11 Month Little Man

What the, I was just sitting here about to procrastinate doing his first birthday post when I realized I haven't even done his 11 months.  Well then here goes.

Little Man did indeed hit 11 months!  The room was given a mini-makeover to feel more like his own, and he's done well in his own place.  He's eating a lot and sleeping pretty great and walking around like nobody's business, months earlier than either of the older two.  He has absolutely found his voice and makes it heard often, and often quite loudly.  He's still pretty easygoing most of the time but when he's upset or impatient he doesn't really hold back.

They finally booted me out of Primary but at least the company in EQ is good.

What a change half a room of color can make.

Thumbnail for a video but still so cute!  He approves of the new baby swing.

Such a fun church buddy.  Always keeps me on my toes.  Or on my feet at least.

"Yawn and Back Again," by Milo Baggins

He loves his mommy so much and is looking so big.

Okay then, next time it will be time to ready on birthday the first.  Such a big boy, full of life and personality and sweetness.

Bathrooms and Easter and Dentist

Things have been happening around here.  These things are closely related.

Thing 1:

When we moved in we had Big Plans to redo our kitchen and add grand wings and expand the basement by 1000 square feet or so (okay, maybe not those last two), but then I lost my job and we had a baby and were distracted and trying to put our money toward other things, so we decided instead to do a few smaller projects along the way and work up to doing the kitchen, maybe piecemeal.  So we've painted a couple bedrooms and artfully arranged some new and old art on the walls, but the latest, just in time for spring, was a freshening up of our main floor bathroom.

Going prematurely green.

It wasn't a full renovation, just a fresh coat of paint and some new cabinet hardware and wall decor, but it was just the thing.  The Wife had just the shade of green in mind (she has a way with color), and even though we were kind of anxious when we had put on the first coat, another time over and a good dry and pulling off the paint and we loved it.  You can read more of the details here.

We worried it was a bit too green but when it was all over we thought it was just perfect

Then when we were finished, because why let a half gallon of Cottage Grove green paint and an afternoon of napping babies go to waste, we decided to do the downstairs one too!  It's only a half bath so it didn't take long, and it sort of took care of the water damage from the Minor Flood of '14, so that's good too.  Lesson learned though: Just tape off the baseboards next time.

(It looks greener in the pictures than it actually is.)

It was fun and quick and pretty inexpensive, which is just how I like my mini-renos.

Thing 2:

Easters!  Hot on the tail of our fresh new springtime bathroom, springtime itself was on its way, which included a really nice Easter Sunday, which fun and candy and baskets and Easter egg hunt practice so that little people might enjoy it more than they did last year.  Nothing could go wrong on a day like this.

Don't they all taste the same??  Apparently they have new "flavors", which sound gross.

The morning was all flowers and sausages, the perfect start to a special day.  I don't understand why the Easter Bunny is kind of like Santa Claus for some people these days, but our little poopsies were thrilled with their jelly beans and chocolate and plastic eggs.  (Baby's featured mostly squeezy pouches of baby food, which she enjoyed very much.)  (Also the new Easter basket grass is just the best thing ever.)

What ho, Easter Bunny!

We went to church and had a very nice time, adorable new clothes and a fun Easterish Singing Time in Primary, and then we plated up our asparagus and headed to my sister's house for the fun and festivities (and to "see cousins"), where there was an amazing dinner and lots of playing in the fun basement and thence to The Hunt!

Me and my little people

The Boy was much more into it just like we hoped, and the practice seemed to pay off, even for adorable adorable Baby, who was very glad to gnaw on the two or three eggs she found (and the Prince Charming she had brought from inside).

C: O, here, Baby.  A: *om nom nom*

I mean, really?!?  (Also, note:  Prince Charming.)

Which leads me to...

Thing 3:

... which I will list separately so as to keep the memories of Easter fun and only dampened by a slightly overcast afternoon.

So as the egg hunting was winding down we decided to go look at the horses on the other side of the backyard fence, and as we were approaching (and it actually occurred to me that he shouldn't get too close in case the horses nipped him or something) The Boy fell teeth-first onto the iron bar of the fence.  Tears, blood, restrained panic, taking him inside, thinking one was broken and the other was gone, not finding any on the ground, calling the emergency number to see if he needed to visit the ER, being asked ridiculous questions (is he complaining about pain??  Didn't I just say he was crying and covered in blood??), texting a picture to the on-call pediatric dentist, calming down, worrying about potential lifetime trauma, hugging and kissing and trying to examine teeth, choking up when a tiny voice says "my teeth are gone...", all aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents being very supportive and helpful and nice (and feeling guilty -- stop it), and eventually...

