Bear Lake

We took a wonderful family vacation to Bear Lake. I think we all agree that we must go back! I would love it if we made it a tradition for our family reunions, like my dear friend Chelsea's family does.

Bear Lake is on the border of Utah and Idaho and quite close to Wyoming. We stayed in Garden City. It's a cute little place without a stop light (though we all agree that they are due for a stop light at their main corner). My mom rented a condo with three bedrooms. It was perfect. One for my parents, one for us and Chris, one for Brittany and Danny, and Daniel slept on the sofa bed in one of the family rooms. We also had an awesome view of the lake.

What did we do? We went to their little fair for the Raspberry Festival and got yummy food, including delicious raspberry shakes, of course. Tony, Jed, and I went to the range and hit some gold balls, and the next day Tony, Jed, and Danny did a round of golf. We went to the lake, rode on a two person kayak and a wave runner. Jed had never been on a wave runner and was a little nervous (he's not really a fan of water...), but he loved it, just like I thought he would. Chris tried watermelon for the first time and love it. Some of the crew played tennis one evening. The biggest thing was going to Pickleville Playhouse to see The Hanging of El Bandito. I have another post about another Juanito Bandito show. They are fantastic and my entire family highly recommends them. So, of course we loved that. We also ate at their restaurant and that was great food. 

Overall, it was just a perfect vacation. Not too long, but long enough to have a break from life and spend some quality time with the family. Chris had fun, too, getting so much attention.

We kind of failed on the picture taking, but here are the few that we took:

Videos of Adorable Chris

Here are some of our favorite videos. I don't expect many other people to enjoy them much more than a few seconds each, because while you cannot deny they are cute, they are probably not 2 minutes or even 4 minutes cute. Unless you are Jed and I, in which case all 4 minutes of that are amazing!

This is the most recent one, from Bear Lake. His uncle was blowing in his face and he was getting startled. Cute little boy.

This is from a while ago. He was eating and then was very distracted by who knows what. Whatever it was, he wanted to talk to it. Maybe his angel family members were there.

This is him very excited about his toys. It's definitely the longest, but it has some fun parts.

OUR FAVORITE ONE! Yay for laughing babies. This one shows how adorable he is.

Another laughing one. 

Summer Practicum (again), Teaching, and Graduation!

So, last I wrote in June, I was just starting Summer Practicum, right?

Let's review. I went on bed rest and maternity leave. That meant, my internship wasn't complete! After working it out, it was decided I would teach at Summer Practicum at Mt. Mahogany Elementary, where students who are about to start their Student Teaching/Internship get their first real teaching experience.

I got to work with Jannica again which was way fun! I enjoyed working with Jannica all year long, but this was especially fun, because it was more casual, so I think we had more fun together. I will definitely miss working with her! I also was in a classroom with 5 other teachers, all a year behind me. I loved them! They were smart ladies. While I have to admit, working with teachers a year behind me gave me a little confidence boost because I definitely knew more than them and could handle the kids better, they had a much better handle on teaching than I did last year! So they will make some great teachers this year.

I had three students I worked with. They were sometimes a challenge, but were so fun! There was some crying, running, and swearing (not by me, I promise!), but ultimately, we had so much fun! They were so sweet and said some of the "darndest" things, and so it was a really great experience. I also learned some really great skills that I know would help me if I was teaching this year.

So, I finished that on July 20th and I graduated this week! It was so awesome. My wonderful in laws came in town and I had a lot of family support me. My best friend, Natalie, also was graduating (crazy how we started together and ended together despite the unusual August graduation), so her family was there too. Thursday was Commencement at the Marriott Center. We all walked in as a massive big group and sat in the bleachers. David L. Beck spoke and great talk and overall, I loved it. He talked about a woman who started Starfish Foster Care. Look her up. I cried to hear her story. She was an amazing woman!

Friday morning was Convocation, just for the Mckay School of Education. I was given the honor of saying the opening prayer! I wasn't nervous, so I was grateful for that. It was great, and since it was August, there were very few people. It was about an hour and a half, probably at least a half hour less than usual, if not more. Afterwards, we went to Crackerbarrel, my family, my in laws, my grandparents, and Natalie and her family. It was great and I am so grateful to my family and friends who supported me!

I have to throw in here, Chris loves his grandparents, but especially Jed's dad. We were amazed. Through both ceremonies, Jed's dad took care of him, and through both ceremonies, he was perfect. At dinner one night, he was crying. I walked him around and he was fine. Jed's dad took him, and within a minute, he was asleep. They definitely have a kinship, and I think Chris will have a special connection with his grandpa.

