Jay & JaNeal

9 Years!!!

2012-01-11T19:13:00.000-08:00

It's our 9 year anniversary! It's also apparently the 1 year anniversary of my last blog post...

So in keeping with my tradition of forecasting my anniversary blog post, last year I said I would post about what our song is. I must be running out of topics relating to me and Jay or something because I have no idea what our song is. I don't even know if we have one. I'm not sure why I would have decided on that for my topic for this year. I asked Jay what he thought our song was and he broke out with a (pretty spectacular) rendition of Macy Gray "I try to say goodbye". It's not as 'mean' as that sounds though; about 11 years ago, we went on a trip to Spain together. That song was pretty popular at the time and we must have heard it a million times. I joked that it was our song and apparently he still remembers. Seriously, of all the things he has chosen to remember from our dating history... Our first song we danced to at our wedding (and consequently the last song we have EVER danced to since it turns out Jay hates to dance) was "Love of My Life" by Michael W Smith. If I could choose our first (and only) dance again, I think I'd choose something by Bon Jovi. Maybe "I'll Be There For You". We've been on a LOT of road trips over the years and 80's 'rock' bands seem to be one of the few music choices we can agree on.

I tried watching my wedding video to see if there were some songs on there that I clearly picked due to their sentimental value, but as it turns out there weren't. I am, however, very surprised by a few things on my video. First, the video quality is HORRIBLE. HD Video really is a great thing. Second, I got married in January, and there was no snow that year as well. Third, I am really surprised at how young everyone looks! Not that you all look old now... And finally, it reminded me that I LOVED my wedding. I loved planning it, I loved my dress, I loved the ceremony, I loved having all my best friends in my wedding (who by the way are STILL my best friends), I loved the music (awesome Carolyn, Chaz and Becca!), and I loved having a big fun reception and a limo. And I really loved wasting a lot of people's entire day to be a part of it (thank you all so much by the way for coming!). Seriously, one of the best days of my life, I'd do it again in a heartbeat (with the above mentioned Bon Jovi changes). And after 9 years, it makes me so happy and I feel so BLESSED to have such an awesome husband, marriage and family!

For anyone who does not remember, here's a clip from it:

If any of you have a song, what is it and how did you pick it? And for next year......... which by the way will be 10 YEARS!!! What has been my favorite date?

8 Years!!!

2011-01-10T19:49:00.000-08:00

Technically, I'm a day early but tomorrow marks 8 years that Jay and I have been married!!! And this year, our anniversary is 1/11/11 which I'm sure will make the day somehow more important.

It looks like last year I made it until about April until I stopped blogging. I'm not going to make any promises for this year since clearly I'm not really cut out for timely updates on my blog. But my (very) few posts from last year did make it much easier to get to my blog entry from our last anniversary which made me realize a few things:

1) January is not really a great time for travelling in any year, especially by plane.

2) I did this exact same thing last year reflecting on my 6 year anniversary.

3) Although I came up with a question for this year, I promised my sister I'd come up with another but then I didn't so she'll just have to deal.

Which brings me to my question for this year, "Why do I put up with Jay?" This year's question is pretty easy to answer since there are so many reasons why I fell in love with, married, and continue to 'put up with' Jay. It would be harder to come up with reasons why I would have to 'put up' with him. So, maybe I should change the direction of this post a little bit and do that instead. After all, I'm not really very good at the gushy stuff, especially on a blog that will be read by at least 2 other people... So here we go, my reasons for needing to put up with Jay:

1) Jay does not like massages. And more importantly, because he hates them so badly, he can't imagine why anybody else (like me) would want one.

2) Jay beats me at almost every game we play. Whether it's MarioKart on the Wii, cribbage, bowling, iPhone Scrabble, running, poker, etc. He even beats me AND Jamison at Uno every time. And really, it doesn't even stop at games. He's better than me at most things. But FINALLY, I have found the one thing that he does NOT excel at (not to be confused with Microsoft Excel which he is very good with). And that one thing is: Tubing. Like snow tubing down a hill. Saturday, Jay and I went up to Soldier Hollow in Midway and over and over (and over) again raced down their hills on tubes. Not only did I beat him down every time, but sometimes he couldn't even make it all the way to the end and had to stand up and walk the rest of the way. So sure, yeah he can build a deck, run, drive, spell, cook, work, follow directions, etc better than I can, but on a steep downhill slope with a giant tube, I AM the champion every time. Here is a nice shot of Jay riding up the tow on his tube.

3) Jay does not like Mexican food.

4) I'm not positive, but I think there's a very good chance that he thinks I'm crazy.

5) He will not comment on this blog entry.

Well, that's it, I'm out of reasons. Luckily (for me), it's pretty easy to look past all this. Unfortunately for him, I'm pretty sure he got the short end of the stick when it comes to our relationship. Jay is an insanely good father, husband and person and I really am blessed to have had 8 amazing years (so far) with him. Happy Anniversary Jay, I love you!!!!!!!

And for next year..... What is our 'song'?

Weeds and Popcorn

2010-04-19T19:56:00.000-07:00

I love all this warm weather, but every time I look out my window, all I see are weeds. I hate weeds. Jay and I have killed 6 trees in our backyard and we can't seem to keep flowers alive, but the weeds seem to have no problem. If anyone knows of a good way to get rid of weeds, please feel free to share.

So a couple of months ago, I had to go out of town for work. While I was gone, Jay and Jamison made some popcorn to eat. Jamison found an unpopped kernel of popcorn and told Jay that it was a seed and that they should plant it and grow some new popcorn. Rather than tell our son the truth, Jay said 'sure' and got him a little cup and some dirt from our backyard and they planted the popcorn kernel, watered it and put it in the window to get some sun. Well, about a week later, a stupid weed grew in Jamison's cup. Jamison was SO excited that his 'popcorn plant' was growing and he took his popcorn-watering duties very seriously. And how can we tell him NOW that his daddy lied to him and that there was never a possibility of that weed turning into popcorn? Meanwhile, the weeds in my yard are running amok and here I am growing one in my kitchen. After a few weeks of taking care of his popcorn plant, Jamison decided that to get some popcorn growing, he needed to transplant it outside. So he did. We actually went outside and found like the only spot that didn't already have a weed growing in it and planted his weed in that spot. He goes outside every day and waters it and fortunately does not seem too concerned that the whole popcorn thing hasn't happened yet. And did I mention that I blame Jay for all of this.... :)

American Idol?

2010-04-02T09:50:00.000-07:00

So, I've got my plans for Gianna to be on 'So You Think You Can Dance' in about 15 years. For Jamison, it looks like he'd be better suited for 'American Idol'.... :)

Just Dance!

2010-03-20T15:07:00.001-07:00

I have secret hopes that we'll someday all see Gianna as a finalist on 'So You Think You Can Dance' or maybe 'Dancing With The Stars'. If there's music, she's dancing. Even if she's confined to her car seat, she's still dancing. Every day when I pick her up from school her teacher fills out a daily report on her and every day somewhere in there it says 'Gianna loves to dance'. I think I'll have to get her in dance classes when she gets old enough. It's so cute! :)

Also, if you have a minute, please vote for my friend Becca. She entered a video contest for Bobbi Brown Cosmetics and I'd love to see her win! I've been friends with her for over 15 years now and she is such a great friend. Anyways, most everyone who would read this probably knows Becca too so you already know what a great person she is. The contest ends Friday so help her out and vote and vote more than once!

Pretty Powerful

Sponsored by Bobbi Brown

Offensive or Useful?

2010-02-08T19:35:00.000-08:00

For my birthday, Jay got me a Kindle. I love it. I would recommend it to anyone who likes to read. However, there is one minor drawback. And that is that technically it is a 'portable electronic device'. Which means that for about 20 minutes on either end of a flight, I am forced to entertain myself by looking out the window, talking to the person next to me (which on my most recent trip was Jay), or reading the Sky Mall magazine. So, I'm reading the Sky Mall magazine and I come across this item:

Stealth Secret Sound Amplifier

Improve your hearing - and enhance your image!

If a conventional hearing aid sounds like an embarrassment to you, try the Stealth Secret Sound Amplifier. It looks just like a cell phone ear adapter and works as a sound enhancer so you can join conversations and even hear soft voices from 50 feet away. Now you can enjoy the best of both worlds: a more youthful appearance and better hearing. Comes with charger (no batteries to replace) and three ear tips.

Is this a joke??? Maybe I'm biased, but I didn't realize that a hearing aid was thought of as an 'embarrassment'. Nor did I realize that having a giant bluetooth device hanging off your ear is considered 'cool' and 'youthful'. Especially when it has no actual bluetooth capabilities... Would people honestly walk around all day with one of these on just to avoid wearing a hearing aid??? Okay, so I can see how some cruel kids may one day make fun of my little boy for wearing hearing aids (like 4-eyes for glasses), but seriously, the man in this picture looks at least in his 60's. I'd think people would have grown out of that childish behavior by then. And besides, look at my handsome little man proudly sporting his hearing aids; I hope he never feels like he needs to hide them by using a product like this!

Pyramids

2010-02-04T19:19:00.001-08:00

Over the 1/2 hour drive home today, Jamison talked for the entire 30 minutes without stopping. The first 10 minutes were spent explaining to me that his gloves are blue and that the pink gloves and boots belong to Gianna. Apparently, I switched his and Gianna's backpacks this morning when I dropped them off. That's what happens when mommy brings them to school (usually Jay drops them off since their school is right next to his work). Oh well, I told him I learned my lesson.

