Tales to Tell

I haven't posted pictures of anything in a long time. Stratton keeps me pretty busy so I don't have a lot of time to blog and so I've got a lot to show you guys:)

Most importantly....Stratton! He is now 7 months old and turning into a holy terror. He's been army crawling around since about 6 months so nothing is safe.

Hey Mom! Whatcha doing???

Is that a camera?! I wanna see! Can I taste it?

Mine? Mine? Mine? Let me just lick it...

He also has been working on doing a real crawl with his belly off the floor. He takes a step or two and then gets too excited/impatient, drops to his belly, and scoots across the floor.

Last night he pulled himself up to a standing position so I'm thinking he might just skip regular crawling and go right to walking.

We have already introduced a sippy cup because he was so interested in our water. He absolutely loves water in a sippy. We only had to show him once how to use it:)

Ryan let him try his orange soda.

He also crawls over things and, in this case, on top of things. He wanted something sitting on top of those storage boxes in the left of the picture, so he just crawled onto this hiking backpack to get it:)

A few last things about Stratton without the pictures:

• He went swimming for the first time on Saturday! He seemed to really love it. Except when Ryan tried dunking him. Then he seemed a bit put out by everything. We tried taking a camera but the batteries were dead....
• He is happy ALL THE TIME. It is pretty cool that he just seems really pleased with life.
• He has had all of his shots up unto this point so we don't have to do any more until he is 12 months! Woot!
• He has 2 teeth that have broken through and are coming up on the bottom. Ryan swears he can see the top ones coming in, but I'm hoping that's his imagination. If he gets a lot of teeth in I think our breastfeeding days will be over.
• He is obsessed with my hair. Mostly he just wants to pull it. There have been days that we've done battle because I won't let him pull all my hair out.
• He loves his Aunt Katie and his cousins Michael, Brandon, Roman and Karlee. Katie babysits him a lot so he is really comfortable with her. His cousins are also very entertaining so he loves that. He has other cousins, but the younger ones don't hold as much interest for him and he doesn't know the ones that live far away that well.
• He is, as usual, pretty big for his age. At his 6 month appointment the nurse told us he was 19 lbs and 25 inches. His weight sounded correct to me, but the height would have put him in the 25% percentile for his range and that didn't seem right. He didn't seem short and fat to me, so I went home and measured myself. The nurse had missed 3.5 inches! He is almost 29 inches long, so he is going to show a shocking growth spurt at his 9 month appointment:)
• He is terrible at sleeping. I know that this is because I've given him bad habits and I don't stick to a sleeping schedule. He use to be good, but then he got sick. He wanted to be nursed at night and I felt sorry for him, so I would. BAD IDEA! We have been trying to break him of this habit for the last couple nights and it is pretty rough. I think we are getting there though. Anyway...that is just at night. He isn't a very good sleeper during the day either. I try to watch for his "sleepy signs" and put him to bed before he is exhausted, but I don't think its working. He screams for a long time before he will take a nap and then if I am lucky I will get 45 min-1hour out of him. Usually less though. It's bad. I'm currently reading this book 'Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child' and it seems really good, but I wish someone had like a condensed version of it. The book looks like it's about 1200 pages and I'm just not sure I'm ever going to get through it.

I think that is everything happening with Stratton. Now on the the rest of the family!

Ryan and I went skiing for our 2 year anniversary. I'm a much better skier than snowboarder. It was my first time and I only fell down a couple times. However, one was pretty huge and hilarious. I'd decided to let Ryan take a difficult trail and I'd just make my way down the easy trail as usual. Well at one point there are 2 arrows on this easy trail. One says, "Easy" and the other says "Easier" pointing you down 2 different parts of the trail. I'd been going down the "Easier" way the entire day, but decided I was ready for the "Easy" trail (ha ha! I'm so bad-a!)

Things were going great until I got to the hill. For some reason, they had this double-black diamond hill in the middle of my easy trail! I'm snowplowing and going back and forth (I'm talented so I can do them both at the same time...ha ha!) and suddenly, I fall. Even though I was employing all my 'slowing down' skills, I still ate it pretty hard. Hard enough I lost one of my skis. Trudging back up the hill to the initial crash site, I locate my ski. I'm thinking to myself, "Just put it down on an angle to the hill, clip in, and get your butt out of the middle of the trail!"

Sounds easy, right?

Wrong.

It was like IMPOSSIBLE to get clipped in while standing in the snow on a hill! After trying for what seemed like 3/4 of my life, I gave up, picked up the ski and what was left of my dignity and half walked/skied to the side of the trail where I continued to try and put on my ski.

