My Last January Thoughts

Well, it is almost the end of the month, and I only have 2 posts to account for the whole month of January. Sad.
It's been a crazy roller-coaster..and it's gone by really fast. When we got back from Grandma's, Lydia got into a pattern of sleeping with us in our bed. Jonathan got sick while we were in Payson, then Lydia got sick..and after a week and a half of thinking I was immune (haha I wish!) I got down with the sickness, as well. It was lovely. I got sick my second week of school and I was terribly miserable. I couldn't sleep (because I'm a mom and I have chores and homework to do) and I couldn't take hardly anything to remedy it. Luckily I only have 4 classes out of the week that I get to go to, so that part wasn't too bad, but I still was overloaded with homework. I am very happy to say I'm back to normal and I love not having to blow my nose every 2 minutes.

Not to mention, I love love love having a healthy baby. Lydia is such a sweetheart when she's healthy. She is happier, nicer to be around, and just has a sweeter, more fun personality. When she's sick all she does is whine, and it was really hard for me to get anything done because all she wanted to do was cuddle and be whiney. So I definitely cherish our good health right now! AND I have gotten her back into her good nap/bedtime routine. She is falling asleep in her bed now. She can't climb up by herself, so I put her in her crib and then sit with her til she falls asleep. It's so much easier that way, and I don't have to worry about her needing to be in our bed just to fall asleep. Hooray for day 2!

I try to get all my homework due for the early part of the next week done by Saturday night, so that I'm not stressing during Sunday and so I can relax and I always try to stay a day ahead of my homework assignments. Yesterday was such a nice day for us. After going to church, taking our afternoon naps, Lydia cuddled up to me and just laid vertically upon my me/my stomach. It was a sweet moment, and much needed, as I played with her hair, especially not thinking about homework as I did it. I got to behold her and realize how big she is getting. She is so incredibly smart for her age (at least to me, I think) and she is just not a tiny baby anymore! I miss it! I haven't totally neglected her, but our playtime has been stretched thin whenever I'm buried with homework. I always try to remind myself to take time from my assignments and play with her so that she's not watching 3 episodes of Sesame Street in a row, like today (oops.. did I just say that out loud? haha) but it's so easy to just let her be distracted so I can get things done. It's only the first month of school but I can honestly already say I'm ready for July when our semesters are over so I can just play and focus on my babies!

Speaking of babies, Little Sis feels so wiggly these days. It's a fun part of pregnancy. I passed my glucose test, so that's great. And I only have 11 more weeks to go, which I think will go by really fast. I have another appointment this Friday and will continue having appointments every two weeks until the last month. How exciting!

Right now I feel like I have a lot on my plate.. I'm not sure how April is going to be. Definitely not easier. I know I want to take classes next semester..but I also don't want to take them just to fail them because I can't complete any assignments because of sleep deprivation. But also, having the pell grant and student loan available is a nice cushion for the rest of the year. So I'm hoping and praying for strength from God that He will be able to bless me and make me super mom (haha) and get me through these next 6 months.. 'cause I'm gonna need it!

Anyway, I felt like posting something since I haven't written or taken time out for myself to do something I want. It feels good writing on the computer something not school related.

Winter Semester Schedule at BYU-Idaho

This is what our school/work schedule looks like for this semester! Busy busy busy!!!



Monday: Jonathan has work from 730-1030am (I have to drop off/pick up because all the north zone decals were sold out). He then drives himself to his juvenile deliquency class at 1245-145. Then he drops me off at my children's sewing class at 3:15 and picks me up at 4:45. I was supposed to have a sociology class that follows after at 515, but they decided to turn it into a hybrid class and skip the first class of the week and just give me more online homework (yay, just what I need). That's our Monday. At least we're all done by 4:45 and have the rest of the day to relax, do FHE, and homework.


Tuesday:  Jonathan has his robotics class from 9-1045 and then a middle east class from 1130-1230. He's done for the day but then I have my science foundations class that evening from 730-930pm. He doesn't work on T/TH but works twice on W/F.


Wednesday: Same schedule as Monday, working in the morning 730-1030 and his juvenile class, except add in my intro to sociology class from 5:15-645 pm after my sewing class and Jonathan's work overlaps that class by about 20 minutes, at 620-1030. So Whitney babysits Lydia for about 45 minutes until I come home at 7.

The first half of the week seems super stressful and busy..but it kinda dies down after that.

Thursday: Jonathan has his middle east class from 1130-1230 and then an auto maintenance class from 1245-145. Then he has history from 6-9 in the evenings. I have no classes for the rest of the week (Just tons and tons of online homework, go me!)