In the next 20 minutes, I received the following information: Pyramids are very big. They are made from pieces that are put together to look like a mountain. Pyramids are brown. They are slippery. There are kings and treasures inside the pyramids. There is also one mommy that lives in the pyramid. The mommy has toilet paper all over. There are no letters in pyramids. And with that, at the age of 4, I'm pretty sure that Jamison has surpassed my entire knowledge of pyramids (I didn't know they were slippery). He's so cute! :)

Spring Fever

2010-02-01T20:26:00.000-08:00

I wish I could say lots of things about how good it is to be home, but in all honesty, I wish I could be back on my cruise for a little while longer. I did miss my kids like crazy though so I'm glad to be with them, but I think I would have preferred that they just join us on the ship. I'm thinking that having my kids on the ship would give me the incentive I need to want to be home again. Jay and I had a GREAT time though. I had originally thought to blog my whole vacation in detail, but I kind of already did that on my facebook album, so instead, I will just post a link to that: Facebook - Bahama Pictures

So, now what... my next scheduled holiday is Memorial Day. That sounds really far away. Actually, that IS really far away. And I'm getting Spring fever. If it would get warm, I'm thinking camping could be in our future. Last year we went to Lake Mead in March or April and the year before that was Zion's National Park. Once it gets warm we like to go up to the Mirror Lake area to escape the heat. We even enjoy camping at Willard Bay! But I'd love to try some new places this year. Maybe Yellowstone or something? I feel like there's a lot of places reasonably close by that would be fun. Bear Lake, Pineview, Flaming Gorge, etc. Anybody visited some campgrounds in those areas? I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions they've either tried or heard of. Where is your favorite place to camp? Is anybody else getting desperate for some nice weather to get out and enjoy? :)

Work Travel

2010-01-22T13:59:00.000-08:00

When I first found out that I would have to travel for work, I thought it sounded very exciting and fun. I also thought that meant that I must be pretty important for my work to send me clear across the country. Turns out I was COMPLETELY wrong!!!! Not on all accounts; depending on the weather and the people, I usually do have fun, especially when work also goes well. But the kind of excitement I tend to experience is not something I'd recommend to others. So my trip this time was to Barton, Alabama. Actually, my very first work trip was also to here and over the years, I've been there a lot. My first year working, I went there at least 10 times for almost 2 weeks each time, getting me Mediallian Status on Delta and Diamond VIP with Hilton Honors. So it's not really surprising that I have a lot of memories from there and each time I go (much like every place I go), I usually have a lot of thoughts that go something like "oh yeah, that's where I lost my wallet for 3 hours that one night". This trip was no exception and I even got to add to my list. So, here's the highlights of this particular trip.

Day 1: Flew through the Memphis, Tennessee airport which I have not ever done before. I got to use my new Kindle which I LOVE and I think I met Elvis. Twice. I also got to experience some terrible customer service from my rental car company.

Day 2: Went to the plant for work and then to dinner. I can't speak for all of Alabama, but if you've seen any movie exemplifying southern charm and hospitality (Sweet Home Alabama comes to mind), I can honestly say that Barton fits this mold. The people are so great here and I love the scenery. I met several people in the lobby of the hotel for dinner and then we left for the restaurant. When we got to the restaurant, I realized I had lost my purse at some point. Luckily, after calling the hotel, they found it in the lobby on the floor by one of the tables so I picked it up when we got back.

Day 3: Very busy at work as usual. I decided to go for an outdoor run which was fun. Running at low altitudes makes anybody feel like a better runner and the weather outside was beautiful and warm 60 degrees.

Day 4: Locked myself out of my hotel room, but I do that all the time.

Day 5: Yay, I get to come home!!! Or so I thought.... The day started well with lunch at the Rattlesnake Saloon. They don't let you drive in, instead they drive you (in the back of a pickup) down a STEEP hill to a restaurant built into a cave.

This poster was on the wall in the bathroom:

Well, after lunch, I headed for the airport where my flight was delayed. Grounded due to bad weather in Atlanta for 2 hours. After taking off, we flew the 40 minutes to Atlanta then circled the airport for another hour because of a tornado. It was crazy, I've never seen so many airplanes just circling around and around before. Hard to understand the problem since we were above the clouds and it was a perfectly clear night from our view. Then we were cleared for landing and I experienced 30 minutes of the most terrifying flight of my life. Several times I was sure the planes wings were going to snap off or that the wind would just take us down, but it turned out fine and we finally landed in Atlanta. My connecting flight had left 2 hours earlier and since it was already midnight, I was stuck there. Without my luggage of course. They gave me a 'discount' voucher for the Quality Airport Conference Hotel but when I went out to catch the shuttle, I stepped into the wrong one and instead ended up at the dumpiest hotel I've ever seen in an area that reminded me of Beck Street by Southern Exposure. The door to my room opened out to the street instead of a nice quiet hallway and there were 3 signs in my room suggesting that I use the chain latch and deadbolt lock in addition to the regular lock on the door. Very comforting.... 4 hours later, I woke up and rushed back to the airport to see if I could get a seat on the first flight out. Fortunately, I was able to get on the flight and finally made it home. Unfortunately, my luggage took a slightly different route to Salt Lake, so I had to spend 30 minutes trying to find it. When I got it, it was soaking wet... I think it must have spent a couple hours sitting in the rain or something.

Well, that's it for my trip. One of these times, I hopefully will experience a trip where I have absolutely nothing to say about it except maybe about the weather... this was not it. It's all good though, what else would inspire me to update my blog??? :)

Less than 2 days and I'll be back on a plane headed for Atlanta again for our cruise to the Bahamas. Let's hope it goes better than this one did!

Here we go again...

2010-01-15T15:52:00.001-08:00

It's days like today that completely amaze and baffle me at the same time. How can someone be so unlucky and lucky at the same time? How in the world do I get myself into these situations in the first place? And probably most importantly, why does it continue to surprise me?

Yesterday I picked my kids up from school. I got Jamison first. He was not wearing his hearing aids which isn't completely unusual. Sometimes after their 'naptime', he refuses to put them back in. So his teacher handed them to me and for a brief second the thought flashed through my mind "I should put these somewhere before I lose them." I'm pretty sure these small flashes of brilliance is God's way of warning me that I'm about to do something stupid. Once, before I threw away my rental car keys (never to be seen again), I remember thinking "Why would they give me two keys? I should take one off and put it in my laptop bag." Well, I didn't listen then and I sure didn't listen yesterday. I left Jamison's room holding his hearing aids and this is the last I remember seeing/thinking about them until last night. While I was in bed falling asleep, I remembered them and thought "hmmm.... where did I put them? They must be in my purse. I need to remember to get them out in the morning before I leave for work." Two things are wrong with this: 1) There's no way I'd remember that in the morning and 2) Of course they're not in my purse. I quit bringing my purse into school with me a long time ago so I don't lose it.

So, this morning I went to work early and of course forgot all about the hearing aids. Until Jay called to ask me for them. I checked my purse. They weren't there. I can't say I was surprised, I had no memory of putting them in there anyways. Jay checked the kids backpacks, but they weren't in there. I was a little worried, but then Jay let me know that one of his hearing aids was in his cubby at school. The other one was still missing. This is when I panicked because right then I realized that I had done the thing that I have spent hours lecturing Jamison not to do. I lost his hearing aids. I spent all day stressed and panicked (again not completely unusual for me). When I got to school, his teacher told me that a parent found the one hearing aid on the floor in the hallway right outside Gianna's classroom. Jamison and I walked up and down the hallway several times, but the other one wasn't there. I searched the parking lot, searched my car, searched Jamison's classroom, Gianna's classroom and any other open classrooom I could see, but no hearing aid. Finally, I reached down to put on Gianna's coat and had a sudden flash of memory of putting her coat on the day before. I was holding Jamison's coat, Jamison's backpack, a drawing of a caterpillar Jamison had made, Gianna's backpack, Gianna's coat, my car keys and Jamison's hearing aids. I now can remember feeling something fall out of my hands while I tried to get Gianna's coat on and now I know what that something was. Still one hearing aid short, I called Jay in my stressed out panic upset mode and of course he was completely calm as always while he told me that everything would be okay. I don't know how I got so lucky that I married someone who can handle these situations so well. I don't think I would react as calmly if he told me that he lost a couple hearing aids at about $1400 a pop...

An hour later, I'd searched the pockets of everything I owned, dumped out the entire contents of my purse and the kids backpacks, searched under the couch cushions (which are still on the floor in my living room), searched Jamison's room, called the school to ask them to leave a message for the cleaning crew and was about to give up when I FOUND IT!!!!! Inside Gianna's snowboot that had also been inside her backpack yesterday.... of course. I am so so relieved!!! Of course now I realize how fortunate I am that someone found the one on the floor before it got swept up into the garbage and also how lucky it was that I checked Gianna's boots before I ordered a new hearing aid for him. Really, I am just thankful God was looking out for me once again. I'd love to say this is a one time occurance, but who am I kidding? I'm leaving for the Bahamas in a week, who knows what kind of crap I can get myself into there......

7 Years!!!

2010-01-11T08:25:00.000-08:00

7 years!!! That actually sounds like a significant amount of time. And considering Jay and I dated for 3 years before we got married, I've now known him for 1/3 of my life. So, I looked back at my post from our 6 year anniversary and noticed 2 things:
1) I said that one day I would be spending my anniversary on a cruise. Well, it's not exactly on our anniversary, but 2 weeks from now, we will be on our first ever cruise!!!! To the Bahamas! I am really excited. It's been a LONG time since I've been on a vacation like that and going somewhere tropical during this crappy weather is EXACTLY what I had in mind when I chose January for our wedding date.
2) Last year I answered the question I get asked the most, 'How did Jay and I meet?'. I also said that this year I'd answer the question 'How does Jay put up with me?'. Well, when I said that, I thought I was joking. Either that, or I'd have a whole year to come up with a brilliant romantic answer. Turns out neither of those is true.

So, anyone who knows me knows that I spend a lot of time stressed out. I would say that several times per week I lose something that is usually kind of important to me. My purse, my wallet, my keys, my phone, etc. Let me tell you, that's not fun. I'm also a bit forgetful and I get sidetracked VERY easily. When I first moved out to Minnesota, Jay came out to help me drive me and all my stuff out there. This was only our 4th time seeing each other and the morning we were supposed to leave, I discovered I lost my wallet. We searched for it. A lot. For a very long time. My car was packed (and at one point even running ready to go). Several hours later, we found it wedged between my door and the driver side seat (and we'd searched the car many times by this point). This was just the start of Jay having to deal with the chaos that somehow just seems to follow me. I can't tell you how many times I've called Jay in an absolute panic because I've lost my wallet (both at home and while traveling), lost my rental car keys, my suitcase, and many other things. Jay has learned that he should not be surprised when cops stop by our house to return my purse that they found in a park or if I call and tell him I'm on my way home but then take 2 hours to get there. In Minnesota I even lost my car keys in the snow outside his apartment in November and found them again in March when the snow melted! They were rusted... So, just how and why does he put up with me??? Well, to be honest, the only thing I can think of is that for 6 months we dated long distance. Either I didn't waste my time talking to him about the various things I had misplaced, or because he was so far away, it probably didn't have the same effect. By the time he learned all these things about me, it was too late and he was already 'hooked'. :)

Happy Anniversary Jay!!!! I love you and am so glad you 'put up with me' for 7 years now! :)

Oh, almost forgot... K for next year... 'Why do I put up with him?'

Well, that's different...

