Nathan has been cutting his two bottom teeth the last few days and it’s been causing him to just not sleep very well at night. So between the teeth and his constant need to pull up (even in the middle of the night!), we haven’t been getting our normal amount of rest around here.

Last night was a better night. Thank you, Lord! I’ve been feeling very zombie-like. Nathan is just a moving machine so it’s hard to keep up when I feel so out of it!!

We’ve had a great week so far – Monday, our little mom’s playgroup came over to our house. Nathan had a great time playing with Joel, Julia P. and Eve, but we missed little Julia L. who was sick.

Boys being boys… They loved playing with Nathan’s walker!

Sweet little Eve. 🙂

Later that night, we took dinner over to Clint and Leigh Ann and Nathan was “officially” introduced to little Hayley Grace. She is just so precious. I got to smell her sweet baby head again and I told Jon that it is very dangerous for me to be sniffing baby heads.

Might make me want another one. 😉

Yesterday, we met my friend Meghan for lunch. I haven’t seen her in a LONG while and it was so good to catch up! I love how with some friends – even if you haven’t seen each other in forever – it doesn’t even take a second to pick right back up where you left off before. Her hour lunch break flew past while we chatted and Nathan flirted big time. We might have to watch that kid with the girls!

Today, Nathan had his 9 month check up. NINE. MONTHS.

I’ll put his nine month post up whenever I stop getting teary eyed today. I LOVE that he’s getting to be so fun and so interactive but I laid him in bed last night and realized how big he’s getting and how FAST it has gone by.

Sweet baby.

Today, we were supposed to be in Colorado Springs, but due to some sickness issues, we had to cancel.

So sad! Especially when we were really looking forward to seeing Jen, Greg, and Barb and watching this sweet little peanut make his funny face in person:

I hope we’re able to make it out there soon!!

So, instead, Nathan and I are hanging out at the house, unpacking suitcases and trying to figure out if I have enough food to make something for dinner or if we have to go out and brave Walmart.

I’m doubting that I have enough food. Unless we’re up for eating cans of refried beans and popsicles for dinner. Protein and fruit, right? I’m all for well-balanced meals.

I have to share with you guys one of my all-time favorite books. I pull it out to use during my quiet times at least once a year:

I Come Quietly to Meet You by Amy Carmichael and David Hazard. It’s a collection of Amy’s writings that David Hazard has arranged into 40 daily readings and guys – it is SO good. I’m a huge, huge fan of Amy Carmichael. If you don’t know her story, you need to look it up. She has an incredible testimony and she is a very gifted writer. You can just tell she’s head over heels in love with Christ and I love that!

GREAT news at our house! Jon passed his dossier and as of August, will be a Level Two teacher!! Yay!! 🙂 We are so proud of him!! I was laughing at this picture because this is a typical day when he gets home from school – we all just swarm him. 🙂

Yesterday was definitely a bad nap day for Nathan. It never fails that the days where we have to be somewhere at noon is when he ends up taking a two-and-a-half hour morning nap and makes us late and the days where we are just staying home and I’m hoping to get a lot of writing done or a lot of stuff done around the house, he ends up taking a thirty minute nap.

Oy.

(I think he looks like SUCH a little boy in this picture – it’s slowly killing me. Where is my baby???)

Before he learned to sit up and pull up, he would cry/whimper for a few minutes if he woke up during a nap and then go back to sleep. But now, he just sits or stands in his crib and cries until I go in there and lay him back down. Then, I think he sees me and decides it’s time to get up so he just cries and cries after I lay him back down. Or he pulls right back up, keeps crying/talking and waits for me to come back in.

So I don’t know whether I should make him stay in his crib and sob until his normal time for getting up or if I should just get him up. He started crying last night in the middle of the night and I walked in there and found him just sitting in his crib.

Of course, I was thankful as I walked back down the hall that he’d started crying because there was a GINORMOUS spider next to the nightlight in the hall so I immediately went running to Jon. If Nathan hadn’t woken up, I might have had to get the spider by myself today.

One of the biggest perks of being married is that I don’t have to kill spiders. Blegh. I usually just put a cup over them and wait for Jon to get home. I can barely look at one without feeling a hundred of them crawling on me or envisioning them crawling on Nathan. I guess you can figure out what I dreamed about the rest of the night.

So, I’m praying that today is a better nap day because Nater Tot’s mom might need a nap as well. 🙂

Yesterday was such a fun, busy day!!

