The Post Where

I admit to being a giant stinker and trying to trick everyone, in one of my previous posts, because it sounded like I was announcing something like having a baby. Well that's the thing... I am.

It was totally worth being a brat too, just in case any of you are wondering, and you can thank my mom because she has been bugging me to announce since I was like 6 weeks along. We ARE expecting again at the end of February 2014!

There's baby!!

Which puts me at 17 weeks/ just over 4 months along, obviously this is our first ultrasound.  More to come.

Palmyra Temple

SUPER early 7 am session. That was the only session they had open for 4 people by the time we remembered to call (and by we I mean Lauren, Thanks sister).

Eating breakfast at about 6 am, right when breakfast started.

I was pretty tired

We arrived at about midnight and had to wake up around 5 or 6 in order to clean ourselves up enough to go to the temple. 

Coming to join us.

After our session we walked around the temple and it was beautiful. I love this stained glass window!

David was a little obsessed with the bolts on this thing.

It was quite crisp, but I enjoyed it because Toledo had been so warm recently. 

It was worth the 3 years we have been waiting to be able to visit. I love the peace I feel when I get to go to the temple and I enjoyed it even more knowing my family was there.

Us!

All together.

Mike and Lauren

And us again. Thanks to David's parents for watching Davie while we did a session. It was great! I just wish we lived closer to more family or a temple. Thankfully with Mike and Lauren living closer that will mean we can all take group trips to the temple more often.

And One More Makes...

32! That's right after this last weekend I have now FINALLY added New York to my list of visited states. David and myself have been trying (super unsuccessfully) to get to Palmyra since our friends wanted us to go with them in 2011, but our schedules (medical school and law school) were impossible to coordinate. So when David's mom asked us if there was anything we have been wanting to do or see, the trip to Palmyra was the first thing I listed.

In the car about to hit the road.
It was a crazy trip because we left around 5pm on friday and didn't get home until 7 ish on Sunday... translation- LOTS of driving to and from, back to back. BUT it was worth it because we got to visit Joseph Smith's family farm, the temple, the sacred grove, the hill comorah AND Niagara Falls. Sadly it was just the American side, but David and I are planning to tackle the Canadian side of Niagara falls later when he FINALLY has some free time. 

Being entertained by Grandma.

Totally awesome angry bird hats. Davie actually left it on for 2 seconds while we took pictures. BONUS!

I was going to stuff all of the happenings from over the weekend into one post, BUT Davie is in bed and David is waiting for me on the couch with an episode of one of our guilty pleaser television shows that is in it's final season. Come on, I mean seriously what would you choose?

A Week in the Life

This a glimpse of my week last week. AND  I actually have some pictures of myself on this post.

Last Monday was super gloomy but the cool weather was so WELCOME in my book. 

Sadly the day ended at a SuPeR hot muggy 94ish degrees Fahrenheit, whew!

Monday- 9:30- 10:45 AM is my Child development for early childhood educators

A great class, the teacher has a doctorate and yet she is still super nice and talkative. In fact one of my favorite things she has done so far was write the class an email and sign it- Dr. Kovach (aka Lisa). She's cool. 

This picture is from this week not last Monday because I forgot.... even though I go to this classroom twice a week. My thumbs up is because I waited (like a Dengus) to do my birth defects powerpoint until 40 min before class started. The thumbs up is because I finished at about 9:32, right as class started.

After my child development class I break until, 

2:00- 3:15 for Essentials of Helping Relationships

This class is for counseling majors and I have learned so much about communication with clients that I think is super useful in regular conversations with friends, family and anyone else you interact with. I chose it because if time allows in the future I have thought quite seriously about working for LDS services helping young women considering adoption. 

Check out that free campus nutrition up there! Cheetos, a cookie AND fruit punch soda, that's most of the food groups right there, trust me.

Gotta love waiting 20 some odd minutes just to get out of the parking garage. Also I have to say (at least here) college students are just about as awful as high school drivers. Its scary.

