things

I went back and read through several of my blog posts during pregnancy.
By far my favorite was this one.
I miss being pregnant.
Which is weird, because I hated being pregnant.

My posts made me laugh.
I don't usually think of myself as funny,
but I hope once in a while I make you chuckle.
I laugh hard at my own jokes so I like to think that once in a while someone is laughing with me.

I've also noticed this blog has become so much more serious since the baby was born.
Where has my sense of fun gone?
Moms need to be fun.

Here's the thing.  Things.  There's lots of things.
I'm about knee-deep in moving mess still (at least it's not neck-deep anymore).
Tyler has "orientation" (which is an excuse to make first-year law students read even MORE) starting on Wednesday, and real law school starts next Monday.
TJ can crawl now so nothing is safe.
He also has a tooth (and almost another).  Poor baby.  We go through about one bottle of Tylenol a day.  Why in heavens name do they make those bottles so tiny?
He can climb, and prefers jumping around in his crib to taking naps.  Adorable, but problematic.
I start school in September, so I've got a couple of weeks.
My kitchen floor still turns everybody's feet black, despite my best scrubbing efforts.
There and gnats and mosquitoes everywhere in our apartment.  Every time I kill a skeeter, someone's blood splatters all over the wall.
Our upstairs neighbors have four kids and their constant pitter-patter reminds me all the time that my life must be blissfully easy, with only one child.
It's so much fun (except the mosquitoes), so much excitement and happiness.

On one hand, I like blogging and writing about what's going on in my life.  I love reading back through all of my adventures.  I love reading other people's stories, and I like to think that someone will like to read mine.

On the other hand, I feel desperately busy and I only have one baby and I want more babies, so life will only get busier.  My time is so stretched as it is, and there isn't a good reason to keep blogging.  Plus, I'm just not sure how much of my children I want to put on the internet.  I've thought about blogging anonymously, but whats the point of that?

I don't want my kids to grow up seeing me on the computer all the time.  I already have to spend several hours a day on the computer to take care of classwork.  Maybe eliminating blogging will help me start cutting the ties to my computer.

Being a mom, wife, and student is more than enough right now.  I might come back to this, I might not.  I don't know.  Just giving you a heads up, so you don't feel obligated to check every couple of weeks to see if I've finally posted..

Thanks for reading, I've loved sharing my adventures with you!

visiting the twins

 My sweet little twin nieces (Adele and Clara) were blessed last weekend.  We drove over to Boise to celebrate with the family!

We left Saturday morning, and Saturday afternoon their was a super fun Luau celebration with a giant water slide.  Ummm yes please!

We tried to put TJ down for a nap, but he just screamed for about two hours straight.  I guess he didn't want to miss the party, so finally we gave up and brought him out.  He was pretty cheerful after that.

My sweet niece Eve

We had his swimsuit but it was wet and cold after he got in the hot tub (which was more like a luke-warm tub), so we just let him hang out in a swim diaper.  Because we are classy like that.

We found out that swim diapers don't hold pee when he peed on Tyler's head.  We put him in a regular diaper after that.

I loved holding Clara and Adele, and snatched them whenever I got the chance!  They got alot of loving from everyone.  

They were born at the end of April, so they are a little over two months old.  They are still so precious and tiny!  I'm loving how grown-up TJ is getting, but that newborn phase is so sweet.

 We went back to the hotel right after the party.  TJ needed an early bedtime since he skipped his nap.  Poor kid was really out of sorts, but he slept like a rock!

Before church the next morning, TJ and Tyler took a nap on the bed while I packed up.

It was so sweet I had to snap a couple of (fuzzy) pictures.

I missed the actual blessings, because (for the first time ever) TJ wanted to talk to everyone in the chapel.  I'm so glad he found his voice, but it was not very reverent, so we had to leave.

He spent all of sacrament meeting with either me or Tyler out in the hallway, talking to the walls and anyone who passed by.

He loved hanging out with all the cousins.  Watching them play and talking at them made him so happy!  He loves being around other kids.  It makes me glad we are moving closer to family, where he can play with my cousins who are little like him.

We had a quick lunch, but we had to head back.

Before we left, I snapped some quick pictures with the girls.

They are fraternal twins, so you can tell them apart by their faces.  They are so distinctive!  I thought Adele look much more like her brother, Thomas, while Clara looked like her brother Spencer.