Nathan has been getting into EVERYTHING lately. At first, things were safe if they were up on the coffee table or the couches, but no longer. He is pulling up about every seven seconds, it feels like. Here’s what he was doing when I went in his room to get him this morning:

So we’ve been doing an awful lot of clapping and saying “Yay!!” and a ton of tapping his little hand and saying, “No!” Ha! And I’ve now got the video camera sitting on the mantle so it’s in easy reach (for me, not for him!) at all times.

We started by going to my friend Melanie’s house. Her daughter Julia is about three months older than Nathan. My other friend Eryn came too with her daughter Eve. So, Nathan had to hold down the fort as the only man there! Ha! We had so much fun! We took a walk to a park and played on the swings and Nathan was so tired after all the playing that he fell asleep on the walk back to Melanie’s house.

Afterward, Nathan got to go play at Gammy and Pop’s house while Jon and I went to see this sweet girl:

Isn’t she beautiful?? Clint and Leigh Ann had little Hayley Grace early, early, early Monday morning! She is perfect and makes the sweetest sounds. She was only 5 ounces lighter than Nathan when he was born, but I could not believe how tiny and delicate she was. Particularly after I picked up my big boy that night. And I have to confess – I LOVE the smell of a newborn!! Hayley Grace is just gorgeous!

(This is a horrible picture – the light was awful and we took it with my phone. But I had to show us with the sweet, new family!!)

Leigh Ann is doing okay – she had to have an emergency c-section after 28 hours of labor. So please be praying for her recovery!! It’s amazing to me how seeing your little baby can wipe away any long, painful hours of labor and delivery though. 🙂 They are going to be the best parents – Clint is already completely taken with his little girl and Leigh Ann is just so in love. SO fun to see! We couldn’t stop smiling the whole rest of the night!

Jon and I didn’t end up getting back home with Nathan until after eight, which is when he’s supposed to be in bed. So Jon gave him a quick bath, I nursed him and put him in bed and then we had a very late, quiet dinner.

Which was very nice. 🙂 Sometimes it’s hard to remember what life was like just a few short months ago before our little Nater Tot arrived. It’s nice to have our occasional date nights – even if it’s eating spaghetti at home after Nathan goes to bed!

I’ve been working on a new story and it’s reminding me of the days before I met Jon. When I was in high school, a lot of people told me to write a list of qualities I wanted in a future husband. I’m not really sure what the purpose of this was except to maybe have some invisible, unattainable standard floating out there for Jon, but it did give me a lot of things to think about. I’m not sure that I actually USED the list when it came time to decide whether or not I was going to marry Jon, but I really think that there’s more to that decision than just checking things off like a grocery list.

Things like, I don’t know, spark. 🙂 And lots and lots and lots of prayer.

Anyway, I wrote a list in high school. I think I ended up with about 70. And NO – not all of them were qualities. Actually, some of them were fairly ridiculous (drinks coffee, doesn’t play golf, likes animals but not obsessed with them, etc). But most of them were important things – loves me, respects my family, and that we would have fun together.

Sadly, we don’t have any fun together. 🙂

Jon actually met most of the things on the list, though there were a few that he didn’t end up making. When I wrote the list I was very anti-country music, though it’s grown on me. Maybe since I ended up marrying a guy who pretty much only listens to country and KLOVE.

But the big stuff? Like solid Christian, loves kids, hard worker, good teeth and not a morning person?

Check, check, check, check and check.

He is not, however, clean shaven. And he does not like to read.

But I think I can deal with that. 🙂

It’s making me curious! What are your seemingly silly qualities/preferences you want/wanted in a husband?

I’m so sorry that it’s been so long since I updated on here! We’ve had quite the week!

Nathan is now a crawling machine! And I am seeing LOTS of stuff that needs to be baby-proofed. This morning he almost pulled our DVD player on top of himself. And he tossed a bunch of DVDs on the floor. And yesterday, he figured out how to open the fireplace doors.

Oh my.

And not only did we master crawling this week, but he’s been learning how to sit up from a crawling position, he’s pointing at EVERYTHING with his index finger and he’s started saying his consonants – particularly ba, by and buh. Loves those B’s! And I got him to say bama instead of mama, but hey – I’ll take it! 🙂

(Forgive the jacket on the floor, Nathan’s mismatched outfit – I need to do his laundry – and the sounds of Jon lifting weights in the other room. We’re keeping it real here.)

He’s had a HUGE learning growth spurt this week! It’s hard to keep up! Last night, after we got him to sleep, Jon and I just collapsed. I think he might be teething too – Nathan, not Jon. He’s drooling all over everything, today he was running a low grade fever and has been a little cranky the last couple of days.

