Thoughts

I have two long posts percolating in my brain. They are all about Jonathan of course. We celebrated his 1st birthday yesterday but today is his actual birthday. I will write about that later. I can't believe a year has gone by already. Life is so different then what i thought it would be staying home with him. It definitely is not as easy as i thought it would be, and the difficulties are not what i thought they would be. Sounds kind of confusing but i don't even want to try to articulate my thoughts here. Hanging out with Jonathan has been great. Looking back, Jonathan has gone from a little baby to a walking little kid. He no longer sleeps through the night and in fact is now waking up twice. I guess next is waking up every three hours. CW goes out of town next week for a few days and so Jonathan and i will have a couple of intensive nights of sleep correction. At least that is what i am calling it.

Saturdays are generally good days around here. We are off peak for our electricity so we can turn the AC down to 76. I can get so much more done around the house when it is cooler. General Conference was good today and i am looking forward to tomorrow's meetings. I have to say that i am happy we don't have to go to church tomorrow also. Usually Sundays are pretty long and stressful. It will be nice to relax! Stay posted for more of Jonathan.

The Saga of the Garden

As i mentioned before, my friend Alyssa and i decided to grow a garden. We were going to share costs and work 50/50 but since she lives in an apartment, our garden will be at our house. I was really excited as this has been a goal of mine for ages. This is my M.O. - get interested in something , read a lot about it and then dream about it, maybe get around to doing it. A garden was sort of that way for me. I am glad that Alyssa brings some practical experience to this adventure. This picture is from a few months ago. The point of posting it is sort of a before picture.
Early Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago the Frost's came over to help cut down the tree and clear a spot for our garden. Dale and Alyssa have a baby a month or two younger then Jonathan named Maddie. She is cute. Anyway so while the husbands were out working hard and sweating a lot, Alyssa and i were inside playing with kids. I kind of felt bad that us girls decide to grow a garden and our husbands get to do all the hard work. This picture is of the tree almost gone. They found 4 golf balls embedded throughout the base of the tree. No wonder it was dying.

Husbands working hard - no tree.
So the boys built the box. I got information on where to go buy dirt and made arrangements to go out and pick it up. It is a place that is by the dump and well, it generally didn't smell very nice. Sometimes as much as it is a pain to bring Jonathan around, not that it is Jonathan that is the pain, it is getting a car seat in and out of the car and carrying it around that around that is the pain. Anyway, usually when people see that i have a baby they are very nice and helpful. This was the case with the man that worked at the dump. He was strange and i probably wouldn't want to meet him in a dark ally but he was very nice. He was joking that Jonathan had more teeth then he did and he called the stray dog that lived there his wife. Weird but nice and helpful. So we loaded the dirt, then we got back to the house and unloaded the dirt and we planted. This is the picture of the garden planted. It doesn't look like much but i hope to take pictures weekly!
Of course i missed the funniest picture of the kids. They both were standing at the garden box and looked up at me. They both had rings of dirt around their mouths. Oops guess weren't paying enough attention to them.

OK gotta go. We are celebrating Jonathan's 1st birthday tomorrow and i have loads to do. I still have another post that i want to do of all the things Jonathan is doing these day. It will have to wait.

Getting down with Jonathan

Here are some clips with Jonathan dancing. He is pretty darn cute. Sometimes if i am dancing then he likes to come up to me and dance with me.

Ellie Belly the Newest Edition

Her name is really Ellie May but i call her Ellie Belly. She is my new niece, daughter of Ryan and Kimberly. I am really sad that they don't live in Arizona anymore. I miss them. Luckily they were staying with my parents for the summer so when i went up for Mel's wedding i had the added joy of getting attend Ellie's baby blessing.
There is something wonderful about holding such a small human being. She is about 6 pounds at the time of this picture. I can't believe how great Ryan was with her. I have never really seen such a father take to his little girl. Ryan continually impresses me in so many ways.
I held Ellie and i felt a little spot in my heart that melted into longing for another little baby, but as soon Ryan and Kimberly talked about how little she slept at night and that longing fled. No thank you!

Mel's Wedding

My Sister Mel has been dating Clayton for a few months and he is in the Idaho National Guard and his Unit has been called to Iraq. They were in an unfortunate time crunch in progressing their relationship. Basically, without getting into too much unnecessary detail, she recently got divorced and was still sealed to her ex-husband. They (the Bishop and Stake President) expedited the sealing cancellation as much as that can happen as most of it is out of their control. We have all been playing the waiting game to see if the cancellation would come so they could get married in the temple before Clayton left. So Wednesday evening i get a call from Mel saying that they might get married civilly if the cancellation didn't come by, i don't know, Friday or Saturday. She said she would let me know. Well i didn't hear back Wednesday so Thursday i tracked Mel down and she said that they were probably going to get married Saturday. I purchased an airline ticket to leave the next day. So with not much notice and to every one's surprise, (Ryan didn't know until 2 hours before the event was to occur) they got married. It was a happy occasion and I like Clayton. He will be good for Mel and her children but it was a bittersweet occasion because i couldn't help wishing that we had more notice because CW could have come with me. To both CW's and my regret, a 2 day notice is not very convenient for CW's busy work schedule and cost prohibitive to fly 2 people at such last notice. Oh well what's done is done.
I was the unofficial photographer so the pictures didn't turn out so well. But Clayton looks sharp in his military duds and Mel is cute too.

