the mama life: 2012

Monday, December 31, 2012

We made it!

Here are some highlights of our year:

1. Landen turned one year old this year! It's been so much fun helping him learn and watching him grow up. He has turned into one of the funniest people I know, and not a day goes by that he doesn't make me smile, laugh, feel proud, and love him even more. Josh and I comment to each other on a weekly basis about how boring our lives would be without our little pipsqueak!

2. Josh and I got married this year! Crazy that we've already been married almost 9 months. It has flown by! And because we got married, we got to go away for two days by ourselves! For the very first time in our relationship! We had an amazing amount of fun, just the two of us :)

3. We found out in June that we were going to have a baby!

4. We were able to travel to Lincoln City to hang out with Josh's family from Washington! Such a long drive, but the three days of laughs, sun, beach, bonfires, and rest were more than worth it. I can't wait to see them again!

5. We found out that we are going to have a baby girl! Words cannot possibly express how happy we were when we found that out. We wanted Landen to have a little sister so bad. And now she's almost here!! (By the way, I am 35 weeks and 1 day pregnant. And SO ready to be done!)

6. We got to spend 1 week in California with my family! We crammed so much fun into that week, and it was so hard to come home. We had a wedding reception while we were there, a lot of people were able to meet Josh and Landen for the first time, and I was able to catch up with people I hadn't seen in such a long time!

7. Josh and I both turned 23! Okay, it's not a big milestone or anything. But it blows our minds on a regular basis on how fast we grew up and how in no time at all we turned into a family of 4 living by ourselves in Baker City.

8. We turned into "soccer parents"! We actually have some time until we are actually carting our little ones to soccer practice, but now we can do it on our brand new (to us) van! Our early Christmas present from my parents was their van! Honestly, Josh was more excited than I was...but we have grown to love this van so much! Going anywhere is so much more bearable when we aren't crammed into our little Civic.

9. It's just us in our family now! ...confusing, right? Allow me to explain. After a year long (and then some) battle with Landen's biological dad, we can finally say that Josh and I are Bug's only parents. We don't have to share him with anyone!! And that's probably the greatest thing that could have ever happened.

10. We were able to spend our holidays with family! Doesn't get any better than that.

11. We spent this last weekend away in Cascade with Josh's side of the family! Unfortunately, because of my current physical condition (and general clumsiness while pregnant), I was not able to take part in sledding and general merriment of being out in the snow. But it was still fun to watch Josh wipe out on a tube and check him out when he's not looking ;)

12. We made it through another year! Seriously, sometimes I wondered if I could make it. This year has been a tough one. But I couldn't have a better guy by my side to get me through it, or a funnier little boy to make me laugh every day.

Happy New Year, everyone! Cheers to many laughs, memories, and loved ones to get you through this next year! :)

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Halloween: The Mater Project

Okay! I am so excited to post this! I've been working soooo hard on Landen's Halloween costume this year! And I must say, it turned out a lot better than I thought it would considering it's my first homemade costume!
So, Josh and I narrowed down the options to Landen's 3 favorite characters, and one of those would be his costume. The options were Goofy, Mater, or Santa. We decided originally on Goofy, and then realized it would take a lot more to make that costume than we realized. And then we decided that no one makes a Santa costume for a 20 month old (especially for Halloween). So, our last option was Mater.
At first I was very intimidated about this project! But then I found a couple of how-to's online, and decided that it actually might not be that hard to accomplish.
Please enjoy this visual journey through a simple diaper box's transformation into an adorable mater costume for my toddler! :)

I took this ordinary diaper box...

I seperated all the parts that were taped and glued. I turned the box inside-out, so that it still looked like a box, but the brown was on the outside and the Huggies part was on the inside. Next, I used Landen's Mater toy...

And I drew all of Mater's features onto the box as best I could. As soon as I was done drawing, I began to paint!

And last, but certainly not least, we added the "rust"!

We went to Salvation Army and bought a pair of brown suspenders ($1). Josh helped me attach them to the inside of the box, so that Mater fit right at Landen's chest and was supported by his shoulders. And just like that (a week later), Mater was complete! Our first homemade, custom-fit for a little boy Mater costume!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! :)

Monday, October 15, 2012

Dear Baby Girl

Dear Baby Girl,
You're still so small, but growing so fast.
Your daddy and I can't handle the excitement of almost having you here with us!
Your big brother Landen hugs you and pets you all the time.
(hopefully the petting stops when you get here, but the hugs last forever.)
He calls you "baby" and knows where your bed is.
Even though we only have ultrasounds of you, your big brother knows that its you in the picture.
We are so excited to have you be in our family!
Your daddy and I love to lay down and feel you kick and move around.
Although a few less kicks to my bladder would be nice.
But I do appreciate how much nicer you are to my ribs than your big brother was.
In just a short 15 weeks and 6 days you are due to make your arrival!
And I'll tell you what, everyone is so excited!
If you're anything like your brother, you'll be here in 13 weeks.
But if you're anything like your daddy, you'll be here at 11:59 the night before you're due.
Just late enough to still be considered early.
We can't wait for you to get here!

