I hate...

...being sick!

It's frustrating not going to church or not going to game night or not going anywhere because of a stinking cold. I had a blast at the birthday party yesterday and then came home and crashed. It's not that I can't function or anything, it's just that if i'm constantly sniffing (as I was yesterday while having fun with friends and adorable babies), I come home completely congested with a headache and well...it's not pretty. And this morning I woke up and had to um...clear out my nose and sinuses for a long time to be able to breathe at all comfortably, so I just need to be next to my kleenex box all day and use it instead of sniffing. Sorry for the details, but you must remember that I initially created this blog to vent, so occasionally I will take a break from updates on my dear little fat baby to vent some more.

So in the last few days Joshua has decided that he is becoming a lot more independent with his eating. While he usually will eventually eat the stuff we're trying to feed him (especially if he refused most of his food at his last meal), he's been waving his hands and shaking his head until he gets some sort of finger food. This was, of course, after I just went and bought a bunch more jars of baby food. But anyway, he's starting to get more adventurous - finally! So he's been having a blast feeding himself bananas, kind of enjoyed canteloupe, liked some cut up green beans, though they were tricky to eat, and of course he always loves his cheerios (he generally gets multi-grain cheerios now - what a cheerio gourmet!) and cracker type baby food snacks. So this week he's going to be trying some beans and non-baby-food veggies. He's also enjoying yobaby yogurt - we've been doing that for the past few weeks. He was not at all interested in the cheese I tried to give him, but we'll try that again with different cheese, and he doesn't like chunks of bread, even though he did a few months ago. Little pasta shells also weren't interesting, but he's going to have to learn to like pasta very soon! Today he was very interested in my blueberry muffin so he got a few bites of that. Then I got jealous because it was my breakfast and ate the rest of it.

He is at church with his dada right now, so hopefully it is not too rough of a 3 and a half hours (they went early for choir - I think Joshua is a tenor) for daddy and baby. It's a hard time for church for babies who still take an afternoon nap. Church starts at 12:30 and goes til 3:30, which means that a lot of these babies just skip their nap entirely, or just have their day thrown off. I think 10:30 was a hard time, too, and 8:30 is just hard on ME, but hopefully this year will be fine...and then we'll go back to 8:30 again! Joshua is still taking two naps - one starts somewhere between 9 and 10 generally, and one starts somewhere between 2 and 3. And then he's going to bed around 8:30 and waking up for the day around 7:30. What a change from those difficult first months! I am truly grateful. I still breastfeed him three times a day, and I'm not sure how long that will last...we'll see. I've planned on nursing until he's about one, but maybe he'll decide when he's done - I don't know.

Well, I'm feeling pretty wiped out so maybe I'll go try to sleep...or maybe I'll read a book - wow it's been a long long time since I've just laid in bed and read a book. That sounds like a great plan. I better post some Joshua pictures before I go, though, huh? Nathan is working on getting the calendar updated, but it's been a pretty busy time for us. When isn't it, though, right? Ok well on to the pictures and then on to some quiet time for me.

Just for a special treat, I thought I'd post a picture of what I looked like about this time last year - can you believe it??

Happy Birthday!

Joshua felt that the highlight of the birthday party today was definitely the cupcakes. Joshua surprised us with an exceptionally good reaction to this delicious treat. They weren't even flavored with green beans!


More later - my dearest whiny baby needs a bath.

Goals

I had some more Amanda time on Friday night, and my plan instead of reading my book (as I usually do) was to work on a list of life goals. The Palmer family often refers to this as a "100 list," meaning coming up with 100 things you'd like to accomplish. While 100 is a good goal, I didn't want to feel pressured to get that many or like I had to limit myself, so I just decided to list as many as I could come up with. This was a really "interesting" experience for me. I sat here for a long time trying to think of a word other than interesting...but nothing quite seemed to describe it adequately, so we'll leave interesting for now.

So I first wrote down some of the things that I have already accomplished that I knew I wanted to - graduate high school, graduate college, get married in the temple, travel to Europe, etc. Then a few that are in progress, like having children. And then I just sat there, staring at the paper, staring at the other people in the cafe, and staring at my cake, which arrived while I was in the midst of deep thought.

I was trying to put this list into some sort of framework, and what I was thinking at first (after writing down those things I'd already done), was what I'd regret not doing if I were to die. And I couldn't think of anything...literally. It was a mix of a really good feeling and a really scary feeling. Good because it made me realize that I'm happy with what I've already done, and I'm not desperately aching to make sure I do something in particular or I'll have big regrets. BUT it also made me feel kind of like...wow do I really not have any other ambitions? Is there really nothing else I want to do? But then I realized I was just thinking about it too dramatically.

Once I started thinking about it in terms of what I'd "like" to do, things that aren't essential, but that I hope to do...ideas came a lot more quickly. So then I wrote them down and today I spent far too much of the day creating a computerized version with different sections and photos and it's just wonderful. I look forward to updating it. Nathan's mom has one on her website, but I'm not sure I want it on the web just yet. We'll see. And I need to look back through some books I have and come up with some more travel goals - right now they're kind of vague...but that is also a good feeling...like I got to go to Europe, and I've been to Hawaii...I just would like to go and visit National Parks around the country. Probably other places, which is why I need to look in a book! And Nathan needs to share his goals with me so I can steal his, too. Having goals written down and accomplishments recorded - it's cool because it becomes your own personal history, just gotta make sure it gets printed out or saved somewhere fairly permanent so it doesn't get lost.