Friday: I take Jonathan to work from 730-1030. Then he goes to his juvenile class at 1245 and then works from 6:20-1030. Pretty easy day.. or so it seems.


Even though it looks like I have a lot of free time, since 2 of my classes now only meet once a week I'm going to have even more online homework. Add that with my kinda stressful sewing class (just stressful because I don't know what I'm doing and I ended up leaving class 15 minutes late yesterday and messing up my project haha) and the rest of my Book of Mormon homework and American Foundations online reading, I have no idea how I'm going to even manage the house and have time to play with Lydia. I'm pretty sure she already feels ignored and it's killing me.

This week has been so wonky. Our first day of school was hectic because we were running around, trying to get pell grant money, fix our car, and we didn't have a decal so there was a lot of picking up/dropping off involved. It was really exhausting. Hopefully next week will be lots easier once we have a schedule down. I'm also hoping Lydia will do better and go to sleep earlier and sleep the whole night instead of waking me up because that is getting tiring too. This week has been semi easier than what I anticipate only because my 2 online classes haven't opened up their assignments/readings yet, but I know I will have a lot more to do and a lot less time to do other stuff, like manage this blog. So be prepared to not see many posts in the future! Haha


Anyway, here's to a fun, challenging, tiring, exhausting semester!! Just pray for me and hope I don't want to drop out of school by next semester when I have another baby on my hands. This should be fun ;)

Things I know (about my 18mo)

It seems lately I am more impressed by what Lydia does and often times her personality makes me laugh so much. She is so sweet, and often times so funny. Here are things I know about my 18 month old.

I know

She loves playing with her baby doll. Since we've been hopping around cars and using our friend's and Jon's brother's car, we've had to pull Lydia's car seat out a few times. Well, the other day while it was sitting in our house, she grabbed her doll and plopped it in the seat. Then she found the small plastic blue cup that we usually use to pour water on her hair in the tub and placed it directly on the baby's head, like a hat. She must've thought it was soo funny because she was laughing at her doll. When I finally saw it I laughed. She is so goofy but she is the funnest!

She learned the sign for bird while we were at my Grandma's house. Every time her bird clock cooed on the hour Lydia would look so surprised and search for the birds and sign bird. It was cute.

She has a love for the elderly. She absolutely loved Jonathan's grandpa when we were in Colorado and had so much fun with my Grandma in Utah..she even called her mawmaw. :) I think Grandma enjoyed that, despite feeling tired and having a headache some of the time we were there.

Coming home from traveling and spending a lot of time sleeping together while we were gone, she know has a habit of sleeping with us. It's usually fine at night because she passes out in 2 minutes so I can put her in her bed.. but it's kind of frustrating tiring when she wakes up in the middle of the night and cries to just be put back to sleep in our bed and wants milk...

We'll have I LOVE YOU/LUH YOU wars. She'll always try to outshout us when telling us she loves us. I love it!

She definitely can tell that something's different about this semester, with me going to school now and all. I think she definitely feels me missing throughout the day. When I came home and she woke up from her nap, she whined and just wanted me to hold her. She said "moo" for food, so while I was trying to make some for us, she continued to whine/cry and didn't eat what I offered her. She was so content with me just cradling her as she looked up to me and we did "butterfly kisses" with our eyes. She is so precious, but I feel bad that I'm so busy now. Before all of my attention was on her.. now I have to split it.

She still runs away from me when I want to change her diaper or dress her. She thinks it's a big game. I swear, she's the happiest baby ever.

I know

She knows that there's a baby in my tummy. Whenever I say baby she points to my stomach. She'll even kiss it... and often times push on it (haha, not so fun). I think I've shown her enough babycenter videos on the computer that she finally comprehends :) at least I think so.

Speaking of kissing.. she doesn't say "MUAH" anymore! It's kinda sad. Now she makes the actual kissing sound...and she kisses everything.

She doesn't like it when you tell her people/objects are going "ni-night".. for some reason that really upsets her. But if she sees someone with their eyes closed she'll repeatedly say "ni-ni".

Today we found an ant on our kitchen floor, but I think part of it was stepped on because it was doing the jig like no other! I told Lydia he was dancing (although it was probably in pain lol) and she thought that was the funniest thing ever!

