and even watched the lil' toaster while I ran to the store. I've been having some cabin fever lately! I can't imagine why. Anyway, she put Zoe down for a nap before I even got home and cleaned up my house too. What an angel. We had lunch and then she took off and I took a nap. After Zoe got up we came downstairs and she started munching on crackers and bananas. I figured crackers can count as toast since she's not a huge toast fan. She was drinking her watered down juice like mad too. I thought things were looking up. Oh no, things were getting ready to come up. And come up they did. I don't care if I get messy in the whole process. It doesn't bother me. I just don't want her to get freaked out by what's going on and I know a lot of how she handles the throwing up is reflective of how I respond to it. I just try to speak warmly to her and reassure her that everything is ok. She got it all out and then we both got out of our cracker/bananified clothes and got a pile of laundry ready. I decided to just let her go in her diaper the rest of the evening. If only I had that same luxury. I'd been keeping Ryan up to date on our day and so he got home from work as soon as he could. Poor guy though was feeling achey and yucky himself. The Nickels are just not the family to envy right now. I am going to try to get Zoe to a doctor tomorrow. Trouble is that we're kind of in between insurances right now so I have to go to a walk in clinic tomorrow and my fear is that the doctor is going to just tell me to monitor her and give her fluids. That's what I've been doing since Saturday. I would like to figure out what's going on so I'm crossing my fingers 1) that I'll even be able to get in and see the doctor and 2) that s/he will be patient as I tell them my story. Maybe I should just print this up and let him/her read it.

Wow, that was a long post about throwing up.

In other news, I haven't had the baby yet and I'm grateful. This would be such a hard thing to go through right now with a newborn. He can stay in the oven and bake for another week as far as I'm concerned. As long as he's born healthy, that's all I care about. I would love for Zoe to be healthy too when we bring him home.

And for the record, Daddy read Zoe the books with the grapes tonight and she asked for them. Too bad it's not a GBRAT diet we're following. She was denied the grapes. Oh cruel world.

Ready or not

2011-05-02T21:01:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to be ready this time. I am 17, almost 16 days away from Benson's due date. For me, a due date is just a rough ballpark date of when the baby MIGHT come. They follow their own time table and will come when they're good and ready. It makes me laugh when I hear moms proudly talk about how their babies came right on their due date, like the baby knew the due date or something. When I was pregnant with Zoe, my water broke the night after both a baby shower and a chili cook-off at church. I was wondering if that might happen with Benson, yet I have survived both activities, this time on different days, and nothing to show, baby wise, except this bowling ball attached to the front of my torso. Zoe came 10 days early, by the way, and I'm kind of hoping that same thing with Benson.

In my efforts to be "ready" this time, I've done a lot of organizing and planning. I was wondering earlier today, if I wasn't pregnant, if I'd be as gung-ho to get organized and well planned. I doubt it. But I'm glad I'm able to get these things done. We're winding up our unpacking and there's only about 5-6 boxes left to unpack, but if they go unpacked for a little while longer, I'll be ok with that.

This pregnancy has been a bit easier than my pregnancy with Zoe and I think that has to do with the fact that I'm not whale-ishly pregnant through the heat and CA summers. I haven't had as bad of swelling, and it's funny that even though I've got a little toddler to chase around and keep from writing on the walls, I feel like I still have a good amount of energy. At this point, I get a lot of, "Is there anything I can do for you?" questions. Several things come to mind such as, "Oh yeah, can you clean my shower and do my cooking and get my bills paid?" But honestly, there are only one or two people that I would honestly ask that of and I think it'd only be family. I know people are trying to be nice and compassionate, but I don't think anyone really expects to be asked to help like that. I wish there was a way that I could bank up my sleep so that after Benson does come I could tap into that sleep. It's funny how with new moms, everyone says, "Oh, you better get sleep while you can because after the baby comes you won't be getting much." Seriously? Getting sleep now isn't going to help after the baby comes. It'll only make you long for more sleep.

My friends threw me a terrific baby shower last week. When I was asked what I wanted (we didn't register this time around - what's the point?), I was really at a loss for an answer. I'm not one to have a themed baby's room nor am I too proud to put my lil' man in a pink bumbo seat (when the time comes). It really just came down to clothes. Clothes and diapers for the first month or two. We do plan on cloth diapering with Benson and I just hope that Zoe is done with her current stash of diapers by the time Benson is big enough to wear them. We're not even thinking of potty training right now. I think we've got plenty of other things on our plate(s).

I don't have any fun stories to share on this post... I'm just rambling really. Ryan continues to enjoy his job and that makes me happy. I love having a husband that comes home happy. Zoe is learning things so quickly. She probably knows 1/3 of the alphabet letters and is definitely in imitation mode. She's picking up a lot of words and signs and continues to amaze me.

Back to Benson (see, this post isn't even well organized!). I'm wondering how I'll know when he's ready. Zoe was pretty easy - my water broke at 2:30 AM. Granted, she didn't come for another 26 hours, but still, there was no doubting that she was on her way. My younger sister had a week of contractions before her son came. I don't want to go through that. I'm trying to be sensitive to my body and not do too much straining. I'm hoping that my water will break with him too so that I don't have to wonder and/or pay attention to contractions.

I've kind of given up on going to the gym. I've noticed that on the mornings that I walk on the treadmill, my ankles tend to be more swollen in the evening. And on the days that I don't walk, it doesn't feel like much of a work out. I think sleeping is more important right now. It's hard for Ryan though, I think, to be the sole gym goer right now. Bless his heart, he comes home from the gym at 6 and I'm still in bed. He sure is an example of diligence to me.

Yeah, so this post is all over the place, thought wise. It might be awhile before I post again. I kind of like just doing the pictures and video thing. I do have some Easter pics and video to get up so you might see some of that soon. Wish me luck!

Zoe says "waffle" and runs for candy

2011-04-28T16:51:00.000-07:00

I don't know why the quality on these isn't so great, but hopefully they're still enjoyable. =)

Our trip to SF Bay Aquarium

2011-04-28T16:47:00.000-07:00

One of my birthday gifts was tickets to the San Francisco Bay Aquarium and we had an awesome little family day trip there. The weather could not have been more perfect. Neither Ryan nor Zoe had ever been to an aquarium so this was indeed a special day for us.

Having a little lunch at the park before hitting the pier.

I hate it when you spill fake wine on yourself!

At the docks with a sleeping, hunched over little girl.

Zoe loved seeing all the colorful fish.

Both Ryan and myself got to touch a shark for the first time.

Our lil' toaster loved playing in the touching pools too.

The Birthday Blog

2011-04-10T22:22:00.000-07:00

Here is #3 of 3 blog posting that I've been wanting to blog about: my 31st birthday. My birthday actually fell on a Sunday this year, and while there was familial celebrating on my special day, Ryan and I spent the day before celebrating. It was a day not to be forgotten. My mom took Zoe for the weekend so we were able to spend all day away from home without having to worry about naps (ok, only naps for us!) and diaper changes. That in itself was a bit of a gift. Ryan had things planned for us to do that day. And awaaaaaay we go!

We began the day with breakfast at Pancake Circus, which is like one of the oldest and most original restaurants in Sacramento. Seriously, the decor in the place hasn't changed in at least 30 years. The parking lot is always packed though so we knew it would be good. Indeed it was.

I tried to tell Ryan he had an elephant dancing on his head. He didn't seem interested.

Yummy!

It's virtually impossible for us to get a picture of us both smiling as we try to take pictures in a moving car. After breakfast, we hit some yard sales on the way home and, despite the rain, found some pretty good stuff. Yay! We had a bit of a lazy morning and I think we even went back to bed after breakfast and the yard sales. We had plans for bowling in the afternoon, but those were changed. It was Saturday and the rain was coming down harder and harder throughout the day. Little did we know that everyone and their dog would be at the bowling alley! Add to that about 12 "Dora" themed birthday parties and we were looking at a 45 minute wait just to bowl. Blast! We'd invited my brother to come with us and when he heard that it was going to be awhile, he headed out. I can't say that I blame him. We decided to play a bit in the arcade instead. Skee ball is where it's at. We played a couple games there and then two workers came up, and in loud voices said that there was going to be a little competition at the skee ball area. When asked if we'd like to participate, we said, "Sure!" So, it was blind folded skee ball! Fun! There were 4 people participating and whoever got the highest score, would win 1000 tickets. Now, keep in mind that 1000 tickets can buy you a gawdy fuzzy hat and maybe a pencil topper. It sounds like a lot, but in reality, isn't much. So, we began and would you guess who won? Mr. Ryan Nickel! Yay! I don't know what my score was (in the double digits, I'm sure), but I was so proud of Ryan for winning! What a birthday treat! There's a picture further down of what we cashed our tickets in for. Zoe was the ultimate winner as she got the prizes we brought home.