Anyway, Joshua is doing very well - he's very excited for his best buddy's birthday party on Saturday! She's almost exactly 2 months older than him - pretty crazy that we'll be celebrating the big number one in just TWO MONTHS! I was just having a conversation today about whether or not it's gone fast or slow...and I think it hasn't gone fast, but those early incredibly difficult months have all become a blur and it's hard to remember when it was so hard to give him a bath, or when nursing was so painful it made me cry, or when I was functioning on about 20 hours of sleep per week. I think that is chemical, though...nature's way of making sure we keep on having babies. Strange thoughts come into my head that CANNOT be from my own doing, such as, "I miss being pregnant - that was so fun" (It was rarely "fun" and I don't miss it, though I'll certainly do it again), or when driving by the hospital, "I really had a good time there." That's life, though, right?

Joshy got his second flu shot late this afternoon, so we're hoping that it will go over better than the first one (babies have to get one and then a second one a month later) because last time he had one he got a really high fever and threw up all over his daddy. Yuck.

I love that baby - he's such a good baby. We're very blessed to have such a great little guy.

Birthdays and vacuums!

Happy Birthday Nathan A. Palmer! I hope you had a good birthday :c)

And here is another video. Honestly, I'm scared of the vacuum, and some of our seemingly brave cats were pretty terrifed of it, but not this baby!

What a cutie!

Joshua really liked Grandpa Palmer's birthday balloon!

work

Sometimes I email Nathan at work with all the stuff I've accomplished so far - it helps me to see how much I'm doing even when it feels like there is still soooo much to do. So, I have done all the work stuff that I wanted to do, other than finishing organizing the desk, putting up the newsletters, and a couple small things for the monthly paperwork (but I knew I wouldn't finish them today). And I ate breakfast and lunch, and read Joshy a story, fed him lunch, changed two poopy diapers, played with him a lot, and got him down for his second nap. Good stuff.

cleaning update

Not very exciting, but I thought I'd write a quick update of all that was accomplished before the 2-week time period was up, and all that still needs to be done:

I accomplished:
Kitchen Cabinets
Microwave
Oven
Refrigerator
Light Switch/Outlet Plates

So we didn't quite get it all accomplished - still to do:
Front Bath/Shower
Patio Door
Dust Dining Room
Dust Master Bedroom
Master Bedroom Ceiling Fan
Dust Joshua Room
Joshua Ceiling Fan
Doors

Nathan didn't tell me that this was his goal (doing everything on the list within the 2 week time frame) until about Thursday, I think, so I hadn't been motivated until then to do those big things. And some of those things certainly don't need to be done every two weeks (well, maybe Ashley would disagree), so I'm not sure when the next time will be that we'll be trying to accomplish everything within a two-week period, but we'll see.

On my super exciting agenda for today (work-related):
Call resident about washing machine
Call resident about paying the rest of their lease
Get 30-day notice confirmation paperwork ready
Put up newsletters on doors - probably during Joshua's afternoon nap, or maybe while Nathan is home for lunch
Print out tons of monthly paperwork and get it all ready for sending in on Wednesday, so I don't need to worry about it Tuesday night or Wednesday morning (when I usually end up doing it)
Organize desk

Home stuff:
Go grocery shopping
Finish December's budgeting (meaning doing the record of everything we spent...though I really don't want to know)
Eat breakfast (well more than the bowl of cereal I just finished), lunch, and dinner
Make dinner
Take care of my beautiful baby boy

Wow - that list of home stuff isn't very long! Exciting! Well on to the work stuff while Joshy is napping.

Oh - yesterday was a lot of fun - Nathan's mom and dad and Mindy came over and we had dinner and played Cranium, and sang Happy Birthday to Nathan over some birthday banana cream pie. I think on Wednesday (Nathan's big #26) we're going to head over to McMinnville and grandma is going to watch Joshua while we go out to dinner at Ruby Tuesday. We used to go there on our date nights when we lived in McMinnville and we miss it! Salem has a lot of good restaurants, though, and the Best Little Roadhouse is like 5 minutes away, which is really nice in terms of bringing Joshua or making dinner kind of quick if we have a babysitter.

I haven't had "Amanda time" in quite awhile...I don't even remember the last time, so sometime soon I should make that happen. I'm not sure when, though. Anyway - I need to get lots of stuff done (gotta take advantage of this whole naptime thing while I can!!) I'm working on posting more, so hopefully you'll hear from me much sooner than a week from now!

Thoughts

I didn't write much in that last post because I didn't want to forget to post pictures for all of Joshua's adoring fans, but I'm sure I do have things to say! It's been a busy week, but I'm not sure why I haven't posted. Joshua is doing all sorts of fun new things that I can write about, but maybe it's like when I didn't write in my regular journals for awhile, when I was younger - it just made me feel like there was too much to catch up on so I'd need like an hour of time to write. And I also kind of want to have things to say about me, not just Joshua. That sounds weird, maybe, but it's true. I got offered a full-time job at Willamette yesterday - temporarily filling in for someone in Residential Services who is going on maternity leave. I think it would be temporary, anyway. I turned it down, though - I don't have any sort of motivation to be working full time again - I really enjoy being home with Joshua, and this apartment management job takes up a lot of time, and the politics of working at Willamette (at least the politics between Residence Life and Res Services) were tiring and frustrating. I'm not sure how it would be to be on the other side of the battlefield :c) After Nathan is finished working on some maintenance stuff, I'm going to take the car to get it deep cleaned. While I'm waiting, I'll work on the lesson I'm teaching tomorrow. We have this goal of getting everything on our chores list done within this two week period that ends tomorrow. We have 13 things left to do - I was going to post more, but I really want to go work on some of it while Nathan's busy.

