Noahs Birthday!

Yeah I know…it was a month ago. I’ve had all kinds of things on my list and blogging was at the very bottom! But I finally have some time and I thought I would start off with my little boy! He is oh so wonderful! He turned one on the first and we had a little monster party! Noah has been such a wonderful part of our family. He is nothing like I thought he would be, but everything I wanted! He has white hair and blue eyes! I never thought I would get a blue eyed baby, so I was happily surprised! He is so happy and easy going! Since he was born he has always been able to make me smile! On bad days or in the middle of the night when he wouldn’t sleep and I was exhausted…I just had to look at him and it always made me feel better. He had little droopy cheeks that I loved and now he has this goofy grin and a goofy little walk and I just cant get enough of him! I just want him to stay little forever! He doesn’t really say any words yet, but he is so quick to figure things out! It doesn’t take him long to figure things out. Some of his favorite things are:

His bottle…He loves this thing and demands it regularly…I know he probably shouldn’t have it anymore, but Im a little stuck on how to do it. He seriously loves it!

His doggy…This was a stuffed animal that Makella got from Uncle Aaron and Aunt Kelly, but when Noah was really little, he saw it and immediately grabbed it and hugged it and loved it. From then on it was his and he sleeps with it every night! There are so many night when we check on him and he is snuggling with it. Its seriously cute!

He loves to climb…His biggest frustration is when he cant get up on something. He is forever finding ways to get on the table or the top of the couch, Im pretty sure it will only get worse as he gets older! Im a little scared!

He loves to be outside…Now that he has kinda gotten over the habit of eating rocks, I let him outside a bit more and he will wander around out there for as long as Ill let him.

Balls…we have a really big purple ball and he loves to grab it and carry it around. He also likes to try to lay on top of it. He hasn’t really been too successful with that, but trying is all the fun!

He loves me! Since this is my blog, I can write what I want and I totally know he loves me best! J He’s a momma’s boy and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Here are a few pictures from his first year! Love this boy to death!

Love you Noah! And just in case you didn’t think I put enough pictures in this post….here are just a few from his birthday party! Then I will be done, I promise :)

POST Graduation!

Its time for a little husband bragging! For the past 5 weeks Jon has been going through POST academy to become a correctional officer at the prison. He has worked so hard and has done so well! He was waking up at 5 everyday and not getting home until 5-6. Then he came home and was still a good dad and husband! Though, there were quite a few days when he came home and crashed on the couch! We are so proud of the hard work he did. He was chosen by his class to be the class president which also meant that he had to speak at graduation. So today he gave his speech and did such a great job! He spoke about the good experiences he had and the things he's learned, with a few jokes mixed in! He also received the highest award they have of Top student and got a nifty little plaque! Its neat to finally see him doing something that he loves to do! This is a really great first step and it gets his foot in the door for future opportunities. Plus, he looks really good in a uniform! The next adventure is me, my mom and sister in law are making a long trek to California to see my sister and her new baby that was born yesterday! Im so excited to be able to help her out and hold the sweet little girl!

Great Summer!

After almost 2 months of being homeless, Jon finally started his new job and we got to move into our place! We have been here for a little over a month and its great! This is where we live now!
And this is our backyard:Its really fantastic! We really like the little town we live in, its quiet and small and just close enough to stores and everything else we need. We feel so blessed to live in such a great place! I miss being able to see my friends every weekend, but we have been able to have lots of visitors already because of people driving through, which has been fun!
Jons job is going so great as well! He is going through the POST academy right now and is loving it! He graduates from that on Friday, so I will post more about that later! But here is a teaser picture of him in his uniform! He looks so good!Ive been trying to stay busy with some projects too! We finally got Noah a crib! He has never had a crib because we couldnt fit one in our last apartment, so he just slept in a portacrib. When we got up here, we got Makella's old crib and realized that some parts were missing, so I used that as an excuse to get a new one! I found a great deal on one and have been painting it black, I think I did a pretty good job on it. Definetaly not perfect, but thats ok, I love it! Here is the finished product, I think he likes it!
I've also been making a lot of these:


Im not sure why Im so obsessed with them, but its just fun to make them look pretty! Makella is loving her new house and loves being able to find roly polys all day long! She is going to primary in our new ward and loves it so much! She is always asking when we can go to church...probably because its basically the only time she gets to play with other kids! She's a little deprived...but she has been able to play with her cousin Malia a few times and she loves that. She will be taking dance from Kami this fall and is really looking forward to it!
Noah is getting bigger every day, he doesn't walk yet, but just this morning he took 2 1/2 steps! I think when he decides that he really wants to, he will just up and walk. He is a vampire baby and decided to get his eye teeth in before his front teeth, which I think are just starting to make their way down. He has a silly grin and is a pretty happy baby. He is totally a momma's boy and I love it! He also will climb up just about everything! We found him on top of our computer desk the other morning! His favorite thing is to climb up the slide and then slide down on his belly. He does it over and over. You can watch him here!
Overall, we are happy to be where we are at are looking forward to having lots of fun adventures here!

Changes

We have been going through a lot of changes these past few weeks. about 3 weeks ago, we got the news that jon wasnt going to have a job in two week! He works for a small company and they basically couldnt afford to keep him on. It was quite a suprise, but we immediately started thinking of what to do. We have been planning on eventually moving to Boise, but didnt think that would happen for a while. Well, we decided that given the circumstances, if jon was gonna look for a new job, he might as well do it in Boise. So on Monday we found out about his job and by Saturday we were moved out! It was so fast, but everything just fell in to place and we have been reassured that we are doing the right thing. Im not really sure where this will lead us, but I know it will be for our good. So Currently Jon is up in Idaho looking for a job and I am staying at Jon's parents house until my family has a reunion this next weekend. After that I will join Jon in Idaho. We are kind of in limbo right now, but we are happy and hopeful! Its just the start of our new adventure!