But, I guess I’d be cranky too if I were being spoon-fed a chicken and applesauce smoothie. 🙂 He seems to love it, though! Today, he’s been really fussy – so at one point, I did something else I said I would never do and I turned on Veggie Tales. In the middle of the day. I really don’t want to get into the habit of having the TV on all the time, but it seemed to distract him for about ten minutes today. He loves dancing to the music! And I thought it was hilarious that Kody sat down and watched it with him.

Yesterday was our running around day – I went to the grocery store, I cleaned the bathroom, I worked out and we met Clint, Leigh Ann and Leigh Ann’s parents at Chick-Fil-A for dinner (they are still waiting for Baby T to make his/her grand appearance!). Jon and I ordered Tony Horton’s 10 Minute Trainer (got it for a great deal on ebay!) and let me tell you – my buns have been feeling it! Ha! I love though that it’s such a great workout in such a short amount of time though – it’s hard finding time to work out these days. Particularly now that Nathan is so mobile!

I’m baking today – I just finished making a batch of Oatmeal Applesauce Muffins (mmm) for breakfasts this week and I’m about to make some chocolate chip cookies. Because what’s the use of getting back into a workout routine without something to burn off? Right?

Your turn! What have you done this week so far?

Look what is coming in September!!!

Yay!! The date got pushed back from its original release in May, but I’m so excited for you guys to meet Kate!

I’ll be back with a real post about it soon – like a synopsis and I don’t know, maybe a giveaway. 😉 Nathan has had a HORRIBLE afternoon as far as things like mood, naps and sanity (actually, that last one might be mine). We’re sneezing all over the place out here since everything is in bloom. Which doesn’t really help the overall morale.

But I was just too excited to wait any longer to post this!!! 🙂

Yay!!!

Last week, my parents rented a house in Durango and asked if we’d like to come along. Jon loves to snowboard, so it was pretty much a no-brainer for us. 🙂 Bryant was back in town and Caleb and Cayce came too.

The house was GORGEOUS! And we had so much fun! Nathan got to hang out with the girls while all the guys went snowboarding and skiing. And we ended up not needing the snowsuit – it was very warm most of the time we were there and there was zero snow where we stayed.

We walked around downtown Durango, we went to the tiny little Durango mall and mostly just hung out at the house with a baby who did not sleep well AT. ALL.

Which means that his mom was exhausted the whole trip too. We started out on the wrong foot as far as sleeping went by forgetting his Pack N Play (we are awful parents). So, we went to Wal-Mart and found one on sale. Which we ended up taking back the next day because Nathan would NOT sleep in it. The next night, we barricaded off a little section in our bedroom for him to sleep on the floor, but I was so worried about him that I didn’t sleep well and he didn’t either.

Jon and I were talking about it and vacations are just different these days. I remember LOVING to go places when I was younger, mostly because the only thing I had to worry about was what souvenir to spend my babysitting money on.

Now, it’s hard because Nathan just does not sleep well away from home, which just makes him a Grouchy Bean during the day. It makes me not anxious at all to go anywhere – so sad because I love to travel!

We still had fun though. We brought the game ImaginIff along and laughed and laughed while we played it and ate strawberry shortcakes during the evenings. I wish I’d gotten some pictures of that.

We celebrated our third anniversary this last week too. So, so fun!! 🙂 We went to a little place here called the St. Clair Winery and Bistro that we’d never been to before and oh my – it was SO good! I got teriyaki-glazed shrimp kebabs and wow. Very delicious! We left there completely stuffed!

What have you been up to this spring?

It was November. And Jon and I had been dating for eight months.

A month before, Jon had taken me on a hike up in the mountains about an hour away from my house. There was a huge river running through there and absolutely no one around. It was so peaceful and so wonderful! We had a picnic, we talked, we laughed, we cuddled by the river’s edge and just watched the water.

It was very romantic.

So, I wasn’t totally surprised when he wanted to go back before it got too cold to go again. He asked me if I wanted to go on his next day off, and days off were very rare with football games and practices every week, student teaching and classes.

Also about a month before this is when we started doing the “hypothetically” talk like this: “So, hypothetically that is, if we got married someday, when would you want to?”

I had been praying for eight months about whether or not Jon was the right one for me. And every day I just got more and more sure about it. I loved him. He loved me. We respected each other. We both loved God. Our families loved us both. There wasn’t much else to think about at that point.

Still, I was figuring he was going to wait until after football season and after the holidays before he proposed. His family was coming in town for Thanksgiving that next week and I was excited to meet his brother Allen and his wife Vicky, who I hadn’t met yet. I’d already met his brother Tommy and his wife Ashlee when they came through town before. And Jon had already asked me to think about coming out to California for New Years.

I figured he would wait until after the craziness had settled down.