Real quick, here are the things that are left from our list (our list has 44 chores on it):
Kitchen Cabinets
Microwave
Oven
Refrigerator
Front Bath/Shower (as opposed to back bathroom...not just the front of the shower...)
Patio Door
Dust Dining Room
Dust Master Bedroom (a terrifying task)
Master Bedroom Ceiling Fan
Dust Joshua Room
Joshua Room Ceiling Fan
Light Switch/Outlet Plates
Doors

My plan is to try to accomplish these things today:
Kitchen Cabinets
Microwave
Refrigerator
Dust Dining room
Light Switch/Outlet Plates

And maybe the others. I'm thinking we probably won't get everything done by the end of the day tomorrow, but we'll see.

Ok I'll post again soon - I know that updates on Joshua's new skills and tricks and accomplishments would be greatly appreciated, so I will do that next time!

Furniture stopped

Sorry it has been so long...

Well, with the exception of pictures on the wall, the small white cabinet, and the messiness of the desk, I am happy with how things look in the dining room.



And without further comment, here are some Joshua pictures!









The end!

Furniture moving!!

So I don't know about you, but I generally am a big fan of changing things around...it just seemed like we didn't have any room to...but then we got an internet jack installed in the dining room, so we could move the computer and desk over there. Here are the before and after pictures of our living room.

Before, the entertainment center, big bookshelf, and little bookshelf were on the left wall, the desk and filing cabinet were taking up all the room on the center wall, and the couch was in front of the window on the right. To the right of where the top picture is taken from is the fireplace and Nathan's recliner. I couldn't find any good "before" pictures with those in them, so just imagine.



And NOW, the entertainment center is on the center wall, the couch is on the left wall, facing the windows, and Nathan's chair is on the right, with a cabinet on the wall where his chair had been. We've got a pretty nifty gate thing set up so now little Joshy (look close - can you see him?) has TONS of room to play safely. I'm so happy with it!

Now this room is looking very good and the rest of the apartment is a disaster. Once I get the dining room sorted out, maybe I'll take pictures of that. Maybe someday we'll be happy with our bedroom, but that is DEFINITELY a room that needs some serious work, as well as Joshua's room. *sigh* We'll get there. We have a big dresser that needs to be put together, so now that there is space in the living room, we're going to use the fence/gate thing to section it off a bit more and use part of the floor to put together the dresser. It should only take a couple of days because the glue has to dry overnight for part of it. We've had that dresser box (and it's a big box) sitting in our hall for about 5 months, so I'm pretty excited we have room to put it together now. So that'll help a bit in our bedroom, but there is a lot more stuff in there that we need to deal with. I have no idea how we'll survive when we inevitably move to a smaller apartment at some point (we couldn't afford an apartment this nice, so we'll see how long we live here!).

Off to accomplish a few things for work, and then hopefully I'll be able to get the dining room all set. Hopefully that doesn't just mean carting everything into our bedroom and shutting the door as it often means. Ah well.

sleeping...I think

Ok I think Mr. Baby has given up the fight and finally gone to sleep. I am so hesitant to type about it, though, because so often he'll start howling right when I type that he's finally asleep. So I'll stop talking about it fast!

Back to our Washington trip. Joshua had a great time visiting his great grandma Norma - she loves him so much and really liked showing him off to the staff and residents at her retirement home. He really brings smiles wherever he goes...and he got to try some cantaloupe - that went over well. Some of it even made it to his mouth before most of it went over well right onto the floor. We went to Emmanuel with Mom and Dad on Sunday morning for church and on Christmas Eve night (and Geoff came to that service, too), and it was really nice (overwhelming yes, but still nice!) to see a lot of wonderful people that I haven't seen in three years or more, since Mom and Dad were living in Kingston for awhile and not attending Emmanuel as often. One of Mom's good friends, Deb, made Joshua a red and white ball that he loves - that was so nice of her - people are so good to us. It was so nice seeing Laura and Linda (and Tom and John also), though a little sad, too. Looking back on the years between 13 and 20, Laura and I barely talked at all, and it's really hard to know why. To me, she's not just a friend I lost touch with, she's a sister...and while I remember how we did go our separate ways, it just seems silly. We're both pretty different than we were when we were little, but something that I really really hope is that we'll be able to regain a friendship that we'll be able to have as "grownups." Hanging out at Ashley's house with Adam, Ashley, and her mom and sister, was a lot of fun, even though it was just for a short while. It brought back a lot of memories of junior high when I'd walk over there after school and we'd do pretty much nothing together for hours and it was a lot of fun. Ash and I became sisters at a different part of our lives and have gone through the rockiest of times together (and sometimes not together for a time, but then together again) and I think she knows me better than pretty much anyone, except probably my mom. Even Nathan doesn't know a whole lot of what she knows about me (10 years creates a lot of stuff to know) BUT Nathan knows a lot about me that Ashley doesn't. Not that it's a competition. Anyway - I'm grateful for Ashley! Even if she did just tell me she ate hand sanitizer about half an hour ago. whahahahaha! Hopefully I won't have to delete any comments she might make on this post...happy first day back to med school Ash.

