Merry Christmas!

I know, finally I have a picture! We want to wish you and your family a very happy holiday season. 2011 has been a busy year for us; I'm glad it's coming to a close, but we had so much fun getting to this point.

We started out in Washington as Tyler completed his accounting internship. We got to see what a winter and spring were like in the Tri-Cities, so much fun! William enjoyed getting to know his cousins better and learned many new things as we celebrated his 2nd birthday right before heading back to good 'ole Rexburg!

Tyler finished his last semester of school and graduated in July. So exciting, I've never seen him so happy! : ) The first of August, we said our final goodbyes to our 5 year life in Rexburg and moved back to Washington. We enjoyed a great, HOT, summer and Tyler found employment while I adjusted to being a stay-at-home mom.

William has blossomed since he's been around children closer to his age. He upgraded to a big boy bed, and LOVES it! He is a true boy and roots for the bad guys in the movies. He loves his dinosaurs, cars and trucks, sharks, and dragons. His vocabulary has picked up 300 fold, although it still has his own twist. One of my favorite words is "frocket". He will say "I want frocket milk mom, frocket milk". It means chocolate.

Tyler is doing a lot of research with technology for his job, which has been very interesting. He loves to come home from work and wrestle with William, fly his simulator, and play with family. He is such a great guy, and it has been wonderful to see all of his accomplishments this year.

I am busy keeping up with William and staying on top of all the chores that come with staying at home. We are expecting a baby girl in February, and I love to feel her kick all day long. I've gotten back into knitting quite a bit, but nothing too fancy. We are anxiously waiting for the right place to call our own, and in the mean time I daydream of all the projects I will do then. I also finished reading the New Testament cover to cover, next year I plan to tackle the Old Testament, we'll see how that goes.

We have had a great year this year. It has boosted our testimonies and proved to us on countless occasions how much we rely on the Lord and how much He is involved in our lives. It has been a joy to teach William more about the Savior during this time. We hope you have a very Merry Christmas with your families. God bless you.

Time Flies with No USB cable

I've been waiting to find my USB cable to connect my camera to the computer to put more recent and exciting pictures on here. But, I've had no luck. Since we moved here, I didn't anticipate that our things would be in a storage unit for more than about a month, so since it's been more than 3, I should have organized the storage unit better than we did. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Well, we are still living with Tyler's parents. They have been very generous to let us bombard their busy lives for so long. Especially with a toddler who is not very mindful of his surroundings. Tyler found a great (I mean there really couldn't be a better fit for him anywhere else) job working for Modern Ag Products. They are an agriculture/fertilizer company. He gets to work with one of his friends, so it's working out thus far.

I know I haven't shouted it from the rooftops like I did when I had William, mainly from a lot of reactions of when I was prego with William, so now that I'm 25 weeks along, yes, I am expecting another baby. I will be having a girl in February, due February 20, but we'll see if I get to have her early or if she wants to be a snuggle bug and wait. So far everything is wonderful, I do have a hernia, but it's not a terrible concern. I eat more than Tyler again, which makes me laugh, and brings back memories from being prego the first time and work parties. Yes, I've eaten a whole cantaloupe in one afternoon, and I usually eat twice the amount my husband does. I found a fabulous doctor, so I'm expecting a much less eventful delivery than last time. I'm nervous and excited to have a girl, happier to have a girl right around Valentines Day. It will be much easier to have heart and red/pink birthday parties for a girl than a boy.

We had a great Halloween. Tyler and I dressed up as cavemen, with bone accessories (Tyler had a bone through his nose) and William was our very animated green and orange dinosaur! I liked that we all coordinated this year, and I made all of our costumes. Very very simple ones, but I was impressed with myself.

The weather has been great here in the tri-cities. It's fun to hear about snow in places we used to live, but know that we won't have that here for a long time yet. It is getting nippy outside, but we do get little warm spells here and there. The ward here is great. That's the hard part about looking for a place to live. The more affordable options are outside ward boundaries, and I just got a calling that I'm thrilled about, so it will be sad to leave for that reason. We are anxious to establish ourselves in our own home, since we haven't been on our own since William was about 2 weeks old. So it's been a while. We'll see what happens. It is absolutely wonderful to see how the Lord has guided our lives to where we are today, and the blessings we've seen. Our silver lining is growing ever brighter. Hopefully pictures will make another debut on here before too long, we'll wait and see!