Our "official" skee ball blindfolds.

So, after the arcade, we went shopping over at Bed Bath & Beyond. My in-laws were generous in a gift card they'd given me and it was burning a hole in my wallet. After shopping, we went to eat at Chili's and soon after that went and saw, "The Adjustment Bureau." It was a good movie and I'd definitely recommend it. After the movie, we went to the mall and walked around a little bit. Ryan fell into someone's power bracelet kiosk trap. This was him about to knock the girl in her head with his crane technique. The aftermath was ugly. It's probably a good thing I didn't get any pictures. Just kidding! He put the bracelet on and felt a surge of power/balance, yada yada yada. Needless to say, we did not walk away with one of those things. Let someone else fall for your claims! We did have fun walking around the mall and afterwards got a piece of cheesecake (to go!) from The Cheesecake Factory. It was crazy there on a Saturday night and no way were we going to wait around! We came home and watched yet another movie and ate our cheesecake. Ah, a great day.

Oh yeah! We tried on hats at the mall. I liked this one.

And after watching "The Adjustment Bureau" Ryan was really interested in getting a hat too. Isn't he cute?

I love Badtz Maru and my sweet sister-in-law made this card for me!

The prizes from the arcade. We got Zoe a big blue bouncy ball and some candy for us. She loves that ball!

My loot from BB&B. It's nearly impossible for me to go into that store and not walk out without buying something.

I had a terrific birthday thanks so much to my husband Ryan. He is so sweet and indulges me in whatever I want to do.

Down on the farm

2011-04-03T20:20:00.000-07:00

My best friend's dad is a farmer and Zoe and I recently got to spend some time on their farm. Zoe loved the machines and climbed onto anything she could. She especially enjoyed the tractor.

Zoe with my friend Alicia.

The tractor, definitely her favorite.

We walked around out in the almond orchard.

Zoe was trying to figure out how to get to that horse. If you can see those mountains in the background, those are The Sutter Buttes (our claim to fame: the world's smallest mountain range).

Alicia got her closer to the horse than she would have been able to on her own.

Back on the tractor. Once we showed her where the horn was, that's all she wanted to push.

Maybe she'll get to go on a ride on it next time.

I think this is my favorite picture of her. You can see her little cheeks puffed out because she is making a tractor noise (ok, all her car/truck/tractor noises are the same). But still, it's cute.

More and more pictures

2011-03-31T22:28:00.000-07:00

Zoe is signing "hat" in this picture. I don't know the sign for "bunny ears" and she doesn't either, apparently.

I can't get my cursor to go above that picture so I'll just start typing here. I've got more pictures and things to blog about, but I've also got all these pictures I want to post, so I'll get these up first and then the two other posts I have in mind will soon (it's a relative term) follow.

A trip to Target is never easy. We always have to stop and play with the big red balls out front.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

She loves the flowers in our back yard.

How Zoe entertains herself while I shower.

Why get one Pillow Pet, when you can get two? Let me also mention that she already has the above Puppy Pillow Pet at home.

On a walk to the park with her Elton John glasses.

Playing at the park with Daddy.

Crazy hair day! That's everyday for this girl.

And she loves the balls at Walmart too.

St. Patrick's Day and 7 months pregnant.

Bath time with cousin Kira.

Excuse me sir, would you like to buy some apples?

Blurry family photo.

Vacuuming her Dora couch.

Just chillin'.

Her shower hat.

Oh, and she loves the balls at DI too.

I'll get you my pretty!

Mommy and me!

Do these glasses make my face look fat?

Flying Solo

2011-03-13T21:08:00.000-07:00

We continue to love our new place. Our landlords are sweet people and continue to bring us over citrus from their trees. I have about 32 oz. of juiced grapefruit in my freezer and yesterday morning Ryan and I finished off our gallon of freshly squeezed (squozen is not a word for those of you who still think it is) orange juice. I made some pretty amazing creamy lemon bars last week with some fresh lemons. I love citrus! I'm so excited for the fruits and vegetables coming up in the next couple weeks.

Ryan is out of town this week. He's getting training for his new job. While this job is indeed a blessing, it's always hard to have him gone. I have plenty of unpacking to continue doing here, but I can only take so much of that and Zoe can only take so much of her signing videos too. She is learning so much and communicating to us so well also. I think she's had her first full on sentence as well: "I want two." She has this little quirk where if you give her one piece of orange, she has to have one for the other hand as well. She does that will all things: carrots, licorice, string cheese, etc. She is developing into quite a little person. She ate asparagus tonight on her own too. I was surprised to see that. What a joy she is to our family. Ok, look at some pictures and I'll meet you further down.

Dancing on Mommy and Daddy's bed.

Look at those eyes!

She loves to get messy!

Walking in the snow with Daddy.

Christmas morning.

These are the YW I taught in Idaho. I didn't realize, when uploading this picture that this was our "silly shot." Ok, so only half of us are making silly faces. I miss these girls and hope they're doing well.

Playing in the puddle in her Jedi outfit.

I guess, from looking at this picture and noting the gender-neutral shirt, I can understand why some people ask if she's a boy or a girl. Maybe this gives us an idea of what Nickel #2 will look like.

Playland somewhere.

Zoe loves flowers!

More flowers!

Playdate with our friend Kate.

My pregnancy continues to go well. I feel so blessed to have such enjoyable pregnancies. I've talked to a few women lately who are sick throughout their entire pregnancies. I feel so blessed. Ryan and I have recently gone back to the gym and one thing we do at the gym is go swimming. The gym we go to has an outdoor pool and it's kind of cool to be there in the morning, before the sun comes up, and just enjoy the serenity in the pool. We went everyday this past week and now this coming week neither of us will be going because Ryan is out of town. We go early in the mornings and no one will be here with the toaster if I go, so we're taking this week off. I want to make sure we get back on schedule though because I know that the better shape I'm in, the better my delivery and recovery will go.

We LOVE our new ward at church. It has been such a welcoming new ward. Heck, the first Sunday there we got a box of boy clothes from a sweet mother who was on her last kid and having a girl! We continue to meet wonderful people and just appreciate how welcoming and friendly everyone has been. We met with our bishop today and he seems like a wonderful man also. One of my new friends has even offered to throw me a baby shower! Yay!

We were supposed to have gone to visit Ryan's family this weekend. His grandmother is not doing well and his mom has been taking care of her and Ryan's dad who recently tore a ligament that holds the quad and the shin together. Ouch. We were going to take the train down this time and have just a kick back time. However, due to the parking ticket machine at the train station, we were late missing our bus which was taking us to meet our train. Bummer. I was looking forward to seeing my in-laws. They are such great people. We determined though that things worked out better this way because we were able to spend some quality time together before Ryan went off for his week of training. Heavenly Father has a plan for everything!

Well, it's time to take care of other things. Ta ta for now.

Moving on

2011-02-28T20:28:00.000-08:00

We moved! Yay! A little over a week ago we moved into a wonderful townhouse that I found on craigslist. I love craigslist. It's got its share of scammers, but for the most part, all of my craigslist dealings have been good. Add this one to the list. We'd found a condo previous to this place, but the landlord was a little uptight and seemed to want the perfect tenants with the perfect credit history. Now, we come pretty close to perfect tenants, but there's not a whole lot we can do about our credit history. We said adios to him and continued to look for housing and prayed about it too. Then I found an ad for this townhouse and called up the landlord and once I saw it, I knew that this was for us. The landlords are a sweet older couple and have only had family living in here so they're taking a risk in renting to strangers. I personally think it was Zoe that got us this place. She is such a doll. Anyway, we love our new place and love our new ward at church. Everyone has been so welcoming. We even got a huge box of boy clothes our first Sunday there! A lady that is now a friend of mine has had all boys but is now pregnant with a girl (she's due a couple days after me too!) and this is their last baby so she was more than happy to give us those clothes. I was more than happy to take them too. And that kind of leads me into a question....