Back to Christmas! This year, having Joshua around really changed things a lot for me. I started thinking so much like my littler panda self that it was quite surprising to my dear husband. The magic of Christmas is a little different now - I spent awhile online watching the videos of Santa all over the world that were captured by our National Defense department, and tracking which cities he'd already stopped in. I scampered quickly off to bed when I realized he was just leaving Seattle and probably headed straight to Brier. I left cookies and milk out for Santa, as well as a carrot for Rudolph. No, maybe Joshua doesn't know that I did those things, but next year he will, and every year after, and I want Christmas to be a really special time for him. I want to make an effort to focus on the Christmas story and the birth of Christ, and all that is most important about the holiday, as well as some of the less important, but really special things like preparations for Santa's arrival.

It was a beautiful white Christmas morning, which I loved looking at, but was nervous about driving to Marysville in. It ended up that it wasn't snowing north of us, and there was barely any ice when we came home, so like I said in the post with the pictures, we had all the good stuff of a white Christmas, and no scary ice. We went to Aunt Lynn's and got to meet Chloe (who is stinking adorable!!) and spend some time with family that I have really missed. It was really sad that Tracy wasn't there, and speaker phones and webcams just aren't the same. She'll be up here in August, though, and I'm really excited for that! We had delicious food and good time with family, and a safe ride home. It was a great Christmas. Oh and a really frightening hampster/bunny thing that makes chattering and chomping noises when you squeeze his belly. Thanks Kris!

Since we've been back, we spent some time with Jeremy (Nathan's best bud), went to Alex's wedding reception (another of Nathan's friends), watched a movie with Ashley and Adam, and got a new internet jack put into our apartment. While that may not sound very exciting, it is, because we're going to move our desk and file cabinet (the essential components of our "office") out of the living room...into the dining room, sadly, but it will give us more Joshua space in the living room. We got a playpen/fence type thing that we're going to be able to use to fence off the living room area, and with the desk out of there, he'll have a lot more room to play. I do spend a lot of time at the computer during the day, though, so I'll have to get used to balancing my computer time with my Joshua time, when they used to be sort of combined a lot of the time since he'd be right there and I could play with him and interact with him while sitting at the desk if I needed to. We'll figure it out, though. I think that even with any drawbacks it'll have, this setup will be preferable.

There are some other things I wanted to post about, but I think I'll wait til next time - I'm getting a bit tired of typing and staring at the screen. Nathan got a bunch of pictures up - we're just waiting for some more Christmas pictures from my parents, and then he'll put up the week that is missing there in the middle.

Goodnight everyone - thank you for reading and commenting :c)

poor baby

Doesn't it just color your mood so much when your darling little baby is crying in the background at the extreme unfairness of being all alone in his crib (might I mention sleepy, in a nice warm room, in clean pjs and (very recently) clean diaper, with a little tylenol for teething, full from solid foods as well as milk from mom)? Nathan has been gone for quite awhile today and won't be home for hours. He's picking up his parents and Mindy from the airport in Portland, but he left around 2pm to go pick up the car in Lafayette (and drop off all our Christmas stuff in the storage room), do some errands, and then spend a few hours in Battle Ground with Derrick. I think that the last flight gets in around 10pm, and then there is baggage to pick up, the drive back to Lafayette (about an hour), then the drive back here (about 40 minutes), so I definitely hope to be asleep when he gets back. I feel bad for him cuz he has to work tomorrow morning, but hopefully he can sleep in a little.

Anyway, hopefully my little bugger will go to sleep soon so I won't feel so sad. Sometimes you can't really do anything else, though, ya know? I mean, he's been struggling with going to bed at a decent hour for a couple weeks since his schedule got turned upside down during the holidays, and we've had some late nights in the last week also. But it's time to get back to a decent bedtime. So once he's clean, warm, full, and sleepy, he's going to need to go to bed. Maybe he's slowing down a little...now it's just whining. It'll be horrible when he can cry for mama or dada in a few months.

Well, I do want to write about Christmas and how much fun it was!

On the 17th, we celebrated an early Christmas with Nathan's parents, Mindy, and Clarissa, and had a delicious dinner and opened some gifts. I really liked that - we had a good time and I'm really grateful that they live close, so even though they went to Texas this year, we were able to spend part of Christmas with them. I know we're very blessed and that not everyone got to do that, so I'm definitely grateful. It was a very good time until it got kind of late and Joshua got sick. He had a bad fever and then threw up all over Nathan :c( The doctor said to just keep an eye on the fever, and call again if he seemed to be getting dehydrated or if his fever got much higher. The next day he wouldn't do a lot of sleeping or eating, but by the day after that, he was doing just fine.

On the night of the 20th, we left for Washington. The drive up went pretty smoothly, and though we did have some pretty sleepless nights, Joshua did amazingly well with all the tons of people he interacted with and how disrupted his schedule went. He didn't have any major meltdowns (except in the car), but he just couldn't really sleep at night. But enough of the stressful stuff!