Mom and Dad worked hard to make this weekend a success!

The happy couple.

Cute Elise.

Nate and Michelle

The happy family.

And would a blog posting by me be complete without a shot of Jonathan?

Growing like a weed

Here are Jonathan's 10 month and 11 month pictures. I could kick myself for not getting a better 10 month picture and this is all i have.

I was trying to get him to pay attention to me so i started making loud noises and he started copying my loud noises hence the funny face. I have this long list of things i want to do to my house and while i love my house i sometimes can't look past all i want to change. Looking at this picture from this angle, i really like the way my house looks. The wall looks greener then it is and you can't see the red kitchen.

Dancing Machine

Coming in at 17lbs. 4oz. we have our little dancing baby. Here he is in Boise with his BFF Ryan performing a little clogging.



We had our Doctor's appointment today and Jonathan got his stamp of approval on his weight gain! hooray!

All in a days work

Lately i have been thinking a lot about how my life is different then what it used to be. I think it started when C.W. and i were talking about the difference between Chicago and Phoenix. I won't get into it here but needless to say it got me thinking about my life. People ask me if i like being a stay at home mom and while i love it, it is not as easy as it may seem. I know that we go through different phases in our life and right now my responsibilities revolve around my child, my husband and my calling. I think my task is made easier by getting to hang around this cute guy all day.
Here is Jonathan in action.




I thought that in my attempts at baby-proofing, i shoved the books in the second shelf so tightly that i could barely get them out let alone Jonathan. I was in the kitchen wondering what he was up to when i spied him making a big mess. He leaves a trail of spillage and disaster in his trails and putting anything away just invites him to revisit previous messes.
Playing with Jonathan leaves dad worn out. He napped for about an hour right there on Jonathan's floor.
More playing with dad.

Swimming and Trek

Our Stake had the Youth Trek a couple of weeks ago and C.W. put in a lot of hard work planning it. It sounded like everyone involved had a good experience. Lots of rain and lots of mud! I hope that in the future C.W. and i can be Mas and Pas. Of course C.W. didn't have any pictures of himself. So here are a couple of pictures from his camera.

Ma Finn and Pa Finn are from our ward and i am sure they were great. They both are fun people.

Today was Jonathan's last swim "lesson". Maybe swim class would be a better name. Here are the skills we worked on:
blowing bubbles - which he never did
floating on his back - which he was not a big fan of
kicking - he did get the hang of this when the teacher would hold a rubber ducky to follow
climbing out of the pool - which he also became good at either to grab the rubber ducky or because i think he just got cold and wanted out

Usually at the end of the lesson we would dunk him just so he would get used to the water a little more. So when we took the picture he was really ready to get out.

I think we will wait a little longer to put him back in any swim lessons but i am glad that he had this experience with the water. It was fun!

Summertime

Sorry i haven't posted in awhile. I will only say that the heat is sapping my will to live. Actually to be fair it is not just the heat, it is certain issues with my church calling and certain aspects of a particular person's decisions that have me wishing i was on some tropical island off the coast of Australia (because it is winter there) lazing in isolated shack hanging out with Jonathan and C.W. Alas it is not to be, so i give you cute pictures of Jonathan.

He hasn't figured out spatial relationships with his body and tries to crawl through the tiniest of spaces and cries when he can't get through. A total fake cry.

He dances to music and it is the cutest thing. Every time we pull out the camera he stops and poses so we haven't captured it yet. Even when i picked him up from Child Watch at the YMCA i noticed that he was in the corner with the attendant dancing to the music from the stereo.

He knows that he is not allowed to do certain things as well. I moved a book out of his way and a few minutes later i noticed him looking at me from the other side of the coffee table by the book and when i looked at him he smiled a big grin grabbed the book. Little Stinker! Jonathan keeps me on my toes. I love him and his antics. Sometimes i can't believe the great blessing of him in my life. Even now that he decided that he can't sleep through the night anymore.

Attack!