This baby is my 2nd baby, but it's my first boy. Should I have a baby shower? I've got toys and books and baby stuff galore. All I need is clothing. I want to have a baby shower, but I don't know if it's tacky. Any thoughts on that one? I'm 7 months along now and am starting to feel the weight of this baby. It's harder for me to get up and down. We did get signed up with a gym last week and I'm so glad to be back to regular exercising. It'd been almost 7 months since I'd really exercised. Our gym has a pool and I love that. I want to be in better shape for when Benson does come along and I know it'll help me have a quicker recovery too.

Zoe and Ryan are doing great. I'm sure a lot of moms feel this way, but I just can't get over how cute my own daughter is! She is talking so much now and actually starting to say some real words: ball, tree, cheese, dog. She's signing more too. She really does surprise me with how much she knows. Ryan is enjoying his job and getting back into a routine. It sure is nice to have him working just 7 minutes away. He gets to come home for lunch everyday and that is a blessing. We're excited to be expanding our family.

And here's a cute video for you to watch.

No complaints here

2011-02-06T21:02:00.000-08:00

It's February 6. I'm sitting in what was once my older sister's bedroom, wearing shorts and a t-shirt and I have the window open. Man, I love California. We have had some super nice weather these past couple days. I actually ran the A/C in my car today. I think we're due for a tiny bit of cooling down, but I'm not complaining. I love sleeping with the window open especially when there's a breeze. Idaho, I don't miss you.

Ryan is going to begin his second week of work and he's loving his job. How grateful I am that 1) he has a job and 2) that he likes his job. I bore my testimony in church today of how Heavenly Father knows what challenges we need, as well as what blessings we need, and he provides them to us as he sees fit. We have recently been on the receiving end of some great blessings. We have had some dark times, but the light at the end of the tunnel is beginning to show. We've had kind of an odd thing happen lately too. We recently found a condo in Sac that we want to rent. It's huge and at a good price and will also let us do a month-to-month payment instead of committing to a year long lease. We like the landlord and he likes us too. We filled out the application so the landlord could run our credit report to determine if we're gonna be bums or not. Guess what? Apparently we don't exist. After running our info, he got information back that our names and socials don't match up. What the? We have no idea what is going on. I've got credit cards and plenty of debt so I know I've got some sort of credit score. The landlord even checked for us on Facebook to make sure we're who we say we are. It's just so odd that nothing is coming back for neither Ryan nor I. It's holding up our chance to move in too. This condo is available immediately and we'd hate to have someone else snatch it up. I'm only a LITTLE anxious to get out of my parents house and get to nesting. And speaking of baby, this little dude is moving around so much! I'm entering my 6th month and already feel like I'm waddling and having to plan my movements in bed so that I can turn from one side to the other in less than 20 seconds. I've gained about 20 lbs. already which isn't terrible, but I've still got a little ways to go and I know more weight is going to be put on. I just hope I don't have to deal with the terrible swelling and stretch marks on my feet like I did with Zoe. And speaking of our lil' Toaster, there's some pictures below of her. She's blabbing all the time and is really into her Signing Time videos. We love signing with her.

Her first time on a moving sidewalk. We were at Phoenix airport and about to embark on what was the worst plane ride of my life. I hate Pattie the stewardess.

One of the toys at the mall.

Hiding behind the ~~blanket~~ drapes.

Climbing on the furniture at the library.

Loves ketchup, just like her mama!

Valentine's Day is coming up and I'm getting Ryan a surprise that he isn't going to believe. I doubt he'll be reading this before V-day, but I can't risk putting on here, now, what the surprise is. I'll be sure to let you know after the cat is out of the bag.

Wish us luck in getting this condo!

Just blabbering

2011-01-26T20:30:00.000-08:00

So we are living with my parents. This certainly isn't going to be a bragging post. It seems that once you are in a certain situation in life, you find that there are lots of others who have been through what you've been through. Example: You stub your toe getting out of bed which causes you to stumble and hit your eye on the door handle as you try to catch your balance. The next day at church, you find that that same thing has happened to someone else! Ok, not that that specific scenario has happened (thank goodness), but I hope you get my point. Maybe being 30 with a family and living with parents (or in-laws) is something that is more common than I think. I know in different cultures it is more of the norm to live with your family for a long time. I'm sure there are benefits to that, but right now, in my circumstances, it's hard to think of any. I don't mind being close to family, but living with them is sometimes a little too close.

Ryan has, thankfully, been offered two jobs in the last two days. Both are great looking opportunities and now it's just a matter of deciding which one he wants to do. Both are in the sales arena, an area in which he excels, and would get us living back in Sac-town. We are certainly grateful for this blessing.

The pregnancy is going well, although I've been feeling a little sick to my stomach this evening. I look at myself in the mirror and don't think that I'm that big, but boy do I already feel like I'm waddling around and having a hard time getting up and down. I'm hoping that the swelling and cankles that plagued me with Zoe will stay at bay for a couple more months. It's too early for all that. I'm also hoping that with this little boy due in May, that the lack of sweltering CA summer heat will help me to not be as swollen. That was not fun. We're also going to have to move pretty soon because the bigger I get, the harder it's going to be to move and unpack.

We have a lot to be grateful for and know that Heavenly Father is aware of us and our needs. There is great comfort to be found in that.

A new year

2011-01-06T07:57:00.000-08:00

After having a phone conversation with a non-Facebook friend (anyone have one of those?), I realized that I hadn't posted on here that we found out the gender of our new baby. I'm pretty regular about posting on Facebook and just assume that everyone I know is on it. I was reminded that that is simply not the case.

So, for those of you that don't keep up with our news via Facebook, we are having a boy! He's due May 19 and yes, we already have a name picked out: Benson Samuel. We couldn't be more excited.

California or bust

2010-12-09T19:10:00.000-08:00

I prefer to not bust. So, we're moving back to California. We moved out here to Idaho in July. There were a few reasons we moved out here in the first place, you can pick your favorite: 1)needed a bigger place to live 2) we could live in a house 3) we wanted to be on our own as a family and fly a little (in the figurative sense) 4) we felt this would be a nicer/cleaner place to raise our family 5) insert your own reason here. Seriously, there were a few reasons we moved here and we felt that our Heavenly Father was guiding us to come here although we weren't exactly sure why. Since the beginning of the year we'd talked about moving to Idaho and whether or not we were actually going to do it varied on a month to month basis. Ryan lived here in Idaho when we met and he's always had a fondness for it and a desire to return. So the right time for us to move came during the summer. Ryan got a job up here, moved up here, and before too long, Zoe and I followed. We got the renters out of the house (a house that Ryan bought in 2005 due to their failure to comply with the contract terms, and although it wasn't a pretty sight, they did eventually leave. We were so excited to have a big house with lots of space, a yard, and a garage. The weather was beautiful for the first couple months we were here.

Now it's cold. It's icy. It's snowy. But the weather isn't the reason we're moving back. We sold the house. Ryan has a friend that has been interested in buying this house for a little while now and he's finally committed to buying it. It's a blessing for us because we'll be able to get away from this house which has started to become a bit of a strain on us. Ryan has been blessed with employment up here, but it's nothing to stay up here for. To be honest, we both would like to be in a bit warmer climate and we'd also like to be closer to family. I never really knew my grandparents when I was growing up, and I want to make sure that our kids know their grandparents. Both of our families live in California and they're just thrilled that we'll be closer to home.

Moving up here was a test of our faith and moving back to California is going to be yet another test of our faith. We feel that it's the right thing for us to do, though probably confusing to some. We're not sure right now exactly where we'll end up, but when you follow the promptings you receive from Heavenly Father, you can't go wrong. That's not to say that it's going to be easy and that everything will fall into place (although that is what we're praying for), but we're comforted in knowing that our Heavenly Father is aware of us and watchful over us. He doesn't want us to struggle any more than we want to struggle. We just need to be willing to do His will.

So there it is. We're moving back to California. We'll be back there right after Christmas. Wish us luck!

Zoe's bonk

2010-12-02T16:29:00.000-08:00

Zoe walking in the snow

2010-12-01T13:45:00.000-08:00

Grandma and Grandpa got Zoe a big pink marshmallow coat when they came up to visit in October. I figured that we better get some use out of it before we move back to CA. Yes, we're moving back, but that story will be saved for another post at another time.

Family Pictures 2010

2010-11-23T15:19:00.000-08:00

My dear sweet sister-in-law Priscilla took our family pictures back at the end of October. We're lucky we got these pictures done when we did because the following week everything was covered in snow.

Which one is your favorite?

Someone is walking!