We had a great time up at my parents' - we got to spend a lot of good time with them, have some good talks (it's not a really good visit unless there is at least one good talk), and of course eat some very delicious food! The first night we went out to dinner while Mom babysat Joshua and that went really well. She sang him to sleep and he was sleeping quite happily on Grandma when we came home. She was able to sing him to sleep in her arms two more times, I think, during the visit, and Dad actually sang him to sleep on Christmas day and Joshy took a nice long nap in Grandpa's arms on the couch at Aunt Lynn and Uncle Mark's. Christmas day itself was actually one of his most difficult days - but he was happy to see Chloe, though, as Kris wrote on her blog, I think he was a bit shocked at how excited she was to see him! As they get older, they'll have a lot of fun playing together, and I really look forward to that. Hopefully all four little cousins (and more, of course!) will get to see each other often, although I know it's really hard.

Joshua LOVED the Christmas tree that Mom and Dad had at their house. It was a truly beautiful tree - and huge! He loved to pull things off of it, and pull on the lights and garlands and ornaments. The tree he'd orginally paid no attention to before we left, he was VERY excited to see when we came back home to our apartment. He actually was pretty devastated two days ago when he crawled over to the table it was on, and had me pick him up to see the tree...he had the most excited look on his face, and then saw that it had been taken down, and he got so sad. It broke my heart :c( Poor guy. I told Mom this on the phone today and she offered to get him a tree for his bedroom, but I said that I think he'll bounce back ok, but thank you Grandma!

Dangit, he's been crying for half an hour now - I think I'll go see if I can calm him down...I think I'll just post this and post more later.

Holidays

Well we sure had a very special Christmas! It was so nice being up at my parents' for long enough to go visit other people with Joshua and not feel like we were taking away from Grandma and Grandpa time TOO much. They got a chance to spend a lot of time with him, and we got a chance to show off our adorable fat baby! I'll write a more wordy post soon, but I wanted to post some wonderful pictures for everyone to see. They are not in any particular order.

We did indeed have a white Christmas - just the perfect kind, too, because it was really snowy and beautiful, but not icy for driving. That was so nice.


We visited Aunt Ashley and Uncle Adam over at Ashley's mom's house in Bothell. That was a lot of fun - her mom and sister were pretty excited to see Joshua, but their little dog was not pleased that Joshy was getting all the attention.

We went and visited the Averys - they were my second family all throughout elementary school - the first picture is with Laura (we spent pretty much every waking second together for about 8 years!) and the second picture is Linda - Laura's mom.

Joshua got to spend a lot of time with his Uncle Geoffy - they got along quite well!

Joshua has one great grandma on my side of the family, and we went to visit her - she was SO happy to get to spend some time with Joshua (and perhaps us...but mostly him!)

Joshua and Dad had a lot of good times together - this was one of my favorite times because my darling baby distracted my dad so much that I was able to win at Settlers!

Isn't it really the little things that babies love the most? He did indeed love all of the gifts he got this year, but at this point, none of them have been quite as captivating as this blue curly ribbon was.
We went and visited Dorothy and her family - another wonderful group of people who I spent a ton of time with in my elementary school years! Joshua had a lot of fun with them!

Joshua sure loves his grandma! They had a whole lot of time together which was really special. This is one of my favorite pictures because Joshy was blowing raspberries on my mom's face and I haven't seen her laugh that hard in a very long time!

There are a lot of other great pictures which will definitely be on the calendar, and I also need to post some pictures from the Palmer family early Christmas celebration!

It was a wonderful and beautiful Christmas, and I'm sad that it is over, but it is nice to return to our home and our routine.

I believe

I have always believed in Santa Claus, but I want to write about my belief in Christmas elves. Everyone knows about the elves that work at the North Pole...the little ones that help make the toys and get everything ready for Christmas. I'm not sure everyone knows about the other elves, though, so I will share with you what I know.

Santa needs a lot of help to make Christmas a magical time all over the world, so he chooses special people to help him. These individuals need to go through a lot to get to be elf material. There are some requirements before you can be chosen. The first is a high degree of selflessness and joy in giving. The second is a twinkle in your eye. Third is an understanding that you may never be thanked for the hard work and love you put into creating those great big smiles and shining faces during the Christmas season. Fourth, you must enjoy a certain degree of mystery and a special secret. No one may know you have been selected by Santa to play such an important role, though some may guess. Often, these elves are moms and dads, and I hope to be an elf one day.

So thank you, special elf, who delivered a gift from Santa through the mail slot in our door sometime during the night. Though it is hard sometimes to humbly accept the charity of others, we are truly grateful.

