Yay America!

Wow, what a busy and exhausting weekend we had celebrating the fourth of July, friends and a wedding. I'll try not to bore you with all the details but that very well may happen.

Our friend Max got married on Sunday and we had some friends come into town for that. We got to spend some time with them (Brett and Rachel) prior to the wedding on Saturday morning. We had a big fat breakfast and let the kids run around and get dirty. After heading home for a nap for Reed, we headed down to Salt Lake City to attend a housewarming party for another friend (Sean and Melissa). It was SOOO hot on Saturday, I think everyone lost a few pounds sweating. Our friends new house is beautiful and it was nice to catch up with a few people. Then we jetted home for a quick dinner, a bath for Reed and a change of clothes for all of us. Then it was off to another shindig, this time a summertime BBQ at yet another friends (Chris and Jen) house. Reed enjoyed playing with their yard games - bocce ball and crocket (not sure if either of those are spelled correctly!). Off to home to recoup from the day and get ready for the next!

Sunday morning, Fogg went for a bike ride with Pete and Brett and Doug before it got to hot. We loaded up a bunch of crap to donate to the church yard sale then headed up to the valley. It was another hot day so it was nice to be in the upper Ogden Valley where it's a tad bit cooler (by cooler I mean 97 instead of 100). After church, we unloaded a lot of stuff from our truck and many other people's. We also helped start organizing but bailed a bit early so Reed could take a nap. In the afternoon, after I finished some final touches for Reed's new room (now all I have left is to put it together!), we got ready for the wedding and headed off to the Branch's to drop Reed off for the evening. Reed was very excited about riding Papa's tractor.
He was also enjoying picking strawberries with Papa. Nana said that Reed pretty much wasn't a few inches from Papa the whole night. He finally crashed on their couch.
We had a great time at Max and Saydee's wedding, catching up with so many great old friends. It was fun to spend time with Pete and Amy, and Brett and Rachel without kids, we could have conversations without running out mid-sentence to catch a child. We also got to catch up with old friends Jackie and Alex White. Saydee looked amazing, I wish I had gotten a picture, her dress was beautiful.

Amy and Pete Gompert

Brett and Rachel Paradis

Of course, us.

Sunday morning, we got up early to head up to Huntsville for the breakfast and parade. Every year, they do a big breakfast in the park along with all kinds of games and booths for people to enjoy. By the time we finished eating, it was almost time for the parade. We went to the corner where the church is and sat with our friends. Here is my patriotic son playing with a few flags.

He got a ball during the parade, along with a lot of candy that was thrown. It was a funny parade, very small town. Reed really enjoyed the horses and tractors.

Our friends, Sarah and Jared and Ava
At the church, there are four of us that are pregnant (Amy had her baby a few months ago). Katie (40 weeks), Sarah (38 weeks), Kaytee (31 weeks), me (24 weeks)
It was Katie's due date on July 4th! She is my hero, she walked a full 5K, had a big breakfast, watched the parade, went to a BBQ and enjoyed the park activities (including "face/belly" painting) all on her actual due date! Can't wait to hear when she finally has that baby!

After the parade, we went home for a nap and to pick up food for a BBQ. We enjoyed a nice relaxing time with friends in the afternoon then it was finally time to head home for the rest of the day. We were so exhausted! I totally crashed on our drive home, not feeling well at all. I spent the rest of the evening laying on the couch, eating a bowl of cereal for dinner and taking a shower. It was nice to crawl into bed at the end of the day. We didn't watch any fireworks, it's not really our thing, I was kinda annoyed at the neighbors that were lighting fireworks past midnight (don't they know I have to work in the morning!).

Anyway, it was a fantastic holiday weekend full of tons and tons of friends that we really enjoy and rarely see! Now I need a weekend from my weekend!

Toilet Talk

So this past weekend we launched into some potty training. Beware, this post is about pee and poop so reader be warned. Reed has been using the potty on and off for the past several months, just peeing every once and a while. We always made a big deal about it but he wasn't consistent. About 2 weeks ago, he started going pee in his potty at least once a day. We thought that was a good sign that he was ready and we decided to try the whole shabang this past weekend. I work from home on Wednesday and Nana Branch watched him Thursday. Fogg was home with him on Friday and together we had the whole weekend. That's five full days of good "family" supervision so we gave it a try.

