Showers and Flowers

Ah the smell of blossoming spring flowers, fresh mowed grass, and the replenished ground from a recent rain fall must mean that summer is approaching. Which also means the bathing suits that I've been ignoring for over a year are eager to make their comeback. Ruh-roh. Guess all those Christmas cookies weren't such a good idea. Pfft, who am I kidding of course they were!

The girls I work with are all fitnessfinatics, healthy nutritioners, and encourage each other in the process to keep going. So one of them recommended I check out the post-pregnancy plan under bodybuilding and follow the meal plan and work out guide. Especially since it's free online, right? I did. I'm in week 2, but I'm kinda counting it as an extended week 1 since it was Easter and conference and I totally cheated with some bomb diggity yumminess. So far so good. Wish me luck... I guess.
This post is coming to you out of the fullness of love in my heart outpouring for all of the blessings I have. It's easy to overlook the simplest of blessings in your life when you are fixated on looking outward at the work that still needs to be done, has yet to be done, or flat out is being neglected. This month as been a great big smack in the face of, "Oh... Yeah okay I have much to be grateful for." For that fact alone, I am grateful.
Moving on a little bit.... Troy asked me to post for him because he's busy being too cool for me playing with his teething ring. Yep. TEETHING RING. My drool machine has officially made it known that those chompers are comin', and quite possibly sooner than we would like them too... Mostly for my sake and nursing. Nursing and teeth? Nu uh. That's where I put my foot down.

FOUR MONTHS OLD:

Troy enjoys being outside and going on walks or even simple car rides with his window rolled down, taking baths and splashing as hard as he can, standing with assistance, sitting in his bumbo chair (I say that hesitantly because he likes to lean on one side or another and he gets upset that he can't pull himself back up), having tickle fights, reading with mom, playing with his toes, and talking real loud.

This little tot is the best. I'm obviously bias, but in truth we lucked out with him as our first in many ways. One I'm particularly proud of is his sleep. He calls it quits for the day at 7:30pm, we do our nightly routine starting with a bath, and he's asleep no later than 8:30pm. He doesn't wake up until 7:30am. WHAT? Yeah for real though. I've had a lot of people ask me what our secret is... Are you ready? THERE IS NONE. I made the mistake of reading the stupid baby books before Troy was born such as "What to expect when you're expecting" and "Baby Wise." I will say there is a lot of great information to gather from reading those books, however what I took away from it is that I HAVE to start my children on a schedule ASAP otherwise they will never sleep through the night and I am screwed. After he was born, I tried doing the baby wise method. Though it may be necessary for some children to be on those types of schedules, Troy made it clear in the beginning that it did not work. He was fussy all the time, and wouldn't sleep well at all... Family members gave us advice that at his last evening feeding at whatever time it was, that we needed to put him down for the night and just let him wake up on his own. So we started doing that. It helped a ton. We also gave him a nightly routine so that he knew that bed time was approaching. We give him a bath, put on jammies, put him in a his woombie (google it dude you want it), turn off the lights, turn on the box fan for white noise, give him his last feed in a bottle (to make sure he really was full), and lay him down in his crib to fall asleep. Once he started sleeping through the night for 5 hours or more, we would push back his bed time. For example, his night time routine would start at 11. Then he started sleeping through until 6am, so we bumped it back a half hour to 10:30pm. Every time he would sleep through, we pushed back his night routine. If he wasn't ready for an earlier bed time, we would go back to pushing it later. Eventually he would give us signals he was getting tired and ready for bed time, so we followed his lead. We have never had to do cry it out. We have never had any issues with him fighting bed time. Mostly, our kid rocks. I don't know what else to say.

Another thing I'm very proud of is how stinkin' happy he is. He's not one of those kids, (yet), that needs to be with his mom or dad constantly to be happy. He can go to anyone and be chill. Though, he's not quite to that age yet that he has a preference I think... There are days however that he does just want me. I soak those up. They won't last. I just really love him a lot. He's my buddy.

Okay.. so to explain the picture on the left... Super scary right?! No matter what I do, he scoots his little bum to one of the corners of his bed and stuffs his face in the corner. Without the bumper on, he cries and cries because he wants something to snuggle next to. Even when I nurse him or feed him in a bottle, he turns his body towards me and buries his face into me arm. I'm at a loss... 

When the kid is asleep, guess what that means? DATE NIGHT FOR THE RENTS. Never have I ever been more enthused by a red box movie and homemade popcorn. Have y'all watched interstellar? We give it a thumbs up. Go rent it, eat that popcorn, and get a foot rub.

