Proud of My Boys

This post is dedicated to bragging about the two men in my life. I am so lucky to call them mine and wanted to share some of their recent accomplishments.

Brandt. Spring is graduation season and lately I've seen several congratulatory messages going out around Blog Land and the Facebook Empire regarding high school/college graduation. It has reminded me that I never mentioned anything about Brandt's graduation back in December. So here we go: Brandt graduated in December!!! All of 2010 and 2011 were filled with Brandt busily working towards his Master's Degree in Natural Resources from the University of Idaho, emphasizing in Rangeland Ecology and receiving a certificate in Restoration Ecology (kind of a mouthful, right?). He has, thankfully, been able to complete his degree online and was even able to give his final presentation via video conference at the U of I campus here in Idaho Falls, so he never had to make the long trek to Moscow. I'm so proud of him for reaching this goal. Deciding what he wanted to be when he grew up was one of the hardest decisions for him, one that he has struggled with for a very long time. Once he came across this program, he knew this was what he needed to do, and he stuck with it, going to school year-round to complete his degree as fast as possible. 

Now it's on with the job hunt! Hopefully, with his degree, more doors will be opened in the direction he wants to head with his career. His seasonal job started up in April and he has been enjoying working with his friends at the BLM. Because of his degree, he got a promotion that we weren't planning on. He was also made a team lead for a special project to remove noxious weeds from the occupied habitat of Ute Ladies Tresses (an endangered orchid) around the South Fork of the Snake River (basically, that means they have to come up with a way to get rid of the weeds without harming the threatened/endangered species that live/grow along the banks of the river; and apparently, this is a huge deal in the BLM World, because it rarely gets approved to do this sort of thing). We would love for this to become a full-time gig, but sadly full-time openings with the BLM are hard to come by. And competition is pretty fierce. However, Brandt was offered a full-time job with a different agency, but that is still in the works. More info on that to come later.

Jack. Jackers is continuing to grow and learn so quickly we can barely keep up. He started daycare about a month ago. The first couple of weeks were not so great. It was a combination of being in a new place with new people, on top of being sick and teething (you can read more about that fun here). His first day there he refused to eat, which really worried this momma. One reason we chose this daycare is that it is close to my office, so if I have an opening in my schedule, I can go over and hang out with Jack, which has been nice. Since those first couple of weeks, he has adjusted really well. The other day when I picked him up, the girls were impressed with how well he is sitting up and said Jack and another little boy sat on the floor facing each other and played really well together for a long time with a bunch of toys between them. I think he enjoys playing with kids his size - anytime I've seen him around the other kids he seems so interested in them. He is such a good boy and so much fun!

It seems that over night Jack has mastered sitting up. Seriously, a week ago he could barely sit up for ten seconds before toppling over; now he's got it down pat (except for at church; for some reason he always topples over and bonks his head really good during Relief Society - makes me look like Mother of the Year). He doesn't seem to have any interest in crawling yet (if he wants to get anywhere, he'll still lay down and roll to wherever it is he wants to be). Yesterday, we went to Winco and figured he was ready to try sitting up like a big boy in the seat of the cart.

He loved it! His face just lit up as he stared from one thing to the next. He couldn't get enough, he was so excited (I don't blame him - Winco is a pretty happenin' place). Mom had issues with him sucking on the cart handle, but other than that it was a good time.

I sure love these boys, and I'm so proud of them. They are my world and I'm so grateful that I get to be with them every day. They bring me so much joy. How did I get so lucky?!

Mother's Day Weekend

We decided to go to Burley for Mother's Day. It had been three months since our last visit, so it was good to see everyone. There was much ooohhh-ing and ahhhh-ing over Jack and he ate up all the attention. On Friday night, Jack wasn't sure if he liked Grandma's playpen, so I crawled in and laid next to him and he instantly calmed down (it didn't last and he ended up sleeping with us all weekend - no judging...you do what you gotta' do!). Brandt thought it was funny I could fit in the playpen so easily so he snapped my picture.

 On Saturday we went to lunch with Sammy at Taco Bandido (LOOOOVE Taco B!). Afterwards, Brandt and I got some treats (DQ blizzard for me, Snoasis for Brandt) and walked along the river while Jack took a nap in the stroller. The city just recently built this walkway along the river and it's beautiful; river on one side and golf course on the other (though Brandt felt the view was spoiled by all the noxious weeds he couldn't help point out along the river.) Afterwards we went and saw my dad for a bit before heading back to my mom's for a barbeque.

I'm terrible and didn't get any pictures on Sunday. My plan was to have some family pictures taken but it didn't happen. It was still a good day though. We went to church with Brandt's parents and then had dinner with them and his aunt and uncle. We had a busy weekend and it was great to spend time with everyone.

My boys spoiled me with a new purse! It was a fun surprise; I felt very loved on my first Mother's Day. Being a mom is a tough job, but I love it and am so grateful for Jack in my life. I often feel inadequate, but I am learning so much as we work our way through each stage. Jack is such a joy and I am lucky to be his momma.