2009-05-01T23:18:00.000-07:00

I'm out of town for work right now. I've travelled quite a bit over the last 5 years that I've worked at Boxworks, and the majority of the time I stay at Hilton/Hampton Hotels so I can get points for it. And yes, each hotel is a little different, but they usually have a lot of things in common. However, when I checked into my hotel here in Appleton, Wisconsin, this was in my bathroom:

A closer look:

Instead of the little bar of soap I usually find on my bathtub, there was a little rubber ducky. Why??? This is a hotel that advertises itself as being great for business travellers... Business travellers usually do not travel with small children. I really miss my kids and am not happy to be away from them, especially for 9 days. But, I really think that if there is a silver lining to being away from them, I would have thought it would be that I would not have to move a single toy before going to bed, sitting on a chair, or taking a shower. I was wrong..... I suppose the rubber ducky is a nice touch.

I guess it's been quite a while since I last updated my blog. I think I can sum up the last 3 months pretty well though in one word: sick. My poor little Gianna has been sick non-stop for months now. She had 4 ear infections in a 2 month period so we ended up having to get the tube surgery done on her. About 2 weeks later, she had her 5th ear infection...

Jamison is still enjoying preschool. Right before we left, he started soccer. I'm not sure if he likes it yet, but he really looks cute in his little shin guards and soccer cleats. I hope no serious injuries come out of it... he is by far the klutziest little boy I know.

Jay has convinced me to sign up for the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay this year. He ran it last year and had a great time and my friend, Kari, is organizing a team again this year so we're signed up. In case you don't know, the Wasatch back is a 180 mile run from Logan to Park City. We are on a team with 12 people, so we'll all end up running between 13-18 miles divided into 3 legs. I'm a little nervous about it, but hopefully it will be fun. I've got a lot of work to do to be able to do it though! Jay is already ready for it and very excited. He just ran the Salt Lake 1/2 Marathon a couple weeks ago and did AWESOME!!!!! He ran it in 1 hour 51 minutes which is like an 8 1/2 minute mile over 13 miles! I am so very proud of him. AND, two contestents from this season's Biggest Loser also ran the 1/2 marathon (the black team, Blaine and Dane if anybody is watching) here in Salt Lake. I tried to catch a glimpse of them to see how they're doing, but I didn't see them. I guess they weren't wearing their Biggest Loser shirts... :)

Pictures and stuff

2009-02-27T03:10:00.000-08:00

I have finally put a LOT of pictures up. I even put up our Christmas pictures even though it is almost March. I'm a little behind (we also have yet to take our Christmas lights down!). Right now I'm in upstate New York for work and I miss my little Gianna, Jamison and Jay so much. But I get to go home TODAY and I can't wait. :)

Since it's been awhile since I've posted about the kids, I thought I'd update on how they're both doing.

Gianna is really close to crawling. Actually, for all I know, she may be crawling... I haven't seen her since Monday! But last I saw, she gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth. She also tries to crawl and ends up pushing herself backwards instead. This makes her very angry and she usually starts to cry at this point. For the last couple months, she's been going to the daycare that Jamison went to as a baby. She does pretty well there, but I can tell she misses the attention she used to get when she stayed home with me or Staci (who used to be our nanny). And of course, pretty much as soon as she started daycare she also started getting sick. She's had horrible colds for the last 2 months and has had 2 sets of ear infections. She's been on some sort of medication almost non-stop and has just in general been miserable. I really can't wait until the weather gets a little better and hopefully she can get better. I feel so bad for her! Other than that though, she's doing well. She loves to dance to every kind of music she hears and she absolutely loves Jamison. On the days she's been really sick, he's the only one who can make her smile.

Which brings me to Jamison. Lately, he seems to think that it is part of his job to entertain Gianna. He talks to her, plays with her, makes faces at her, and if she cries, he immediately runs to her and tries to make her happy. And it usually works too. He really gets down on her level which means that he will lay down and put his face right next to hers and scream. She then laughs and screams back. They repeat this a few dozen times. It's quite loud but they both love it. Jamison has switched schools now and is doing incredibly well. I was a bit worried about switching him since he has grown very fond of riding the bus and really liked his teachers and all 'the friends' (those are his words). But logistically, it just didn't work out so we now have him at a school by Jay's work. He LOVES it! Every day, Jay takes him to school and Jamison tells him that he has to go do his 'work' now. He's learning a lot and his teachers love him there. Jamison has also finally learned the meaning of the word 'why'. That's fun. Actually it is pretty cute and conversations with him are hilarious most of the time.

K, that's all for now, but if anybody is bored, check out all their new pictures in the 'Picures' section. I added 4 new folders starting with the 12/11/2008 one.

6 Years!

2009-01-11T14:17:00.000-08:00

Today is mine and Jay's 6 year anniversary! :) There were a few reasons that I chose January 11th for our wedding date, but one of those reasons was that I thought it would be fun to have a winter wedding with some beautiful pictures in the snow. I even had a gorgeous fur-lined cape to wear over my wedding dress for some outdoor pictures. But January 11th, 2003 turned out to be an overcast day with absolutely NO snow on the ground. But there was plenty of haze around so along with the snow missing from my pictures, the mountains are also missing. Regardless, my wedding day was one of the best days of my life. There's very little I would change about that day and I have no regrets. Well... maybe we wouldn't have stayed in the same hotel on our wedding night as Jay's entire family. It also was a little wierd flying out on our honeymoon at the same time and one gate over from Jay's family who were flying home. But other than that, it was great. I still like to watch my wedding video from time to time and I still enjoy looking at my wedding pictures. Probably because I had a LOT of work done that morning to be to get me to look like that and I'm not sure I'll ever look that good again. One of the other reasons I thought a winter wedding would be nice was that I thought it would be a great excuse to celebrate our anniversary in some sort of warm tropical place. I imagined that every year would be spent in Hawaii, Cancun, on a Carribbean cruise or somewhere else where we could escape the cold weather. But, as it turns out, we haven't even made it as far south as St. George to celebrate our anniversary. And many of the years, one or both of us have ended up sick (as we both are now with colds). Oh well, one day in the future, I'll be on a cruise for our anniversary... although at this point it's looking more like it's going to be a Disney Cruise, but that's okay, I'll take what I can get!

Anyways, I'm sure I could spend a lot of time reminiscing about my wedding or listing the reasons that I'm so happy I married Jay, but I'm not going to. I will, however, answer the #1 question I'm asked about mine and Jay's relationship... How did we meet? I get asked this ALL the time which is wierd because I rarely ask that question to anyone else. Maybe I'm just a little too self-involved or something? Or maybe people ask me because they know Jay's not a Utah-native like myself. Well, to answer anyone's question, we met at a wedding in Minnesota. Actually, we were kind of set up. My mom is from Minnesota so I have family out there. I went out there for my cousin, Emily's wedding. My other cousin, Carolyn, was dating Jay's best friend Chaz. She spent quite a bit of time talking Jay up and telling me that we really should meet. I could only imagine that they said similar things to Jay so when we actually got introduced at Emily's rehearsal, it was a little awkward. I had just started dating someone here at the time, so I really wasn't interested, but as soon as we were introduced, it was love at first sight..... Okay, so that's not true at all. It was awkward being introduced to someone who I thought might be interested in me since I knew I was not interested in him, but Jay shook my hand and promptly ignored me for the rest of the night. It even seemed like he made a special effort to not sit by me at the rehearsal dinner. Despite my attempts at flirting, it appeared that my worries about having to 'let him down gently' were all for nothing. So I tried harder. And we've been together ever since. :)

So, for anyone who is reading this (still) and is married, please comment and let me know how you all met your spouses. And Jay, if you read this, HAPPY 6 YEAR ANNIVERSARY!!! Next year, I'll answer the 2nd most asked question of me and Jay: How does he put up with me? :)

What's in the water lately?

2009-01-10T19:41:00.001-08:00

I just got back from my cousins baby shower today. She's having twins. One day in the not so far future she is going to go from no babies to being outnumbered by babies. It makes me tired to think about it, yet I kind of admit I'm a little jealous that in 3 years, her boys will be playing trains with EACH OTHER. And it's not that I don't enjoy playing trains... it can be pretty fun (especially when Jamison is in a chatty mood), but Jamison wants to play trains 24 hours a day. And I don't even get to play with a train. While Jamison has about 15 Thomas characters connected in one looooong train, instead I am given the role of the truck. The truck drives up to the train track and stops and waits for the train to drive by. The truck then is instructed to shout out in excitement ('Look, a train!') and then properly say goodbye to the train when it has passed. Then the truck drives in a circle and stops again to wait for the train to come by. Over and over and over and over again we do this. For hours. And I SWEAR that I was given a book that states very clearly that a 3-year old has less than a 10 minute attention span. Due to Jamison being the only child in my family and friends (well, in this timezone at least), a playmate has not been an option. But FINALLY and slowly, babies started coming. Starting with my cousin's baby Jaxon, then my own Gianna. And now it seems as though the entire world is pregnant! I feel like every time I see someone, I'm constantly trying to remember when they are due, trying to calculate how far along they are, and thinking about whether I know if they are having a boy or a girl. Let me just recap here:

50% of the women I work with are pregnant
67% of the female cousins on my dad's side are pregnant
Of the 7 (well, 7 that I know of) pregnant women at the baby shower today, 71% of them have names that start with the letter 'M'
Of these same 7 people, 58% tried for well over a year (some for several years) to get pregnant and then they ALL got pregnant at the same time!
100% of all the people I know named Mindy are pregnant
Less than 10% of the pregnant women I know are having girls (although not everyone knows yet what they are having)

Crazy. It's like something happened to the water here in Utah or something. And I know 11 currently pregnant women that I talk to or associate with somewhat regularly right now. That's a lot of hormones to watch out for. Fortunately, none of them seem to be as crazy emotional as I got, especially with my first pregnancy. I think I was a little nuts. Oh, and mean. I didn't want to be mean, but I honestly believed that with each passing day of my pregnancy that people just got stupider. And I just wasn't in the mood to deal with stupid people. Well, needless to say, I am absolutely THRILLED about the fact that there are so many babies being expected this coming year. I'm excited to be an aunt for the first time (well, sort of, I did marry into being an aunt). And I'm very happy for all of you out there who are currently expecting. Congratulations to all of you!

*** Disclaimer: I would just like to state for the record that I am NOT one of these pregnant people, nor do I plan on becoming one of these pregnant people anytime in the future. ***

Jamison & Gianna

2008-12-31T15:02:00.001-08:00

I know that I haven't updated in quite some time. I do have tons of new pictures from Christmas to post, but I'll do that later. We did have a great Christmas though and both Gianna and Jamison are doing well. Can you believe Gianna's almost 7 months now??? Anyways, here is a video of my little people. Gianna got a little dog that makes music and she's learning to dance (while being interrupted from Jamison). They are so cute!