Please don't hold it against us if we are slow to adjust to having such a small little girl with us.
I'm not perfect. So I'm sorry in advance if I'm not the nicest mommy in the middle of the night when you're hungry.
We're all allowed to be grumpy sometimes!
And daddy is just so used to playing with your big brother, that he might try wrestling you and have you do flips before you're quite big enough to understand that it's supposed to be fun.
And when Landen gets mad because you're playing his toys, or not following him around, (or you're occupying his mommy and daddy), its just because he doesn't know what its like having someone smaller than him around.
We aren't perfect, but together we are going to give you all the love in the world. I can promise you that!
We love you sweet baby! We can't wait to see you, and hold you, and kiss you!
<3

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

California Vacation: the conclusion!

Finally I've convinced myself that I can knock out this last post in just a short amount of time! Haha we'll see how well that goes.
So, I think this last part of our vacation was our absolute favorite :) here goes!

SAN FRANCISCO!!...is where we got to spend most of a day. And it was so fun! Walking through Pier 39, checking out shops, watching the sea lions and seeing Alcatraz!

^^ That's Alcatraz! :) Next stop was lunch! At the yummy Johnny Rockets. Where I resisted Josh's advances and Bug got some laughs in with his cousin Juju :)

Next we took a walk up the road to check out The Rainforest Cafe!

^^ That's a giant aquarium! And last, but certainly not least, we were lucky enough to spot "The Bush Man" before we left San Fran!

I know its a little tough to see! But the bush man is squatting on the sidewalk, hiding behind two branches of leaves, pretending to be a bush. And as people walk by, and aren't paying attention, he growls at them and scares them! Haha we were on the lookout because we wanted to to walk by him to scare Josh, but Josh saw him before we could walk over there :( haha. Well, we left San Francisco and started to head home. And before we got there, we stopped at the ever-fantastic Jelly Belly Factory! :)

And that was the end of our California adventure! :)

Thursday, September 20, 2012

California Vacation! Part 2!

Okay, so first things first. Here's a couple more pictures from our Santa Cruz adventure :)

^ we were riding on a train, and the sun was horribly bright!

^ that's part of the mini golf course!

MOVING ON! Our next adventure took us to Monterey! Where we explored the aquarium! It was so cool, especially for Landen :) he loves seeing fish. He didn't like that he couldn't run free, but he eventually took a nap and was fine, haha.

So, I suck more than I thought. Haha I don't have pictures from Monterey! We took mostly videos so that Landen could see the aquarium later on. Ha, sorry!

So, I'll jump ahead to the last couple of days of our vacation. We stayed close to Elk Grove to please the children who didn't want to be in the car for very long! We had a double date night with my parents (thanks to my babysitting brother, Alex!) where we got to go bowling and out to Chick-Fil-A (yum!).
We went down to Old Sacramento and explored the old shops. :) It was fun!
Landen got lots of fun cousin time in with Juju and snuggled his Papa quite a bit!

We also got some good eats in :) at our favorite Chick-Fil-A!

And we got to try Leatherby's! Super good! So, there is one more part to our vacation, and its going to take a while to write. So be patient! Almost done!! :)

Monday, September 17, 2012

Finally! A break! Part 1.

Hello!
It's been about a month (plus some) since I last updated this thing! But that's mainly because nothing awesome was happening in our lives. Kindof in a lull.
But! We did just get back from our week-long vacation to California! Do let's talk about that :)
Saturday September 8th, we set out on our flight to Sacramento! We were pretty nervous, considering that Landen had never been on a plane before. But he actually ended up sitting still on Josh's lap until he eventually fell asleep! A pretty painless flight, which was more than good enough for us :)
We landed in Sacramento and were met by my mom! Who then whisked us away to her house to relax and settle, because in a short two hours we were going to be at an open-house/wedding reception for Josh and I :) and we were so excited for everyone to finally meet Josh and Landen! I unfortunately don't have any pictures of our little shin-dig, so if anyone else does, please share! Anyways, it was a lovely evening hosted by the always lovely Valerie and Todd Lewis :)
After our shin-dig, we went home and relaxed the rest of the night, because on Sunday morning we were to set off on our first vacation adventure!
We were headed to...

