Updates from 2013 :)

9/22/13

I made notes on what to write about because I was so busy I couldn't write a full post. well...a year and half later....My life has been busy to say the least. but I would like to try blogging again. here is the list I had. Let's see what I remember.


1. Labor day camping 2013:

Caleb's first real camping experience. He slept well during the day in a tent we set up with his play pen inside. but at night was it rough....it was really cold so we slept in my parent's trailer. to be in the same room as mommy and not be sleeping next to her was difficult for Caleb.... So I had to try and sleep with him and that meant I didn't sleep well. it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't ideal either. We made it work. We got a nice spot that was away from the road. David and his family came. They had a nice tall canvas tent. Caleb enjoyed exploring and playing in the dirt. We had a nice family hike on the trail next to our campsite. This trip just had my parent's, my family and my brother's family as my other siblings couldn't come. It was fun to play games and spend time with everyone. We of course ate great as usually with a big breakfast and dutch oven dinner. Unfortunately David ended up leaving early because Trayton wasn't doing very well and was crying pretty badly. They thought he might be sick so they left and took him to the doctors. Overall it was a good fun experience

Oh my gosh! Look at my baby!! I miss him being so little..

2. Okterburfest 2013:

I was able to go to Okterburfest with my Mother and sister in-laws. It was a lot of fun. We ate good food and was able to take the tram up for free to the top. Wow the view was amazing. They had these men dressed in traditional German Lederhosen and were playing beautifully crafted alphorns. They sounded beautiful! It was such a great experience. I loved it. Thanks to my mother in-law with giving us girls a great time out together!

3. Buying washer dryer 

So in April of 2013 we signed a contract to build a house. It was going to be ready end of October, beginning of November. We wanted to buy a new washer and dryer during the labor day sales for our new home since ours were on their last leg. We had a storage unit that we were going to store it while our home was still being built. After we purchased it, we had to drive to their warehouse in West Valley to pick it up. We had a family party at 4 to go to afterwards. Well little did we know, 3 hours was not going to be enough time to make it to that party on time. 

We went to the warehouse and had to wait for them to grab our washer and dryer. While waiting a car in the parking load exploded and was on fire. Someone on the intercom announced it asking if the owner of the green Bronco could come out side because it was on fire..... so naturally every single person who worked at RC Willey came out side to watch this car burn. Firefighters came and took a axe to it and put the fire out. Well that took some time.... and we were still waiting for our washer/ dryer which no one was getting because they were taking pictures of this car that exploded. After an hour of being there, we finally got everything loaded in our truck. 

We started to drive to Bluffdale to the storage unit. (it was next to where our house was being built.) it started to rain! Major rain storm in fact. We get to the storage unit and we are completely wet in seconds. It's just Spencer and I and I realize that we did not think this through since these huge heavy boxes on in our truck which is obviously not close to the ground. We had to figure out how to get these boxes off the truck. We probably needed some more guys... oh well. we put our brains together and decided to construct a pulley system. The issue was the straps that were holding the boxes in place to the truck were so wet we had a hard time loosening them! it was ridiculous! If only you could see us, standing in this truck, getting poured on just trying to loosen these stupid straps! Finally we got them free and were able to use our pulley system to lower the boxes. I was actually pretty proud of us. Well the cardboard boxes had completely come off since they had gotten so wet. Thankfully the appliances were in Styrofoam :) 

Driving from Bluffdale to Taylorsville for the party we were indeed late. I got a call from my family asking where I was and all I said was "you will not believe our afternoon" well they believed it once we walked in the door looking like we went swimming! Definitely something we won't forget. 

4. Supervisor position:

October of 2013 I was offered a supervisor position in my then current department. I was a team lead and had been for a little over a year. It was a big step and one of the reason I became so busy. I worked hard at work and came home to my family and all my "free time" was spent with Caleb, my husband and doing the things I need to do to keep my house running. Life as a supervisor is quite different from being a lead but it's very rewarding and I absolutely love my job! I can't believe I was blessed to find such an amazing company that has grown so fast and puts so much into their employees! It was a huge blessing to us as well and I was excited to take on the task!