Putting on pajamas, borrowing toys from aunt and uncle, and heading home, but not before chasing down the kitty to tell it that he bonked.

Phew.

The dentist said not to panic and if he wasn't in pain or bleeding he should be fine and to bring him in in the morning.

So we did!

Here we go...

We hadn't really planned on his first visit to the dentist being under these circumstances, but it could have gone worse...

Show us your teeth.  And don't be afraid of the impending x-ray chair.

He liked the exciting and interesting ocean-themed office and the movies on the ceiling, but when it came time to sit in any chair he was pretty distressed.  But they were quick and professional and gentle and nice, and told us that [AMAZINGLY] baby teeth sometimes just get pushed right back up where they came from and gradually grow back down just like they're coming in for the first time.  He had a few chips, but nothing close to the root and no nerve exposure, and overall we're just so grateful.  I mean, can you even imagine if that happened to an adult?  I think my teeth would just break clean off and I would pass out from the pain.  I tell you, kids are just designed to withstand bumps and bruises and bounce back.  In the end they gave him a token for the toy machines, from which he picked a grow-in-the-water dinosaur (that hardly grew at all), and as we drove away he proclaimed, "That's not so bad!"  It was still a little heartbreaking whenever he realized that things were different, and when -- the ultimate betrayal! -- his binky took some adjusting before he could take comfort in its companionship, but after a long night and some helpful medicine, the long day came to a close.

After that we were worried that he would have some painful association with horses or Easter or cousins or whatever, but it seemed like the lingering feeling of trauma had faded pretty quickly when he wanted to say hello to the horses down the street and visit the cousins shortly thereafter.  We almost had an episode trying to wear his Easter shirt again a couple weeks later (after the blood actually came off pretty easily), but that was more of a sleeves/sleepiness issue.  Phew.

We had a followup appointment this week (which was much less traumatic, though he still didn't care for the x-ray part of the process) and it looks like they're coming in already, which even we could see as the days have gone by, and, especially after the swelling and tenderness wore off, we're used to our boy's new temporary smile.  He's cute enough that he can pull it off.  He even told the doc that "My teeth are coming back!"

(I also learned that you can't just add your kid to your dental insurance for the first time any old day.  Good to know for future.)

(And I realize now that my post is a bit redundant if you've read The Wife's Easter/teeth report, but that's okay.)

What an eventful weekend.  So many things!  But they are all turning out all right, and even if some of them involved some trauma and tenderness and tears, everyone is fine and we are really enjoying spending time out in sunshine.  And really, what a way to be reminded of the true meaning of the holiday.  We felt a lot of love and comfort through the fear and pain, and it's always good to be reminded to have gratitude.

My teeth hurt while I was writing this.

One / Thirty-...Five?

A few weeks ago our Smoochface reached that big first birthday.  At her checkup this week she was looking great, measuring leaner and taller than average as per usual, but (to us at least) in the highest possible percentile for adorableness.  She didn't much care for her shot at the moment, but a few snuggles from Mommy and she was her usual happy self again.  She's overall such a pleasant and sweet girl, so cuddly these days and usually pretty sweet to new people.  She is absolutely walking and starting to talk just a bit and make animal sounds, which we can hardly stand how cute it is.  She has her way when it comes to meal time, hungry for what she's eating but only in just the moment she wants to eat it, and her naps are kind of hit-and-miss but her nighttime sleeping is great.  We love her ombre hair and her close-to-double-digits teeth and her scrunchy smile and her bright blue eyes.  She definitely has a nice loud wail that she uses to great effect when she feels it necessary, but overall she is a delight to one and all.

The Wife's great twelve-month update is just here, but here are some of my pictures:

Helping herself to one of Mommy's Valentine's Day gifts

Throwback to visiting the Puppy Barn

At the Provo City Center Temple open house.  She at least was very well-behaved there.

Enjoying a tea party hosted by Big Brother.

Helping with some home improvements

New favorite game!

The weather was finally getting nice enough to go out.

I love being home on the weekends and able to fetch this face after naps!