SOMETHING

Ok yes thank you Kris there is SOMETHING going on in my life right now :c)

Busy busy busy these days. Friday night we had a Christmas party at church which was a lot of fun - good food, too. Can you believe it, Mom, I even ate some stuffing! Weeeeird. Joshua did too. He liked it a lot, but did NOT like the green jell-o/cool whip type salad. Fine with his mama - more for me! We had a good time there. Today I was in Lafayette with Nathan's family for most of the day while Nathan was at Capitol Honda (where he used to work) making some money doing their twice yearly parts department inventory. It was nice for him to catch up with some of his old friends from there, and the extra $60 or so will certainly come in handy. We also brought in Joshua and showed him off! It was a long day for all of us, but especially for Joshua. After having some delicious lasagna in Lafayette, we went off to Amity to Ashley and Adam's Oregon reception (they'll have one up in Washington, too...and we'll eat all the food at THAT one also!). That was so much fun - there were a lot of friends there that we don't see often (seems like mostly just at weddings lately), and there were tons of babies and little kids around. As we were driving home, we were trying to name the couples we could think of who were there and didn't have kids. I think we came up with three! And there were quite a few people there. It was a good time, and the food was delicious, and Ashley and Adam seemed like they had a great time too. I think they even both ate some food...often that gets neglected when it's your own party. I'd just like to say on here that I'm so happy for them and glad that they're married and starting off on this new adventurous time together. Ash still has a long way to go in medical school, so they'll be traveling around together as she does her residency, etc. I ALSO want to say on here that it is all because of me that they got together. Well...maybe they might have gotten together if I hadn't done anything about it, but it was a very deliberate matchmaking. All because they used code names for people they kind of had crushes on. So...3 or so years later and here they are! Way to go, me. And them.

Joshy updates - he's doing all sorts of new things...he's moving all around his around-we-go play table, army crawling everywhere, clapping, waving sometimes, babbling, screaming this horrible ear-shattering scream of joy, feeding himself cheerios, all sorts of things. I was realizing the other day that I was never grateful enough during the after-bath period of his early months. Sure he may have been crying his little head off for most of it, but he couldn't roll all over the place and drive me completely bonkers when I'm trying to get him dry, diapered, clothed, etc. Let me tell you, this big fat baby is not all fat. He is VERY strong, and when he wants to go somewhere, it is very hard to get him to do just about anything else. We'll see how that plays out as he gets more mobile and more curious. It will be fun, and terrifying :c)

I hear a rumor that there are a whole lot of pictures on the verge of being posted on the calendar. I hear they are resized and ready to be inserted into html to make the websites necessary for making that calendar magic happen.

Tomorrow should be a good day. I'm nervous about the lesson I'm teaching during Young Women tomorrow - it's called The Sacred Power of Procreation. Super super important topic, but maybe challenging in a class of 14-15 year olds. I'm not worried about them being disrespectful or anything, just not sure what kind of questions or issues might come up, but I think it will be a good experience for all. Just gotta say a prayer beforehand that I will have the Spirit with me and be able to teach what they need to learn. I really enjoy being a teacher to these young ladies, though. They're amazing examples to me and I love it when I get to know new things about them and start building closer relationships. It takes time, but so worth it! It's just so sad when they leave, but then new girls come join the class, which is good too.

Anyway, I should go to sleep now, but I felt so guilted by Krissy that I thought I better post before I go to bed. :c) Maybe a couple more pictures for Joshua's adoring fans would be a good idea before I finish up for the night.

Part 2

Ok I wanted to get this done before I forgot or waited too long. I need to hurry cuz baby is quickly approaching the end of nap time...and I'm putting off stuff that needs to get done. Ok here are the last few questions:

Who is more stubborn? Well, we were arguing about this last night...and both of us want to be the most stubborn. I think it is a toss-up, really. We're both very very stubborn, especially about being right.
Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? Probably me. We both admit it, just some of us a bit more slowly than others.
Whose parents do you see the most? Nathan's, definitely, because they live 40 minutes away, rather than 4 and a half hours away.
Who proposed? Nathan did - great story for another time. He accidentally proposed really...he was "practicing." Who PRACTICES proposing to their girlfriend? I mean, seriously. He almost was in big trouble for that one. It worked out, though, huh?
Who has more friends? That's a weird question. I'm not sure. In Salem, we have pretty much all the same friends, though he's closer with some guys from EQ and I'm closer to some ladies from YW. Fun abbreviations. He has friends from high school closer by in McMinnville, but many of them have moved away just like many of my friends. So yeah, hard to say, and not something I really care about figuring out.
Who has more siblings? Nathan. I have one wonderful big brother and he has about a billion brothers and sisters. Ok 2 brothers and 5 sisters. To me, that's close to a billion. They're great, though. It's been nice being around Nathan's hometown so much because i've gotten to meet all the siblings sooner than the other in-laws did.
Who wears the pants in the family? Well all three of us wear pants most of the time. Joshua definitely has the most pairs of pants, so if that is the deciding factor, then Joshua. And he really determines pretty much everything we do these days...so definitely Joshua.

I love my husband - I love my marriage - I love my family. Nuff said.

Well, to continue this interesting game of "tag," I tag Tracy and Krissy (if you want to, of course!)

A game of tag?

Well Alicia "tagged" me the other day...and apparently that means that I get to answer this set of questions about my dear husband. Now I think it is a bit of an understatement to say that some of these are loaded questions, but hopefully this doesn't provoke any arguments! That said - Alicia's husband wrote a bit of "commentary" on her answers on his own blog, so I encourage Nathan to do the same. Here goes...