Tuesday- Is my BELOVED art class, from 9:00 AM to noon.

Seriously its my favorite 3 hours every week (minus family time obviously), and I NEVER would have guessed how much I LOVE it. We make curriculum lesson based on the little kid art projects we do in class, SOOO FUN!

This is my journal. We work on them for the first 30 minutes of every class. It's just an old library book that we get to paint, color, cut, tape, glue and write all over in, whatever we want. Let's just say I have gotten SOOOO many super fun ideas from this class of inexpensive things I can do with Davie after this semester ends. Have I mentioned that my teacher is the sweetest lady, and basically as long as she can tell you are putting forth effort you pass. Like I said I am in LOVE with this class.

 Don't you love the glasses I made this week? 

Wednesday- Is my NUTTY day. 

9:30- 10:45 AM Child development 

Then RUN for my 

11:00- 1:30 Applied Psychology for Educators class.

This class is awesome we discussed things like intrinsic motivation and all kinds of theories that relate to childhood cognitive development and working with kids at their level. It pushes my ability to remember at times but it too is a great class. 

Then from 2:00- 3:15 PM I have Helping relationships again. Afterwards I am exhausted. Between not really having a lunch break, walking between all the classes and actually using my brain I'm zonked.

Thursday- 9:30- noon Introduction to Education 

This is my "oh yea I procrastinated" face. Technically this was before the story I told you up above (that was the following Monday). Not the greatest habit but I finished my presentation in time and then I didn't have to present anyways because we ran out of time. I'm a little apprehensive about this class because the teachers have been grading 10 point assignments like they are some kind of involved reasearch papers and my grades have really stunk. It's just really frustrating that an intro level 1700 class might possibly end up being more difficult then my Educational Psychology class that is a 3300 level. So annoying. Have I mentioned that the teacher is pretty darn old and super long winded... bleh, longest 3 hours of the week.

Friday- My "day off" (yea right).

Davie made this last week, and I love his little hand prints.

I'll add a little about Davie in here now. I was taking him everyday while David was in Minnesota and it was so rough because his daycare is unfortunately NOT close to our house or my school. Thankfully when David got back he started taking Davie because his school IS super close to Davie's daycare. Saves my life every morning, I love that man! Fridays are about a 50/50 in terms of whether or not Davie goes to daycare and sadly as more goes on at school I think he will end up going more and more. Have I mentioned how happy I am with his current daycare. It's so wonderful and the ladies love him.

I have them fill out one of these just about everyday because I like to know what he has been up to. I debated on whether or not to share it because it has his diapers on here and I don't want to be one of those parents who does the "over-sharenting". If you look at the bottom you will notice that they circled happy and busy, they do that just about everyday and every now and then they circle curious too. 

This is the only thing I hate about daycare. Davie tends to breakdown afterwards. I can't decide if he's tired, hungry, suddenly under-stimulated so he gets annoyed or what, I just wish he was not a screaming ball of tears in an enclosed car on the way home. It's not exactly something I look forward to after being gone from him all day. Sad but true, thank goodness this ends after the second week in December. 

Davie Days

Oh Davie. So much to say and yet so little time. Davie has a vigor for life that literally has me exhausted just watching. The boy is full of it, like a cup that just can't quite hold enough water. He can be the HAPPIEST baby on the planet when he wants. And when he's bad, it's BAD. That right there is what I would consider our biggest hurdle right now. How do you communicate ANYTHING to someone who just does not understand. Feel free to email me your secret.

About a week or so ago Davie decided he LOVES cars. It's always "car, car, beep, beep" and he is always walking around collecting the 3 or 4 cars he owns. Even the ladies at his school noticed his new interest. And he is sure to tell me "car, car" before we get into our car when I pick him up from school or he will say "beep, beep" as I hit the key fob to unlock the doors (the car beeps). He still isn't the world's best talker because he is as stubborn as they come and other then repeating simple words to him I have stopped trying so hard to get him to try and copy me. He will talk when he darn well feels like it and not a MOMENT sooner. Thus is Davie.