This is my first attempt at a video so hopefully it worked!

Hello.

2008-11-08T08:49:00.001-08:00

Okay, I know that I was really bad this month with updating, but as it turns out, sometimes my life just isn't all that interesting... :) However, I do have more pictures to update. Both Jamison and Gianna are doing well. Gianna is really getting big. Sometimes she looks like a little girl more than a 5 month old baby. Must be all the hair... :)

She is actually sitting up on her own, although she tips over easily. Strangely, she doesn't care much for rolling over, but she can sit. I feel like she's close to getting a tooth. She bites on everything and drools quite a bit sometimes.

She also experienced her very first Presidential Election (and at the same time, her first snow storm) and even got to participate in the voting process. The voting people thought she deserved her very own 'I voted' sticker.

Jamison is still enjoying school. He's learning so much and his teacher, Miss Catherine, is just great! She's been helping with his speech and Jamison can now make 'y', 'k' and 'g' sounds which have been missing from his little vocabulary. Interestingly enough, he still has his old habits so all familiar words are still missing these sounds (for example he says lellow instead of yellow), but for new words, he is learning them correctly. He also got new hearing aids since somehow his old ones broke and were not helping him too much so we sent them in for repair and ended up with brand new ones. He seems to like these better and even tries to put them on himself sometimes.

And also, my kids have a new cousin! My sister-in-law Tracy had baby Alayna Rose on 10/21/2008 weighing in at an impressive 8 lbs, 12 oz. and 21 1/2". Congratulations Tracy!!!! Isn't she cute???

If you want to check out all the pictures I've added, click on the 'Pictures' section. :)

Another post already...

2008-09-28T14:01:00.000-07:00

Look at this, two posts within just a few short days of each other. :)

Saturday morning, we ran in a 5K up at the University of Utah. My cousin, Jasmine, won the event for the girls with an amazing 19:29 time. 2 weeks ago, Jay and I started jogging again by running a 5K on the new Legacy highway before it opened. I did not do too well (35:14) so I was very happy with my time of 27:44 at this 5K. It was a lot of fun... even the half mile straight uphill. The best part was that Jamison took part in this event by running the kids 1K. He was so excited. About a quarter mile into it though, he made me carry him while he yelled "run mommy run!". He did run again though at the end so he was able to cross the finish line. All the kids got a medal so he's pretty proud of himself for "winning". :)

^ - This picture makes it look like I'm ahead of everyone... It's not really true, but I still like it!

Also on Saturday, we took Jamison to see the circus at the Delta Center (excuse me, Energy Solutions Arena). He has such a good time, although for almost the first half he sat on my lap with my arms securely around him. He just wasn't quite sure what to make of the whole thing at first. But we gave him some pizza and he loosened up a bit and really got into it. It was fun to see him enjoying himself so much, but after we left, he showed the same amount of enthusiasm when he got to see a TRAX train drive by so I guess we don't really need to go to such great lengths to entertain him.

And as of today, Jay officially has Sunday's off again so he's able to attend church with us. He's been working Sunday's for the last several months so I'm pretty excited that he gets to go with us again. And what better day for him to be able to go to church since today Jay and I participated in the Dedication of Jamison and Gianna to to the Lord. In case you don't know what that means, it is an act that symbolizes our committment to raise Jamison and Gianna in a way that honors God. We never got the opportunity to do this with Jamison when he was a baby, but that's okay because this way we got to dedicate both of them together. :)

If you have time, I did post more pictures in the 'Pictures' section again.

Lots of updates

2008-09-26T18:12:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's really been awhile since I last updated. We've been so busy in the last month. Gianna is getting so big; she's almost 4 months now and she still is such an easy baby. Her hair is getting longer all the time! I've posted a lot of pictures in the 'Pictures' section.

I'm back to work now. So far just 3 days a week which is nice. I started back about a month ago and have already gone out of town. Fortunately, I just went to Flagstaff, Arizona so I was able to drag the whole family along with me! :) For child care, we have hired a nanny to come and take care of Jamison and Gianna on Monday's and Wednesday's. Her name is Staci and she is GREAT! Jamison absolutely loves her and tells me all about the fun they have. I'm so grateful to have her. She has a 8 month old little boy who comes along and he is such a little cutie. I think him and Gianna could end up being friends when they get old enough to notice other people in their little worlds. So far, it's all going pretty well. Since I'm still nursing Gianna, it does always cause a bit of a logistical situation sometimes, but my work has been pretty good about it (mostly because I keep them out of the loop..... it's for their own good!).

Jamison has started preschool! It is so so cute! He goes 4 days a week from about 8:30 - 1:30 and he loves it. His backpack is almost as big as he is, but he wears it proudly. He also is a very big boy and rides the bus to school. He really enjoys taking the bus. It's extremely convenient for us too since it comes right to our door to pick him up and drop him off. Since his school is about 20 minutes away, it's nice not to have to worry about transportation. It's a little wierd sometimes being home when he's not, but I love having some one on one time with Gianna so it all works out. Everyone keeps asking me if I cried the first time he went to school, but the answer is no. Maybe it's insensitive, but I've been dropping Jamison off at daycare since he was 12 weeks old so I'm pretty used to it. He's doing well with it though and seems to like his teachers and seems to like being in the 'preschool' environment again.

Well, that's probably enough for today. I promise not to let such a long time go before updating again. :)

Happy Birthday Jamison!!!

2008-08-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

My little boy has turned 3 years old today! I can't believe I already have a 3 year old. It honestly doesn't seem like it's been that long since I had him. And the interesting thing is that in my mind, I feel that he's done most of his growing up in the last 3 months. It wasn't until Gianna was born that I realized that Jamison isn't a baby anymore. Actually, until Gianna was born, I was still calling Jamison "Baby Butt", his nickname since he was a couple weeks old. But putting him next to a newborn really makes it obvious that he's a little boy now. Not even a toddler, but an actual little person. So, in honor of Jamison's birthday, I'd like to tell everyone (and by everyone, I mean the 2 people who read my blog!) about how lucky Jay and I are to have been blessed with Jamison. He is such a great little boy and such a cutie and we love him so much.

So, here's just a few interesting things about Jamison:

1) He is a terrible eater. Unfortunately, he seems to take after his mommy (and therefore Mickele) with his eating habits. From the very beginning, he has been picky. I nursed him for the first year of his life and for the first 4 months, I learned the true meaning of torture. Now, he enjoys mac & cheese (with pepper), hot dogs and pizza. He does not eat anything green. He does not like anything even remotely healthy. And, he does not like chicken nuggets. I thought ALL 3 year-olds liked chicken nuggets...

2) He's a good sleeper. This took a year of being up several times during the night, but finally at the age of 1, he turned into a good sleeper. IF I get him to bed on time, he'll sleep for about 10-11 hours a night and then take a 2 (or more) hour nap during the day. As someone who really values sleep, I appreciate this.

3) He was potty trained by the time he was 2. Okay, maybe not fully trained, but he was well on his way. We got extremely lucky with this since I've seen so many parents struggle with potty-training and I've heard that boys can be especially hard to train. I can honestly say that not counting Gianna, I have not changed a poopy diaper in at least 9 months. And, even though he no longer wears pull-ups or diapers to bed, I have not had to change the sheets on his bed yet due to a potty accident. And he's STILL pretty proud of his accomplishments. For example, today I received a call from one of our customer's from work and while I was discussing next week's software install with him, Jamison yelled proudly from the bathroom "mommy, I went poo poo and pee pee!". He's very professional.

4) He wears hearing aids. Due to being born with a hearing loss, Jamison was fitted with hearing aids at 3 months old. At 6 months old, he learned how to take them out, tear them apart and chew on the little tiny plastic pieces (including batteries). They've sometimes been a struggle... Anyone who's been around a 2-year old probably knows how hard it is to hand over a $2500 item and hope they don't lose it! :) But he's done very well with them so far.

5) He LOVES Thomas. And his friends. He sings Thomas songs all day long. Thomas is the first thing he talks about in the morning and the last thing he sings about at night. And since Thomas is a choo choo train (for anyone who doesn't know), he also loves trains. We took Jamison to Lagoon for his birthday and we went on the train ride over and over and over and over.... And when we get stopped by trains in the car, he cheers and then thanks them when they pass by. He really really likes Thomas.

6) He also loves bathtime and has since he was a baby. He really likes to splash and if he can get mommy or daddy wet in the process, all the better. He's had to take full tubs since the day he was born because he has a full head of hair to wash. That's another thing: he had more hair when he was born than ANY baby I've ever seen. Gianna's a close second though.....

7) He is incredibly sweet. He loves giving hugs and will hug just about anybody. And he also has two different levels: big hugs and little hugs. He gets very concerned if anybody is upset or sad. Even if Kody seems a little bothered, he'll ask him "Kody, are you okay?". Or he's constantly asking the cats "Kitty, why are you crying?".

8) He loves to help. He follows me around with his kid-sized Dyson while I vacuum. He follows Jay around with his own mower while he mows the lawn. He loves to sort and do laundry. He feeds Kody and the cats. He helps give Gianna baths and change her diaper. He can work all of our appliances, including the dishwasher and microwave. And he loves using the paper shredder, even for important papers that we'd really like to keep around.

9) He's a GREAT older brother. He loves Gianna and is so sweet with her. He'll come get me if she gets sad. If she cries, he'll lay down next to her and comfort her by patting her and saying "It's okay Gianna, Jamison's got you". He retrieves endless supplies for me (blankets, diapers, etc) when I need them. And he is so incredibly patient with me and her despite all the time she requires right now for feeding, etc.

10) He's funny. He also provides ample amounts of entertainment value. Especially in the last 6 months when his ability to speak just took him to whole new levels of humorous fun for us. He does and says so many funny things, I feel like I'm always laughing. Some of the things he comes up with are just so cute. Like when he's supposed to have dinner, but tries to negotiate ("Mommy, first candy then dinner, K?"). I love it!