2010-11-10T17:08:00.000-08:00

While it feels like it took forever for this milestone, and many a mom told me that it gets worse after the walking starts, Zoe has started walking. For a month or so she's been walking around holding on to a finger or two of a trusted adult, but a few nights ago, she took some true steps on her own and has been going since. Check it out:

The snow has started to fall in Idaho. I'm not a huge fan of freezing cold weather, but I gotta admit, the snow is pretty. Ask me again how I feel about snow in April. I'm sure I'll have had my fill by then. We are all doing well here. Ryan continues to work hard to provide for our family and I'm still blessed to be able to stay at home with Zoe and get ready for baby #2. I don't feel like there's been much progress and, in fact, sometimes forget that I am pregnant. I just finished the first trimester so maybe things will start to show a little more soon. My mom and aunt are coming to visit tomorrow and will be here for a long weekend. I'm excited to have them here and to be able to see our little corner of the world.

Halloween

2010-11-03T20:09:00.000-07:00

The before shot.

This is how Zoe often entertains herself. She'll pull the towel off the fridge handle, lay it on the floor, and then lay herself down on it. Silly girl!

Helping mommy move the seeds from one bowl to the other.

Waiting for my Romeo.

Ready for Juliet (they were all out of horse drawn carriages).

I'm only 3 months pregnant, but I look more pregnant than I am in this picture. I've never worn something that has so diminished my, uh, endowments. Zoe was our pet tiger.

Who carved which pumpkin?

Daddy dressed up as a prison guard for work and I got to bring the lil' toaster by. I think I dressed her up 3 times in one week in her little tiger costume. She got really good at growling.

The Pumpkin Patch

2010-10-19T14:25:00.000-07:00

Last Halloween, Zoe was barely a month old so we didn't do much. This year we decided to go to a local pumpkin patch (they're hard to come by out here, while straw/corn mazes are everywhere!) and pick some pumpkins! We had a great time.

Our poor kids

2010-09-29T17:56:00.000-07:00

Our kids aren't going to be inheriting much as far as drawing goes. Music, on the other hand, they'll have a head start. Whew! So last night, Ryan and I had an at home art date. We grabbed a big box of markers and some computer paper and challenged each other to drawing. We might actually do ok at a round of Win Lose or Draw!, but for serious drawing? Please don't seek out us. We had to share our art work with you because we knew you'd want a good laugh.

My rendition of Ryan.

Ryan drew me out walking Zoe.

And then he attempted to draw my face. The Shel Silverstein-esque drawing below that is his attempt at capturing a shark face that I make.

Then we drew a representation of our first meeting. Above is mine.

This one is Ryan's. He actually does some cute stick figure drawings.

I think these are my favorite. The challenge was to draw Zoe's glow-worm with our feet. Above is mine.

The Grinch twin is Ryan's version of the glow-worm.

I couldn't get this picture to face the right direction, but that's what we were using as our model. We certainly had some good laughs last night. Hopefully you got something uplifting out of this.

And that makes $.20

2010-09-25T15:10:00.000-07:00

More birthday pictures

2010-09-25T15:09:00.000-07:00

My darling sister-in-law is a great photographer and these are some of the pictures she captured at Zoe's birthday party.

That is such a face I would make.

No Daddy, no! I want my tray!

Ryan re-living a painful memory.

Zoe cannot believe what she just heard.

I love this one!

Zoe needed just a little help blowing out the candles.

Happy family!

Looking for mommy!

Zoe loves her little glow-worm.

Zoe turns 1

2010-09-19T13:19:00.000-07:00

Our little toaster turned 1 last week. It's hard to believe how quickly time flies. Zoe told us she wanted bbq tri-tip and corn on the cob for her birthday so naturally we had to acquiesce. The pictures below are mainly of the mess she made with her cake. As far as I'm concerned, the messy cake eating on the 1st birthday is a rite of passage. Congratulations Zoe! You made it to 1.

Zoe truly does love corn on the cob. I wasn't just saying that.

I got her some maracas and a tambourine for her birthday. She loved them..... until....

.... until she cut her tongue on one of them.

That brief emergency was soon fixed by a lot of chocolate.

And more chocolate.

I love this picture. It looks like she's playing an instrument.

This is what happens when you rub your eye with chocolate covered hands.

Jackson, WY

2010-09-12T14:48:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday we took a day trip to Jackson, WY. What a great day! It was a beautiful drive there and we had a great time in Jackson also. The city of Jackson reminds me a bit of Park City, UT. We learned that there are many a celebrity that own homes in Jackson. We didn't see anyone of note.... not even the dude who had a bi-braided goatee. Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of him. Better luck next time.

I love all the open space. I just can't get enough.

Our cute little creamsicle cutie.

The park in the center of town had 4 antler arches. No animals are killed for the antlers; they are shed naturally and the Boy Scouts go around and pick them up. What kind of merit badge do you earn for that?

Check out the crooked tree!

Walking around a labyrinth in front of St. John's something or other.

Lil' Pocahontas.

Our lil' cowgirl. Thanks Jordan and Priscilla for getting her dressed up!

Zoe loves pushing her own stroller.

Deliciously over-priced ice cream.

Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam....

This is an old barn at a place called Mormon Row. Lovely view with the Tetons behind it.

Our first camping trip!

2010-09-07T20:48:00.001-07:00

Last Friday we took our first family camping trip. With all that we brought, you'd think we were headed out of town for a month. We stopped at a gas station on the way out of town and one of the locals made a comment about how much stuff we had. That's what happens when you travel with a baby! We had originally planned to camp near a river we saw on our way to Mesa Falls, however, we found out that that campground required a 4 day reservation. We weren't that well planned so we had to find somewhere else. Ryan knew of a place just outside of Rexburg so we headed there. It was out in the middle of nowhere, but it was great.

Here's me and Priscilla with all of our stuff stuffed in the back.

Happy girl!

Happier girl with some root beer ice cream!

Oops. This picture is out of order. Nonetheless, here's Ryan making our fire!

Mommy is intent on getting ice cream to her little girl.

Hmmm.... keeping an almost walking girl away from a fire pit. Kind of hard.

I wanted to make sure Zoe got her dinner in before we had our hobo dinners.

Ryan had prepared EXCELLENT hobo dinners.

Aunt Priscilla with lil' Zoe!

Happy girl in her play pen. Once we got that put up, she was having so much fun!

What's up with her squinty eye in this picture? She loved romping around in the tent.

No pictures please!

Ok, so here's my story about the sleep, or lack of sleep. We put Zoe's play pen in the tent with us so that she'd have a secure place to sleep. She went down a little later than usual, but slept pretty well for the first couple hours. The weather forecast for overnight said it would get down around 45. That's not too bad, but still a little chilly. We had Zoe in two layers of clothes and a little beanie. The beanie didn't stay too well on her head though. She woke up countless times throughout the night. Jordan and Priscilla were in the tent with us and I felt bad that Zoe's crying woke them up, but they didn't complain once. Troopers! Anyway, we determined that Zoe was a little on the chilly side. As adults, we know that we can pull the covers over our faces and keep warm that way. A little almost toddler and 1 year old doesn't know that. Eventually, Ryan brought Zoe to sleep with him in his mummy bag. I still had a hard time sleeping. We heard coyotes throughout the night and I could just imagine them coming closer and closer to the tent. On top of that, one of the times I woke up, I had to pee. We didn't bring a flashlight with us (lesson learned for next time), and I really didn't have any desire to go outside of the tent in the dark to pee. I thought I could hold it. But something weird goes on in your head (ok, maybe not yours, but mine for sure) when you tell yourself you can hold the pee. It got worse for me. I tried to turn over (no sleeping pads, so I was turning over on hard ground) and ignore the pressure, but it was too much. This may get a little too personal, but if you're brave, keeping reading (I also told Ryan, Jordan and Priscilla I wasn't going to blog about this, but oh well). I was trying to think of a way I could relieve myself and still stay in the tent. I certainly couldn't just pee on myself. That wouldn't have been very comfortable sleeping in wet clothes. Then I thought: Diaper. Yes, diaper. I got into Zoe's bag at the foot of my sleeping bag and grabbed one of her diapers, opened it up and put it where it would be of most use. I tried to lay down and pee into the diaper but that wouldn't work. Even sitting up wouldn't work (thank goodness I had the cover of my sleeping bag to hide all of this). I eventually ended up squatting (still in the sleeping bag), and was finally able to let things flow. Unfortunately, those diapers aren't meant to hold an adult sized bladder's worth of pee and I could soon tell that it was full. I decided to stop though instead of getting out another diaper. I had relieved enough of the pressure that I could finally go back to sleep. Anyway, that's my peeing in a diaper story. Back to camping!