Not a pretty sight people.

But I sure did enjoy myself:)

Ryan and I got started on our house! This is just the footers for the foundation. At this point we actually have the entire foundation done, the electric box hooked up, dirt has been brough in to back-fill and the lumber arrived yesterday! Ryan and his guys will begin framing tomorrow and then things are just going to fly! I'm so excited!

Sorry about this sideways picture. I was too lazy to switch it and then re-upload it. This is the boys at jeep safari. Its a bit blurry, but those are both little faux-hawks in their hair with red hair dye down the middle. They looked pretty awesome:)

This is Ryan's jeep on an obstacle. This year I went out for the first 2 days with Stratton and then stayed home for the last day. Stratton really loved the rocking motion of the jeep on the obstacles. He definitely took better naps while we were out rock crawiling than he does at home!

And that is pretty much it! Thanks for reading my long catch-up post!

At Least I Tried

I've lost all of my baby weight and to celebrate I decided that I would take a little trip over the mountain and buy myself a new outfit in Provo. I had this master plan to get to the city pretty early, shop my way through the mall, grab desperately needed supplies from the hair stores, and then run up to see my neighbor and her newly born twin babies at the IHC in Murray.

It was such a good plan! I even had this little list of the specific clothing items I wanted for my new outfit. I really had high expectations in my head.

So we get to the mall and Stratton and I run into the food court and grab something to eat. He eats, I eat, we are all happy:)

We then start around the mall looking for these clothing items: mint green colored skinny jeans, white and navy blue striped shirt, colorful boyfriend cardigan, and a long necklace. Do you think I can find them? No. Very depressing. And everything that I look at seems to be a throwback to the ugliest part of the 80s. All the shirts were short, fat, and boxy. They even look terrible on the models and let me tell ya people....that is a HUGE red-flag. If a 103 lb model can't make that shirt look good, what chance do you think you have? Just sayin....

About one store into our mall expedition, Stratton starts to whine. Then he really starts to complain. By the time we are done with our first store, he is pretty much to full-on meltdown. This significantly shortens our shopping experience. I tell myself, "You haven't bought yourself anything so how about you skip on down to the MAC counter in Nordstrom's and by yourself that StudioFix pressed powder you've been missing for the past 1.5 years. It'll make your shopping trip worth it:)"

So I do. Except I don't. Nordstrom's is no longer in the Orem Mall. It pretty much crushed my little spirit.

But at least I tried:)

On to better things:
While there I ran to see my neighbors little babies! They are so tiny! She delivered them at 33 weeks so they will be in the NICU for quite awhile, but they are doing really well. They were fraternal twin girls. One weighed around 3 lbs 12 oz and the other was 4 lbs 1 oz. Can you believe that? Both of her little babies didn't even weigh as much as Stratton! Just seeing them so little and adorable made me want to cry. How amazing is it that we have the technology to save them when they are that young and small?! We are just so blessed:)

Definition of Insanity

 My car's dashboard is a magnet for junk. Everything gets thrown up there from mail to jewelry. This causes a problem when cornering. Everytime I speed around a little corner I'm trying to catch something. I then return it to it's proper spot on the dashboard and continue on with my journey. Ryan tells me that this is the definition of insanity. He says that I "keep doing the same thing, over and over, expecting different results."

I thought I was just being too lazy to clean my car.....

So I think about this 'definition' all the time. There is a girl at the gym that needs to hear these little words of wisdom.

I think she is paying $40 a month to read magazines. I don't know why I care, but it absolutely drives me crazy! She comes into the gym at about the same time that I do each morning. She fills up her water bottle, grabs a magazine and then heads for the awkward looking stair stepper thing. From there she BARELY moves on the stair stepper while DEVOURING her magazine. She also keeps her jaw completely slack so she looks pretty funny. I know I shouldn't make fun of people, but if you saw her as a cartoon drawing, you would also think it was hilarious.

only I think my drawing might have more life in her expression. This girl looks like the Scarlett Pimpernel when he sneaks the prince out of the tower....


Okay...that might be a little too far. She is somewhere inbetween. Seriously.

Enough making fun of her slack-jaw reading face. Back to my point.

Anyway....I've been going to the gym 5 times a week  for the past month. I feel like I've made noticeable changes with my body. I don't know how long this girl had been coming before I started, but she also has been in quite a bit, and I can't tell that she has changed in the least.

Wouldn't you get frustrated and stop coming? Or maybe try something new?

By golly, If I am going to go to the gym, I want RESULTS!