What is his name? Nathan (known to some as Nate, Skip, Skippy, Skipdawg), but I just call him sweetie, unless he's in trouble or I have to get his attention when other people are around
How long have you been married? Since June 2004 - so about 3 and a half years
How long did you date? We officially started dating about April of 2003, so a little over a year before we were married...only 8 months before we were engaged.
How old is he? Just over a month away from 26 (man he's OLD!)
Who eats more? Well Nathan eats more often...and often eats more at one time, but lately (and definitely when I'm pregnant), I eat more than he does at dinner.
Who said I love you first? Umm...I'm pretty sure that I said I loved him like the first day we were dating, because I realized he was becoming my best friend. so cute, I know.
Who is taller? Nathan
Who sings better? Nathan for sure - he is an amazing bass. I enjoy singing, but it is only in the last couple of years that i've tried singing alto whenever I sing hymns or whatever at church. Before, I would just sing the melody unless I was singing with a choir or something - then I'd sing alto. Anyway - I still struggle with finding the alto part, but i'm getting better.
Who is smarter? Nathan is smarter about tons of things - remembering things (I rarely can remember anything these days), knowing info about the world, the country, history, math, science, and other things I can't remember - see? He can remember birthdays, things people said, how to get places...I fail at that quite often. I can rarely even remember if the person I just met was wearing glasses or not. I think I'm stronger in writing and all the analytical stuff that I studied at school, and I'm a little faster at typing, I think - thanks to hours and hours of IM'ing when I didn't have any friends at Linfield my first year of college (thanks for helping me with that skill Ash!)
Whose temper is worse? That's a tough one...my first impulse would be to say Nathan's, but I'm probably just in denial. We both have tempers sometimes. But our grumpiness is always short-lived.
Who does the laundry? dangit! I need to go put the clothes in the dryer! Thank you quiz! Ideally, I'd like to be the one who does the laundry, but in reality, Nathan does the laundry 75% of the time.
Who does the dishes? That really varies. We both load and unload the dishwasher...yeah I don't think it's really one of us or the other. Maybe he disagrees.
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Me. Always.
Who pays the bills? I do...well I set up autopay a couple months ago, but I keep track of them, and do stuff like taxes or financial aid forms.
Who mows the lawn? Thank goodness we don't have a lawn to mow. No, it'd be nice to have a lawn. The landscapers mow the property's lawn.
Who cooks dinner? Me nearly always, but more and more lately, I've been cooking good dinners. It used to be a bowl of pasta eaten in front of the tv, but I'm getting a lot better and getting meat in there quite often, and vegetables and fruit and some sort of carb with each meal, and we eat at the table. I'm very proud of that because it did NOT come naturally for me...so I'm building up to cooking new things. Slowly.
Who drives when you are together? Nathan nearly always drives, except on long road trips, when we switch off every few hours, or when I just really feel like driving - like Sunday over to McMinnville.

Ok the end of part 1 - I will continue it later...

Good busy

It's nice to be "good busy" rather than stressful busy. Certainly things are still happening here at the good old apartments - multiple leaks, apartment showings, etc., but nothing like the high pressure of last week's visitors. So we've filled our time with some more exciting stuff! On Friday we went over to Nathan's parents' to celebrate his Dad's birthday, which was fun. Joshua had a good time except for right after the candles got blown out on the pie. For some reason he gets pretty upset when candles get blown out - see this page (bottom 2 photos) for another demonstration: http://www.insanityinc.net/nathan/joshua/7-27.html It doesn't seem to be the clapping afterwards...I'm not really sure what it is. Anyway, Friday was fun. Then Saturday the three of us did some Christmas shopping and then went over to some friends' house for dinner - that was a lot of fun! They have 4 kids and it made me feel like I did want to have more kids...often lately i've been pretty terrified of the idea, but it was fun being at a home filled with happy little kids - and dinner was delicious! Then Sunday we went to church (Joshua and I came home early cuz we both weren't feeling real well, but we both felt better after taking it easy for a little while) in the morning. Then we went to McMinnville to watch the stake concert of the Messiah by Handel. If you have never seen or heard it, you really really should. It is an incredible musical masterpiece. Nathan and I sang in it a few years ago and I was so glad to get to see/hear it again this year...really gets me feeling the true spirit of Christmas. Ashley and Adam watched Joshua while we went to the Messiah and then we had dinner at Adam's Dad and stepmom's house afterwards. Three nights in a row of delicious meals cooked by others - always a good thing! Speaking of delicious meals...I cannot wait for Christmas!! Sorry we still don't have pictures updated on the calendar. It's been a busy time, and then it's been so long that it gets really overwhelming, but I know Nathan is working on it! We need to get Thanksgiving pictures from my parents - I'm sure we'll get those soon and then we can post them. Here are a couple of sneak previews of recent pictures, though. Well there is much to do today - I decided I should post first so that I was sure it would get done. Hope it is a good week for all.

Oh and Joshua got his third tooth this morning! It is a top tooth, which makes me a bit apprehensive since he is still nursing. We'll see how this goes. Ok now it's time for pictures.

Don't worry - there are tons more pictures that will be on the calendar!!

ok seriously

I would like to make a solemn commitment to post on my blog more often. I hate it when people haven't posted on their blog in ages...and I check and check and still no post. Even the joy of seeing a new post doesn't quite dull the frustration of no new posts for a week! Anyway. I'm sleepy, so we'll see how this one goes.

Well the owner and my boss and his boss came by on Monday. I did indeed make them cookies (though I'll admit that i didn't do much other than put them on the cookie sheet), and they seemed to like them. After they left I called my mom and talked to her for awhile about how happy I was with how everything went and I appreciated her being so supportive. After that wonderful conversation, though, I felt kind of talked out about the whole thing!