So, sorry for the ultra-long post but HAPPY 3RD BIRTHDAY JAMISON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was THAT kind of mom

2008-08-24T13:46:00.000-07:00

I think everyone knows someone like this. Someone who feels they have a concussion every time they bump their head. Or that every cold must be the start of pneumonia. And that every scrape probably requires stitches. Well, this week, I had the opportunity to participate in my own hypochondriac episode when Gianna was unfortunate enough to get stung twice. First I'll explain what happened, and then I'll explain how it happened in my own mind:

Jay had her outside while playing with Jamison and since it seems this year that our house has been quite the cozy living quarters for every wasp along the Wasatch Front, somehow Jay got stung once and Gianna ended up getting stung twice all at the same time. Whether it was a swarm or the same bee (don't they only sting once?), I don't know, but Jay didn't even get to see what happened. All of a sudden Gianna started screaming her head off. Jay brought her inside and stripped her down trying to find if she was stung since he felt like he was and there were two stings on her arm. Her arm was bright red and her arm was swollen around where the stings were. I called the pediatrician who said we needed to watch for difficulty breathing and abnormal swelling. She wore herself out completely from all the crying and fell asleep. Since I was unconvinced that we could monitor her breathing appropriately in her sleeping state, I tried to wake her up, but she was not having any of that. Despite Jay's assurance that all was well, I made us take Gianna in to InstaCare where they could reassure me that she was all right. By the time we arrived, she was peacefully sleeping in her car seat while they checked us in. When we went back into the exam room, she woke up and cheerfully kicked around and smiled at Jamison who was trying to talk to her. The doctor came in to this happy scene and when we tried to show him the stings on her arm, the swelling was completely gone, as was the bright redness of her arm and it looked like we were looking at two very small dots on her arm. Needless to say, I felt a little dumb and Jay has been mocking me ever since.

Now, for how the scene played out in my mind:

I was working downstairs on the computer when I suddenly heard murderous screams coming from my baby girl. I ran upstairs only slightly panicked and found Jay examining her. When he turned her over, we saw two HUGE stings that had completely swelled up her arm turning it bright red. I quickly called the pediatrician who told me that stings can be deadly when you don't know if they are allergic and that I needed to monitor her closely for difficulty breathing abnormal swelling which I took to mean signs of a deadly allergic reaction. Shortly after this, Gianna abruptly stops crying and her eyes roll back and she's out cold. Clearly this means she can't breathe and is probably unconscious so I rush to wake her up but she is so weak, she is unable to keep her eyes open or stay awake. I feel the only solution is probably to rush her to the Emergency Room, but my insensitive husband feels that she's just tired. As a compromise, he agrees to take her to InstaCare. We rush to the van and speed away at 30 mph towards the doctor. However, interestingly enough, by the time we get there, she has made a miraculous recovery and is pretty happy about her little world...

So, I'm hoping that this incident was a one-time thing and I can see future events much more clearly. :)

And for all of you waiting for pictures (yes I KNOW this was another post without pictures), I am working on them as we speak and they should be up soon!

***EDIT***
K, for all those who need pictures, I've added a bunch of pictures to my main site: www.jayandjaneal.com. Click on Pictures!

And we're back.

2008-08-12T13:21:00.000-07:00

Well, I keep meaning to update, but for some reason I have been really lazy about getting the pictures off my camera and getting them posted, so I guess you will have to deal with just reading without pictures.... I promise to get them up soon.

So, we're back from our trip. It was a lot of fun and it was so great to see Jay's family. Jamison loved playing with his cousins and he's still talking about them all the time. Well, them and the water slide.... he REALLY liked the water slide. We had to sit on a mat together and go down it and he screamed with joy the entire way down. We must have gone down like 30 times, he liked it that much. Jay took him down once and injured himself...

The drive was pretty long though. We went slow anticipating that it might be tough with 2 kids and a dog and we were right. Although it did go much better than I thought. The hardest part was planning meals and stops and stuff since we couldn't all go in anywhere at once since we had Kody with us. Oh and our AC kept going out in the Durango which I really didn't like, but we figured out how to fix it (open and then slam hood) so it was better after that. Interestingly enough, we went all the way to the Mount Rushmore KOA but never did see Mount Rushmore. It was incredibly hot outside and I hated taking Gianna out in that heat for longer than a few minutes. And we ended up not being able to leave Kody alone so that made sightseeing a bit more difficult. We actually put Kody in his kennel inside the nice air-conditioned trailer while we all went swimming and Kody just freaked out. He has some separation anxiety when it comes to me and we knew this, but I had no idea it was this bad. He just panicked or something and decided that nothing was more important than coming to find me. If you've ever heard about wild animals chewing off their own limbs to escape traps, this is kind of what we were dealing with (don't worry, Kody's fine). We came back to the trailer to find the inside of the trailer looking close to a horrible murder scene. Fortunately, Kody was unable to escape, however the all metal dog kennel we just bought did not make it through so well. We were gone 1 hour..... Anyways, other than our crazy dog, it was a lot of fun. We learned a new game called Farkel and Jay is actually good at it. He's not so good at most card (or other) games so I think he liked it. On the trip home, we ended up skipping a day of travel because the kids were doing so well with the car ride and I really missed my own bed and shower.

Okay, I think this is probably enough to read right now with no pictures so I'll stop here and update some more later when I get some pictures. : )

*** EDIT ***
So I just re-read this post and realized that it MAY seem like I might be implying that anyone who might read my blog is unable to read anything above a picture-book level. So, if anyone was offended, I'm sorry, I really didn't mean for it to sound like that. I know it's only Jay who needs pictures in order to read! : ) (Just kidding Jay!!!)

Just a quick update

2008-07-22T17:47:00.000-07:00

I just thought I'd mention that I did post some more pictures in the Pictures section last week. There's like 75 new pictures and after posting them, I did realize that they are almost all the same with a few outfit changes here and there so I apologize. But you should consider yourself lucky, I narrowed it down from the 370 that were on my camera. 370 pictures since July 3rd... That's a lot of pictures.

Things are going well, my time at home with Gianna and Jamison is going by way too fast. Gianna's already smiling and holding her head up pretty well. And I swear she's so close to laughing. Sometimes she'll get so excited when she smiles that she makes noise, but it's not exactly a laugh. And last night was wonderful. She slept from 10:00pm till about 6:00am. I don't expect it to continue, but I'll take that schedule anytime!

Well, on Friday we are attempting a road trip. We are taking Jamison and Gianna and Kody camping to the Black Hills in South Dakota. We're meeting Jay's family there and they haven't seen Gianna yet and it's been awhile since we've seen them so we're really excited. I've heard a lot of people tell me that we're crazy to go camping with a newborn, but I think it will be all right. It's not like we're really going to be 'roughing it'. We're staying at a KOA and we'll have our trailer so I think it will work out. I am a little worried about the drive though. I'm thinking Gianna will sleep most of the time, but Jamison's a little impatient when it comes to sitting in one place (especially strapped in) for extended periods of time. We'll be sure to pack lots of Thomas movies.

Hey, if anybody has had a little girl, what in the world am I supposed to do with Gianna's hair??? It's getting pretty long but it's all different lengths all over her head and I'm worried it's going to start looking a little mulletish if I don't do something about it. But I want to grow it out long so I don't really want to cut it. Any ideas?

1 month old

2008-07-04T12:50:00.000-07:00

I can't believe a whole month has gone by since I had Gianna. It seems like I was in the hospital just a few days ago. And I definitely remember feeling pregnant like it was just yesterday! It's gone by so fast. And yet, even though it's been a whole month, we STILL are struggling with nursing. Oh well, it is going a bit better than it was so I'm happy about that. I've LOVED being home with Jamison and Gianna even though it's been a bit overwhelming sometimes (okay, most times...). I posted some more pictures up in my pictures section in case anyone's interested. :)

So, about once a week, Jay and Jamison have a little debate/argument about a picture we have in the kitchen:

Jamison is convinced that anything that is a partial circle is a moon so he thinks this is a picture of the moon. Jay thinks it is the sun. Jamison tells Jay every time "No Daddy, that's the moon". When daddy disagrees and says it's the sun, Jamison will get me and say "Mommy, tell Daddy that's the moon". I tell Jay that it is the moon, and when Jay still says it's the sun, Jamison says "Mommy, try again". We do this at least once a week. Well, a few days ago, I was unavailable to set Jay straight about the picture being the moon, so when Jay told Jamison it was the sun, Jamison said "No Daddy, I'll be back". He then went upstairs and retrieved a book from his bookcase (where we only keep the latest in educational literature of course):

He then opened the book to this page:

Then he told Jay, "Daddy, THIS is the sun. That (pointing to the first picture), is the moon." I think he proved his point. I mean, he did cite references. Jay, a college graduate, had no such references. Isn't he cute??? :)

More pictures :)

2008-06-26T12:42:00.000-07:00

Here's some more pictures of little Gianna and Jamison. I finally got a picture of her and her daddy. And of her and Jamison together. He is such a good big brother. Gianna had her 2 week checkup last week and it went well. She had gained a full pound since her birth which doesn't surprise me by how often she likes to eat. The whole nursing thing is still not going as well as I'd hoped. It still is incredibly painful and due to the trouble we're having, she doesn't eat enough at each feeding which makes her want to eat again every hour and a half about. It's exhausting! Poor Jamison is really being a good boy despite the lack of attention he's been getting. He's been mostly potty trained for about 8 months now, but we haven't been able to work with him on naps or night-time yet. But I'm happy to say that for the last 3 weeks, he has not had a single accident during nap time and he's not even wearing a pull-up anymore. And he's also waking up dry in the morning a lot of the time now. I'm not brave enough to leave him in underwear overnight, but I think we're definately moving in the right direction. And he no longer needs my help at all with the process which is good since he usually has to go as soon as I start to feed Gianna. We are very proud of him. And Gianna is making progress too. She now smiles at us on purpose! :) I can't get her to do it enough to get a picture yet, but I'll keep trying. K, I think she's ready to eat again so I'm off. Enjoy the pictures! :)

Jamison got a little tired and fell asleep... :)

2 weeks old (almost)

2008-06-14T12:53:00.000-07:00

I've posted some more pictures of Gianna and Jamison in the pictures section. I still need to get some pictures of them together though; for some reason we haven't gotten any of the two of them. Jamison is doing so well with adjusting to the new baby though. He tries to be so helpful. When I sit down to nurse Gianna, he picks up my feet, puts them on the chair, gets my boppy pillow and a bottled water. If Gianna cries, he pets her arm and says "It's okay Gianna". He constantly keeps me updated on her status (either "Gianna's night night", "Gianna's uppy", or "Gianna's sad"). And then the rest of his time is usually spent singing. For whatever reason, he has suddenly become an avid singer. Most of the time we can't understand the words, but I have caught Jackie, Bheg (which is Greg, his uncle) and Nanna's house (Grandma's house). He is such a cutie!!! Gianna still spends most of her time eating and sleeping.... usually both at the same time. Taking care of her is pretty painful right now and I'm really hoping that the pain goes away soon. It would be nice if she could eat a little more quickly since it takes about an hour to feed her with about 45 minutes in between feedings right now. Poor Jamison has been watching a lot of Thomas & Friends.

Well, here's a couple of pictures, but there's more in the Pictures section:

Can you tell the difference?