Back to big WA!

That's right, we are back in the land of Washington state! For good this time. I took great pictures of our travel here, but I must have packed the cord that connects my camera to the computer, so once again, you have to wait on the pictures. Funny, it's almost been a year since I actually posted pictures. Guess the rest of the world is a bit more "with it" than I am. Oh well.

We moved back to Rexburg for Tyler's final semester. I went back to work at Beehive FCU as a temp teller, which was fun to see old friends and make new ones. We made a few trips to Utah and Washington over the next few months for friend weddings and other events.

Tyler graduated the end of July, and we decided that we were supposed to be in Washington. So we are back. We are still job hunting, so if you hear of anything great that opens up in the accounting/finance field, please be a bug in our ear. The adjustment has been somewhat okay for William. He loves to be around his cousins and all of Tyler's family, which is great, but he has a hard time going to sleep at night. He has become very attached to me, so every time I leave the room, he gets really upset. I'm blaming the new environment and all of our lifestyle changes, but who knows what the real reason may be. He has even remembered most everyone and is getting really efficient with names. I love the new communication skills.

It is weird to change from "school mode" to "real life mode". We have been in "school mode" for the past 5 years, so it is quite an adjustment to make. I'm excited for this new adventure, but I must admit that I miss my family and friends from Utah and Idaho. Distance makes it hard to travel whenever I want, but it will make the trips we do make that much more special. For now, we are busy becoming fishes in the pool and on the boat in the Columbia river, playing all sorts of outdoor games in the great backyard and visiting several different parks. Did I mention pretty much every store you can think of is within a 10 minute drive? Oh, and one of my absolute favorite restaurants, Texas Roadhouse, is being built here!!!! Yaya! So, the situation isn't really that bad. I'm just not one to love being patient for all the kinks of unknowns to workout. What's important is taken care of, but now we wait until everything else falls into place. Miss you if you're somewhere else, glad to see you again if you are here!

Do you know of anyone?

So I have some super amazing friends who are wanting to adopt. They are Tim and Kaitlyn. I've posted a link in my family and friends so you can see their page. If you know of anyone who could use this information, please pass it on. This couple is absolutely wonderful and will make fantastic parents. They love to do stuff outside, are both teachers, and are very creative. We used to play games with them almost every week when they lived close by. Now they are on an adventure in Alaska. Please spread the word to those you think would be interested. Just jump to www.timandkaitlyn.com.

Stay at home Moms

So, stay at home moms. Sounds easy right? Anyone can do it right? All you have to do is take care of the kids, clean the house, make the food, do the little odd jobs to maintain your living space, and be appealing to your hard working bread-winning man. Easy as pie, that's what I thought. To stay at home meant that you gave up too easily on a career or didn't want to work very hard in life. Honestly, I have made those mental associations.

The last 4 months have been an eye-opener for me. I'm only the mother of one, a son who has JUMPED into the "terrible twos". And wow, I made a terrible misconception! The first two weeks of being a stay-at-home mom or formal "homemaker" kicked my tukhus. My world was foreign and I couldn't make heads or tails of it. And the worst part, was that I constantly get told how amazing of a kid William is. So my dilemma, if I am pulling my hair out with him, how could I handle a child less manageable? Silly, but that was my mentality back in January.

The reality is stay-at-home moms have THE HARDEST job there is. It's a 24/7 job with no guarantee of a return on investment. It is a marvel that the women I know who stay home even get out of bed in the morning or can possibly look as great as they do! I find it funny that men say how easy it is for the wife to stay home, yet they don't know what to do for an hour alone with the kids so their wives can go visiting teaching or go to a relief society activity. And the house usually looks like a natural disaster or two swept through. (brings back memories right?)