Wednesday I didn't do very well. He pee'd in the potty several times, pee'd on the deck once and the rest of the time everything in the diaper. He did alright for Dianne on Thursday, using the potty a few times at her house. Still no number 2 though. Friday morning, I went to work and received a phone call from Fogg and Reed saying he had pooped in the potty! How exciting! Fogg took him to the splash park to have some fun for being such a big boy.

When I got home in the afternoon he had set up these two chairs in front of the TV. Elmo is his potty training companion (he also has a sippy cup and potty). Reed has taken Elmo under his wing the past few days, taking care of him. He is cute, gives him drinks, asks him if he wants to do stuff, saying "there you go!" like we must do. He sat Elmo next to him to watch some TV (disregard that I was watching a little Chris Rock). He was talking to Elmo at this point, not sure what he was saying.

Saturday morning, we were both there but I was up painting Reed's big boy room and Fogg said that he had a number 2 accident on the floor. Apparently Reed was very upset about that. Later, when Reed was napping, I was cleaning the play room and found that he not only pooped on the floor, but he also pooped in a play construction vest and hid it. Fogg had no idea about it, Reed knew he must have done something wrong. Each time he had a success we celebrated, hugged and gave him a treat (most of the time a marshmallow). Each time he had an accident we would remind him that he should pee or poop in the potty and he would always say "tay" (which means ok).

Sunday morning we were feeling like failures but Reed went pee in the potty pretty much every time he was naked (which was every time we were home). That's one success I guess. He did still pee in his diaper when it was on though. He was acting very much like he does before pooping and we decided to be like hawks on him so we didn't have another construction vest incident. We kept asking him if he needed to go to the potty and he was getting a little irritated with us at that point, saying "no" like "stop asking me!". We told Reed that if he pooped in the potty we would get him a new toy dirt bike (he other one had just broken). So after a little avoidance apparently the need overwhelmed him, he stopped what he was doing, dropped the things his had in his hand, yelled "potty!", ran over to it and pooped! We were thrilled! Immediately, we got dressed and went to Toys'R'Us and got him a new dirt bike! He was excited the whole way over to the store, saying "dirt bike" over and over again. Then after he got it, he wouldn't let it go, kept saying "dirt bike! mine!". I guess it was a good reward for him. Unfortunately, it didn't stick, he pee'd and pooped in his diaper the whole time we were out. He pee'd in the potty a few more times yesterday afternoon. The other exciting thing is that he has mostly kept his pull-up diaper dry when we are out. He still doesn't get that he can just tell us he needs to go potty when we are out and we'll take him.

Anyway, not complete success but not a complete failure either. Potty training is definitely a difficult task for both the child and the parent but one day he'll get it! Any advice from my very few readers would be much appreciated! We think that we should continue with the training, even if our first attempt was spotty. Right now, our technique is to have him naked from the waist down when we are home and constantly ask him if he needs to go potty. We reward him and tell him how proud we are of him when he does it right. When things aren't quite a success we will tell him that we don't pee or poop in the diaper (or wherever), we should use the potty and he agrees. Pee is for sure a lot easier to get him to do in the potty than the other but we'll get there. We have some backup dirt bikes for other milestones in this process.

In other news, I painted Reed's new big boy room this past weekend and am working on repainting a dresser and other art work that will go in his room. We have a busy fourth of July weekend, but maybe I can squeeze in some room decorating time. I hope to have it finished within the next two weeks so Reed can start using it. I think it'll make him feel even more like a big boy to have a new room and a big boy bed. I'm excited about how it's going to turn out and will post pictures of it when it's complete!

That's all for now!

Daddy Day

This past weekend was Father's day. Fogg didn't express a strong need or want to do anything in particular but we came up with some winning activities anyway. It was a rare weekend that we had nothing planned and we got to spend the whole weekend together as a family at home. On Friday night we hosted a few of the Wasatch Back Relay teams at our house for a few hours so they could get a little shut-eye before they started running again. Saturday morning, Fogg went on a bike ride and Reed and I just chilled and played. After running some errands in the afternoon, Fogg and I did a little bit of house reorganization. We prepped Reed's new room to get painted in the coming weekends by moving the furniture out of there. Therefore, we had to find places to put all the stuff! Of course that lead to reorganizing/cleaning up the storage room/warehouse in the basement. Which lead to reorganizing/cleaning up the shop area the following day. It feels good to get things organized actually. In the afternoon after Reed got up from his nap, we went down to a local park that has a miniature train ride. Reed enjoyed it quite a bit. Then he played at the playground with his Dad. Notice Reed's sweet father's day shirt.