Weening

Last week I decided to start weening Caleb from breastfeeding. Caleb has never been great at sleeping through the night. Most babies use a binkie, thumb, blanket or toy to comfort themselves. Caleb didn't use any of that. He would get mad if I even tried to give him a binkie. The only thing that he liked was breastfeeding. Don't think I breastfed this kid all the time. I kept to a schedule and only breastfed him when it was time to eat.

Caleb is stubborn though. When it was time to not have feedings in the night, I would gradually try to get rid of one feeding at a time. We saw improvement but there were 2 feedings that he refused to get rid of. He would cry for 2 hours. And we saw only small improvement. Caleb is definitely a baby that would easily breastfeed until 2 years. But he really needed to sleep better. For himself and for mom and dad. As soon as we started eliminating feedings during the day, we focused on eliminating the 1:30 am feeding and saw huge improvement. He finally stopped waking up at 1:30 am. I only had two feedings left, his last feeding before he went to bed and early morning around 5 am. I stopped pumping at work which greatly reduced my milk. I shortened the evening feeding and eventually just kept distracting him and eliminated it.

At this point Caleb wasn't too happy about this change but was sleeping better because he now was learning to comfort himself. I got him to take his binkie, which he gladly takes because he isn't breastfeeding.  I still cuddle with him and rock him. Just with a binkie in place of breastfeeding. I noticed that he would whine and act more needy than normal. I could tell he really missed breastfeeding. I would just try to spend more time with him and hold him. I didn't want him to feel that because I didn't breastfeed him he didn't get that time with me. We soon replaced breastfeeding with a bottle at the 5 am feeding. he would take less and less and last night he went right back to sleep without us going in there. He was awake for 5 minutes at the most. There are things that I miss about breastfeeding. I'm just glad that he is sleeping better. It's better for his development. Hopefully last night wasn't a one time thing and he will continue sleeping 10+ hours.

Lagoon!

Friday Spencer and I went to Lagoon. It was stake Lagoon day and we got $15 off. It was the perfect day! There weren't any lines for rides and it was crazy hot. Because we didn't have to wait in crazy long lines we had extra time to do things we don't usually do at Lagoon. It was a lot of fun. Caleb was at Ranae's so Spencer and I made a date out of it. It really was the perfect day.

Did you know that the owner of Lagoon goes to countries like Bulgaria, Russia etc and recruits people to work at Lagoon for 4 months! I thought it was a little strange that everyone had thick accents. ha ha. He was having issues with the people of Farmington working for a week and quiting or just not ever showing up. This way these kids have a cool experience being in America and he gets people who will work the whole summer. I thought it was pretty interesting.

Looks like they are building another roller coaster. :)

My Baby is 1 year old!

Caleb on his birthday 

Just a few days old

What a special week we've had. Caleb turned one! Right before his birthday we went over to Fotofly and had his pictures taken. We did 2 poses as a family and the rest were of him. He was so adorable at the shoot. The very end we did a cake smash. Oh my! I knew he would eat the cake (that boy will eat anything) but I didn't realize how much he would get into it! Holy Moly! The photographer couldn't believe it. The other photographers came and watched. It was pretty funny. Thursday was his actual birthday. I sang to him and we cuddled in bed for a while. No one cuddles like Caleb. I hope it never ends. He will lay in bed with me with his arms around my neck, laughing, talking and giving me wet kisses on the cheek. It's pretty precious. I love how he will put his forehead to mine and laugh. I took him to Ranae's (his babysitter) and she gave him four toys! She loves to spoils these kids. Spencer joked that he was just going to wrap up our pots and pans because he loves to play with them. And then Caleb opened his gift from Ranae and it was toy pots and pans! Ha ha everyone laughed.

 We didn't have a celebration on his actual birthday, instead we celebrated it on Saturday so more family could come. We had a delicious cake with ice cream. It's funny to have cake with a candle on it at this age. Caleb just stared at it. I helped him blow out the candle. It'll be fun when he can do it himself. Thanks to all who came. It was good seeing everyone. Caleb was spoiled with some cool toys and cute outfits.