Ryan all mummified in his mummy bag.

Zoe and I got up before everyone else and went outside to enjoy the morning. Guess who still had to pee?

Having fun with the tent.

Ryan had quite a case of bed head.

Jordan cooking up the sausages. Yummy! Priscilla also made delicious eggs for us.

Dare I say it? Here are the happy campers.

We did have yet another memorable family outing. We're starting to get into some weather here that's a little too chilly for camping, so it may be awhile before we camp again. Oh, and here's some video of me and Zoe having a good laugh.

Hike to Mesa Falls

2010-09-03T06:21:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday we decided to take a day hike to a beautiful place outside of Ashton called Mesa Falls. The weather forecast for that day said there would be rain, but as we checked more closely before we left, it seemed as if the storm had already passed over Mesa Falls and was on its way to drench some other poor small Idaho town. Well, that's what it seemed like. The truth is something entirely different. It was nice and sunny when we left our little town and so we headed out with Jordan and Priscilla. It took us about 30 minutes to get there and it was a beautiful drive. There was an upper part and lower part to the falls. We visited the upper falls first and then hiked a mile to the lower falls.

Zoe was digging the falls.

The beautiful upper falls. Waterfalls are such a magnificent creation and to me, so mysterious. One never gets to see the underside of the waterfall. The water never turns off. It's constantly going. I always wonder what the rocks under the falls look like.

After awhile, the lil' toaster got a lil' tired.

This was the lower falls. Just as magnificent, just a little, uh, lower.

Now, as we were at the lower falls, it started to sprinkle. It was over a mile back to the car and we hadn't eaten. The rain started coming down a little heavier. After a little searching around, the wonderful Ryan found a tree we could sit under and not get wet. The challenge was that we had to go a little over the edge of the cliff to get there. Once there, we noticed that little Zoe's diaper was wet and it had gotten her little pants wet. The rain had now turned to hail and the wind was starting to blow. We got Zoe out of the carrier, put a changing pad on Ryan's lap and proceeded to change her. Her poor little body was being exposed to all the elements yet she remained happy throughout. I would have gotten pictures of it, but I was, you know, busy changing her. We got her changed and then we ate lunch. We could not believe how the rain and hail were coming down. We didn't know how long it was going to last either. We finished what we could of lunch and saw that there was a small break in the deluge of water. Little did we know that there was so much more to come.

Here we are under the tree. We weren't prepared at all for the rain we encountered. During that small break in the rain, we got back up over the cliff and headed back to the car. We'd walked maybe 3 minutes when it started coming down again, in buckets. It was pouring on us. It kept pouring on us. Ryan led the pack with Zoe on his back (nice rhyme, I know), and as it continued to rain and then hail, we decided we'd better make a run for it. There was lightning and thunder and I was waiting, just waiting, for a bear to come popping out of the woods. We'd seen signs that they were around and I just didn't want one more thing to add to our already precarious situation. You know that feeling you get in your shoes when your socks get wet and it's all squishy and cold? We started getting those feelings. Before long, we were all running. It finally dawned on me that running wasn't doing any good. I was soaked. SOAKED. There was no break in the weather. Ryan was like Forrest Gump as he ran. He was nowhere in sight. I'm glad he ran as fast as he could because he had the little toaster in tow. He later told me that she was just as happy as could be while all this was going on. We finally got back to the car and got Zoe out of her wet clothes. Her lips were turning purple. The car we were in had no heater so that was one more strike against us. It took us about 10 minutes to get all unloaded and to get Zoe dry and bundled up and we were finally back on the road home. None of us could believe that weather. It certainly was an adventure and we had a fun time. I posted some video below of us under the tree. Enjoy!

Ryan's 30th birthday

2010-08-31T20:54:00.000-07:00

Among Ryan's skills of hottiness and braininess, his other claim to fame is sharing the same birthday as Michael Jackson. Sadly, as we all know, the "Gloved One" died over a year ago and so sharing his birthday doesn't mean as much anymore.... at least not to Ryan. We recently spent a weekend celebrating Ryan's birthday and had a blast. As is common among most young married couples, we are not picking money off the tree in our backyard. To be honest, funds are a little tight right now, and while I wanted to do something memorable for Ryan's big birthday, I knew I'd have to get creative. Drawing upon past experiences of creative dating up here in Idaho, I decided to send Ryan on a little scavenger hunt. I created clues associated with the names of the buildings on BYU-Idaho's campus and got to work hiding the clues. Ryan saw the notes I had made about the scavenger hunt, and even though he knew what this birthday surprise was, he played along with it. He knew there was a scavenger hunt, but he didn't know much beyond that.

We began with lunch at Ryan's favorite place, Wingers. It was there he got his first clue. He immediately knew where to go.

All the clues were hidden on the backs of the signs of the buildings. His first clue was "I was the 13th prophet of the church."

Look at the genuine surprised look on his face at what? Yes, another clue!

Zoe came along with us. It was a sunny and windy day and it wasn't long before she was asleep.

We always take time for a cheesy picture. Aren't we just cute?

He had to get in deep with the plants for this one!

Thinking about this clue, "When I'm around, you know it's cold outside."

After Zoe had woken up, she got to ride with Daddy! And just look at that beautiful green grass! The campus at BYU-I really is impressive.

The previously posted clue led him to the "Snow" building whereupon he got this clue: "Speaking of cold things, go somewhere where they serve cold things and where they definitely aren't hiring."

A couple weeks prior we'd gone to Twizzleberry and plastered all over the doors, windows and front counter were signs stating, "We are NOT HIRING at this time." I guess they had one too many college kids coming in asking for more than a sample of the ice cream.

So we ended up at Twizzleberry and Ryan got to pick any size, flavor and topping he wanted.

And the little toaster got in on some of the good cold stuff too.

Ryan's favorite meal is shrimp stuffed, bacon wrapped jalapeno poppers. We made them up and he was even willing to cook his own dinner!

Add a little corn on the cob to that and we were set! So was Zoe!

Jordan and Priscilla joined us for the festivities.

The poppers really are quite good. You never know when you're going to get one of the really spicy poppers either. The suspense is exhilarating.

That is one happy 30 year old man.

Love you Ryan!

Blogging while she's sleeping

2010-08-26T14:53:00.000-07:00

I gotta get the blogging done while the little toaster sleeps.

Below is Bonnie. I met her earlier this week at a rest home. She is such a cute lady. She can't speak real well and her hands don't work well either, but she loves to draw and this is what she drew while we talked. It's the Tetons with a cabin and lake in the foreground. She told me how she doesn't like where she is and wants to move to a log cabin where it's quiet and where she's the only one. She let me keep the drawing. I definitely want to go back and talk with her again.

The rest are more pictures of the little toaster!

Her first time on a swing!

We got the little Dora couch at a yard sale. It's a hide-a-bed too!

Ready for walking!

2010-08-21T14:39:00.000-07:00

I got the little push-cart below at a garage sale for $1 before I left California. I thought, "I surely don't have the space for it in our little apartment, but we'll have a yard in Idaho." I'm glad I went through with it because the little toaster just loves that thing. It's funny to watch her walk with it because sometimes she gets distracted and doesn't even pay attention to where she's walking. It's usually at that time that she stumbles. But she gets right back up and keeps on walking. She's a little hesitant to stand on her own still and will immediately sit any time we let go of her hands, but she's more than comfortable walking with her push-cart. She cruises all over with this thing.

Dutiful Daddy out with his little girl.

What happens when Ryan makes chocolate milk:

Zoe loves climbing stairs and has gotten pretty good at it. I've seen her go up flights of stairs hundreds of times and not fall. It was with this mindset that I decided to wait for her at the top of the stairs at our back porch. And wouldn't you know it, it's at that ONE time that she lost her balance and fell backwards a couple stairs. She got a good little scrape on her face and has earned her first owie. I think she was scared more than anything. I sure felt useless. I make sure to stay behind her always now whenever she goes up the stairs.

What a day!

2010-08-14T21:03:00.001-07:00

Our ward at church had an outdoor water activity today. Zoe got messy, got wet and had a great time!

On the prowl for the pink ball.

Her first chocolate chip cookie. I ended up with most of the chocolate on my shoulders.

Our little toaster just loves the water. She had so much fun splashing around in this little kiddie pool.

Yellowstone

2010-08-04T20:59:00.001-07:00

We went to Yellowstone today! Yay! 3 states in one day: Idaho, Montana and Wyoming!