She loves helping me with the prayer. She usually repeats back the last word of every sentence. So, "we thank Thee for this day" "daay" "for this food" "moo" and so on and so forth. The one thing that was always surprising to me is we never refer to Jonathan as father, only Daddy or papa. But whenever we pray and I say, "Dear Heavenly Father," she always repeats back, "Daddy". I thought that was interesting, and very cool.

Whenever I'm on the computer and I'm not giving her enough attention, she'll climb RIGHT on top of me, blocking my view of the screen and sit on my belly. That doesn't last long because it hurts. At least she knows how to get my attention, right?

Whenever she takes something from someone (like her cousin Anna) and she knows she wants it back she'll run to me and repeatedly say "up! up!"... as if I'm going to save her... ha yeah right!

I know

She's a big copycat. Just now my computer died because I forgot to plug it in. When it shut off I said, "aww man!" and she then said, "aww mahn!" She'll also repeat my grunts and groans when I'm frustrated hahah it's so funny to hear.

She'll take any little object and place it to her eyes and say "teeeeeeee!" for cheese, like a camera. And she figured out how to use Aunt Mari's camera and take pictures of her random body parts, without anyone showing her.

Today, she placed her empty hand up on my ear and said "HALLO!" over and over. I just had to laugh. She is just the sunshine to my day. Always making me smile.

She doesn't care much for regular yogurt, but she LOVES gogurt! I can't even eat a whole one in her presence because she thinks every one is for her.

I've been teaching her to say "yeah" more often. So when she whines and I ask her a question I tell her to say "yes" or "no" and she usually responds with yeah and is immediately happy. Communication is key!

She loves the Hulk. I don't know why. We have a Cinderella cup and a Hulk cup and today she wanted to play with the Hulk cup lol.

On the opposite side of that, she is a BIG girly girl! She loves lotions, smelling and rubbing them into her hands. At my Scentsy party she wanted to be a part of all the sniffing. And when we were at the mall to see the puppies, she refused to pet the puppies after one licked her. She just said "ew" over and over. Such a girl.


I have been having so much fun with my 1 and a half year old. It really is a fun time for parenting and I just love Lydia at this age. I'm thankful to know my baby at 18 months. :)

Christmas 2012!!!

Whew! I feel like I haven't written on the blog in a long time. But I guess I have a good excuse - being with family..and away from home with no personal computer. I'll try to put everything I can remember about the past week on this post, so it might be extremely long. Don't feel bad if you don't read it all. :P This is mostly for my records anyway.

We drove down to Colorado last Thursday, the 20th. We arrived around 8-9pm. Lydia did real well on the ride down. She slept and ate her snacks and played with her toys. Whenever we'd stop we'd get out and let her walk and stretch her legs. However, by the time we got to Jonathan's parents, she developed a nasty rat's nest in the back of her head! Funny, but really hard to get out! That night we stayed at Laura's house.

the back uh her head is ri-dic-uh-lous!

The next morning we got up early and everybody headed out to the huge mall to do some Christmas shopping. We must've spent at least 5-6 hours there (in which me and Jon didn't buy a single thing! haha). It's amazing to me how much time you can spend in a mall, without actually getting anything.

We took a picture of a huge shoe store for Mari. We thought it'd make her jealous. It did.

say Cheese Tiki!

While at the mall, in the food court, they had a big carousel going. Lydia loved the idea of riding on the horsies..until she was actually on it. She did not have that much fun sitting on it. By the end of shopping my feet and legs were really tired and I was exhausted. That night their Spanish branch at church was having their Christmas party. We had yummy pozole (seriously.. my favorite mexican dish ever. I always tell Jonathan I could just sit there and chug the pot of it... I can't really, but I will stuff myself silly. Mmm).

I honestly can't remember what we did Saturday. I think we were at the parent's home all day, waiting for Jonathan's parents and brothers to come home. They left at 4 and by 8 we were pretty hungry (they still hadn't returned by 10). They were going to bring us food, but we couldn't wait any longer so we decided to drive around and find a place to eat. Somehow, "conveniently" (or not)... my credit card ended up extending my credit limit.. just in time for Christmas. Those sly devils.. it could be a good and a bad thing. But, we figured we might as well go eat somewhere nice. So we ate at the Olive Garden (we hadn't been there in 2 years, since living in Texas.) so that was really nice.