He still only has 6 fully cut teeth. Four top ones and two bottoms. We recently pulled the plug on his binky cold turkey and other then the fact that now he whines a lot more when he is grumpy, he hasn't done half bad. About 4 or so weeks ago he decided that binky was a must. He literally decided it was all he wanted all the time and started asking for it once a minute 24/7. I was quite surprised because since he turned about 6 months old I have done my best to limit binky time to nap and bed only, with the occassional car breakdown as a must for my sanity. 

Then about 2 weeks ago I decided I had had enough. The kid was a mess, always whining and asking for his binky ALL the time! And he no longer kept the binky leash on so he was constantly dropping it, getting it dirty and losing it, which was so annoying! Even his aunt noticed he was out of control. It was so nice to have someone else confirm to me that I was not in fact dreaming up this baby binky addict, the boy was a mess. So half way through a random Thursday when I decided I had had all I could take. I gathered up all the binkys put them in a baggy and hid them under my bedside table. Bedtime was horrible. He probably screamed for 45 minutes. And I mean screamed, this was not crying.

The next day he asked for it a couple of times but he asked for it less than he had in the days previous. Surprisingly nap went smoothly and other then taking longer than usual to settle down he was fine. I miss being able to pop a binky in his mouth when he gets fussy because we are definitely in the "I cry about EVERYTHING because I understand nothing and only want what I want" phase. He is better off without it and so are his teeth. But I do miss that blessed silence.

Davie is full of mischief and definitely won't be taking anything the world throws at him laying down but goodness me-oh-my I'd love to get through to him better. For example, the other morning he literally woke up screaming. For no apparent reason. I tried my best to get him to calm down before I had to just leave him screaming while I showered. He is at the stage now that when he starts screaming it literally makes my blood boil. It's so scary! It's like something in me snaps and I HATE feeling that way. I do my best to just ignore his bad behavior but he has made it clear that he can endure longer than I can. That was this last Tuesday and it was a day I was so grateful that he was going to daycare, which makes me feel awful to admit. It was good to have some separation after a morning like that. Tuesdays I have an art class that I came SOOO close to dropping but after the first day I was glad I kept and after this week I was thankful. Sitting there painting in general silence after a baby morning melt down sure did calm my nerves.

All I can say is, WhEw! I don't want him to grow up but a little bit of reason/ understanding sure does seem like it would go a long way right now. I find myself calling my poor mother and mother-in-law often to get some form of reassurance that I am doing ok when I don't let him get away with randomly waking up screaming or whatever the bad behavior is. But I can't stress enough to you how often I seriously wonder the logistics of these power struggles. Those of you who have been through this age I'm sure you know what I mean. How do you reason with a 1 and a half year old!? I just wish he could TELL me what he wants sometimes!

On a happier note I have said before he is a Daddy's boy and he has missed David so much the last 4 weeks. I feel bad because every evening, without fail, when Mike and Lauren come home Davie will get all excited and say "daddy! Daddy! daddy!" only to find his aunt and uncle standing in the doorway. Poor Mike and Lauren! At least Davie typically transitions from his look of "ahhh you aren't daddy" to his happy chorus of "My (that's how he says Mike), My, La-la, La-la"

Davie now says Mama and Mommy quite often, he decided that he was FINALLY going to add that to his vocabulary about a month and a half ago and I am so glad he did. He is really good at words that start with the letter B, like Baba (banana), bah (for bath), buh (bubble), bebe ba (baby bear for his gummy bear vitamins) and bo for boat. Other favorites are to say pi-pi pi-pi over and over every time I bring him in the bathroom with me so I can go potty without him destroying something, trass for trash and shoes which he can say pretty clearly. We love him so much and are so glad he is part of our family, no matter how monstrous he can be at times, he is our little monster and I assure you nothing can change that ;)