I thought these "paint pots" were pretty cool.

Ryan's eye for nature caught this.

My attempt at catching nature got this.

Zoe totally traveled in style today.

Idaho

2010-07-31T15:25:00.000-07:00

So it's still July and my last post was in June so I think I'm doing pretty good as far as consistency goes. Ok, maybe not. I've been meaning to blog for awhile (I think I say that in almost every post), but this time I have a really good excuse. Really. Really. Ready? Ok, we moved. To Idaho. I never thought I'd be back here (went to Ricks College '98 and '99), but here I am. Here we are. Why are we here? Good question. There's a lot of things to factor in. 1) We were quickly outgrowing our townhouse apartment. It was great when we first moved in. Then we had a baby. Then that baby started crawling. A crawling baby and an apartment with stairs = not good. We knew we weren't going to be there forever. It was good while it lasted and being the apartment managers there wasn't terrible either. However, we needed more space. 2) Ryan owns a house in Idaho. He was living in it when we met and loves, no seriously LOVES this house. He'd always talked about it and I'd seen it twice before he moved out to CA for me. Heck, I helped him pack up this house when we moved him out. It's a terrific house; built in 1915 when people knew how to create quality homes. It's got a lot of character and by character I don't mean that it's falling apart in places. Ok, so maybe the floor is torn up in the bathroom and there's a couple broken windows here and there, but seriously, it is a one of a kind house. I've never been the kind to want to live in a neighborhood where all the houses look the same, and well, I don't have to worry about that here. So, we had an opportunity to move in (opportunity = current tenants were trashing the place and needed to be evicted) and so we took it.

Ok, so maybe there's not A LOT of factors going in to our decision to move here, more like just 2 factors. But they're 2 important factors. Ryan came out here at the beginning of July to start a new job and that left me, with Zoe, continuing to handle the apartment managing, to pack up our entire belongings and move on out. It was harder than I thought to be home alllllll day with Zoe. She's a great baby and I adore her, but it's hard doing it all day by yourself. I thought about single parents, and even those that choose to be single parents, and I don't know how, or why, they do it. I would imagine most of them have jobs that give them a bit of a "break" from their babies, but still. Hard work. With the help of great family and friends, we got our apartment packed up and cleaned up, loaded up a Budget truck and my dad and brother drove it out here while lil' Z and flew out. I wasn't about to endure a 14+ hour car ride with a 10 month old. I'm all for adventure, but somehow that kind of situation borders on crazy.

We had quite an ordeal with Budget too. I'd never rented from them before and to be honest, I can't say that I ever would again. This is really too long of a story for me to get into here, so let me do my best at summing it up. Our tow dolly wasn't ready at the scheduled pick up time. In fact, it wasn't ready for almost 4 hours after our pick up time and that threw off our truck loading and was a headache to deal with. We had to call in 24 hours in advance to confirm our reservation of the truck and dolly so it would only seem appropriate that they would have our reserved items for the time of the pick up. Oh, not so my friend. It reminded me of that one Seinfeld episode where the person knows how to "take" the reservation, but they don't know how to "keep" the reservation. The dolly eventually appeared and I made them bring it to my place. Anyway, some great guys came over from church and loaded the truck. It would have made the Jenga creators jealous. It was awesome. My dad and brother left Friday afternoon, and would have arrived Saturday afternoon, but oh darn, the truck broke down about 2 hours from its final destination. While things have since been cleared up with Budget and they did reimburse me some money for all the hassle we went through trying to get the truck up here after it had broken down, I gotta say they have TERRIBLE "emergency" roadside service. It's a good thing nobody's life was on the line, because they would have lost it. Budget was awful about returning calls or even being on top of things. Their customer service line wasn't a whole lot better either. And oh, their gracious nature wanted to reimburse me 15% of the cost of the truck. Poor saps there didn't know that that wasn't good enough. I talked with customer service reps, the manager and finally someone in an executive position before I walked away with what i felt was reasonable compensation for their terrible service.

Our truck finally got towed up here and Ryan literally backed the truck up to our front door. The ramp at the back of the truck came inside our house. That was awesome for unloading and we didn't have a shortage of helping hands either. It was unloaded within an hour. Awesome. There are boxes strewn about the place but that's ok. I'm not in a huge hurry to unpack all the books. Zoe finally has her own room and has been sleeping so great in there too. It's kind of weird for us to have our own room too. In our last place, we shared our upstairs loft space with Zoe so she was always ~right there~. Now she's got her own room and can have her own space. I love the kitchen. I keep unpacking kitchen boxes and thinking I'm going to run out of room, but I keep finding empty drawers and cupboards. Talk about a problem I'd gladly take. It's wonderful. Our little town is so friendly and I can go for a walk w/o even locking my doors. We are renting the basement apartment out to Ryan's brother and sister-in-law and they love Zoe so we've got built-in baby sitters too! Could it get any better?

We are loving it here and if you're making any plans to come to Idaho, drop us a line and let us know! Depending on who you are, we'd probably love to see you!

真的/zhen de/ junda

2010-06-07T11:19:00.000-07:00

As Ryan and I were headed to our honeymoon (Catalina Island) we were listen to "What We Wish We'd Known When We Were Newlyweds" by John and Kimberly Bytheway. The title is pretty self explanatory so I won't go into detail. There was one part where they started talking about communication. Any of you know how important communication is to relationships. But how many of you have gone along with the other person because you didn't want to say what you were really thinking or feeling? For example, you want to go to In-N-Out and your significant other wants to go to McDonald's. You really don't want to go to the Golden Arches, but you do anyway because it's really not THAT big of a deal and their fries are pretty good. Well, the Bytheways told us about a phrase they used when they were just married and that phrase is "stern falter." If their spouse asked them what they wanted to do and threw the "stern falter" to the end of the question, it meant that they were to truly answer what they wanted, not what they thought the other might want to hear. Example, "Do you really want to go to McDonald's, stern falter?" And then the spouse could answer back his/her true feelings w/o fear. Ryan and I thought that was a good idea, so we stole it, but we changed the phrase to "zhen de." It's Chinese for "really." It has helped us out on so many occasions. Sometimes it is as trivial as where we want to eat, but we've also made bigger decisions (where to live, what to name the baby, etc.) with the help of "zhen de." I wrote it in the title as "junda" because that's how it is pronounced. I won't get into the specifics of Chinese and pin yin and the Romanized alphabet.... at least not for this post. Anyway, we thought this was helpful and just wanted to pass it on. Happy day!

Dear Christy Utterback: I hate you.

2010-05-26T16:08:00.000-07:00

Ryan and I are apartment managers for the complex we live at. It's a small complex, but is definitely higher-end living. We like our apartment but are looking to move to a 2 bedroom before too long. We currently live in a townhouse with a loft, and while it's nice, we find ourselves outgrowing it. When we do have vacancies (which we thankfully don't have right now), we post signs outside advertising and include a phone number to contact us. Well, a long time ago (how long? I'm not totally sure), someone by the name of Christy Utterback thought it would be a clever idea to take that phone number and give it to telemarketers as her own. Our business phone calls get forwarded to my phone and we seem to go through cycles where we're inundated with calls for Christy Utterback. We're in one of those cycles right now. I generally don't answer calls unless they are fairly local area codes. Over the last couple days, there have been phone calls coming through beginning with +98 or +64, and then 8 digits coming after. Having friends that live outside the country, I know that sometimes international calls look a little funky coming through. My husband suggested it might be someone from Taiwan calling. Whoever it was wasn't leaving any voice mail and I thought that a friend certainly would leave a voice mail. So today, one of those +64 numbers came through and I thought I'd go ahead an answer it. There was a slight pause before someone clicked on and started to talk, asking for "Christy." Now, my name has been butchered in so many ways, especially by telemarketers and junk mailers, and sometimes I'll pretend I'm a "Christina." Not so much with "Christy." So I tell the dude that there is no one here by that name. He doesn't apologize or anything, just hangs up. Silly me, I thought that'd be the end of it. No no. About 2 hours later, that same number appears on my phone as a missed call. I'm going to answer it the next time it does come through, because I have faith that it will, and tell them that Christy is recovering from surgery and is now Christopher.

Disneyland!