Sunday morning we got up and headed to get some breakfast. This is one of Fogg's favorite things to do so he enjoyed it quite a bit. I love how Reed has his hand on Fogg's shoulder. He spent the entire breakfast holding on to him. Reed is also in a phase that he doesn't want his picture taken so he will scowl.

We then hit the Home Depot and then off to church. We took a nice family photo.

While Reed was down for his nap in the afternoon, we cleaned up Fogg's shop, another thing that I'm sure he enjoyed for father's day. Unfortunately it rained off and on all day so we weren't able to get outside and do anything fun. We just hung out at home the rest of the evening as a family!

Happy Father's Day to my wonderful husband! Here he is recreating a photo from when he was about 10 years old. He had this exact same dirt bike and has a picture with his leg slung over it like this. We found this at a bike shop in Moab and he almost bought it off the guy. Now he is on the search to find himself this bike - in orange of course.

Reed giving it a try - a natural?

Marshmallow Dreams

A few weeks ago, Reed unfortunately had another ear infection. He got put on an antibiotic and sometimes that will cause some serious diaper rash. This time around it was particularly bad. He hadn't taken a bath in a few days because of it and it was severely needed so I forced him to bathe. He cried and cried and was so very sad. I bribed him to finish the bath with a treat (a marshmallow). It was sort of late and he was tuckered out from such a traumatic event. He fell asleep on my shoulder while holding the marshmallow. When I put him in his crib, I tried to take the marshmallow out of his hand and he instinctively held on to it and wouldn't let me take it. So here he is clutching his marshmallow while asleep.


He is gaining more and more of a personality every day. He will always say "thank you" when you give him something, he's learning to say "please" more and more. He will even say "your welcome" when you say thank you to him. The cutest thing is that he has started to say "bless you" when you sneeze. What a cute little bug!

140 down, 140ish to go

I have a handy little app on my phone called babybump. It tells you on the opening page how many days to go - which up to this point has been very discouraging (in the 200's!). On another page about the details of that day or week, it will give what day or week you are on currently. I've been anxiously awaiting the day when both pages say the same number of days - 140. Which also means that I'm exactly 20 weeks (assuming I have the baby on the due date). So I've survived 140 days and have 140 days left - ish.

I've been feeling a bit better the past few weeks, though sleep is still a major issue. My mind won't stop working, it almost works harder at night than it does during the day! I forget a lot of things during the day but at night, I work through actual events, actual future events and possible future events. It doesn't stop! But I've stopped throwing up (thankfully), am eating well and feeling pretty good overall. I have a few things that are annoying that I didn't have with Reed, like heartburn and headaches, but those are manageable.

I read another blog that is a relative of a friend of a friend - she doesn't know me from Adam, but I really enjoy her blog. Anyway, she posts this along with her pregnancy updates that I thought was kinda fun.

Pregnancy Highlights:

How Far Along: 20 Weeks

Size of baby: at my 20 week ultrasound (which was done at 19 weeks) they said the baby was around 11oz, so it should be a little bigger now. That is actually a little big for my due date, so hopefully that means the baby comes early rather than just being big. A girl can wish!

Total Weight Gain/Loss: Gained 6 lbs.

Maternity Clothes: Fully in them now, though some shirts still seem too big. Some of the more drapey clothes hide the belly a bit but it seems fairly obvious that I'm pregnant now.

Gender: don't know! We love the surprise. Some days I'm convinced that it's a girl and other days I'm convinced it's another boy.

Movement: This baby is a mover! I've been feeling it moving quite a bit. It moves after meals and when I lay down at night.

Sleep: like crap! I even take a half a sleeping pill which helps a little bit. Pretty constantly up at least once a night to pee.

What I miss: not much cause you sort of adjust to being pregnant. I suppose I do miss the occasional evening cocktail.

Cravings: not much more than usual stuff - ice cream, fresh fruit, carbs. I guess I've been craving a lot of cheese. My favorite craving (which is mostly over now) is the baked goat cheese (pasteurized of course) with fresh pear and tomato and spring mix from Red Rock Brewery.