2008-06-14T12:30:00.001-07:00

It turns out that Gianna and Jamison looked a LOT alike when Jamison was this age. Can you tell which one is which in these pictures?

1)

2)

A week late...

2008-06-10T12:48:00.000-07:00

I'm glad Jay finally decided to update our blog for the first time because Gianna's already a week old and I haven't even posted about her yet. I would like to have words for all those people out there who told me the second is easier than the first. That is NOT TRUE!!! There are TWO of them! If I could take them one on one, then yes, she is easier than my first was, but since Jay deserted me and went back to work today, I have to take care of both of them at the same time and it is scary! Now, that being said, I do happen to have them both asleep right now! I am very proud of myself despite the fact that Gianna spends most of the day sleeping. And despite the fact that Jamison got Oreo's for breakfast since I was busy nursing for an hour and he was hungry... Hopefully I'll get better!

So, about Gianna. After last Friday when I had made no progress at my last doctor's appt, me, my sister, my mom, Jay and Jamison went to Viewmont High School and walked about 2.5 miles around the track. I also sprinted up the bleachers about 20 times (Jasmine would have been so proud!). Then, Saturday morning, Jay and I took Kody and Jamison to the off leash park and did about a mile walk. And then on Sunday, I got a foot massage from my mom (it was online so it had to be valid, right?). I'm not sure if any or all of these things contributed, but Sunday night, I woke up having very painful contractions. They were about 20 minutes apart though so I knew I still had time, but I was getting so excited, despite the fact that they were keeping me awake the entire night. When it was finally time for me to get up and get ready for work, I was thinking 'yay, no work for me today!!!'. But I took a bath and the contractions stopped. I was so disappointed that I apparently experienced 'false labor'. So, I ended up just going to work. Right after I got there though, the contractions started back up again, but they were completely random. Like once every 7 minutes, then 20, then 15, then 35, then 9, etc... I of course did what anyone would do and googled labor and read that the difference between false labor and real labor is that false labor is very irregular and true labor is like clockwork. So, I figured I was in false labor again. I ended up calling the doctor from work because I was in so much pain and the nurse told me that it sounds like false labor but I should go home and drink a lot of water and take a bath to get the contractions to stop. So I left work about 4pm (I realize I should have just left work MUCH earlier, but I really didn't want to leave work for labor and then end up coming back again the next day because it wasn't really labor). I went home, got in the bathtub and drank a bottle of water. And instantly, my contractions were 3-4 minutes apart. Luckily my mom showed up about that time to help me take care of Jamison and instead we immediately left for the hospital. I called Jay and told him to meet us there. We got there at 7 and they put me in triage to see if in fact I really was in labor. She checked and I was dialated to a 7+!!! I was shocked! I am such a wuss; I never would have thought I could make it to a 7 all by myself. I had to get my epidural when I was a 3 with Jamison! Then they gave me the news that I probably couldn't get an epidural because the anethesiologist had just stepped into a C-section and I was going to quickly to get one. I panicked and apparently the nurse took pity on me so she pulled some strings and basically got me all prepped and then had the doctor run from the C-section, give me an epidural and then run right back to the C-section. Unfortunately, he could not do this till almost 8:30 so until then I was in quite a bit of pain. Jay said I hit him. And yelled. By the time I got my epidural, I was dialated to an 8+. 10 minutes later, they told me to push and 10 minutes after that Gianna Grace was born at 9:05pm. I didn't feel a thing after I got my epidural and I am eternally grateful to both the nurse and the doctor for making sure I could get it.

Anyways, that's my story for anybody who's interested. Time to feed Gianna yet again... :)

The New Arrival

2008-06-03T09:22:00.000-07:00

She's here! Gianna Grace LaVanway was born on June 2nd at 9:05 pm, weighing 7 lbs 11 oz and measuring 20.5 inches. The hospital labor was about 2 hours long and everything went about as smoothly as it could. Both mom & baby are happy and healthy, and getting in some quality bonding time now. Jamison seems to be adjusting well to having a sister, but the animals are still a bit unsure around her. Below are a few pics from the hospital. To see the rest, click on the 'Pictures' link at the top of the page and go to Gianna's folder. Thanks for all your thoughts! We'll post more pics in the days to come.

Progress update

2008-05-30T10:52:00.000-07:00

All right, the title of this is a little misleading since it kind of makes it seem like I might have some sort of progress to update on. But no, as of my appointment today, there is still absolutely NOTHING going on. Not even a little bit. Apparently she's in no hurry to get here.

So, since my doctor is about to be headed to Europe, I've been switched to a new doctor temporarily and I will see him next week. If things are still not progressing, they will probably schedule an induction date for when my doctor comes back (I think around the 19th or so). I really didn't want to be induced this time around, but I guess by then I'll probably be all right with it since I'll be about 2 weeks late at that point.

I'm still really hoping that she'll change her mind and come on her own sometime in the next week or so. So, if any of you could send dialating thoughts my way, I'd really appreciate it!!! :)

Less than 2 weeks! (Well... hopefully!)

2008-05-27T07:36:00.000-07:00

So, I just thought I'd make sure that everyone knows that according to my due date, I have less than two weeks left until Gianna gets here! As of my last appt (on Friday), there is absolutely nothing going on that might indicate that she will be making an appearance sometime soon. It'd be nice if that changes by my appt this Friday but we'll see. My due date is June 9th according to the doctor, but both of my ultrasounds showed June 3rd and June 4th. I wasn't early when I had Jamison, but I have no idea if I would have been on time or not since I was induced 3 days before my due date. I've actually had about 4 requests for her to be due on June 10th but I'm secretly (and by secretly, I mean posting on a website that could be read by anyone) hoping that she comes earlier! My doctor is leaving town on June 4th so it'd be nice if he was able to deliver her before then. And Jay and I are really excited for her to get here. So, anyone have any guesses as to when she'll come?

%#@@#%$#@$#@%

2008-05-20T20:35:00.000-07:00

Ever since Jay and I got married, I really think that some sort of bad luck keeps following us around. Jay blames me since I've been rather unlucky before I met him and he claims he had no problems before he met me. But we always pick the SLOWEST line when checking out of stores, at least 50% of the things we buy do not work the first time and have to be returned, and now lately, it seems that employee parking lots are just as bad as parking on the freeway. I did get my van back on Friday (and in great shape) which is very good, since this is what my car now looks like:

So, while Jay was at work yesterday, my car was parked at the Gateway (since this is where Jay works) in Fidelity's employee lot and some STUPID kids attempted to use a screwdriver to break into my car. When that didn't work, they threw a rock through my back windshield and stole Jamison's DVD player which probably contained one or more Baby Einstein DVD's. We got to keep both the rock and the screwdriver (isn't that nice?) since they were left in my car.

My entire back seat (including Jamison's car seat) are currently filled with millions of tiny shards of broken glass. There was another car broken into as well and they apparantly had more time to spend on that one. They kicked in all their doors and really cleaned out their car. Someone happened to come accross this situation and called the police so the kids took off and left some of the stuff they were trying to steal behind. Jay was called down to fill out a police report and while he was down there, the STUPID kids came back to try to reclaim some of the stuff they dropped so they were caught. So, we did end up getting our DVD player back. Unfortunately, that does nothing for us as far as my car is concerned. And this is what really makes me angry. They have all 3 kids who did this to my car. 2 of them are in jail right now and the other one was only 13 so he's probably home playing a stolen Xbox or something. All 3 will probably be fined or something so the state will get some money for this. We got a police report so that we can file a claim on our insurance (meaning WE have to pay the deductable and our insurance rates will go up). They will not even give us the names of the people who did this to us. This is SOOOO unfair!!! I could understand if they never caught the guys; that's why we have insurance, but they have the people who did this. I think they should HAVE to pay for my car!!! I am so mad about this whole situation. Any tips?

K, enough ranting (I don't think I deal well with stress while pregnant!). Perhaps Jay and I should look into public transportation...

Finally an update

2008-05-15T20:20:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post some pictures of Jamison for awhile now and I'm just finally getting to it. But FINALLY, here are some pictures.

This is how we end every bath. He has to have both of his feet covered up and he's very specific as to what color of towel he needs to be using.

And this is him at our next door neighbor's birthday party. They rented a pony and Jamison LOVED it!!!

I really need to take more pictures.... I'm so bad with that.

Anyways, I only have about 3 weeks left (HOPEFULLY) until I have the baby! I think the most common question I get these days is 'Do you have a name yet?' So, I thought I'd let everyone know that the answer is yes, her name will be Gianna. And I'm completely set on this name too, so if you don't like it, please don't tell me.... And also, there is no need to point out that it does not start with a 'J'. I promise that I already know that it doesn't start with a 'J'. And I do feel much better now that we've decided on a name because it was kind of hard to come up with one we both liked. Jay actually came up with her name which is very surprising considering some of the names he came up with when we were trying to figure out a name for Jamison (for example... Mortimer). So, basically, we're just trying now to get everything ready for her to come. Luckily, we pretty much have everything we need, but we're still working on getting everything organized. But I am getting really really excited. And I'm getting really big so I'm worried she might be a big baby like Jamison was.

Also, I still haven't gotten my car back... but I'm hoping to be able to get it tomorrow. I guess we'll see.

I love honest people!

2008-05-07T07:38:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, my new car was hit in the parking lot while I was working. That sucks. I work on 4200 S Highland Drive and we've had SO many problems out here specifically with the parking lot. My co-workers car was stolen last year right out of the parking lot in broad daylight while we were working. And 2 other employees that I know of have been hit in the parking lot without anybody leaving a note or anything. So, I guess I shouldn't really be all that surprised. However, what did surprise me is that the guy who hit my car was kind enough to leave a note with his name and phone number on it. I can't tell you how grateful and appreciative I am that he left a note. Because I'm sure it would have been pretty easy for him to get away without leaving anything. So, hopefully it will all be resolved quickly and I'll get my car fixed with no issues.

Jamison ran his first 5K!