Every job is hard, no matter who you are. But being a stay-at-home mom is one that is hardly ever recognized for the amount of effort that goes into it. No world renowned award for catching the bowl of dropped spaghetti right before it hits the white carpet. There are immeasurable joys that come with motherhood, but it's a tough road to walk. Kudos to all the mothers who stay home and find solace in blogging a bit or doing whatever they can to stay above water. And to the rest of us who work, I hope you all get to experience what a stay-at-home mom does. One, you'll run back to the sanity of "work insanity", and two, you'll smile every time you see a mother who dares step anywhere public with her kids alone. MOMS ROCK!

So there's a tip of the iceburg on my soapbox about moms who stay home. I could write a book, maybe I will (but probably won't). :o)

Washington

I'm not too savvy with getting pictures off my new camera, it always takes me about a full day just to get everything downloaded and whatnot. So, pictureless, here's what we've been up to the past four months.

Tyler took an internship in tri-cities Washington during the tax season. He learned a lot about himself and a lot about accounting in the real world. There are still a lot of possibilities for his future career path, however, we did learn of a few avenues he's no longer interested in. I discovered what a stay-at-home mom was all about, and let me tell you, I created my own soap box just about the subject! :} (that post will come later) And our ever-growing William discovered a toddler vocabulary while trying to catch up with his many cousins. It was a super amazing adventure full of memories. All in all, I'm grateful we had the experience.

Highlights: We played outside and took walks in January...with NO snow! (personal favorite) We spent oodles of time with family, so awesome! We went camping in the snow. I attempted snow-skiing again, and survived, Tyler loved being a snow bunny again. William turned 2! We visited the dentist (the one day I'm allowed to not like my father-in-law, but it's hard to be mad at him). We visited Tyler's grandparents. We spent a day in Seattle, Leavenworth, Spokane, and Grandview! I got purple highlights!!! And of course we hung out with great friends and made new ones in the ward!

Thanks to everyone who helped make our adventure unforgettable. I'm glad to be in Rexburg because it means that we are that much closer to being done with school. I'm getting better at enjoying the moments and current adventures I'm in rather than constantly looking toward the next thing. I've grown and learned a lot about people, places, and being a mom. Hopefully, some pictures will end up here eventually! Stay-tuned...

Justice League!

Halloween was a lot of fun this year, especially now that William is more interested.
It is without a doubt my most favorite holiday of the entire year. I love that I can dress up and nobody can look at me funny for a whole day! I plan and look forward to it every single year. And I love that I have a son to dress up as well. I don't think you can be to old to dress up or eat candy (might as well do it together). Since it was on a weekend, we definitely made the most of it, trick-or-treating on Friday to businesses, and trunk-or-treating as well as trick-or-treating Saturday.

We decided to go with the Super Hero theme (although the costume didn't work out so great for Tyler...he would have made the perfect Clark Kent if he didn't have to work). William has been working on his "muscles" over the past few months, and it got us thinking...he would make a great Incredible Hulk! (the chubby cheeks helped influence as well) So I got to work designing what he should wear. After much searching for warm green sweats, and no luck, I thought I would make his costume. The only issue was every green fabric I found just didn't scream "hulk". So I was aimlessly walking through every clothing department, when I discovered the most brilliant shirt in my entire trip! It was the perfect bright green I was looking for, and yes I found it in the men's section, size 3XL! The best part? It was only $3. A true find I tell you. With the amazing sewing skills of my mother, we whipped up the coolest green jump suit and purple shorts. Who knew a clothing pattern from the early 80s would come in handy more than 20 years later?

William enjoyed wearing the costume all day long, and did a marvelous job showing off his "muscles" every where we went. I've always wanted to be Wonder Woman, and thanks to my awesome sister-in-law Hayley, I got to borrow the "real deal" costume. William and I were off to save the world of Rexburg, and the good people there-in paid us royally in candy. It was so cute to watch William get a piece of candy and put it in his little pumpkin. It was a satisfying holiday, and I look forward to next year. Only 362 days left! ;o)