It feels so awesome to be finished and moving on with my life. I had the best experience at BYU. I got to go with my best friend in the entire world, Natalie, and be her roommate for two years. We had so much fun together, not just as roommates but as classmates. I met my husband at BYU and got married. We lived in old Wymount together, in those lovely cinderblock walls with no A/C or dishwasher and having to walk to the laundromat, but living in a great community with beautiful huge old trees and awesome neighbors. I got a great education, learning valuable skills and knowledge that will help me as I work with students with special needs but also as a wife and mother. My professors were great. I had a stressful, but good internship. I had amazing coworkers, specifically some wonderful paraeducators who I could never have survived without, and a great mentor teacher who taught me so much, not only about special ed, but also about work ethic and about being a leader. What great things BYU has given me! And while I'm excited to be leaving after Jed graduates next April, I will certainly miss it. I will definitely miss the community and the great education I had at my fingertips.

Also, I am so grateful for my mother. How could I have made it through BYU without her? She paid for half my education, and much more. She's supported me. And most especially, the huge gift she gave us was to watch Chris while I worked and finished up school. She watched him every day in May and 2-3 times a week this summer. That's a lot of time! We definitely would not have known what to do without her! Thank you, Mom, so very much!

So, what next? Well Jed will continue working at the BYU Bookstore as Student Manager and taking classes 3/4 time. And me.... well all summer long I planned on being a paraeducator. I was so excited! I would work part time and Chris would be watched by my mom and some day care. I was not too excited about day care, but when you're students, you sometimes have to compromise what you want and what needs to happen. I also thought about subbing. We prayed and fasted, but never did anything stick out to us. I waited and searched and pursued a few jobs, but never did anything seem to work out as planned nor did we get a spiritual confirmation that one job was the right job.

I was about to go into a long story, but I will just say that through my fellow counselor in the Relief Society, I found a job babysitting! A woman in my ward is an elementary school teacher and needed someone to watch her two kids. I tried it out for a couple of days, and while it will be a challenge, it is definitely the right thing. Just one of the confirmations we had was how easily it worked out! And so now, I get to be at home with my beautiful boy, but still earn money for our family. And call me crazy, but I will be babysitting a 2 month old and a 2 1/2 year old.... yep. Plus my little 5 month old. So.... lots of babies! But they are cute little kids so I'm excited.

And that's life! Mine seems a little less complicated, but it's amazing that as one chapter closes and responsibilities leave, more come in and replace them! But it's been a fun August so far, and we are excited for the year to continue!

Chris's first trip to the ER

Oh, you're excited to read this one right? Well, it's strange. I'll just start by saying that.

A few Saturdays ago, Chris was rather fussy. We weren't sure why. All day long, we had some pretty long crying periods and we felt awful not knowing how to fix it. That night, around 10, Jed was holding Chris and looking at his adorable feet and toes (because seriously, baby toes are so cute!) and noticed a long, blond hair wrapped around his middle toe and "ring finger" toe. Weird! So, I pulled it off the ring finger toe. Difficult, but I did it. Then I tried to pull it off the middle toe. Let me tell you, it was in there. Deep. We couldn't see the hair, but we could see the massive roll/indent/line where the hair was digging in. We felt awful and Chris hated us touching his toe because I have no doubt it hurt quite a bit. I tried to use some of my little tweezers or nail things to get it out, but it was too far in there.

It's hard to tell because it looks like a little roll or toe wrinkle, but you can see on his middle toe that line where the hairs are digging in.

We wondered what to do. We kept mentioning the ER but both of us felt so silly going there for a hair! Doctor's office was closed. Urgent Cares were closed. ER was open. So, after much deliberation, we went there. When I told the nurse who checked us in what the problem was, I felt so silly, but she was so nice about it and made me feel lots better. She also told us that hairs wrapping around fingers and toes is more common than you might think. Apparently, though, it happens most often with boys in another place..... ouch!

Amazingly, Chris is not crying. That's because no one was touching his toes.

So, we were taken back to the ER and into a room and a super nice doctor and technician came in to help us out. They were a little baffled as to how to get it off, because it was way in there, but after using a couple of different tools, they used a suture remover and it worked! Thank goodness. And we felt even better about bringing him in because the doctors were so surprised that we even saw it and told us that if we hadn't, and it had continued to cut in so deep, he might have needed his toe amputated. Scary! But we are so grateful we saw it. Now, when he cries his sad little cry of pain, we check every toe and finger and elsewhere to make sure there's no long blond hair of mine wrapped around him!

All this means, our first ever trip to the ER is complete and no worries for the next one! Let's just hope there is no next one.

Dear Chris: Five Months

Dear Chris,

Oh Chris, how much fun you are! And how we love you.