2010-05-24T19:49:00.000-07:00

Yep, we finally made the trip. We had a blast. Zoe had a blast. It was her first time on a plane and I was a little anxious, but the little girl did just fine. She slept the whole way down and all the way back too. We were able to meet up with my sister, her husband and their little daughter Kira while at D-land and it was fun to hang out with them AND to have someone watch our little Toaster (it's quickly becoming a nickname) while we rode the adult rides. We couldn't have asked for a better time. Zoe even got a "It's my first time to Disneyland" button. We soon realized that buttons make a good little toy for her. As long as she doesn't poke her tongue. She's got a cold right now too and that's not fun. It makes traveling a little less fun also. Hopefully it'll pass soon. I didn't know one little girl could have so much snot in her nose. We stayed with Ryan's grandparents in LA and went to the mall, to the Griffith Observatory (which we hitch hiked up to), and out to eat at the Cheesecake Factory. Sunday evening we visited an old friend of Ryan's whose baby is is 6 weeks older than our little Zoe and weighs almost 10 lbs. more than her. What a chunk! Overall it was a great, great trip.

On the Ferris wheel.

Stroller parking. Crazy. Reminds me of the endless sea of scooter parking in Taiwan.

Zoe was eating her Dumbo feather.

Ryan and I just both love this picture of the lil' Toaster.

Our little girl loves the water.

We went to the Griffith Observatory on Saturday evening. What a cool place!

Happy baby on the plane.

Totally skipped March

2010-04-06T17:00:00.000-07:00

So here's a picture recap of March.

Ice cream on my birthday!

Let me out! Let me out!

Zoe is starting to pull herself up. She loves standing.

Can't you just hear the angels singing?

Elton John baby.

Roses from Ryan on my birthday.

How Ryan gets Zoe to sleep.

Play time.

Getting some Vitamin D.

Look Eileen! The dress fits!

This girl loves looking at herself. Can't blame her. She's adorable!

Zoe loves her Daddy.

The best inexpensive toy: straws.

Working on the sippy cup.

And a not so flattering or cute picture. Nice.

Time to post again

2010-02-26T09:31:00.000-08:00

Zoe's asleep right now so I better take advantage of this free time and throw some pictures up here. Ryan has decided to go back to school for a doctorate degree in clinical psychology. He's applied here in Sacramento and also in Phoenix. I'm hoping we get to stay here. It'll be at least a month before we hear anything. Please keep us in your prayers though. Things are a little tight right now, but we're definitely happy and thankfully healthy. There are so many people who have less than us, even when we feel like we have nothing. I am grateful for a loving Father in Heaven who watches over us, sometimes lets us struggle a little bit, but is always there for us. I know He loves us and wants our happiness, more than we do. Faith is a hard thing to maintain sometimes. But sometimes it's the only thing that keeps us going.

We got these shirts from my brother Jared. Mine says "Taco-Belle." Ryan's says "Hot-Tamale."

We put this headband on Zoe for Sunday, yet in this picture it looks more like a bandana. We lovingly call this her pirate picture. Arrggh, matey.

Zoe's Aunt Krista gave her this bear. It was one that she had when she was a kid. Thanks Krista!

When people ask who Zoe looks like, I like to show them this picture. Behind me is a picture of Ryan and his mom. Resemblance anyone?

Zoe is getting better and better at sitting up. She's not all the way there, but getting close.

A picture only a mother could love.

Go ahead, say it. She's adorable.

We call this her Rainbow Brite outfit.

We started Zoe on solid foods when she turned 4 months old. It's been mostly rice cereal and she loves it. We recently started introducing pears and bananas and we might try peas tonight. She loves feeding herself and sticking the wrong end of the spoon in her mouth.

We love our little girl!

Just checking in

2010-01-28T20:47:00.001-08:00

From here on out, most of the pictures on here will probably be of our little girl Zoe. She is growing by leaps and bounds. Today she is 4 and 1/2 months old and has hit some milestones. She slept through the night last night. I understand that that might be more like a milepieceofjello. I don't expect that she'll do that every night from here on out, but man, it felt so nice to sleep through the night. She also rolled over today from back to tummy. Then she got stuck and cried. If only that other arm wasn't in the way. Argh! I love watching her and being with her and playing with her. Today she was introduced to Guns-N-Roses - yet another milestone. We rocked out together to "Welcome to the Jungle." She was totally digging it too. Ryan is currently working for a guy named Eric Lofholm. He's a sales trainer. Things seem to be going well, but we both feel that it's not going to be long term for us. We're still apartment managers at our complex and that has its ups and downs. Right now is a down because we've got some vacancies and need to get them filled. We are happy and healthy and couldn't be doing better.

I have started an entertainment blog (http://canyounamethemovie.blogspot.com). It indulges my movie quoting side. If you are a movie quoter, check it out. I post a movie quote everyday and you get to see if you know it! The following day I'll tell you what movie it's from in case you didn't get it.

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to go to my sister's step-daughter's basketball game. She's 10 (step-daughter, not my sister). There were some moms in the stands that I am determined to never turn into. They were yelling at the refs for every call and were into the game way more than their kids were. I was embarrassed for the kids. Mom, thank you for (as far as my memory serves) never being like that. I am all for supporting kids in sports, but once you're so into it that you're threatening to yell at a ref who is giving up his/her Saturday morning to chase around a bunch of kids who don't know what they're doing, then I think there's some serious problems.

Ok, and now pictures of a way cute baby:

She loves her feet. I love those leg warmers!

She loves guitar time with Daddy.

2009 - Year in review

2010-01-02T11:19:00.001-08:00

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

My little sister Dannika got married.

MARCH

I went to visit my brother Aaron in Texas.

Daffodil Hill

My 29th birthday

APRIL

Prom

MAY

Memorial Day in SF.

Wrapped up my 2nd year of teaching.

Visit from Melissa.

JUNE

Attended our first Juneteenth celebration.

Went to Las Vegas to visit Ryan during his 3 month absence (he was getting NLP training). Met up with an old friend, Kara, from Hawaii.

JULY

Annual trip to Bodega Bay, this time sans Ryan =(

AUGUST

Celebrated Ryan's 29th birthday at Alicia's cabin.

SEPTEMBER

September 14 - Welcome Zoe!

OCTOBER

1st year anniversary - October 31st.

NOVEMBER

Attended Ryan's brother's wedding: Jordan + Priscilla

Enjoying parenthood.

NOVEMBER

Family hike to Hidden Falls.

DECEMBER

Making gingerbread houses with the Kelseys.

Happy New Year to all of you!

Awww.... shoot! Photo shoot that is.

2009-12-12T11:59:00.001-08:00

We recently found an awesome photographer and had our pictures, ok, mostly Zoe, taken. Please enjoy:

Creativity?

2009-12-06T22:07:00.000-08:00

As a dedicated member of my ward at church, I recently attended the monthly enrichment activity. For those that don't speak "mormon," it's a once a month activity where the women of the ward get together to be "enriched." There's usually food and some sort of craft involved. So, I had planned on going to this Christmas enrichment and had received an email or two about it. I didn't read the email too closely though... well, I did, but by that time it was too late.

After a yummy dinner of fajitas with Ryan, here's what I discovered in the email about what enrichment would entail: Dinner, ornament exchange, dessert potluck. Ok, so I wouldn't be eating dinner because I was stuffed. Strike one. Ornament exchange? Ryan and I scrounged around the apartment looking for something we could "turn into" an ornament. No such luck. Strike two. Dessert potluck. Now I knew I could whip up something quickly (seriously I had about 5 minutes and no time to stop by the store). Ryan opened the fridge, bless his heart, and suggested I take some leftover pumpkin puff (a cousin of the much loved pumpkin pie), but it was in tupperware and I couldn't make it look presentable like that. I didn't have time to cook/bake anything so I had to get creative. Hostess cupcakes? Nah. Too elementary school lunch-ish. Butterfinger bars? Nope. Too Halloweeny. Chocolate covered cherries? Perfect! I had happened to purchase a box that week when grocery shopping. I got out a pie dish, placed them in and filled in the many gaps with some much loved hard Christmas candy. It was no Martha Stewart, but it fit the bill. It was a dessert.

I felt a little sheepish bringing it, but Ryan insisted I blog about it because one day I'll look back and laugh at it. I was actually laughing at myself as I walked out the door to enrichment. And I learned to pay closer attention to those emails.

This just in - literally

2009-12-04T11:44:00.001-08:00

I just took that picture 5 minutes ago. Here's the random story behind it. About 20 minutes ago Ryan said he was going to take a walk around the perimeter of the building. As apartment managers, this is one of our duties. On his stroll today he found the blue cooler you see in the back of the picture. Inside the cooler we found everything else you see in the picture, including 2 pairs of boxers. There were purses, wallets, dresses, skirts, and pants inside that cooler. Here's the funny thing: all the items are brand new - the tags are still on the clothes. Here's what I think happened: someone has stolen these clothes, kept them in a cooler, and in a moment of panic stashed his/her stash behind the bushes in our complex. Not sure what to think about this whole thing, but pretty random, yeah?