That's right! We were off to Santa Cruz! Checking out the boardwalk, taking in the sights, and having fun with my mom, dad, and neice Juju. One reason Josh and I so desperately wanted to go to Santa Cruz is because the last time we were there (5/11), we played a round of miniature golf. I beat Josh by one stroke on the 18th hole, got a hole-in-one on the 18th hole, and won a free game of golf :) haha. So! We were determined to have a rematch, and long story short, Josh ended up beating me by two strokes after a looooong neck-and-neck game. But we both got a hole-in-one on the 18th hole and won a free game. :) 'Twas a good time, I must say!

Now please enjoy some pictures of our fun times, and Landen having fun with his Nana and Papa :)

So, I guess I didn't have as many pictures of Santa Cruz as I thought. Haha I will find more! Stay tuned for what we did next :)

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The one with all the changes

Ever just stop and think about how much life changes from one year to the next? Well I've had LOTS of those moments this week! And to be honest, going down memory lane has been pretty fun :) here we go!

Tomorrow is our 2 year dating anniversary! We could hardly believe it! We spent some time this week talking about how when we first started "dating", (we weren't officially in an exclusive relationship for about 8 months. Even though we only spent time with each other lol), we never would have guessed that we would get married! Because in actuality, just a few months prior to us dating, we could NOT stand each other. We worked together and that was all the more civil we were. (I even tried convincing my boss to fire him! But that's a story for another time.) Anyways, it was a shocker to us both that we've come this far in our relationship :)

On Saturday the 11th of this month, our little Landen turned 18 months old! :( as much as we still want him to be our little babe, he is actually growing up to be a pretty awesome little boy! <3

This month marks ONE YEAR that we've lived in Baker City! It went by so fast!!

The newest of news...I'm 15 weeks pregnant!! How nuts that when our little boy turns two, we will have ANOTHER baby in the house! That's just pure madness!

And probably the happiest news of all!... Over the last 14 months, we've been in a tough situation with Landen's biological dad. We've been to court, traveled back and forth for visitation, and had countless arguments. But he just recently had a change of heart, and decided that Landen would be better off with Josh and I. We struggled with him for a long time, and he definitely didn't make things easy for us...but we are now DONE with visitation, and by this time next week I will be Landen's only legal parent! That is, until we get all the paperwork done for Josh to adopt him! We will soon be the family that we've always been in our hearts and we are absolutely thrilled!

Life sure has a funny way of changing your plans, but we've loved every minute of this crazy life :)

Friday, August 10, 2012

The secret is out!

I feel like I've been holding my breath for weeks trying to keep this a secret! But we finally went to the doctor and had an ultrasound today, do we decided to share out big news :)

So, about nine weeks ago, we found out we were expecting :) Josh didn't wake up early with me, so I left this for him to find!

I am now just about 15 weeks along, which would make us due February 3rd. We can't wait!! :)

Sunday, July 29, 2012

800 miles and a beach

We're back! And we made it in one piece!

On Thursday morning, we set out on our first official "summer vacation" to Lincoln City, OR! Although we didn't get to escape Oregon, we were 390 miles away from home, so that was good enough! :) so, beginning super early on Thursday morning (4 am, to be exact), I was awakened by my alarm. Which not only got me up, but reminded me that we had another 4 hours to go until we could start our vacation. I unfortunately had to open the Fitness Center this morning and had to stay until 8. The morning dragged by as usual, and then it was 8 o'clock and Josh pulled up with Landen to pick me up from work! I hopped in, we stopped to get some drinks, and then were on the road!

All was well! Josh and I singing along to the radio and Landen happily occupied watching A Goofy Movie in the backseat. We made our first stop in Boardman, where we were waiting to meet up with Josh's dad, Tony, and my new little sisters, Dani and Brenna :). We pulled up next to the Columbia river and found a walking path to waste some time while we were waiting.

Ya know how every time you're going somewhere important you end up forgetting something? Whether its your notes for a meeting, a towel to the pool, or deodorant on a date? Well this trip was no exception to that unfortunate rule. Just a few minutes after this picture was taken, it came to our attention that we had forgotten Landen's bag of clothes for the trip! So, with a quick stop to a Walmart in Hood River, we were back on the road, anxious to get to the coast!Landen kept himself busy the rest of the drive...

After a seemingly endless 8 hours since we left our home, we finally made it to this wonderful view!

And now, please enjoy these quick snapshots of our 2 full days at the beach :)! (I did have LOTS of videos on our video camera, but alas I am too lazy to put them onto my computer and then onto my phone.)