Hi there

So I guess it is time for me to do another post. I really don't know what has gotten into me with blogging. It just seems so hard these days. Anyway, my sister said she shoots for once a month so I guess if I compare to her I'm doing alright:)I'm sitting outside right now while Chandler is digging up the dirt from under the water spout, with a water bottle, then dumping the dirt into his pool. He went swimming this morning and I have to empty the pool anyway so I'm not too concerned with him making it muddy. But the kid is pretty smart and has himself a pretty good mud hole going as he just realized he could add water to it and it gets muddier. The punk bit a hole in his pool so now the top ring won't stay inflated. I tried to patch it with duck tape but I guess that was too ghetto and didn't work.
So I said I would tell about Hazel's picture so here it is: On the day before we moved, Kayli asked if she could bring over a little treat for us. Of course I accepted. She brought over Jethro and Hazel and Hazel had a picture for me. She gave it to me and explained what it was of. She said it was Steve, me, Chandler, and Chandler's baby sister. So I asked her what Chandler's baby sister's name was. She promptly told me, "Hazel". So cute! At this time I didn't know I was pregnant but I was starting to suspect that maybe I was. So then when I found out I was pregnant we decided we had to put that picture on our blog because Hazel was right! Well, who knows about the girl part but we decided if we do find out we're having a girl, we will call her Hazel while she is in my tummy.And if it is a boy, he will be Finn again. Steve is the one who came up with New "Finn"land. One day he said something about the new baby and said it was our New Foundland. So Finn it is. For those of you who don't know, we called Chandler, Finn, the whole pregnancy. We loved the name and really wanted to name him that but just couldn't because paired with our last name it would sound like Finland.
I went to the doctor last Monday. I had an ultrasound and was amazed that it actually looked like a baby already. I was expecting just a little ball. It amazes me how fast babies grow and become so real. It's little heart beat was going fast and it had little stubby arms and legs. So cute to see. Chandler was with me and when the doctor did the exam, Chandler was watching very intently. Kind of weird to have your kid look at you that way but we were joking that it is good he can't talk and ask about what the doctor was doing to mommy.

First stomach picture (Sunday 6.29.08, 11 weeks). I can't believe how fat I already look. Pretty depressing so I deal with it by eating more and wearing tee shirts and sweats everyday. I don't go out much.

Oh, and I was going to say that the very first thing we did when we closed on our house was drive to the store and get a pregnancy test and that was the first thing I did when we walked into our house. Kind of cool but at the same time this was when I was feeling pretty sick so now thinking about our house makes me feel sick sometimes. And I can't stand the smell! I'm already sensitive to smells and when I am pregnant it is way worse.

I think I'm starting to get some more energy back. Very slowly, and it depends on the day. On Friday we had the missionaries over for dinner so I didn't take a nap because I wanted to get stuff prepared and cleaned ahead of time. I surprisingly did very well for no nap. So that makes me think maybe, just maybe, I might have a tad bit more energy. And, I did a blog post on my other blog! I promised by the end of June so I had to get one on there.

Katrina's pregnant!!

DING DING DING!! I think Chrissy is our winner! I'm glad someone got it. You should get a prize, maybe I will have to send you something in the mail.

Anyway, again, I'm too tired to blog anything so I'll just tell the details for now.

• 11 weeks pregnant
• due January 15 (my sister's b-day)
• feel super tired all the time
• nap almost everyday
• nothing gets accomplished around the house
• feel sick every night
• constantly eating and always starving
• pee 4 times a night
• feel super fat and have nothing to wear

Okay, time for me to go to bed. Hopefully I'll get back into blogging once I get some more energy. I'll explain the picture later, it is a cute story.

Quiz time

Can you guess what the following two pictures have in common?

This is a lovely picture drawn by my friend's little girl.

A map of Newfoundland

UPDATE: This is a map of New"FINN"land.

First Day of Work

So today was my first day of work. All went well, I wasn't nearly as nervous since I have already worked here. I reconnected with a bunch of the interns from last summer who also came back and met a bunch of other MBA grads who also started today. It is also nice knowing my manager since I worked with him quite a bit last summer.

The hardest part of the day was catching the bus on my way home. I get dropped off on a one-way street so I wasn't sure where the outbound bus passed by (Thanks Ken for helping me figure it out).

I think I will keep riding the bus. I was thinking on my way home that I could easily count on one hand how many times I have driven myself to work in my "professional" career. I like it since it gives me time to read, sleep, think, or whatever else needs to be done. It is also nice to have time to decompress on the way home before walking in the front door. Plus, these days the round-trip ticket ($3.50) is less than one gallon of gas.