At the Olive Garden. She was really cooperative :)

 Then, we went to Walmart and I picked out some slippers as a present for me ("from" Jonathan haha) and for some last minute things for Lydia before Sunday. Sunday we went to church at the spanish branch. Me and Lydia just hung out in the back since we didn't understand much anyway. Afterward we went home and ate lunch and then had a nice big nap.

attempting to take pictures haha

Sunday we just rested. Each night we spent at Laura's, which Lydia absolutely loved. She had so much fun playing with Anna's toys, her baby dolls, and just following her around in general. She'd say, "An-nuh.. An-nuh" over and over. I'm surprised Anna wasn't sick of her name after a week of her repeating it constantly haha.

on our way to see the puppies. She was more excited to think about puppies than actually pet them.

Monday, Christmas Eve, I wanted Jonathan to take us to the smaller mall that had the puppies so Lydia could see them. I honestly thought she would be thrilled. When we got there she liked looking through the windows, but when we went up to the puppy pens she refused to pet them after one licked her. I think I turned her into a big girly girl because she always said, "ew". She did not want to be licked..at all. I think she actually liked the lizards, frogs, birds, and rats better than the puppies. I seriously thought she'd cry when we'd leave the pet shop, but she couldn't care less.

 After that I told Jonathan to pick out something, anything, that he wanted (for it to be "from me") haha. I wanted him to get something he really wanted instead of like.. an electric toothbrush from me ;) He ended up getting a Tennessee Titans Tshirt. After that we went to Target and I got a few maternity shirts and a black stuffed puppy for Lydia.

saying cheese haha

the tree has neon lights (lime green, pink, orange and yellow?), so when it's on it looks mostly pink haha, but it's so pretty.

A gift Anna got. it's a Brave coloring book they took turns coloring.

oh, hi, mom!

Grandpa with Lydia

Anthony and Zach building a home depot gingerbread house.

pretty legit

Jonathan and Tito

Baby Samantha and Zach's Dad.

We spent Christmas Eve at Laura's and had a nice feast. They made ham, potatoes, and green bean casserole, and his mom had made pozole (mmmmmmmmmmm). It was nice. Unfortunately, Lydia was given a sippy cup with a small amount of dr. pepper in it, but that small amount did some big damage! It took her over an hour and a half to go to sleep that night. I was so exhausted and frustrated with her by then..and she banged me in the head while I was asleep. By then both us girls were crying. And then after I got her to sleep and put her in her bed, she woke up again during the night and ended up sleeping with us after all. That Christmas morning was tiring! haha

All the presents that were brought to Laura's house for Christmas morning.

When we were shopping at the mall, I had asked little Anna what she wanted for Christmas. She told me, "a motorcycle" I then asked her... "uhh anything else?" And she said, "a helmet and gloves" hahaha. Well, she must've been good this year because Santa brought her a motorcycle and riding attire (the big bag on the left).

being silly

Her favorite face she made the whole time we were there..constantly..and especially when we'd take pictures. She hasn't done it once since we've been home. She knows how to work her magic at Grandma's apparently!! haha

opening presents

Grandma, Baby Samantha covered in presents, and uncle Tony

Grandpa and Tito checking out his new zip up tie for easy wearing!

Laura, Anna and half of Zach opening his Bronco attire for 12/31's game!

Haha we thought this was funny.. she hopped inside baby Sam's feeding chair. Must've thought it was the right size for her.. .either that or she was hungry for some Elmo! (you can tell by looking at her face this was when she had her cold.)

Christmas morning was full of tons of presents. Lydia got her stuffy puppy, lots of clothes, an Elmo stuffy, a singing Cookie Monster, a stuffed bear, and lots of stocking stuffers. Baby Elena got even MORE clothes, and a gift card to BabiesRus. Jonathan got some star wars gadgets/toys, the game CLUE (for the both of us), his shirt, a tie, Batman Begins and the Dark Knight on blue ray, plus a blue ray player from his mom, and socks. I got a shirt, my slippers, It's a Wonderful Life/White Christmas movie, a new Diaper bag (that I picked out... my old one's zipper broke), yummy lotion from Bath and Body works, and stocking stuffers. I feel like we got so much this year it really is hard for me to remember what all I got. I'm sure I left out a lot of gifts. Later, we went to Zach's parents house for Christmas lunch. It was very nice and yummy. After that we went to Jon's parents house and waited til 7ish. By then Lydia had developed a little cold and was feeling pretty sick. I was trying to decide if I should stay with her or go with the boys and see Les Miserables. I ended up going but I probably should've stayed home. I was so exhausted from the day and night before. I yawned through half the movie. I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn't sleepy, hadn't sat 3 rows from the screen, and maybe had subtitles (haha I'm old! but I like knowing what's being said and I couldn't understand what they were saying some of the time). But I really liked the idea and theme of the movie .. how people can change and become better and actually change others' lives while they're changing their own. I loved the ending. (And...I was kinda glad when Russel Crowe jumped off the bridge haha.. I can only take so much of his singing voice.)