Paradise Falls

2009-11-24T16:36:00.001-08:00

I have the best husband ever. As I got out of the shower this morning, I found this note:

If you haven't seen "Up" yet, then the reference to Paradise Falls and Mr. Fredricksen makes no sense. We recently watched that movie and both cried. It's such a cute movie. We laughed a lot too (Kevin's a girl?) and just really enjoyed it. Since then, we call each other the names of the old couple in love in the movie, Ellie and Mr. Fredricksen. So I found this note (Ryan's penmanship isn't that bad; he wrote this with his left hand) and I thought, "Oh, how cute! A picnic lunch later on. We'll probably just go to the a nearby park." I had a visiting teaching appointment at 10:00 and then would subsequently be visit taught at 2:00 so we had a small window of time to work with. Ryan took care of all of it though. He got Zoe ready, packed lunches and brought everything we'd need for our little outing. He found this place up near Auburn called Hidden Falls. It was about a 45 minute hike to the falls. Today was such a beautiful day and I couldn't have asked for a better time.

Gotta love CA weather. It's almost Thanksgiving and no need for a jacket. Zoe is all bundled up though. Gotta make sure she doesn't get the slightest bit chilly!

Just getting started on the hike.

Glamour shot.

Can you spot the wild ferocious bobcat? Hint: it's hiding behind the tree.

Scenic spot stop.

Only the world's cutest baby!

The Hidden Falls. Not so hidden anymore! Ha ha! We found you!

Zoe got a big dose of sunshine today.

Aerial view of the fam!

Belly progression

2009-11-11T22:19:00.000-08:00

I knew there was a reason I took all these pictures. I decided to not post the first couple months because there's not much to show. Watch my belly grow!

5 months

6 months

7 months

8 months

9 months

Front row Zoe

2009-10-12T18:35:00.000-07:00

We have so much fun just sitting and watching Zoe and wanted to give you the virtual opportunity to do that too. Oh, and here's a picture of us. Yes, we're still alive. I think we're too far away from the camera in this picture to see the bags under our eyes =)

Here's the story of a lovely baby

2009-09-23T11:59:00.001-07:00

Saturday, September 12 I had a baby shower at my aunt's house. My in-laws drove up all the way from Visalia to come to that and to hang out with us for the evening, stay the night and then go to church with us the next day. The shower was great and everyone seemed to enjoy it. My mother-in-law was encouraging me to do squats so that the baby would come sooner. She was hoping so bad that Zoe would come while they were there for the weekend. Little did she, or us, know what was in store for us.

After the baby shower was over, I went to Target with my mom to get some odds and ends things that we still needed for the baby. Odds and ends like a stroller and car seat. After that shopping excursion, I went to the church and met up with Ryan and his parents for our ward's annual chili cook-off. There were all sorts of yummy chilis there - some definitely spicier than others. I was careful not to eat more than a bite of the spicy stuff because of recent heartburn I'd had. The night ended peacefully and we went home and soon thereafter went to bed.

2:30AM - Sunday - I was laying in bed, sleeping, and was woken up by a sudden gush of liquid. I quickly got out of bed knowing I was feeling something I'd never felt before. I told Ryan, "I think it's happening." His response: "What's happening?" Me: "IT is happening." We were 10 days before the due date and I hadn't really gotten the "hospital bag" ready so we spent the next hour getting things together, making some phone calls, opening the stroller/car seat box and getting the car seat set up in the car. I knew they wouldn't let me leave the hospital w/o a proper car seat. We had done a couple practice runs to the hospital, but at (now) 3:30 in the morning, there isn't much traffic to worry about. It took us about 10 minutes to get to the hospital.

As we were getting checked in, I told them that my water had broken. What they asked in return was, "How much water?" Like I have anything to compare it to? It was definitely more than a cup and less than 5 gallons. I was soon admitted and now it became somewhat of a waiting game. With my water having been broken, it shouldn't have been too long before I started having contractions. The contractions weren't coming though. Heck, this ain't so bad, I thought. Oh unwise one - what did I know? Turns out that my water had broken, only not completely. Later Sunday afternoon the nurse broke my water. I didn't know so much water could come out of me! They gave me Pitocin to get the contractions going and it wasn't long before I was really in some pain. Ryan was with me the whole time and was a great coach and support as I tried to breathe and work through my contractions. Family members popped in and out throughout the day. I couldn't believe how lucky Ryan's mom was for me to go into labor while she was there. I'm really glad it worked out that way. She's such a sweet woman and it was a dream come true for her. Ok, so back to the contractions. I worked through them the best I could but had no idea when the end of that would come. I sincerely wanted to have a drug free birth, but my body had other plans. The contractions were getting worse and worse and I kept telling myself that after the next one, I'd get the epidural. Well, I did that about 10 times and had Zoe come in the next hour or so, I might have been able to last. I overhead one of the nurses say that those contractions could last for another 3 hours, who knew? It was when I heard that that I decided to go for the epidural. The contractions were exhausting me and it was getting to be evening time and I needed my rest if I was going to be pushing this baby out anytime soon.

Ahhhhh, epidural. Welcome relief. I was able to get a little bit of rest and around 3:00 on Monday morning, I started pushing. Ryan, my mom and my mother-in-law were all able to stay in the room and help me as I pushed and counted and pushed some more. The pushing wasn't so bad at first, but got harder and harder. At 4:40 our little Zoe came into the world. She was beautiful and perfect, 7 lbs 9 oz and 19 inches long. She has been a joy and a blessing to us already. We're so happy to have our little family!

I'm also happy to report that my ankles are back. =)

Funky Fresno

2009-09-08T18:53:00.000-07:00

Ok, first of all, have you ever seen garage sale balloons? It sure beats those crappy cardboard signs! We spent the weekend down in Visalia visiting with Ryan's family and friends. His mom, Debi, is the queen of yard sales. She has such an eye for the good stuff. As we were driving around Saturday morning, we saw this truck advertising a yard sale. None of us had ever seen advertising quite like this before.

On our way home Monday evening, we decided to stop in Fresno for some gas and a little grub. Ryan was craving pizza and we found this hole in the wall called Hungry Howie's Pizza. There were two tables in the "restaurant" so we assumed that most people got their pies to go. Not us. We decided to take a seat and enjoy our food. About halfway into our meal, I saw a guy sprawled out on some grass in the strip mall parking lot. He was a rather large guy, wearing a maroon sports jersey, jeans and at some point his shoes had come off. He was on the ground, rolling back and forth, yelling. Every once in awhile he'd shove his face into the grass. I pointed it out to Ryan and we tried to figure out what was going on. No one was around him and he didn't appear to be hurt in any way. We got up and walked out to get a better view. A lady who had just ordered some pizza to go was outside and talking about how people now days just stand around and watch what's going on, they "don't do nothing." Yeah lady, no joke! Who knows what this guy has on him! Neither Ryan nor I were about to get any closer to this guy. She walked over to him, but did she get close enough to "help"? No. I think when she realized that the guy was a little 51/50, she didn't want to be superwoman anymore. One of the pizza delivery dudes had just come back and he walked over to the the roly poly man with a phone to his ear. I think he was actually the one summoning the black and whites to get over there. A helicopter flew over head too. About that point, I looked at the traffic going by and noticed there was a brown sedan of sorts in the middle of the lane, door open and no one inside. Cars were going around it. I went back inside the hole to watch the action from the inside. The cops showed up in droves, seriously, about 7 cop cars showed up - all for this one guy. Someone thought he was having 'Nam flashbacks. He didn't look old enough to me to have served in Vietnam. Portly delivery dude came back in and said that this guy was yelling and screaming obscenities. Of course he didn't use a big word like that, no, he told us the words he was saying. The police were able to restrain the guy while he was still on the ground and some how word got to us that he was on PCP and had seriously just flipped out. His car was the one in the road and it seemed that he had just screeched the brakes (Ryan said he remembered hearing brakes), opened the car, ran out and over into the grassy knoll of the ghetto strip mall and started going nuts on the ground. If you look closely in the picture below, you can see the jersey clad guy on the ground. Heck, we didn't even have to rubberneck for this one. We had front row seats.