I have orientation for until Thursday and I will actually start my job of Friday. All in all not a bad day. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

Happy (late) Birthday Steve!

I am such a terrible wife. Steve's birthday has come and gone and I didn't even acknowledge it on the blog. I spent the day at the DMV getting our new license plates. After waiting in line for an hour, I had to get some other papers signed by Steve so I had to go back again. It was so annoying but luckily the lady was nice and gave me a pass so I didn't have to stand in line again. The day before Steve's birthday I had to sit at the DMV getting my driver's license. I was so nervous that I wasn't going to pass the test. If you got 6 wrong you failed and I got 4 wrong. I was getting so scared at the end when I had to answer the last 2 questions. But now I am done sitting at dumb government offices. I just have to sit at a car inspection place now to get our cars inspected. Thankfully I got all that done before Steve started work because I didn't have to have Chandler with me. He had a fun time watching Chandler and I think Chandler is going to miss having his daddy around. Steve has really been around for more than a month. It is going to be a shocker for me for him to start work tomorrow but at the same time I'm kind of ready to get into a routine.
We are on our way to a drought again this summer. We have water restrictions but thankfully on Friday we got a HUGE thunderstorm and it rained so hard and I think we got at least 2 inches of rain. Our pool was empty and the storm filled it up quite a bit. It happened during Chandler's nap and every time it thundered I was cringing hoping that Chandler wouldn't wake up. Luckily he didn't. He has been taking 3 hour naps lately and I've been loving it.
We bought a lawn mower on Saturday. Chandler thought that Steve needed some help mowing the lawn. The grass here is really short and doesn't grow very much so luckily it wasn't too big a deal that we hadn't mowed our lawn yet.
Here is our amazing kid who has a bigger mouth than me. All during his bath he was sticking this golf ball into his mouth and spitting it back out. I tried and I can't get it into my mouth.

Look, I've done my whole post and I still didn't say Happy Birthday to Steve. I'm so lame. Anyway, Steve is awesome and a fantastic dad and husband. He has been so great with taking care of all the paper work and phone calls surrounding buying a house and setting things up (you know all the things the wife usually does). He didn't really get a very special birthday this year because I never really had a chance to plan anything. We went to the Cheese Cake Factory (we decided that their food just isn't that great, from now on we are only getting cheesecake there) and I got him a big jar of jelly bellies. Next year Steve turns the big 3-0 and I promise it will be awesome! I think maybe I should start planning now:) Steve, I'm sorry for your lame birthday but just remember what you told me on Mother's Day, "I bought you a house." I love you babe! Happy Birthday!

All about Chandler

Well, I haven't really been into blogging lately. (If you haven't noticed!) This move has been kind of hard and we have been busy with traveling and then getting settled. I was realizing how the blog really is my only journal and I haven't updated on Chandler at all. I especially need to keep Chandler's progress updated since I can barely keep a baby book for him. Our poor children won't have any memories nicely recorded for them:( So let's see what's been new with Chandler:

• He has gotten his two bottom 2-year old molars.....I know!! Crazy kid just turned 18 months!
• He has officially gone to nursery 3 times. He loves it and doesn't even cry. In fact our first Sunday here was his first official time and as I was holding him and telling the teacher his name and info, he squiggled out of my arms and started playing. See ya Bud! (The down side to nursery is he has also officially bitten two different kids- one while we were in Reno in nursery and one while we were in Maine. Thank goodness he hasn't done it in our real ward (yet) so we don't have a bad reputation (yet).)
• He still uses his pacifier which we need to break him of. We lost one in Maine so we are down to just one so hopefully we will be able to break him- I think it is more our lifesaver than his!
• He has already fallen down our stairs once. Thankfully they are carpeted so he didn't get too hurt. It scared both of us so bad though! The reason he fell is because he refuses to go down backwards or on his bum. He walks down with his hand on the wall. Chandler thinks he is much older than he is:)
• He still is mister helper around the house. He loves any tool he can find and tries to fix everything.
• He has gotten really good at signing "more". It is super cute and he does it all the time and uses it correctly. It is the only sign we've taught him because honestly, I don't know any other ones.
• I'm probably jinxing it but the last 2 nights Chandler has actually eaten what we were having for dinner and more than one bite. YIPEE! Maybe he is finally turning into a normal eater. Still no fruits or vegetables but I'll take what I can get.
• He has been kind of a terrible toddler lately. He throws a lot of fits and he doesn't listen or obey at all.
• He does understand a lot more now. He always brings us his shoes to ask to go outside and will get our shoes also. He will put his diaper in the garbage. He tells me when he's pooped. And he will get something for you if you point to it. That way I don't have to get up:)

Anyway, I can't remember what else is new about Chandler. I need to get back into blogging. I just kind of got sick of it for a while and besides we have been so busy. I finally did something domestic today and made homemade strawberry jam. YUMMY! I'm so proud of myself and can't wait to start making more things. It is just too hot here to want to do anything though. I think I need to go to bed now. Good night!