2008-04-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

I wish I had my video camera while he was running; it was SO CUTE! So we participated in the Salt Lake Marathon 5K event (just the 5K, we did NOT run any marathons) on Saturday and had a great time. We arrived at the starting line in Liberty Park around 7am which was perfect timing for the 7:30 start time. Last year we got there around 5:30 and that really really sucked. Jamison was so enthralled by the thousands of people and the pond with the ducks in it that he forgot to care about the fact that he was in a stroller. We got to run (well walk really) down State Street, 4th South and various other streets in downtown Salt Lake while watching the frustrated people who were unfortunate enough to be driving around down there. Police motorcycles were constantly driving around us sometimes while blaring their sirens which Jamison thought was great. The race ended at the Gateway and right before we got there, I took Jamison out of the stroller and let him run. And he ran. He ran as fast as his little legs could carry him while yelling "Hurry mommy, hurry!". People on the sidelines were cheering him on and he was so determined to keep going. We ran all the way from the South side of the Gateway to the North side and about 20 feet before the finish line, he stopped and lifted up his hands and said "Mommy do". So mommy carried him while pushing the stroller the rest of the 20 feet accross the finish line coming in at 45 minutes and 45 seconds. Definately not my best 5K time, but for being 7 1/2 months pregnant and with a two year old, I don't think it's all that bad... Jay came in at 24 minutes 5 seconds which is a little unfair considering he hasn't run more than a mile or two in the last month. Next year, Jay's determined to run the half marathon or maybe even the full one so if you want to encourage/pressure him, feel free. I'm so amazed at some of those times the winners got. The winner of the marathon ran it in 2 hours 23 minutes which is a 5 minute 28 second mile pace. 5 minutes 28 seconds for 26 miles!!!!! That is just so amazing (and a little bit crazy) to me. Anyways, we had a great time. If anyone wants to join us next year, I highly recommend it!

One more thing about Jamison that I found a bit entertaining. He found a book in our room (GMAT for Dummies to be exact) and pointed to the picture on the front and said "Daddy, look. There's Grandma right there". I have repeatedly pointed to the picture and asked him who is that and every time he says "That's Grandma". Now, to be fair, he DOES have two grandma's so I guess we can't be sure, but I'm about 99.9% certain that he's thinking of my mom when he says this. Here is a picture of the front of the book. Now, for all of you who know my mom, I'm just wondering if any of you can also see the resemblance...

Finally Home!

2008-04-14T14:15:00.001-07:00

Yay, I made it home! It is so so good to be back. I'm sick of the snow and the rain and the 35 degree days and the 2:45am alarm clock and being so tired all the time and missing my family! Thankfully, the rest of my trip went fairly well. And there were only a couple more 'incidents'. On Saturday, I was sitting in the 'truckers lounge' which is where they decided to set us up for the week and the girl working with me pulled out a chocolate candy bar. It suddenly made me need some chocolate immediately. Fortunately, I was prepared for such an event and just so happened to have a package of sixlets in my purse. I reached for my purse and as I pulled it up, I heard something fall to the floor. Now, what I *should* have done was immediately look onto the floor and see what it was that potentially fell out of my purse. But I really wanted my chocolate... So instead I said to the girl I was working with, 'I wonder what that noise was' and continued with my sixlets. Well, several hours later, I decided that I wanted cheesy bread from Domino's for lunch. I ordered it over the phone and they told me it would be ready in 10 minutes. Since it would take me over 10 minutes just to walk accross the huge warehouse back to the front where my car was, I left right away. But when I got to the front, I started searching through my purse for my keys and guess what? Yep, no keys. I immediately panicked since the last time I couldn't find my rental car keys was when I was in Arizona and accidently threw them away in the garbage. After I completely dumped the entire contents of my purse out onto a chair in the front entrance, retraced my steps back to the truckers lounge, searched my labtop bag and then retraced back to the front entrance (about a 20-25 minute endeavor), I suddenly remembered the noise from when I had picked up my purse early that morning for my chocolate. Not wanting to walk all the way back just to look on the floor, I called the girl I was working with and asked her if she would mind looking for me. Luckily, they were there! I was extremely relieved. Because it would be another 20+ minutes for me to walk all the way there and back yet again to retrieve them, one of the truck drivers kindly offered to drive them around to the front entrance to me. It took me about 45 minutes to get to Domino's but my cheesy bread was really really good (and still warm). So, does that really count as an 'incident' when it all turned out all right?

I got to see my little Jamison last night! He and Jay came to pick me up from the airport. He is so cute!!! He was so sweet and seemed pretty excited to see me and after spending most of the day with him today, I think he's already back to being my little boy again. Unfortunately the airport took a bit more time than I would have liked. We waited for an entire hour for my luggage to come and it never did. Somehow during the 2 1/2 hour layover I had in Minneapolis, workers were unable to get my luggage from one plane to the other. Jay kept asking me over and over: 'Now are you SURE you didn't leave it in the hotel or rental car, etc...'. I thought that was kind of insulting, however I did doubt myself for a minute. Fortunately I still had the little sticker they gave me which does prove that I did at least have my luggage at the airport in Green Bay. I was a little worried about them losing my luggage since I packed a majority of my maternity clothes in there which of course are the only things I have that fit me right now. And I really didn't want to have to go buy new clothes that I'll only wear for the next 8 weeks. But my suitcase was sitting on my front doorstep this morning when Jay got up so I have all my things back now. It did occur to me that it was much easier when I just left my luggage in my hotel room and had it shipped back to me....

Well, Jamison wants his mommy to come play outside and since it is absolutely gorgeous out there, we're going to go play now. I'm so glad to be home!!!!!!! :)

Day 4.

2008-04-09T16:12:00.000-07:00

I've made it halfway. 4 more days until I get to go home and see my Jamison (and husband). And so far I haven't done anything too stupid... however I am making a small list:

1) I work in a very large warehouse. And it seems to me that it is very much like a maze. Yesterday, I was supposed to be the official 'question answerer' in a training session that started at 5:30 (and that's AM). Unfortunately as I was walking to the conference room, I must have taken a wrong turn or something (I'm still not sure where I went wrong) and walked all over the place and didn't end up arriving until 6:10. I even asked 3 separate people for directions... The training was just about over by the time I arrived and there were very few questions asked of me. I wonder if they didn't really feel comfortable asking technical questions to someone who got lost for 40 minutes. Needless to say, I paid VERY close attention on my way out and even made the walk again to make sure I could find it for next time. Turns out, the conference room was only about a 2 minute walk away from my desk. But at least I learned the way eventually.... or so I thought.

2) Two hours after incident 1, the customer decided to call an impromptu meeting in the same conference room. There were 4 other people working with me and none of them knew how to get to this conference room. But not to worry, I had JUST spent a lot of time learning the way so I volunteered to lead and was very confident I knew where I was going. I think I took the same wrong turn again. I ended up leading these 4 people in circles throughout the warehouse for about 10 minutes until we ran into someone who was also trying to attend the meeting but knew where they were going. It was rather unfortunate.

3) When leaving work yesterday, I was escorted back to the front of the warehouse so I could find my car (for some reason, everytime I leave my desk now, SOMEONE is there to show me wherever I need to go). I got in my car and realized that I left my purse back at my desk (about a 10-15 minute walk away). That kind of sucked.

4) Today, I was standing next to what I thought was a door with a jacket hanging on it while I was trying to talk someone through the program they were using. They were taking a little bit of time, so I went to lean against the door and it turns out it was some truck driver guy waiting to talk to the person I was helping. I guess I should be a little embarrassed by that, but I really thought it was a door. It was an honest mistake that could be made by anybody really.

5) And finally... I locked myself out of my hotel room again today. Unfortunately the same person was working the front desk which probably doesn't make me look all that good. Oh well. I do find it interesting that both times I have obtained a key to my room without giving anything more than my room number. Should I be worried that it was that easy?

Well, that's about it so far. That's not so bad, right? And really I think I can blame these minor incidents on pregnancy and the fact that my alarm clock goes off at 2:45 AM. That's just not an hour I function well in and it seems to carry through the whole day.

All right, it's bath and bedtime now. 4 more days.... :)

Missing my boys.

2008-04-06T19:01:00.000-07:00

Well, I had to say goodbye last night to my Jamison and I'm now on Day 1 of my Wisconsin trip for work. I already miss him so much. I was just talking to Jay and apparantly when him and Jamison pulled into our driveway, he saw my car, got excited and said 'Mommy's here!'. I am going to miss him so much for the next 8 days!!! He better not forget about me. Every time I go out of town, he forgets that he loves mommy more than daddy and when I get home, everything is 'no no mommy, daddy do it'. Fortunately, he usually seems to remember within a few days but I'm worried that the older he gets, he may just decide he likes daddy better. Hopefully this week will go by quickly. The plane ride was a bit more uncomfortable than usual. Sitting in one place for so long when I'm this pregnant isn't as easy as I thought it would be. Well, the good news is that I've been here for about 4 hours and so far the only stupid thing I've done is lock myself out of my hotel room. Fortunately, that is much easier to remedy than other things I have done; all they do is just make me another key. Well, I guess that's all that really happened when I accidently threw my rental car keys away last summer... but that seemed to be a much bigger ordeal than just going downstairs and asking for a new key. Anyways, my goal is to make it through this week without any 'unfortunate incidents'. No losing or throwing away my keys, no leaving my luggage in the hotel when I leave, no getting lost and no losing my purse/wallet or anything else that might be important. We'll see if I make it. The sad thing is that I have done all these things when I was completely normal. This time I'm 7 months pregnant besides... this does not look good for me! Wish me luck! :)

We finally saw her!

2008-03-21T17:12:00.000-07:00

Baby Girl finally cooperated with us this morning and we were able to get some pictures! :) Apparantly she's flipped over so she was in a much better position to show her little face to us. Also, she appeared to be asleep (or close to it) so that made it a little easier to focus in on her. The past two times she was so active that anytime we could get a good look at her, it was gone before we knew it. Anyways, I am pretty happy that we actually got to see her and got some pictures. I've posted them all in the 'Pictures' section, but here's a couple of them:

Also, since both my sister in law (Tracy) and my aunt (Sandy) have requested to see a picture of the pregnant me, here's a picture of me taken just today at 29 weeks:

And of course, I can't leave out my sweet little boy. I've posted a bunch of new pictures of him in the 'Pictures' section, but this is him proudly showing off his newly colored Easter eggs. He had so much fun coloring them last weekend!

Jamison's all caught up!

2008-03-19T07:48:00.000-07:00

One year ago, Jamison's pediatrician suggested that we take Jamison to Early Intervention because he seemed behind with both his language and receptive skills. We took him and at 18 months old, he was evaluated at about a 12 month old level. He then joined the PIP program for the Utah School For the Deaf which is a wonderful program, by the way, and as of yesterday, one year later, he was evaluated at about a 34-36 month level!!! So, he's made almost two years of progress in one year! Way to go Jamison! :)

And I think that the pregnancy is once again affecting my actions. About 3 days ago, I made Jamison some corn for dinner. It was just corn from a can, so I put the remainder of the can into a tupperware container and put it in the fridge. 2 days later, Jamison told me he wanted corn for dinner, so I went to get the corn out of the fridge and couldn't find it anywhere. I realized that Jay must have decided to take it with him for lunch or something although that seemed a little odd for him. So when Jay got home, I asked him if he knew where Jamison's corn was and he said he had no idea. I distinctly remember putting it into the tupperware container so I know I didn't accidently throw it away. We both came to the conclusion that I must have forgotten to put the container into the fridge which means that probably Kody grabbed it and took it outside. Well, this morning I opened up the cupboard to get a new tupperware container for my lunch and I immediately smelled corn. I looked and sure enough, there was Jamison's corn nicely put away in a container in the cupboard with all the rest of the tupperware. I guess I put it in the wrong place.... :)

3rd Time's a Charm...