9x9 May

1. Jack has had some terrible mood swings lately. One minute he's giving me smiles like this...

2. ...And the next minute I get faces like this. He gets really emotional when we leave the room for a minute. I don't get it - he used to be so content to just play on the floor by himself. But now, the instant we leave the room he freaks out. Can anyone else relate? Please tell me this is just a phase.

3. Reading a story before Jack's morning nap. This is a cute book - the illustrations are beautiful.

4. Inside the freezer at work. The girls like to tease me about how Jack's milk is taking over the top shelf. I can't take it home though - there's absolutely no room for it. I have this same amount in our freezer at home (plus a bag at daycare). Moo.

5. Kickin' back with a cold one after work. It was one of those days.

6. So much in fact that we ended up going out for dinner. Neither one of us could muster the energy to throw a meal together. 

7. I love this picture - I can't help but think of The Joker ("Why So Serious?!"). Jack was being cheesy at dinner. Every time I held the camera up he gave me this goofy grin. Don't you love the double chin? He gets that from his father.

8. Speaking of his father, here he is, enjoying a BLT and bottomless steak fries. Yum! I had the cod sandwich - also Yum! Although my hands smelled like tartar sauce for the rest of the night, regardless of my attempts at getting rid of it. The sandwich was HUGE, and I ate the whole thing plus a second helping of fries. As I was finishing up, Brandt pipes up and says, "You know, a lesser woman wouldn't have been able to eat all that." And he meant that as a compliment. I then proceeded to give Brandt a lesson in how to properly compliment his wife (i.e. "Your hair looks nice today." or "That shirt looks great on you." and NOT "Wowzers girl! You can really chow down!").

9. Watching one of our favorite shows. Does anyone else love Modern Family as much as we do? Hilarious! (sidenote: I think we are the only ones left on the planet that still have an old, "square/tube" TV. And no satellite or cable. Am I wrong? It may be time to upgrade to a widescreen though, seeing as how most shows/sporting events are now shot in widescreen and it's becoming increasingly evident (when we watch sports,  we can usually only read half the score since they put it up in the corner).

A Case of the Ickies...

...makes for a crummy vacation.

We have been working our way through some illness over at our house which has been less than fun as I'm sure you can relate.  It started with Brandt about two weeks ago, so we blame him for the fiasco. He came home from work on Tuesday and went straight to bed as soon as he got home at five. And that was his routine for the next three days straight: work, bed, repeat. I started to feel like a single parent, and it wasn't very glamorous. That weekend was our mini-vacay to Utah, which we had really been looking forward to, so I was hoping the ickies would stop with Brandt and we could enjoy our trip.

No such luck. On Friday, I woke up with whatever crap Brandt had been harboring, but it wasn't too bad. I kept myself drugged-up and got through the work-day. Then when I got home from work, we finished packing and got on the road. We stayed in a hotel in downtown Salt Lake for Friday night, and as soon as we got there I just layed on the bed and didn't move for the rest of the night, other than to take a bath to try and warm up. We had planned on taking Jack swimming in the hotel pool, but there was no energy for that. Jack was still feeling and looking good at this point, so he got his picture taken in his cute pj's:

Poor guy...he has no idea what's coming...

On Saturday we had Walk MS. I asked Brandt to give me a blessing that morning so I could make it through the day and I know it helped. We participated in Walk MS last year and had a great time; it's a great opportunity not only to raise funds for a great cause, but also to reconnect with our friends from high school that we don't get to see very often. Sadly, no pictures, but check out Tiff's blog post for some cute pics from the event. Jack wasn't feeling great either and was running a fever, but he was a trooper.

Saturday afternoon we drove up to Park City to spend the rest of the weekend with Brandt's family. Again, no pictures. But it was great to see them. Again we missed out on taking Jack swimming, but we figured it was probably not the greatest idea. 

Sunday was the worst day for me. I just layed on the  bed all morning until it was time to check out of the hotel. Luckily, it was going-home day and I was thrilled. We had planned on stopping to see a friend of mine and her sweet new baby in Logan, but we figured she wouldn't appreciate us bringing her all our germs, so we had to bypass that which was disappointing.

So that was our exciting trip to Utah! It definitely wasn't what we had expected. We were so looking forward to our little getaway, but being sick really but a damper on the fun. Oh well, not much you can do about that. Since then, we've been on the mend. Jack has had the worst of it this past week. I tried taking Monday off from work, but couldn't work it out, but I had Tuesday off which was nice. My mom was able to come spend a few days with us and it was great to have an extra set of hands to take care of the little guy. We've been blessed in that Jack is normally pretty healthy; this was his first real bout with the ickies, and I must say it's not fun. But he took it like a champ and the last couple of days he has been getting back to his happy-go-lucky self. By the end of the week, I was pretty worn out, so I took Friday off to recuperate. It was fabulous.

So that's that. Sorry for a downer post. It definitely isn't what I had hoped to write. I had plans of showing off cute pics from the weekend and write about all the fun things we did on our trip. Oh well, can't win 'em all, right? Here's to a better week next week!