Our home was clean, our desk was impressively organized, I articulately answered some tough questions, and I even ended up showing the owner this chart I'd made of the increase in gross monthly rents over the last 4 years (which my boss said the owner probably wouldn't be interested in...but he WAS!). The owner was really nice...definitely a numbers guy, focused on the property as an investment rather than a place that people call home, but I don't blame him. It's our job to take care of the people. I was more worried about the big boss being here, but he was fairly tame. We were so so so nervous and I'm so so so glad Nathan was home. He had to take a really long phone call from a prospective resident (and I mean REALLY long), so he missed most of the beginning of the visit, and then he fed Joshua lunch for most of the end of the conversation, but then he got to go walk around the property with them. I'm glad I wasn't there for that part - they were inspecting things pretty thoroughly, but I think the property is looking pretty good in general. Anyway, it went well and I'm so so glad it's over.

Things are going pretty good here. Joshy got to spend time with his Aunty Mindy on Tuesday night while Nathan and I went out to dinner and then to the Oregon Symphony. They were playing at Willamette and Nathan's boss gave us their tickets (for free!!!) because they weren't able to go. I'll admit that I didn't really think I was going to enjoy it. There was a little girl there - probably 7ish, and I asked Nathan if he thought I'd fall asleep first, or she would, but I actually really really enjoyed it. They did Vivaldi's Four Seasons and then two other pieces and it was just amazing. My favorite part is watching the conductor - they go nuts up there...it's hilarious and impressive and wonderful. Many people know they'd love to see a symphony, but for those of you who aren't so sure - if you have the opportunity - go! I think it also really helped that we were in like the 7th row. That was incredible. Oh and the little girl fell asleep before I did.

Here are a couple of Joshua pictures for all his adoring fans out there. We apologize for not getting things onto the calendar lately. As usual, life has just been absolutely crazy, and it won't be a whole lot less busy any time soon, but that's ok. Right now a lot of the busy-ness is good!

Nathan didn't want to go to bed until I did, and he refused to lay on the couch as he usually does, so he is asleep on the floor, so I probably should end this for now. I'll do better at posting, though. Thanks to everyone who reads and comments - I love it! And thanks for taking the poll if you did.

Good night moon.

Thanksgiving and on to Christmas

Maybe I should let him cry for a few minutes more often! He went back to sleep pretty quickly. Anyway, that post was a bit abbreviated about Thanksgiving - we really had a great time with family and amazing food (as always, Mom!) and of course, Legos. And Joshua did great on the way down - he slept pretty much the whole first two hours, and then was awake for awhile and only grumpy for about 20 minutes before he fell asleep for the last hour or so. We had such a good time and didn't want to leave!

So now...this week we've been faced with preparing for the owner coming on Monday to see the property (meaning pressure-wash the buildings, pull out all the dead plants and bushes, trim all the hedges, clean all of the stairwells so they are free of cobwebs, and a billion other things that Nathan has done/needs to do) and get to know us in our apartment (meaning a HUGE overhaul on the condition of our apartment). Along with the owner, the 2nd in command of our company (so our boss' boss) is coming too. He is really really strict about policies and procedures - he actually sent us a letter in the mail (using 41 cents, I might add) to tell us that an envelope we'd sent the company was 7 cents short on postage, so the company had to pay it, and that it was NOT acceptable, and the money adds up, etc. Seems like a phone call about 7 cents would have been better than a 41 cent letter. Anyway, since our home is our office, we don't have anywhere to sit and chat with them other than our home. So far I've done a lot of organizing of the desk area, a very extensive dusting of everything in the living room, and I'm trying to get all of our Christmas stuff up - it's getting pretty festive in here. So let's talk about Christmas - it'll be a busy enough weekend - I need to take a mental break from it right now!

I love Christmas, and I love decorating for Christmas. Eventually we'll get a real tree (I LOVE having a real Christmas tree), but we don't have room this year. We had one small two foot tree that I've had for years, and we have that up, but we decided to get a 4 foot fake tree to put on the table in the corner of our living room. We've got lights on it, an angel on it, and a grand total of 8 ornaments. We have about 7 billion ornaments, so the process of choosing which get to go on it this year will be challenging. For the last two years, we've used Nathan's parents' old fake tree, which worked just fine, but we don't have room for it, either. Anyway, I'm enjoying getting stuff set up for Christmas. Actually Christmas decorations got me to start putting holes in the wall (gasp!), so hopefully I'll keep up with that. I don't really want to still have naked walls for our stressful guests on Monday.

Since Nathan's parents are going to Texas for Christmas (it would have been our year to be with them if we switch back and forth), we're going up to my parents' again, which is so great because they get to see Joshua again so soon! And we get to see them, of course. Another reason why a fake tree is good, since we'll be up there for almost a week.

We have a little chalkboard with "___ days til Christmas!" on it, and today I wrote 25! Tomorrow we start our advent calendars, and I'm very excited. We have a really cool log cabin one that we got last year and we need to unpack it today so it is ready to go for the start of advent tomorrow!

Ok well this is getting me all motivated to go unpack more Christmas stuff and do more decorating, so I think I'll do just that.

Thank you, other bloggers, for all the posting you're doing - it makes me happy to be updated on everyone's lives. Oh and I added a little poll on the side after being inspired by Tracy!