2008-03-14T21:34:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like we'll be trying a third time to see this little girl. This time she only had one arm and one leg blocking her face, but she also was hiding behind other things so we still could not get a look at her face. She's a very active little baby so anytime she did happen to move into a good position it was literally for less than half a second. She is still in a breech position so I think that's making it easier for her to hide. Hopefully she'll turn around or something so we can actually get a look at her next time (which will be our last attempt). I am so happy that Fetal Fotos is being so great about having us come back and try again. I'll try to post a picture of her hands/feet tomorrow since that's all we have so far, but otherwise, check back next Friday after we try again. Anybody know of anything I can eat or drink that will calm the baby down for her appointment?

In other news, we have officially become a minivan family. We are the proud new owners of a 2004 Toyota Sienna and so far I love it! I never thought I'd be a minivan driver, but they really are very convenient. And Jamison really likes it so that's all that counts, right? Actually Kody got to ride in it today too and he seemed to enjoy himself as well. Speaking of Kody, the vet today told him that he is too fat. Since we've had Jamison, Kody's gained about 16 lbs which is a LOT for a dog. And most of that has been in the last year. So, our goal for Kody is to have him lose a bit of weight this summer. Jay's going to take him running with him to get him some exercise and Jamison's going to have to limit himself to only feeding Kody twice a day. I think Kody will actually appreciate getting out a bit more as he's been a bit neglected lately.

All right, everyone wish us luck for our next attempt at the ultrasound! : )

Baby Update

2008-03-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

Well, I'd hoped to have some pictures of Baby Girl to post up here, but it looks like I'll have to wait. We went to Fetal Fotos Saturday afternoon and she refused to cooperate. She had every possible limb covering her face so we didn't really get to see it at all. We did, however, get a nice look at her hands and feet. We poked her and rolled me all over the place but she refused to budge. Fortunately, the people at Fetal Fotos are wonderful and gave me a return voucher to come back this Friday so we'll try it again. I asked if she could see any hair (baby was fine with showing us the back of her head), and she said that she rarely sees hair on a baby earlier than 30 weeks so she'd be surprised since I'm only 27 weeks. But she looked anyways, and sure enough, there was hair already. So that explains the massive amount of heartburn I've been experiencing (if the old wives tail is true). I can't say I'm surprised since we saw hair on Jamison at 28 weeks and he had more hair than any baby EVER! But I am a little excited that it looks like this little girl might be born with some hair too if it doesn't fall out or something before she's born. Anyways, check back Friday night and there might be some updated pictures of her. :) Jamison still thinks that he's carrying his little sister in his belly and he tried insisting on laying down on the table and getting an ultrasound done for his baby.... and yesterday he pointed out that his daddy in fact also has a baby in his belly... We have some issues to work out still apparently. :)

Can I blame pregnancy?

2008-02-26T19:43:00.000-08:00

I realize that normally I do a lot of stupid things, but since I am pregnant right now, do you think I can blame these things on pregnancy? Yesterday, we had about 10 visitors from our customer come into town for training and I have been elected the lucky person to do this training. So, I was doing my hair yesterday before work and I somehow managed to clamp my ear with my hot flat iron. Like I completely missed my hair and got my ear instead. It hurt. I really have no idea how I did this... Anyways, I don't exactly leave myself with a lot of extra time in the morning so I used the time I drive to work to hold an ice pack on my ear. Well, as soon as I got to work, I had to take it off so I could start training. And you know when you burn something as long as you have something cold on it, it feels fine, but as soon as you take away the cold, it hurts worse than before... This is how I spent the first hour of my training. I'm not quite sure what I said during this time but I'm hoping it was at least coherent. :) Luckily, nobody's mentioned anything so far...

Being sick sucks.

2008-02-24T14:14:00.000-08:00

As much as I'd love to update with a bunch of fun information, I'm afraid that the only thing going on for us lateley is that we are sick. All of us. And being pregnant and sick isn't as much fun as you might think it is. It started with Jamison getting strep. Then he dropped a train on my foot which sadly demobilized me for a couple days. And then I got sick with horrible cold and Jay is now sick with the same cold. Fortunately, I got smart and called my doctor which resulted in medicine and life has become much better. Jamison has been so sweet though and he's been in such a cooperative mood for the last week which really helps. He's perfectly capable of either getting me everything I ask for (juice, etc) or finding daddy and having daddy get me everything I ask for. Although Jay usually gets me whatever I ask for anyways, I find that it seems to be very effective to have Jamison ask instead. That little 'please?' is really hard to resist. Anyways, I am happy to say that with the exception of Jay who is just starting his journey of sickness, the rest of us seem to be getting over it.

Not much new going on with the Baby Girl. I feel her moving all the time now which is a lot of fun. Still no name yet... We have, however, made plans to travel to South Dakota to meet up with Jay's family at the end of July. That should make for an interesting road trip with Jamison and an infant and of course Kody. AND, it looks like Jamison and Baby Girl are getting another new cousin! Tracy, Jay's sister, is expecting in October! :)

I've been tagged...

2008-02-06T14:54:00.000-08:00

By my friend Natalie. : )

HUSBAND TAG:
What is his name? Technically Jason, but I call him Jay
How long have you been married? Just over 5 years (since Jan. 11th)
How long did you date? A long time... I think just over 3 years.
How old is he? 29!!
Who eats more? Well, I'm pregnant right now so that's not really a fair question... but I'm going to still say Jay.
Who said "I love you" first? Jay
Who is taller? Jay
Who sings better? Jay... Has anybody heard me sing??? : )
Who is smarter? Oh definitely me!
Whose temper is worse? Mine
Who does the laundry? Mostly Jay (and Jamison)
Who does the dishes? Both of us, but I think Jamison does it the most.
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Depends on which way you're looking at the bed... Kody pretty much takes up all sides, but facing the bed, the right side's technically Jay's.
Who pays the bills? Jay
Who mows the lawn? Jay (with Jamison following closely behind with his own mower)... Jay finds it therapeutic and will mow several times per week.
Who cooks dinner? Both of us.
Who drives when you are together? Jay.
Who is more stubborn? I'm not sure... probably me?
Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? Me, Jay NEVER admits that he's wrong... of course I'm never wrong so...
Whose parents do you see the most? Mine, Jay's parents are pretty far away.
Who proposed? Jay.
Who has more friends? Me.
Who has more siblings? Jay.
Who wears the pants? Me... but Jay's good competition. : )

I now tag Mickele!!!

Network problems...

2008-02-04T10:11:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what's going on exactly, but apparently my web host is suffering from some technical difficulties... So that's why the site's been down for a few days. HOPEFULLY their server is back up now.

Some exciting news is that Jamison was a BIG boy and went potty standing up last night! We have not yet taught him that, so he must have picked it up at daycare or something. He did it again this morning. Unfortunately, he still makes me take off his shoes and pants before he'll go, but still, it's a good step in the right direction. And he seems to have gotten over his issues from last week. He's been eating and playing at daycare like his normal cute little self so I'm hoping (knock on wood) that it was just a brief phase and that it never comes back. : )

2008-01-27T20:31:00.001-08:00

It's been a few days so I thought I should update just in case anybody is reading this... I'd hate to appear boring or something. My cousin Shane and his wife April just had their first baby yesterday and I am so excited for them. I can't wait to see some pictures or something, so I'm really counting on Mickele to get going on that... And I thought it was very nice of April to work it out that she have Jaxon on my birthday because that really helps me to remember when his birthday is.

For anyone who has talked to me in the last week, you know that Jamison is going through a little 'phase' (please pray this is just a phase) right now. Ever since last Saturday, he's become very sensitive and he's really been struggling at daycare. He didn't eat breakfast, lunch, or snack last week and he didn't drink anything or say one word the entire time he was at daycare. This is really unusual for him. I don't know if he's jealous of the new baby or if it's just a two-year-old thing or if he's just tired or what. Through my own laziness, I've been a little lax with his bedtime (he's amazing at prolonging the simplest of activites) so we've been working on that and I'm proud to say I've gotten his bedtime back down to 9pm. I'd like 8 or 8:30, but we'll see if that happens. Anyways, he's been much better this weekend so I really hope he does all right tomorrow. He's so cute though... yesterday I was tired so I was laying down on the floor in his room and he told me to lay down on his bed instead. Then he covered me up with his blanket, making sure to cover my feet because he hates it when his own feet are left uncovered. He turned on his little heater and his radio (which contains a CD of Baby Signing Time, his favorite music) and made sure I had some water and then told me 'night night nonnie'. Then he shut the door and left me to take a nap. It was so sweet!

As for the other baby, there's not much new to report on there. I have another appointment this Friday but from what I remember, they're pretty uneventful from this point forward until the end. I'm still only feeling her move a little bit, but I do usually feel her move around at least once a day. Still haven't thought of a name yet and for everyone who is wondering, I'm not trying or not trying to come up with a 'J' name. I seem to get that question a lot. :)

Baby Girl Ultrasound Pictures

2008-01-19T13:30:00.000-08:00

Here are the ultrasound pictures that we got from yesterday. I am feeling her move around now but not very well or very often. Enjoy!

It's A Girl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-01-18T11:07:00.000-08:00

YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY!!!!

Thanks everyone for thinking pink for me! :) I'm going to lunch now.

***UPDATE: A few people have mentioned that they weren't able to post comments; it should be fixed now so please comment away!!! ***

Welcome to Jamison's new website!

2008-01-16T20:52:00.000-08:00

I figured it was about time to update since Jamison is now going to have to share with Baby #2 and I decided that a blog is definitely the easier way to go seeing as I never update my old site anymore! : ) I've finally put new pictures up too, including our Christmas pictures from Minnesota which I'm sure Jay's family will be happy to FINALLY see. Jamison is doing well and he is so so so so cute.

As for the new baby, I'm sure I've told the entire world several times that we'll be finding out what we're having on Friday (Jan. 18th) at 11am. So check back here Friday afternoon to find out what Baby #2 is going to be. We (and by we, I mostly just mean me) are so excited to find out and I'll come back and post as soon as I get back to my computer. : )