Since my last letter, at two months, you have grown so chunky! You started your life around the 15th percentile for height and 5th for weight. Now you are 30th for height and 80th for weight! We love to hear that because the doctor says that fat babies are healthy babies. Looking back at your newborn pictures, you had rolls on your legs from loose skin. Now you have rolls because your skin can hardly hold your fat! We love it so much! I can't stop kissing you because you are just too cute. So, you're over 17 pounds and wearing 6-9 month old clothing.

You have started doing some of the cutest things. First off, you love to talk. You have some great conversations, especially with your Grandma Berrett. Of course, you just make little oohs and ahhs and cute little noises, but you love to talk. You have gone through a phase where you don't talk quite so much; instead you spit and blow raspberries. Ha ha it's very fun, but dodging that spit is rather difficult.

Speaking of spit, you drool. A ton. You're not quite to the stage where you soak your own shirts, but you certainly soak our shirts! If we hold you in our arms with your head on our shoulder, we walk away with completely wet shoulders; add in a little spit up or food, and my shirts look just lovely (I'm typing this as I write with a black shirt on and after I had been holding you for a while.... let's just say I will be changing my shirt before I leave the house).

Here is your drool bubble beard. Gross.

Another adorable thing you do is laugh! And you know who you laugh the best for? Your daddy! I was rather jealous at first, but I love that you and he are such good buds. And I would be remiss to neglect the fact that the first person you laughed for was your Grandma.  You started off with these little, kind of chuckles, almost like you couldn't get your laugh out. But now you have nice big belly laughs. You are most ticklish by your collarbone, but also on your thighs. However, you must be in the right mood to laugh, or even smile. In general, you are. But, when we are in a new environment, you are very inquisitive. You love to look around and take everything in. You hate to lay down because you don't get very good views! But you love to look around, especially if someone walks you around a room. If you are in that mood, you rarely smile but stare with these big blue eyes. You rarely cry in a new situation, in fact, I don't think you ever cry in a new situation or with new people. You love new things.

Crying. You have been such a good baby, we don't usually see you cry. When you are tired, hungry, or need a diaper change you cry, just like a baby should. If I try to get your dad to come to where we are by yelling to him in another room, you cry. Ha ha that cry is a sad one, I think because the yelling scares you. Lately, though, we've heard some cries of pain. First, because your fun experience to the ER! (This will be in another post) Secondly, because we think the beginnings of teething are upon us. No fun. We've had several days where nothing consoled you except cold watermelon, sometimes nursing, rubbing on your gums, and sometimes ibuprofin.

Speaking of! We have been giving you solids! Yay! It's been fun. Sometimes I just don't have quite enough milk, and instead of using expensive formula, now we can give you delicious pureed food. You've tried peas, green beans, rice cereal, peaches, applesauce and watermelon. You liked them all, except the peaches. You hated those ha ha. You loved the watermelon. Loved it! We love giving it to you, but you make quite the mess with that. Red face, red drool, red shirt, red bib, red washcloth. But it's been fun and we've enjoyed seeing how excited you get sometimes for food. Next food: carrots!

                 

Your motor skills are developing well. You are maybe a little behind the average, but still just fine. You can hold up your head so well on your tummy and sometimes when you want to get up, you push up on your feet and get your little bum up in the air. You can roll over front to back and back to front. We've never actually seen the back to front.... only back to side, but we have gotten you several times from a nap or in the morning from your crib where you started on your back and ended up on your tummy. You love your toys and you love to grab them. For a while, it took much concentration and much time to reach for your toys and actually have your hand even touch the toy. Now you grab them super fast, pull them to your mouth, and eat them. You also love to grab your foot and it is so cute!

You just love to be with people. You have started hating your car seat and you do your very best to get out of it be arching your back and pushing with your feet. It's rather effective actually and it takes some effort on our part to actually get you in and not feel too bad for being such mean parents.

       

Naps and sleeping are getting into a routine, just this week! You've been sleeping pretty consistently, but you weren't going to bed until 11.... So this week I've been so grateful that you have been going to sleep between 8:30 and 9! Let's hope we keep getting earlier and earlier. When you go to bed at that time, you wake up around 3:30 (though today it was 6:00!) and you wake up usually another time before you're up for good, around 8. You also are taking a pretty consistent nap at 10:30 or 11. I love that! While it's a short nap, it's been great to see you sleeping at the same time.

     

   

       

I feel like there is much more to say, but I will refrain. You are so adorable and so fun, and we are so blessed to have you!

Love,

Mom and Dad

P.S. We have lots of videos of you being adorable, but they will be in another post.