Here is a funny video that Steve captured today. We had already been doing this for a few minutes when he started recording.

Back at Home

We got back home on Friday and now have to adjust to life without anymore planned vacations. We have a lot to do this week including switching our Driver Licenses and plates, doing some yard work, and finish unpacking the few boxes that remain in the garage.

We enjoyed our vacation (although Chandler probably had the most fun). He is definitely and outdoors boy. One morning as I was going to try and take some pictures of the wild turkeys in the backyard he came to the door with his crocs in his hand just begging to come. It was a lot of fun (even though he managed to cry at just the right time so I missed getting any good pictures) wandering in the fields with him.

Walking in the fields with my on our turkey "hunt", riding his bike, driving the tractor with dad, cooling of with an ice cream cone, driving the tractor, ditto, helping grandma in the garden, filling up his wagon with weeds, taking a ride in the bucket

I am sure the dog and cat are glad to see him go. All he wanted to do was chase them around the house, he did this whenever they were in sight.

We are starting to get settled down and hopefully we will start to update more frequently as our lives settle down again.

Busy 24 Hours

A picture of us at the Ocean today

This is Steve, I wanted to update everyone on what we are doing these days. We are currently visiting Katrina's parents and she is having me write this post since she has already gone to bed. She is in bed because Chandler has been waking up at 5:30 every morning since we arrived and she has been getting up with him.

Here are some of the highlights so far:

Last night, I had an incredible come from behind victory in Scrabble. This was capped by my using all 7 letters and getting the Triple Word score for the word emulator to get 77-points and steal the win from Katrina's dad on my last turn.

Pouring water in one of his holes

We went to the ocean today and Chandler had a blast. Even though it was foggy he loved digging in the sand, getting his feet wet and running from the waves, and watching the crazy kids who were actually in the ocean playing in the waves. It was a lot of fun, Katrina or I would dig a little hole then Chandler would see it, laugh, come over and jump in it and wait for us to dig another one.

Showing us some seaweed

Later this evening we also had a large bonfire in their yard. Chandler pretended he was a fireman and figured out how to use the sprayer (he even would pump it up to build up the air pressure). We couldn't get within 30 feet of the fire since it was so hot so he mostly tried to squirt us.

Chandler the Fireman


Topping off the evening by eating a Marshmallow right off of the stick

WWW= Wonderful Wonderful Wonderful

We FINALLY have internet! Can I get a hip-hip-hooray?!?! Now the only thing we need is our gas to get turned on so we can have hot water (a story for another blog post). And we need to do more unpacking and get lawn tools and furniture............but other than that we're doing great:) It is late at night and I still have to pack for our trip tomorrow so I'll keep this short. I just wanted you to know I'm still alive and sort of kickin'.

To start, here is a video of Chandler being so cute. He has been way into helping Steve put things together and fix things with tools. He is constantly putting the screwdriver or drill into any hole he can find. And yes, he found the outlet today and I stopped that one fast! The second half of the video shows how tired Chandler has been. He was falling asleep while eating lunch but as soon as he saw the camera he perked up a little bit. At the very beginning you can see he had his eyes closed before he noticed me.

Here are some pictures of the inside of our house. I'll quickly tell you each picture from left to right starting at the top: On the stairs looking towards the office and downstairs bathroom, formal living room (aka-Chandler's toy room), formal dining room, standing by the office looking towards the living room and kitchen, standing on stairs looking down on living room, looking over the railing to the entry way, spare bedroom, looking down hallway from Chandler's room, Chandler's bathroom, laundry room, our bedroom, our view from our bedroom, our bathroom, tub, and shower, our HUGE closet. Okay, I know that was totally boring but I know some people were curious. We will take better pictures once we have everything organized and set up.

Here is Chandler and our stuff the morning we left Indiana. I kind of miss it:( Moving is hard and I don't deal with change very well. Chandler hasn't dealt with it that great either. He has been very difficult and whiny and crying all the time. We are trying to give him lots of attention but sometimes it is hard when you have to get things done.
Here is how Chandler has been entertained. The fan in the living room has a remote and Chandler found it right away. He loves turning it off and on. He also loves going outside and there are tons of neighbors with kids so whenever Chandler sees them (or their dogs) outside he whines at the door. He has loved the space and the stairs. It is way cute because you can hear him coming up the stairs all panting and out of breath. We have also enjoyed going to the pool with Chandler. He loves the water and watching how the older kids play.