Last thing:
If anyone wants a good laugh in the morning, come on down to the gym. I'm determined to do a pull up and this morning you could have watched me hanging from the pull up bar while I DESPERATELY tried to get my puny weakling arms to pull me up.

I looked kind of like this but without the door frame. It was awesome:)

This is NOT a happy post (and it's political) but it gets better......

We just finished our taxes.

And now you know why this is not a happy post.

I'm not super savvy on all this taxing stuff so maybe someone can explain these things to me:
1-We are technically in the 15% tax bracket. How do they end up with 30% of our total income?
2-We made a lot less money this past year and we had a baby, so why are we getting a smaller return?
3-Ryan got a dividend (income) from his company that when entered into the tax software took a HUGE chunk out of our return. Then when entering in the money that we paid toward interest on our mortgage, this supposed "write-off" did not make us get anything more back.
4-They want you to declare any money that you have in off shore accounts. After items 1-3 happened I would NOT be declaring any money I had off shore. Now I'm looking into acquiring an off-shore bank account. Thank you Turbo Tax for the wonderful idea.
5-Ryan has an employee that is Native American. He doesn't have to pay anything in taxes, social security, FICA, etc., etc.. His Gross pay check is the exact same as his Net pay. He also files federal and state taxes. He just told Ryan on Monday that he will be getting back $7000 from a system that he doesn't even have to pay into.

I'M SO MAD RIGHT NOW!!

Between business taxes and personal taxes I'm starting to believe that the government really wants to see our family on unemployement.

Why can't everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) just pay the same percentage of their income and just forget about all these deductions, write-offs, and refunds?

It seems to be working for the Church just fine.....

Sorry about this awesome post. I know these money things are always a little awkward to read (at least for me) but I was just so mad that I needed to tell someone.

Whew. Deep breaths. On to more excited news!

I'm totally kicking butt in our little "get back into shape" competition being held between Ryan and myself. Three weeks ago my goals were this:
1-be able to run for 30 minutes without stopping
2-weigh 140 lbs.

I've now decided to add a few things:
3-compete in the "Diva Dash" in Boulder, Colorado with the fabulous ladies in my family!
4-run my way through a pair of running shoes
5-finish the Neola 4th of July 1/2 marathon
6-I also want to run a mile a lot faster than I do right now

When I first started running at the gym it was the most pitiful thing ever! I was BARELY able to jog for a full three minutes. I thought I might throw up at the end. Yesterday, I ran the full 30 minutes and finished it with a minute of sprinting before cooling down! I've never been a runner but I understand how it could get addicting.
I've also listed that we are doing the "Diva Dash" this summer. It is an obstacle course and the best time wins. I'm under no illusion that I will win, but I do want to be able to finish every obstacle so I'm working on getting actual muscles. Pull-ups baby!

And that is pretty much all that is going on with me. Stratton is still awesome. He is rolling over each direction now and is starting to rotate around. I'm thinking he will start to crawl soon! We are trying to start him on some rice cereal because he doesn't stay full very long on just milk. I'm hoping it will help him stay asleep a little bit longer at night. Lastly I think he is almost done with all his physical therapy. He is looking both directions now and seems to use both sides of his body equally well so hopefully we won't have to do it anymore! Yay!

And I'm feeling a bit cooled down from my political rant earlier. Ahhh....thank you internet.

I'm Such a Stalker!

Ryan and I are trying to get everything in order so that we can build a new home this spring. Even though it is a little uncertain whether everything will work out or not, I can't help but dream of our new home. I have spent endless hours looking at the internet, books, magazines and even driving around Roosevelt. I'm kind of becoming a "Stalker of Homes" if you will. I've driven past these four houses close to 7 billion times and the other day I decided to just take a picture. I'm sure it will save me tons of gas money.
 Let me show you my favorites from around the Basin (and no...I don't have permission to share these, so don't tell the owners! ha ha!):

As you can tell, I absolutely love the Craftsman style homes.

We have a set of plans that we like, but the outside is not a Craftsman style and I would prefer that. We are thinking of taking them to a local engineer and having him slightly modify the plans so that the outside can have a nice front porch and a few columns.


The best part is the little extra space in the garage. If we use these plans we will be turning that spot into a salon and I will be able to do hair at my own house! Yay!

Here is the downside of looking at all this house stuff: It's got me dreaming. I sit around all day thinking about the nice new things in my new house. My imagination is getting a little too big for my pocketbook. I start to think about tile bathrooms, custom cabinets, hardwood closets, granite countertops, new washer and dryer, and beautiful furniture.

And a new wardrobe for my fabulous closet. Of course.