We went for our next hike on a Sunday afternoon after church. I brought the sandwiches and Jon packed the rest of the stuff. The drive went by quickly, we talked about church stuff, the sermon, what his next week looked like, some questions that had come up with a few of the high school girls I met with.

Jon carried everything up the probably thirty or forty-five minute hike, we found the same spot we’d sat in before and spread out a big blanket. We ate our sandwiches, still talking, and just relaxed. It was a gorgeous day, but it was pretty cold too, so I was bundled up in a big sweatshirt of his after we’d been out there for maybe twenty minutes.

He stood up once we’d finished eating and cleaned up the food and stretched, then pulled me up too, wrapping his arms around me from behind. And we just stood like that for a little bit, watching the river, not really saying much.

At one point, he leaned down to get some chapstick out of the backpack we’d brought, but then he hugged me again and turned me around to face him.

“I love you,” he said.

I nodded, not really paying attention, and cuddled back in for the hug. “Mm-hmm. I love you too.”

He pushed me away again. “I’m so thankful that God brought you into my life.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d said things like that, so it wasn’t out of the ordinary. Particularly in a sweet, romantic spot like a riverside picnic. So, I just nodded again. “Me too.” Tried to go back in for the hug – partly because I liked hugging him, but partly because it was cold – and he again held me back at arm’s length.

“I want to spend the rest of my life with you. So, I just have one question…” And he got down on one knee and pulled a little black box from his back pocket.

At this point, I was just completely surprised. “Oh my gosh!” I yelled. And then that’s all I could say. “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Oh my gosh!”

I don’t think I ever said yes, but I guess Jon figured that’s what I meant, because the next thing I knew, he was standing up again, had his arms around me and I had my very first kiss.

And let me say this: It was SO SO SO SO SO SO worth the very, very, very long wait!!! 🙂

It was perfect. 🙂

And then I finally saw the ring, which was gorgeous and about three sizes too big, but I was too stubborn to take it off my finger, so I just kept my fist closed the rest of the day. Which was such fun as we hiked back down to the car in the semi-darkness.

We drove back to my parents’ house and I could NOT stop smiling. I smiled the whole rest of the night, I smiled the whole time we were saying good night before he left, I smiled the whole time I was getting ready for bed and finally I was in bed, by myself in the dark, and I STILL couldn’t stop smiling.

Smiling and watching the way the ring glinted off the moonlight that was filtering through my blinds. And I couldn’t sleep at all, so finally, about 4AM, I texted Jon, since he was supposed to be getting up around then for football practice.

I wrote this:

“WE ARE GETTING MARRIED!!!!!!!!”

I think he got nice and excited for what married life with me was going to be like then. 🙂 Ha! Poor guy. He wrote me back and we ended up texting until six when he informed me that he actually didn’t have to go to practice and so he could have actually been sleeping for the last two hours before needing to go to class all day.

Oops.

And THEN started the crazy, horrible, sweet, awful, complete mix of emotions called engagement.

Wow… I can’t believe it’s been three years!! Time/life goes by fast when you are having fun with the one you love. 🙂

What are your engagement stories?? Or, where do you hope to be proposed to?

My little Nater Tot was eight months old yesterday!

I feel like I JUST finished writing his seven month post! I can’t believe how quickly he is growing and learning and changing.

Nathan is getting to be SO fun. His little personality just shows more and more every day and he is going to be a character and a half! Ha! He’s so happy, so excited for EVERYTHING and so loves to laugh.

We weighed him on the bathroom scale and he’s about 18.5 pounds now – big boy!! He LOVES to be held all the time, so I’m getting quite the workout these days. 🙂

He’s sleeping about 12 hours at night now – yay! He’s also broadened his food horizons and this month, he’ll probably get to try some protein. Smushed up chicken – is there anything more appetizing? 🙂 He’s getting to be so good at picking up Gerber Puffs by himself – I think it’s his favorite part of the meal!

His new favorite thing to do is pinch everything between his two little fingers and so we’re now clipping his fingernails like every three days because skin is one of his favorite things to pinch. OUCH. He has definitely caused some pain!

This month was the first month where we’ve really had to start saying, “No.” I don’t think he understands it quite yet, but hopefully it’s sinking in somewhere. Whether he’s poking at the DVD player or pinching or pulling hair – we’re trying to start setting some boundaries. 🙂

He is also getting up on his hands and knees now – no crawling yet, but I’m really enjoying these last few days of having baby who isn’t constantly getting into everything. He’s still rolling everywhere and trying to scoot around, but he’s a pretty slow mover. 🙂 How do you moms with a mobile baby ever take showers??

He is completely and totally the JOY of our lives and I cannot imagine loving him more than I do! What an incredible blessing he is!