I have no picture to go with this post because it would not be cute! So along with all of the wonderful pleasures of Phoenix in the summer is huge massive cockroaches running around my house. After talking to a few people, it is apparently a normal thing. Even the terminex guy said if you get a lot of cockroaches then you would get scorpions. He said it isn't really something to worry about and it is not a sign of uncleanliness. HA! OK, this next part may seem unrelated but stay with me. In April, we had a BBQ with some of CW's running friends at our house. CW was out grilling and someone said something funny and i guess i got a piece of food stuck in my throat. I ran in the back room to try to gag it up but it was stuck tight. So I came back out and practically threw Jonathan at someone and although i don't remember it, i guess i did the international choking sign. Luckily, one of the gals is a nurse and recognized that i was choking and proceeded to do the Heimlich Manuover on me. she is shorter then me so she was not having much luck. Her husband came over and he is much larger then she is and so with much gusto he wrapped his arms around me and squeezed. Nothing flew out of my mouth but it was dislodged enough so i could breathe. I was a little sore but thought that that was normal. Anyways, it was painful and it kept being painful until one morning it was so painful i called the doctor. Turns out i broke a rib. The doctor looked at me and said you shouldn't pick up your kid and i can't give you pain medication because you are breastfeeding and stay away from the gym and don't do any sit-ups. So it sucked to be me for awhile. I thought that it was healed but today as i was sitting on the floor leaning against the couch and folding clothes i look down and there was a monstrous cockroach right next to me. I screamed at the top of my lungs and grabbed Jonathan. I put him in his high chair and spent the next 20 minutes killing the insect and then cleaning up the mess. Jonathan and i had to leave the house for a while too just to get out. I noticed that my rib was killing me. I thought maybe i re injured it when i screamed about the cockroach. Hopefully it will feel better soon.

New Title

I can't ever think of catchy post titles. Anyway this is sort of a week in review or pictures of our latest adventures. I got a close-up of Jonathan's teeth. I think it is pretty darn exciting. Whew look at that hair hanging out of his mouth. Sadly, it is probably mine. Well here is our cute boy decked out for swim class. It is not really swim lessons but we don't have a pool so we are taking advantage of our YMCA membership. He loves the water and wasn't sure at first but after a couple of seconds he was really enjoying himself. We worked on kicking, blowing bubbles and floating on his back. There was only one other mom and baby in the class so hopefully more people sign up.
I can't believe my baby is 9 months old. We went to his 9 month well check up and he got weighed. He was only 16 lbs. So from his last appointment he is only a half a pound heavier. He has lost a little weight since coming back to Arizona because he weighed at least 16 lbs 6 oz while at the doctor's office in Boise. So the doctor's orders are to fatten him up and now i feel like i am constantly shoveling food in his mouth. I did wonder because he still is wearing 3-6 month clothes. My visiting teacher said she noticed right away that he looked skinnier. What kind of mom am i that i didn't even notice? We head back to the doctor in 6 weeks and if things don't improve then we worry.

Coming home from Boise i had all of these project i wanted to work on. After being separated from my house for a couple of weeks i really felt inspired. Below are colors (from left to right) I want to paint my kitchen, master bathroom or bathroom with the shower and Jonathan's dresser. I keep mentioning to people that i want to paint my kitchen which is a very bluish red right now. Everybody likes the red and CW says why do we have to paint it, everyone likes the red. I like it alright but for years i have been waiting for my own house to do as i please and i have always wanted to paint! Being in the design industry for awhile i feel like i see trends at their beginning and then when it hits main stream i am kind of over it. I feel like that with red and beige - kind of over it. Plus I am liking the mushroomy green/ greys right now. For the bathroom i decided to go one shade lighter then what i have in the picture. The bathroom has a white bead board wainscoting that covers half of the wall so it won't seem so overwhelmingly dark. For the last project i have bought the paint and the dresser is sanded i just have a couple of prep things left and then i can paint. The problem is slowly my energy and motivation have evaporated in the heat. I had all of these plans but somehow i just can't get the energy to do anything. ugh!
Last thing in this ever lengthening post is a sad mishap for Jonathan. He was in his kiddy pool and he was trying to stand up. Poor kid feel over and hit his lip and scratched his face on the brick patio. He was sad so we went to Sonic because they have good ice and fed him ice! Poor kid.
I will try to post more often. This is a marathon post!

Find the missing Golf Ball!

Can you find the golf ball in this picture?


Hint: Look in the tree!


We live on a golf course and periodically we get golf balls hit into our backyard. I have to say this morning i was looking at the tree thinking it needed a little pruning when i noticed the ball. I don't know what is more likely, CW or the kids that mow our lawn put it there or that someone actually hit the ball and it landed there.

Longest Post Ever!

We finally arrived back to Phoenix yesterday after an eventful summer break! Here are some pictures to memorialize the occasion. It seems like it took a bajillion pictures but as i am going through them, i found that i didn't take enough.