At 12 months Caleb is close to walking. He can walk with you holding one hand. He just needs to take that plunge and walk with out anything helping his balance. I'm in no rush ;) He says Mama, Dada, Bye bye and I'm pretty sure there are other words he is trying to say...but he is still working on the pronunciation :) It's funny to hear his conversations. It actually sounds like he is saying words, just in a different language. He is climbing and getting into everything. Spencer put him at the bottom of the slide, he turned around and crawled to the top of the slide!

He stills loves trying new food. He is just now starting to show signs of "Stranger Danger." I usually see it when he is really tired. But most of the time he good with strangers.

He is sleeping so much better since I stopped breastfeeding. Last night he slept for 12 hours. I heard him cry at 4:20 but he fell right back to sleep. Can I get a hallelujah! :) Caleb's personality is showing more and more. He dances more, laughs more. This kid has a sense of humor. He now points at things he wants or sees. And he's pretty good at swinging on the swing.

Happy Birthday Caleb! Mom and Dad love you so much. Our life is filled with so much joy because of you. We are pretty lucky to be your parents.

Building a home.

Earlier this year at the end of March we started looking into buying a home. He got a realtor and started the hunt. My it was certainly an experience. Every house we looked at had multiple offers in less than 24 hours. As soon as a house went on the market it was sold. Everything was happening so fast. I didn't like the idea that I would have to make a decision so quickly. We looked at many homes. And I still didn't feel good about anything. We stopped by Candlelight Homes after shopping at Winco. I really like their homes and they seemed like a great company.

We did more research and felt really good about building. Plus we got such a great price! Honestly it was just slightly more to build than it was to buy a townhome. Plus a lot of the townhomes had huge HOA fees.

So we went ahead with the planning. We scheduled a day to go to the design center to design the inside of our home. We gave ourselves a budget because we knew it would be easy to go overboard on the upgrades. That day at the design center was very overwhelming! There were too many choices! I mean seriously, they let you do whatever. Which I guess is nice but man I had a hard time because I was just looking at samples. For example-You have hundreds of paint swatches to choose from and I knew that what I picked would look different once it was on the wall. But they have someone there to help you. She was great. Hopefully we like everything that we picked :)

We are so excited to move into our new home. It'll be finished at the end of October. Our goal is to close on October 25th. We will be living at Independence At the Point in Bluffdale. Really close to I-15.  Our lease where we currently are living is up at the end of July. They don't do month to month. So...we are moving in with my parents until our home is finished. That should be an adventure. But I'm not too worried about it. Hopefully the next 4 months will go by quickly!

Silver Star rambler

Main floor:1486 sq ft

Basement: 1385 sq ft

Family Reunion/4th of July

The weekend before the 4th we drove to Idaho Falls for the Nelson family reunion (Spencer's mother's side of the family) We stayed with his uncle Carl Atamanczyk. It was nice to visit with them. We appreciate them opening up their home to us. The reunion had a great turn out. 75 people. But man it was HOT! 100 degrees hot. but we still enjoyed ourselves. After the reunion we drove to the old farm that Karen grew up on. Man, it was such a tiny home for 13 kids! It was cool to see where she grew up. We went to an old diner that she used to go to that had yummy scones. Caleb wasn't as great the drive up (not too terrible) and he slept the whole way going back home. It was a nice trip. I loved how easy breezy Idaho Falls was. The roads are so wide! The yards are huge. For a small second I thought about moving there...don't worry it was only a second. Their -20 in the winter is not for me!

We had an awesome 4th! We went to Kearns park and had lunch with the Atamanczyk family. We ate Harmons fried chicken, mashed potatoes, veggies and rolls. Delicious. Better than KFC. After the park we went back to Karen's and had a good 'ole water fight. It was pretty hilarious. I did get the catapiller out so Caleb could join in the water fun. After a nap and a steak dinner, we headed to West Jordan Park for fireworks. We had an awesome seat. We were close enough to the launch pad that we could see and hear each firework go off at the launch site. It was a great firework show! Caleb did really well. He was getting really tired though. Once the fireworks went off, he was pretty wide eyed. Half way through he just passed out. He is a light sleeper and I was sure he'd wake up for the finale. Nope! He was gone! Didn't wake up once, not even walking back to the car. That boy must have been tired. We all had a blast!