Wednesday, the day after Christmas, the sister missionaries came over and taught Jonathan's grandpa a missionary lesson. He was really receptive and thankful they came over and even more thankful that they gave him a Book of Mormon. It was fun for me to try to understand the dialogue between him and the Sisters. Later that evening, my good friends from high school, Sam McLaren and Samantha Koeller wanted to meet up with me and my (little) family. But Jonathan invited Laura and her husband Zach, and Laura wanted Alex and Anthony to come along. We also had the 3 girls. So it was a big ol' party at Buffalo Wild Wings. It was yummy and it was so nice to catch up with them!! It's so cool to see people from high school in different parts of the states. We're all so grown up. :) After that me and Jonny went to Laura's and watched the Avengers in blue ray. It was my 4th time watching it this year so I ended up retiring early. Jonathan, however, can never get enough of it, apparently! One of his favorite movies!

Thursday was our last day there. We spent most the time at Jonathan's parents house. They ordered Chinese for dinner. Lydia played with Anna Isabella and with her Abuelito, "Tito". Lydia really loves Tito. She thought it was hilarious whenever he'd try to get her (even though he's very old and very frail). She didn't want him to actually hold her, but she thought it was so funny to just lay on the floor beyond arm's reach and just laugh and be silly. I'm really glad she loves him.. I am sure he is very lonely without his wife this time of year. Me and Jonathan went to the store later that night to get some diapers/milk/snacks for the trip for the next morning, and everyone else watched LOTR2 until it was time to go to bed. We had to be up early friday morning to leave.

They are Mexicans! Eating a tortilla haha.. I dressed Lydia in her Bronco Tebow jersey (because we felt bad for the bad rap he's getting haha) and then Anna said she wanted to wear her's to match. :)  I think they were watching LOTR here but I'm not sure haha) Best Buds!

That morning we said our goodbyes and hugged everyone. It was a tight squeeze to fit us and everything we were bringing home in Alex's little car. Little room for a 12+ hour drive. Needless to say, I'm done with road trips after this next one to Payson on Monday. Luckily we won't be gone for too long/far, so it won't be that bad, but it is pretty hard to travel when you're pregnant.

Our ride home saying cheese haha..

in front of our tree at home with probably only half of our gifts.. we were really blessed this year. :)

Anyway, if you've made it this far in this post, congratulations! It may not be the most interesting thing to read, but I'm glad I'll have it to look back on and remember the things we did Christmastime 2012.

Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!!!

Monday Night Activity!

This last Monday we spent our family home evening with our friends Jared and Whitney. We did gingerbread houses/nativities/whatever you could think of making, and loaded them with frosting and candy. Mm mmm.. After that, my brother in law, Anthony, came over and we played the funnest game EVER - headbanz! Soo funny and HARD! at least for me. I could never guess mine haha. Afterward, Whitney made super yummy enchiladas and we watched Arthur Christmas. It was a fun night. Here are some pics!

Lydia's cute outfit from my sister Mari!

The bow I crocheted for this outfit.. looks better in person, and she was being soo wiggly!

My little nativity :) don't mind the snow in the stable, the gummy bear animals and the snowman... or baby Jesus' buck tooth haha the food coloring dripped..

Jonathan's TUMBLER haha

Whitney's cute town :) There's even a bear in a bikini in a tootsie sauna in the back right haha

Jared's house of horror HAHA.. he had halloween candy on his.. so it's kinda spooky.

 

 

 Needless to say..when Anthony walked in, he totally thought Jared and Whitney's were mine and Whitney's..and that the tumbler and my nasty stable nativity was done by Jared and Jonathan hahah.. That tells you how creative (or gross) mine really looked... obviously not good enough for an organized girl! Made me laugh. :)

Then we played this super fun game. GO GET IT. NOW!

Even Tiki wanted to play.....for half a second. :)

Oh man, that made us LAUGH and LAUGH! "Bra!" hahaha oh man.. He had no idea what was so funny. My stinking word was "carrot" and I could NOT guess it. You have to ask people questions that could be answered by yes, no, or could be. It's a lot harder than you think! :P

Whitney trying to guess what her's was..and Lydia fell asleep in her arms.. My pictures aren't the greatest.. oops!

 It was a pretty fun night! I'm glad we got to get together before Christmas and the holidays when everyone leaves and is super busy. We always love spending time with our friends!!