On her actual day of we just opened some presents (BB was happy to help her out with the wrapping paper/playing) and she tentatively tried out the strawberry shortcake provided by Mommy, and a few days later we had her birthday party playdate at the park, which was fun and with lots of cousins, and Mommy's amazing butterbeer cupcakes.  Kind of the opposite of The Boy's first birthday party, it was beautiful all morning long and then turned windy and cold by afternoon party time rolled around, but we bundled her up and she enjoyed her treat and some cozy snuggles while the kids played on the fun playground (and big bro took a tumble into the dry creek bed... watch your step there, Boy... more to come on that later).

Every little girl's birthday dream come true:  Costco.

Oh all right, and the mall.

Hee hee, Baby Yoda!

New book!

Ummmmm yes.

3 Cs: Cute, cold, cupcake. 

As usual, it's hard to forget our tiny baby but it's also hard to imagine her any other way than she is right now!  She has the sweetest disposition and I am always so so glad to see her clutching to the baby gate at the top of the stairs waiting to see me when I come home.  It's all I can do to not smother her with kisses at every moment.

Oh!  And then I had a birthday too.  Is it so weird that it's just hard to remember exactly how old you are when you get to a certain age?  I say it is so weird.  But I never mind a birthday (even if I am about halfway through the decade to 40...), and The Wife always makes it such a special occasion.  I went in to work a little late so I could enjoy my special birthday cereal with my three favorite people, and then was treated to lunch by my coworkers, and then had a special delicious dinner of my childhood pick spaghetti followed by presents, and THEN we had friends and family come over to enjoy another of The Wife's confectionary masterpieces.  She always does, but she really outdid herself this time.  It was great to have so many fun people come over, but we admit that we were sorry not to have leftovers...  Next time we'll make a bonus and hide it away.

Yes, Boy, you can have some Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Aww, thanks, work.

The best pants ever.  I have worn them every day since then.

Masterpiece!

So much for good luck -- St. Patrick was not with me when I somehow or other shattered my poor iPod screen.  At least it still plays just fine.  Back in the day I would have done a whole blogpost about this, but eh.

Happy birthdays to us!  We both had good ones.

One Time We Bought a House

I've been putting off this post for months now, but I think if I just sit and start writing it out at least it will have begun, and then it's much more likely to be finished.  The Wife already posted a very good summary/photo tour on her blog, and also a great rundown of some of our projects so far, but I've been planning this in my head all summer so I'm just going to get it down anyway.

So there we were in our 2bd/1bth townhouse apartment in Provo that we really liked, going along our merry way, but then one day little Bobo was not so little anymore, and we realized the shared nursery/office space situation wasn't going to work out indefinitely.  It was getting harder and harder to schedule naptime/worktime, and besides that we knew that before TOO long we would have another little one on the way (and also our landlords rather frown on people having more than one child while living in those apartments).  Also, our contract was about to be up.  So, we started our long and in-depth process of househunting.

I'll spare you the gory and tedious details, but in the end we talked to two real estate agents and two loan officers (one of whom worked at a bank, and one of whom was an actual loan officer and also a relative) and looked at over a dozen houses over a month or two, narrowed it down to a couple of frontrunners, and then decided on what features were most important to us, what we could expect considering our budget/desired mortgage (and learned the difference between settling and compromising), and finally, some three to four months later, and just in time for our fifth anniversary, decided on this place:

It's a 4bed/2.5 bath on a nice 1/3+ acre of land that has really been great so far.  The negotiation process was pretty tiresome at times, but luckily our agent Jared was really great to work with and managed a great deal.  The poor house was on the market for almost a year without a buyer, and after dealing with the seller and even our very first experience with its curb appeal it's not too hard to figure out why, but it's also amazing what a nice mow, a thorough weeding, and a fresh coat of paint in some key spots can do for the overall look of the place (and it makes you wonder why they didn't do that in the first place if they really wanted to sell...).  I guess it's because this house was waiting for US to come along and give it some love and attention, which we knew was all it needed.  It's so nice to have a place that's actually ours, and although homeownership comes with some (pretty expected) big differences compared to renting, we're up to the challenge.  Of course it's been an adjustment in some ways, but we thought, we're done with school, we have a little guy, we're ready to move on in this next big step.

This wasn't our truck, it was our neighbors', but it's always fun to be surprised by my mom and sisters smiling back at you on the back of a U-Haul.