Symptoms: not to sound like a complainer, but here is the list of "abnormal things". Heartburn, headaches, not sleeping well, tailbone hurts, occasional severe back and hip pain on the right (comes and goes).

Best Moment this week: Feeling the baby move a lot more, seeing it moving. But by far my favorite was Reed giving the baby a hug and being "nice" which means he just rubs my belly. Then he pulled my shirt over my belly and said "night-night". Love that kid!

18 weeks

19 weeks

20 weeks

Reed was playing last night before bed. He took all of his cars out and started lining them up on the ottoman. He would keep saying "car!", "truck!", "tractor!", then proceed to add it to the line up. Sometimes there was a "big" in front of it if it was large. When he felt it was complete (as demonstrated by the empty bin behind him) he sat down next to it and said "sit down". I asked him if I could take a picture of his parking lot and he said "YA!" so I told him to go stand by it and I would take a picture. Here he is very proud of his cars and parking lot.
Cheers~

In a nutshell

I just wanted to share some random-ness with you about our life in a nutshell:

To Reed, every color is "Red" no matter what color it is. To Reed, every juice is "apple juice" no matter what kind of juice it is. To Reed, every ball is a "basketball" no matter what kind of ball it is.

When asked if he wants a bath, Reed will respond with "Big boy bath with bubbles!" but it sounds more like "be-ba-bubbs" really really fast. He is starting to ask for such a thing on his own rather than me coaxing him to the bathtub. By the way, big boy bath means a different bathtub than what we used to give him a bath in (our big master tub). It's actually a much smaller tub in what will be the kid bathroom. He refused bathing for a bit and to get him excited again, I switched the tub we used and told him it was the big boy bath. I'd even put bubbles in it. Now he's very excited about it.

He gave the baby (in my belly) a hug yesterday and then put my shirt down saying "night-night".

Reed will not let you pass a truck, tractor or tree without pointing it out to you. Dogs too. And a truck is always a big truck.

He loves his bike and rides it at least once a day. He likes to go off "big jumps".

He will constantly tell me to sit down and pat where he'd like me to sit. Yesterday, I was instructed to "sit-down" in the car when he was ready to leave for church. I was told to sit down on the floor next to him to play and I was told to sit down on the toilet seat to watch him play in the tub. He will also tell me to "come on" when he wants me to follow him.

In other, non-Reed related nutshells:

I've been feeling the baby kick a lot lately, felt it from the outside of my skin yesterday morning and actually saw the movement yesterday afternoon. Oh, the next 4 1/2 months will be filled with many kicks I think.

I'm 20 weeks tomorrow, I'll post more about that tomorrow.

I was able to get a bunch of clothes reorganized this weekend. Put away the winter stuff, moved the clothes that are too small for Reed to the storage area and organized all his new summer clothes. I'm looking forward to getting Reed's new room set up later this month. I picked out some paint colors and have my plan ready to go. We have some quick visitors (Wasatch Back runners) staying in a few weekends, but after that, I'll start to break things down and get his room ready. I'd like him to start using it before he feels "booted" by the new baby. He's getting the hang of this big boy thing we keep talking about, some days he wants to be a big boy, some days not so much.

Ok, that's all I got for now - more later!

Moab, Moab, Moab

Well, finally a Moab post. There are lots of pictures from our trip, a lot of pictures of landscapes. We talked during the trip about how our pictures do no justice to the seeing the vast landscape in person. I feel no need to add those pictures for a couple of reasons. 1, they are boring. 2, they suck (in quality), you could see much better ones if you google Moab or Arches National Park or Canyonlands. 3, the trip was about showing our great state to Fogg's parents. We had fun activities and I want to show them to you!

Here is the recap of the trip. We took Reed to his 2 year doctor appointment on Friday morning after his birthday. After that, we hit the road. It took us a bit longer to get down cause we stopped for a long lunch and then stopped for gas, then stopped in Green River to let Reed play on a playground for a bit to stretch his legs. He did great in the car, especially with Grandma and Papa (from now on referred to as G and P) entertaining him. When we got into town and settled in the hotel, we took G and P up to check out Slickrock Trail. Slickrock is a very famous mountain biking trail outside of town only a few minutes. G and P were pretty awestruck about the landscape and Reed enjoyed his second day out on his bike. Fogg couldn't have been more proud watching his barely 2 year old son biking the slickrock trail.