Noah Boy!

Oh how I love this kid!
He is 8 months now and is so fun! He is 20 lbs, 29 inches long and is so cute! He's so strong! He crawls everywhere, pulls himself up and walks all around the furniture. Im afraid he is going to be walking in no time and then I dont know what Ill do! He has had a really bad ear infection and cough for the last month but is finally better now, so he is happy again! Just last week he slept through the night for the first time! It was great! He has done it once or twice since then, but otherwise he only wakes up about once a night. Its not bad! He says ba ba ba and da da da all day long, grunts at everything and loves to bang on things! Because of that and his blond hair, he has earned the name bam bam from his parents. He's got the best blue eyes you've ever seen and he is a total momma's boy! He is Always smiling and laughing and we are so happy that he is in our family!





And then this! His little doggy! He loves this thing! WHenever we give it to him, he gets a huge smile, waves his arms around like a mad man and then snuggles and chews on its head! Its te cutest thing ever and I captured this once while he was sleeping...I think if he stops loving this little dog, I will be sad!
I just feel so lucky to have these two kids! They challenge me but make me stronger and happier everyday! Im so blessed!

Makella Update

Makella has been going to preschool since February and has really enjoyed it! It was just a little preschool, but she made friends and always enjoyed going. They had a little preschool graduation and she was so happy to get to go up. She also clapped for all her little friends and was so excited for them all! She is such a sweet girl and always cares about other people. She is also a fantastic big sister and Noah think she is so funny! She can make him laugh like no one else. She is a wonderful little girl and love to be able to stay home with her everyday and hear all the little things that come out of her mouth. She is so smart and learns so fast! I love this girl!!







Here is a video of Ella that I took while we were a little bored :)

California Adventure!

** Picture Overload**

Ive taken kind of a leave of absence from the blogging thing, I just havent been up to it for awhile. We have had a lot going on as of late and so many things to write about! I'll try to not put it all on one post. First of all, I will tell you about our California trip! We took a trip in May to see my Wendy and Ben and to go to Disneyland because we did the give a day thing and so had free tickets! Ben and lacy were down there for a wedding and my mom was there too, so it was great to get to see lots of family! We drove down to Oceanside and stayed in Jon's dad's condo, which is so fun! Ben, Wendy and my mom joined us down there on Friday and we hung out and had a great time! We had planned to go to the beach the next day, but that night Noah decided to have a coughing fit and we were up for most of the night and even had to make a run to Walgreens to try to help him feel better...It was a long night. So come saturday, we were all a bit tired! We didnt get our of the house til about lunch time and by the time we got to the beach, it was SOO crowded there was no place to even park, so we decided to just go back to the condo and swim in the pool. Which turned out to be super fun and the water was so warm, it was perfect! On Sunday, we went up to Redlands to stay with ben and wendy and to see their new place! This is where I finally remembered that I should probably be taking pictures, so I will just narrate the pictures! It was a really nice day, so we spent some time outside, makella played in the water and sprinkler while Ben did this....

And this....


Jon was doing dad things with the kids...such a good dad!
We made a lot of cookies and tried to get ready for the big disneyland day. We got up early and made out way to disneyland. Makella has been looking forward to this for months now and was SO excited that that day was here!

Right outside the park, ready to go in! She had been talking about seeing mickey for quite a long time and it worked out perfectly because RIGHT when we walked in the park, we saw this guy:

SHe loved seeing him, even if it was only for a second! Then when we walked around the corner and saw the castle, she was BEAMING!
Noah had such a great time too! He was happy all day and spent a lot of time with my mom, who he just loves! He warmed up to her so fast and I was grateful to have another set of arms to hold him!
Later in the day we were on our way to eat lunch and we saw goofy. He had a line formed to meet him and take pictures, so we got in it. Just as we did, they closed off the line, so we were lucky to get there. She was the last one in line and all the other kids had fancy autograph books for all the characters to sign. She kept saying that she wanted goofy to write her a note too, so we scrounged up a crayon and wendy's old to do list..Not quite as fancy as a book, but it was all we had! I felt kind of bad...So it gets to her turn and she goes up to him and asks him so sweetly if he would write her a note! Goofy was so nice and got down on the ground to sign her little paper and then he gave her a hug and it was just precious!! I think she felt pretty special!

Noah just did a lot of this all day and he was just cute! ENough said :)
It was a perfect day at disneyland because it was cloudy and not too hot and we didnt have to wait for more than 20 minutes on any ride! But when we went to toon town in the afternoon, it was pretty packed and crazy, so we didnt spend too much time there, but Makella did get to play in some of the houses, so it was fun!

Her favorite rides were definetaly Dumbo and SMALLWORLD...Ive pretty much heard nothing but "Its a small world" sung over and over since we got home...Ill be just fine if I never hear that song again :)

We went to the parade that they had and met up with Ben and lacy and her family for a little bit. My mom and Ben had to take off after the parade in order to drive back to to Washington. I had a great time with my mom and my sister, just the girls of the family. Wendy if pregnant and it was fun to see her! Im so excited for her little girl to come in September!

Jon hadnt been to disneyland since he was just a little boy, so I was excited for him to go too, I think he had a great time!

Overall it was a fantastic trip and Im so glad we got to do it!