We took care of a few things after signing and before moving in, including getting a few appliances and even painting The Boy's room before putting everything in it.  Then we rented a U-Haul for the first time ever (since we were moving farther than a mile west, which is what we've done for the last three moves), which I had fun driving, and thanks to some family and neighbors, and NEW neighbors, we were able to get out of our apartment and into our house in just a matter of two hours or so, which was awesome.  It took a little while longer to get unpacked and finish up with all our boxes, but it was great to get most of it done so quickly.  Moving in general is such a huge pain, and really ever since we moved into our last place I've been dreading it, but it was nice to have help and to just get it behind us and check off the big things, and then it didn't take too long to feel like we've lived here for a nice long while and for it to feel like home.

Yes, well... this was SOME of our stuff.  Oy, moving.

Such a good little helper.

Too cool.

Seriously, how often do I get to drive a truck this big?

I've been learning a lot about homeownership already, like what to do about a clogged toilet (answer:  don't throw a Sharpie down there in the first place, whoever lived here before and did that).  Thanks for all your help, Handy Matt!

We thought we might get a trampoline next summer sometime, but then Matt said he had one just laying around waiting to be put back together, and asked if we wanted it.  Yes, inDEED!

 

We really love the yard.  Actually one of the main things The Wife was looking for was space, so she could feel like she's not TOTALLY surrounded by neighbors and feel a little more like her home in the midwestern woods.  This back yard has a lot of, erm... personality, but it's been a lot of fun to get to know it better.  The neighbors keep saying that they've been praying for someone to buy the house and take care of the lawn, and it's true what they said -- turn the water back on and it actually does come back before you know it.  The first time we looked at the house we almost didn't even bother looking inside because the lawn was in such terrible condition, but even a mow of the dead grass and waist-high weeds made a huge difference, and a couple weeks of sprinkling and it was even better.  It still needs a lot of work, but it's in great shape to be a more or less blank canvas come spring.

Nursery no more.

This is where I spend a significant portion of my weekday waking hours, and it's nice not to have to work around an increasingly alert and aware toddler's nap schedule.  It's also nice not to have to worry about being too noisy for neighbors downstairs or next door, and to do whatever we want to the place, whether it's paint or plant or replace things or whatever.

Our housewarming party approximately two months after moving in was the impetus that finally persuaded me to put up our art wall.

I think Julie's talking to Melody at the bottom of the stairs.

So many delicious autumnal snacks and cheeses (sans cheese!).  Nice work, Wife.  Also, lawl, The Boy back there.

Mom and Dad reading Roller Coaster (a very favorite around here) to the little boys.  Thanks for the pictures, Matt!  I didn't take a single one.

Oh, there was also that time when we were THIS CLOSE to being on House Hunters...  Yes, Julie applied, and they actually wrote back.  They emailed back and forth a few times, talking about us and who we are and what we're like and why we're moving and what we're looking for, and in the end it was just a matter of timing.  They said we wouldn't be able to move in or make any changes to the house by a certain date, and that day was past our closing date, and we thought it was just better to go into our house as soon as we could (especially since our contract was about to run out, and I did try to extend for a few days, but that turned into a pretty big hassle and mostly it's just a terrible and annoying story about how our landlady said some really rude and unprofessional things to us about losing money on us [not our fault] and how they'll be glad to be rid of us [ideal tenants], and yikes, it wasn't pretty, and mostly I'm just glad we managed to recover ANY of our deposit).  If only HH had written to us sooner!  It's a shame it didn't work out with our timeline, because I am telling you, we would have been great TV.  And that makes the third TV show I've applied for (two of them twice).  One of these days!  Ha ha.

Anyway, that's about it!  We were so close to becoming TV stars, and we had some kerfuffles with landlords/sellers, and we're slowly working through our little project list, but the end result is that we' like our house.  Not long after we moved in The Wife's (almost) entire family were in town, and although it was tight, we all fit for a couple of nights, which wouldn't even have been possible at all in our last place.  Then, some two months after moving in, we finally had our housewarming party, and it was so fun to have a lot of guests, and to have a place to fit them all, and to have a great backyard where we could send the kids to play on the swingset and the rock wall and the trampoline (thanks, Matt!), just like I always pictured.  As I've said before, I hope we really love it here, because we are NEVER moving again!  (At least not for like ten years, ha.)

Written 3 November 2014.