This is Adele:

 This is Clara.  She likes being on her stomach because she has reflux.  Poor baby.

On the drive home, we had to make a diaper change stop!  I just rolled TJ up to the front passenger seat so dad could change him.  He thought it was hi-larious and he was so happy to be out of the car seat.

Unlike my trip to Utah, he was awake for most of the drive.  He was really good, but by the time we got to Idaho Falls (about 30 minutes away from home) he was super done.  In an attempt to keep him cheerful, I pulled out the camera and started taking pictures.  You can tell his face is red from crying.

 Poor little guy.  He was a champ, and the trip was so fun!  I wish we could have stayed longer.  I had so much fun with my sisters-in-law.  They are so funny and creative, I always love being around them.

I almost forgot a picture of Tyler driving!

 That would have been a tragedy. :)

How are your summer travels going?

-Mrs. Smith

TJ @ 6 Months

I feel like I could write and write and write about my baby.  I know I drag on, but I want to have these things recorded somewhere.  Some things make it in to my journal or his baby journal, but it's nice to have a compilation.  Sorry it's long!

At his six month appointment (which took place when he was 5 1/2 months) TJ had some great stats!
Height: 27.5 inches
Weight: 20 pounds

Both of these were in the 90's percentiles, but his head is in like the 30th percentile, which is funny to me, since in his ultrasounds his head always measured so big.

Time to lower the crib

Big changes are happening!  We've hit some big milestones, like sitting up and getting up on all fours.  Just last week he started rocking back-and-forth from his hands to his knees, which is miraculous.  I wasn't sure he would show interest in crawling, since he hates being on his tummy (still).

I keep finding him in his crib like this.  Sometimes it's an arm poking out instead of legs.

TJ loves walking.  His favorite activity his having someone hold his hands and walk him around.  He especially loves walking in the grass and on other unusual textures.  If he is sitting on my lap on the couch, he will wiggle and scoot to try and get his bum off the couch to show me he wants to walk.  Adorable and annoying, since I have to hold on extra tight!

We've introduced solids.  I was nervous, since he had that weird GI issue, but he seems to be handling it well.  We also introduced juice on the doctors recommendation.

Counting cars

He gets excited about rice cereal and loves having tastes of our food.  He doesn't care for grape juice, but he will drink it out of a cup or sippy cup, more for the novelty than anything else, I think.  We also tried prune juice, but that stuff tastes like death in a cup.  We have an entire bottle in our fridge that I'm going to make Tyler drink because he says it's "not that bad."  I think he just doesn't want to admit he was wrong when he told me it would be tastier than grape juice.

Speaking of cups, TJ can give himself drinks.  Most of it usually spills out, so we limit it to small amounts in the bath tub.  He frequently half-drowns himself, even when we try to make sure the cup is mostly empty.

Even though he can't crawl yet, he is already getting in to trouble.  And by trouble I mean the garbage. Gross.

Last week, he figured out if he talked into the bath cup it made his voice sound funny.  He was jabbering away!  It was adorable.

He is turning into a snuggler like his mama.  He wraps himself up in his blanket before falling asleep for a nap.

He went down to two naps a day, and suddenly jumped back up to three.  I think he's hitting a growth spurt again.  We've only had one major teething session lately, but still no teeth!

TJ does have a toothbrush, though.  Every morning, while I'm brushing my teeth, I brush his gums then let him chew on the brush.  He thinks it's great.  He is really getting in to imitating mommy and daddy these days!

He has started wrinkling his nose when he smiles really big, like I do.  He also got dimples from me.

He really is happy almost all of the time.  He also loves the camera and my phone, so he usually smiles when I pull either of them out.

first fourth

To start off the day, TJ helped me make breakfast.

We were planning to watch the local parade, but TJ napped through it.  When he woke up, we walked to the local park to party it up!

Zap was not thrilled to be waiting in the stroller while we rode the carousel. 

TJ didn't really get it.

We got pictures with snoopy!

Then went to play in the splash pad.  I forgot TJ's swimsuit, so we did the classy thing and let him swim naked! (in a swim diaper)

We bought like $10 worth of fireworks to do a short 'show' for TJ before bed time.

You can tell TJ was pretty worn out by the end of the day.  It was alot of fun!