Here is G and P with the landscape of Southern Utah behind them.

Reed did great the rest of the day but got a bit wound up cause we went to bed a bit later than usual. The next day we had a quick breakfast and headed down to the southern part of Canyonlands National Park. We stopped and looked at some ancient markings on Newspaper Rock.

Then we drove into the park. G and P were pretty amazed at the landscape. We found a few short trails to check out that Reed could easily walk. The first one was about a mile loop. The first half was in the cave part (the trail was called Cave Springs) and the second half was on top after a ladder climb. Really neat little hike. Reed did the entire thing on his own, no need to carry him at all, in fact, he even climbed the ladder by himself!

Checking out the caves with Dad

Climbing the ladder by himself!
On the top with MomGetting a few rocks to throw from Grandma
Cowboy Papa (he kept talking about cowboys all weekend)
surveying his land

We did a second, less exciting hike after that then headed back up towards Moab area. After a quick sandwich, we took a four-wheel drive trail down Kane Creek road. We took the road to the top of a saddle called Hurrah Pass. We were able to see down to Dead Horse Point and the Colorado River. Here is a little family photo.

G and P with Dead Horse Point behind them

Fogg found this cool leaf of rock to sit on.

We had an early dinner then headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest after such a long, fun-filled day. The next morning, Sunday, after a yummy breakfast at the Jailhouse Cafe, we drove up to Arches National Park. Our first stop was to balance rock, another famous landmark. It was a short hike around the very precarious structure. A little windy family photo. Notice Reed's hands in his pockets. He is fairly obsessed with his pockets and kept them there. After the picture, he went running, tripped and couldn't catch himself due to the hands in the pockets. Not only did we hear a very loud thud of his skull colliding with concrete, we also felt it in the ground. Luckily, he didn't cry too long, seemed over it in a few minutes and never really got too bad of a bruise or bump.

Next, we headed over to the windows area. There are two windows, North and South, then close by the Turret Arch. We hiked out to see them all, and stand under one. Cute 3 generation picture.Papa with his head in the arch.

Reed and his Dad hiking behind the windows.

Next, we drove to the Delicate Arch - the most famous of them all. Reed fell asleep in the car so I stayed with him while Fogg and G and P took the short half mile hike to the viewing spot.

We saw lots of these little lizards.
Fogg just liked this sign.

After Arches, we had lunch then went out to Dead Horse Point and Gemini Bridges. Dead Horse Point is a Utah State Park and is relatively small. The main attraction there is an overlook to the Colorado River. It's quite unique in it's landscape with perfectly carved out levels. The legend is that cowboys would herd wild horses to the point where it was very narrow and corral them there. Once, a bunch of horses were left there to die of thirst looking at the river 2,000 feet below.

Hiking out to another vantage point.

The last stop that day was to Gemini Bridges. The bridges are another famous bike trail starting near the entrance to Arches. You can also access it by four-wheel drive trail near Dead Horse Point. We were excited to be the ONLY people there! It was strange for us because every single time we've been there before there are many other bikers, dirt bikers and jeeper's. For some reason, everyone was gone. It's an incredible site that you can even walk across. There are actually two bridges only separated by a few feet. You certainly wouldn't want to jump across them though. Here is G and P standing on top of the bridges! You can see the hole below them that goes probably about 500 feet to the floor below. And you can see me in the shadow on the bottom right of the picture. There is a big hole between us. Sorry, you can't see much contrast but it's a crazy picture if you figure it out!

After a great final dinner in Moab we headed to bed! The next morning we took G and P to see Fisher Towers on the way out of town.

Reed and Papa!

We took the long way out of town past what we thought would be some more landmarks but we seemed to miss them all (or they were dumb). We made it home by late afternoon where Reed rode his bike some more (shocking).
We were so happy that it was so warm down south and we were able to enjoy a new landscape. We came back to our house to rain! We love that area so much and actually headed back down the next weekend (last weekend) to have some more fun. Fogg dirt biked and I just had some great laid back time in the sun with friends and my little guy. While we were down there, it snowed at our house - blah!

Well, there is the long wrap-up of our trip, hope you enjoyed it if you have made it this far... Now it's time for house projects...

Cheers~