It was also Lukas Baker's one year birthday on July 4th. We dropped off a super hero toy and said Hi to our cousin Melissa. His headstone is beautiful! I thought of him when I lit our sparklers. He is missed. Happy birthday Lukas. You are definitely loved and remembered by many.

Super big update!

Alright so I'm not that great at consistently updating my blog. My life has recently gotten super busy. I don't know how people find time to sit down and blog. It's something I wish I was better at. I wake up go to work, come home, make dinner, play with Caleb, put Caleb to bed, clean dishes/pick up the house, talk and spend time with Spencer and then I'll either go to bed because I'm way tired (Caleb isn't one of those babies that sleep for 10+hours) or I'll do some slide syncing for extra income. I do this about 10 hours a week.

My weekends are always packed. We try to either accomplish a lot on our to do list or do something fun. Some of the fun things we have done that I haven't written about:

-My birthday and Valentines was fun. Spencer got me a comfy memory form pillow and a 16GB Memory card for my camera. We also went out to dinner and had family over for a party.

-Spencer took Caleb to the zoo with his cousins! They had a blast. (3/29/13)

-We went to the Home and Garden show. Signed up for a 2 night stay at Westgate resorts. Got us thinking about our future home.

-Spencer had his birthday. I decorated the house and got him some new clothes. We had people over for a birthday celebration. There was one snag...on his actual birthday we went out to eat at Famous Dave (one of his favorite places) and afterwards he got violently ill. Threw up all through the night and had important work to do early the next morning. No Bueno. :( Poor Spencer. But his brother Joel did take him to a Jazz game so he did still have some good memories for his birthday!

- Flew to Portland, OR to visit my sister Christina. The trip was way too short. I miss her and her cute family! It was so good to see them. I really want to go out there again but stay for like a week or something. Caleb did pretty well flying, but it was not perfect. He did manage to kick my water on the seat and it ran under Spencer. His entire butt was soaking wet. It was funny watching him walk to the back to change in the small lavatory. Good times. While we were there we went to the river. It was a lot of fun! Portland was beautiful. Ian and Ava loved playing with Caleb. I wish we lived closer.

- Stayed in Park City at Westgate. Had such a great time! Went window shopping and ate yummy food. Love Park City!

-We also went to two different parties with Spencer's co-workers. Spencer really loves his job. He works with great people and we had a great time hanging out with them and their families.


-We celebrated our 3rd anniversary. Daniel, Spencer's brother, watched Caleb while we drove through the Alpine Loop. We were going to do indoor sky diving, but in the middle of the night Spencer got the worst migraine of his life. He threw up 5 times. It was horrible!! I felt so bad :( He didn't exactly feel like doing anything physical. So we changed plans and did something more laid back. The Alpine loop was gorgeous!! It made me want to go camping so bad! We made our way to Heber and enjoyed some Dairy Keen! I love their train burger and nobody does Fresh Strawberry Shakes like they do. YUM!! While we were there we saw there was a car show. Who Knew? We walked around and saw all the neat restored cars. It was a great day. We went back home and relieved Daniel. I quickly got my hair cut (I needed it pretty bad) and headed over to Spencer's parents house. Karen watched Caleb while we went to WestFest and enjoyed fireworks. It was such a great day just spending time with each other without Caleb. I couldn't believe how good it felt. I love Caleb but we hadn't gone so long without having him with us. It was nice.
-Funny Story. I dropped my phone in the grass. Didn't realize it until we were almost to the car. Spencer's phone was dead so we couldn't use it to find my phone. Daniel was there and he offered to run back to find it. while he did that, we went to Winco to pick up some items. We called him on the Winco phone to see if he found it and where he wanted us to meet him. A nice family helped him search and one of the little girls found it! Daniel awarded her 2 bucks. (he's so nice) Thank goodness my phone was found! Thank you Daniel!

We look awesome..

My dad's first car.

So there you have it. Those are just some of the fun things we have done. I could go on BUT this post is already pretty long. Good for you if you are still reading. This year is flying by! I can't believe it.