Jonathan's first tooth made an appearance. Before we left we had sleepless nights and grumpiness and i was getting a little anxoius about my child's tooth situation. Finally, it broke through his gums. I tried to get a picture but every time i opened his mouth he would stick out his tounge. Oh well. It is there and it looks like the second tooth will also be making an appearance soon.

I took Jonathan out on the lawn. He didn't know what to think at first. It was really funny but after hanging out in the backyard he finally got the hang of crawling on his hands and knees and he seems to prefer that now to his belly. I am happy because his clothes seem to stay cleaner.

I took this picture because i thought it was funny that as soon as my brother Ryan turned on the Xbox, all the boys in the house magically appeared and became transfixed by the race car game on the screen. I know i am fighting a loosing battle but i don't my kids to be video game junkies.

Here are Elise and Owen.

Mom, Mel, Kimberly, Jonathan and i went to lunch at Tammy's Tea House. Mel just got her hair chopped off.
Ryan and Kimberly have been staying at my parents house for the summer before Ryan's job starts in Denver in September. I think Jonathan is at an age where he is aware of who he knows and who he doesn't know. It took a few days for Jonathan to go to my mom and dad. But since Ryan and Kim were at our house a lot when they lived in Phoenix, Jonathan knew them well. Jonathan and Ryan became BFFs. Ryan loved tossing Jonathan around and Jonathan loved being tossed around. Here Ryan is dragging Jonathan around by his feet. When Ryan did this outside in the grass, Jonathan would stick his hand out and drag it. Every time Jonathan saw Ryan, he wanted to be held by him even to the point of lunging out of my arms for him.

It definitely was a time for BBQs. In one week we had 4 BBQs including 2 ward BBQs and a pack meeting BBQ. I kind of felt like a wedding crasher but who is going to question who and why at a church function? The last one we had was on Sunday with the whole family. The missionaries were over and the food was great. It seems that i am forever calling and hearing them all over at my parents and i was happy to finally be there with them.

On Sunday, halfway through my stay, Jonathan seemed really mellow. I thought it was because he didn't sleep very well the night before. My dad picked him up and told me that he thought that he had a fever. I felt bad because i could tell that he was warm but it didn't occur to me that he had a fever. I was in a little bit of a panic. After the third day of a low grade fever, i took him to Urgent Care where he was diagnosed with Bronchial Pneumonia. He had to get a chest X Ray and the contraption that he had to get into broke my heart. He was stuffed into an acrylic tube with his arms up and there was a little cutout for his face. My heart broke as he looked at me and cried seeming to say why are you doing this to me. The Doctor prescribed Amoxicilian and we were on our way. Two days later, Jonathan broke out in hives and we went back to the Urgent Care and found that he has an allergy to Penicillin! I don't know if you can really see the hives from this picture. Poor kid.

Finally at the end of my visit home, we went to Utah for a Hoover Family reunion. I have to say that i was dreading it. I hadn't seem some of the cousins in awhile and i didn't really remember them with fondness. The other thing was that we were camping for 3 nights without any showers. I have found that in my adulthood, i am not a big fan of camping. Let alone camping without showers.

The plan was to meet C.W. in Utah for the family reunion and then fly back with him to Phoenix. After 2 and half weeks away from Jonathan, C.W. was afraid that Jonathan wouldn't recognize him. There were maybe 2 seconds in the airport where Jonathan seemed a little shy but then Jonathan couldn't stop smiling and looking at C.W. He was very happy to see his dad.

Part of the Reunion included a talent show. This is the legacy of my Grandma Hoover. We can't have a family get together without music. Ten years ago, after i got off of my mission, Ryan and i did a musical number where he played the trumpet (he actually played the trumpet at one point) and i played the trombone ( i had never picked up a trombone). Even though it was awful, it was a big success and the family has talked about it since. So Ryan and i decided try it again. Most of the family at the reunion hadn't seen the previous performance so they were expecting something real. My thoughts are it is better to do something and know that you are completely awful then really try to do something and have it turn out awful. Again we were a success.

I wish i took more pictures of Hobble Creek (pronounced crick, we were in Utah) Canyon. It was beautiful. Here was a barn a little past our campground. It would have been perfect if there had been showers. It got cold as soon as the sun set, it rained Sunday and it was freezing in the mornings. I relished every minute knowing that i had to go back to the hot weather.

And finally, for those of you who have endured this long, we ended the reunion with a family history lesson and visits to family graves. I was happy to visit my Grandma's grave. When she passed away, i was in Boston with C.W. and there was no way that i could get to the funeral. So i hadn't ever seen her grave.

Finally, we were tired and stinky and ready to go home and take showers. We had a good flight and we got home with no troubles. Jonathan was really happy to be home. He had a big smile as he went from table to chair to his box of toys and crawling to his favorite places. I guess that i didn't think a baby could be that aware of his surroundings but watching Jonathan smile and be happy i know that he knows he is home.