So I came up with a solution this morning. I'm going to make a list (probably with pictures) of everything that my "dream house" would have. Then as we build and sell and move up in the world of my dreams, Ryan can start putting in the things that we can afford and leave off the rest.

Ahhh....I'm so glad I thought of it! Ha ha!

And I'm really hoping that Ryan doesn't care what our house looks like. I've already pictured it fabulous and he'll just have to deal with it:) Kidding:) Ryan and I like a lot of the same things, styles and colors, so we can pick everything out together. Cute!

Halloween, Baby Blessing, and 2 Month Check-Up

This is kind of a blogging "mash up" if you will. I was too lazy to do seperate posts:)

We shall start with Halloween. We went as Little Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf, and the Woodsman. People seemed confused by Ryan as the Woodsman. I guess they all forgot that he cuts the wolf open and saves them. So yes....he is in the story.

Ryan isn't wearing his belt or leather wrist band things. Without them he just looks like a guy in church clothes holding an axe.

The Big Bad Wolf! Stratton hated getting his nose painted. He acted like we were beating him. Pretty traumatic.

Later that night I swaddled up the boys and put them to bed.

Our next exciting event was Stratton's baby blessing. We did it this last Sunday on November 6th. Ryan blessed him and it was such a beautiful blessing! I'm so thankful for the opportunity to raise our little boy. He has such wonderful things to look forward to.

Here is our little family all dressed up after the blessing

Look at this little stud!

 I didn't want to do the traditional white suit and I liked the look of this little pin striped outfit. My Aunt Betty thinks I may have broken the white suit tradition and started a new tradition with this outfit.

And we got Stratton's pictures back from his photo shoot with Amy Timothy from Amy Loo Photography. She did such a good job! I highly recommend her.

Now on to our 2 month check-up.

I took Stratton in yesterday for a doctor's visit. He has been sick and we wanted to see if they could do anything for his nose. Unfortunetly they couldn't, but while we were there we decided to do his 2 month wellness check up. Stratton is about a week shy of being 2 months old, so it was a little early, but I didn't want to have to make another appointment. Anyway.

So they measured him and compared to other 2 month olds (keep in mind that he still as a week to go) he is in the 95th percentile for weight, the 90th percentile for height, and the 75th percentile for head circumfrance. The doctor just kept saying things like, "He is such a big baby!" or "Look at this huge tummy!"

I'm pretty proud.

He is weighing in at 13 lbs 8 oz and is 24 inches long.

So now the bad news. I'm a real slacker when it comes to tummy time. I hate listening to him scream and I feel even worse now that he has a stuffy nose. So we don't really do tummy time. Also, Stratton always looks to the right. He hardly ever looks to the left. Because of this his head is slightly flattening out on one side. So our doctor sat me down and told me that I have to get tougher. I'm suppose to do tummy time about 5 times a day for around 20-30 minutes a time. I also have to stimulate him to the left and possibly manually hold his head to the left. We have to prop him to the side when he sleeps so he gets those neck muscles stretched out to the left side. If I don't do these things, the doctor said he will need to refer Stratton to physical therapy.

Soooo......

We did tummy time yesterday.

The Role I Was Born to Play

Have you guys seen 'Les Miserables?' It is my favorite musical. I listen to it from beginning to end almost once a week. AND it makes me cry every time.

Within this totally awesome production is the role I would love to play. Nay, was BORN to play.

It isn't Eponine.....

It isn't Fantine.....

And it certainly isn't Cosette.....



It's Madame Thenardier!!!

Someday, when my life takes a turn for the unexpectedly awesome (as opposed to the per-usual awesome), I want to play Madame Thenardier in this musical. She is the stunning creature in the picture above. She's brassy, foul-mouthed, sounds terrible when she sings, is a bit of an over-stated beauty, and she is one of the few characters in the musical that gets a little humor thrown in with her parts. This really is my dream role. I'm not even kidding.

If you asked most girls what role they would want to play in a musical (for those of us wierdos that actually want to be in a musical....) I would imagine they would usually pick the beautiful role. Their eyes would get that far away look as they picture themselves in a stunning costume, hair and makeup beautifully done, singing as though they were an angel from heaven. I picture myself stomping out on to the stage tragically overweight with frizzy hair, nasty moles and teeth, and belting out profanities in a very nasally, screechy voice. Wanna know the best part? The people still love me! Ha ha!

So if anyone has an "in" with the Uintah Basin Arts Council, could you please ask them to put on a production of 'Les Miserables?'

I'll be first in line to audition for the coolest part.