Whoop there it is.............. zzzzz

Marching through March

Apples are so good. For some whatever reason, granny smith's are my current favorite. Now, if honeycrisp apples were on sale and available to me, I would be saying I'm eating a honeycrisp. Others might disagree with me by saying honeycrisp's are not the best apples, but they are wrong. Plain and simple. #comeatme
Troy is like begging me to type his post first, so here ya go:

Heyyyyyy. What's up guys? I'm back. I know I know, you all have been DYING to read about all the current happenings in my life right? Don't worry I got your back.

So my mom does this thing called "work part time" 3 days out of the week. I'll wake up from sleeping because it's the day time, and my gramma is just magically there. My mom comes back home and plays with me around my bed time, and right after that gramma goes home and my Dad shows up. When my dad comes home he sings me funny songs. Some of them are weird, and I'm pretty sure they aren't real songs. For example, "I looked out the window and what did I see? A little bunny hopping right in front of me. I shot him in the head and now he's dead..." I forget the rest. But then my mom sings the same song only different. I like her version better. I'm not super fond of thinking about dead bunnies.... 

I'm still lovin' bath time. I've finally learned how to get the water on my parents. I just have to throw both my feet up at the same time and land them right in the water. Works every time. 

Tummy time is still stupid. Will always be stupid. It's getting easier for me because now I just lift up my head and yell at my mom to pick me up. It's hard to lift my head up though because I've got a big head and a tiny body. (mom typing- at his 2 month check up he was 95th percentile for his head and 50th for weight and height sooo yeah). Anyways, sometimes I have to lift my feet up too when I lift up my head. It seems to help.

My appetite has like doubled. I don't really know what this part means, but my mom says I eat up to 5.5oz at a time every 2-3 hours. My parents had to start mixing my regular milk with this stuff called "formula." I don't mind though. I'll still eat it, but I can definitely tell it's not the normal stuff. Sometimes I don't like it, so I just wait until they give me the normal milk. 

My dad had to cut my hair a couple weeks ago because it was getting too long on one side of my head. I don't know why the other side wasn't keeping up, but oh well. Now I've got a stylish look just like my dad. 

My mom bought me this cool thing that has toys hang over my head with a thing that shows me what I look like. It's super cool. All the funny shapes, my mom calls them animals, make this jingle noise and feel funny too when I touch them. It makes me laugh real hard. 

Oh, also, my parents favorite thing to do is tickle me until I pee. I try to shrink myself up and dodge their tickle fights, but I always lose. I'm hoping one of these days they forget to put a diaper on me... I'll show them. ahahahaha

That's all I got. Peace out fools-

T-MONEY

'

 It's literally the best feeling in the world coming home from work, and seeing this bright smiley little handsome. I picked up an extra day out of the week, so now I'm working Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. It's been really smooth, and I love my job so it makes it easier. Plus I selfishly love how excited he gets when he sees me coming home.

Last weekend was busy for our little guy meeting his great grandparents! This is my awesome Grandma Jaeger, who by the way beat cancer last year!!!!! She's on the mend, and is the most selfless, energetic, hilarious, compassionate woman I know. I pray I'm as cool as she is when I'm her age.

We hardly ever take pictures together anymore since we had Troy. Both our phones now have zillions of pictures of a bright blue eyed little boy. So, get ready for more of this my fellow bloggers.

Great Grandma's weekend continued- We're skipping a generation in this picture, but on the right is Troy's Great Great Grandma, whom we call Great Grandma Great, and on the left is Troy's Great Grandma Sweetie. When I was younger I called my grandma "Grandma Sweetie" because my grandpa always called her Sweetie. So it stuck. Anyways, this picture is crazy cool with having four generations!

Troy playing with his Dad, and listening to his made up songs. I'm fairly concerned that he will grow up singing them as legitimate songs, and kids everywhere will be like, "Uh that's not the version my parents taught me..."

Great Grandma Sweetie and Great Grandma Great. He seriously was so in love with both of them from the minute they walked in the door. It just melted my heart. We don't get to see them very often, so I was glad that Troy was on his bestest behavior. 

We took them out to dinner in the village in meridian at this restaurant called Twigs. We all ate yummy food, walked around, gabbed and laughed, ant watched the water show. Troy was entranced by the colors. It got a little chilly so we sat by the fire, where he also sat and watched the flames. Hopefully that means he will be a literal happy camper when we go camping, eh?

Oh, and on the right. Just like, look at him you guys. For real....

 Ignore my ghettoness.. He had a rough night and thought he could just party all night. We had to give him a stern talking to like, "Listen guy, I know the neighbors down stairs have you confused, but now is not the time to be playing with mom and dad." Didn't stick unfortunately... But he's always fun and pretty in the mornings. His eyes will forever be my favorite. Actually I lied, his whole person is my favorite.

His, "LOOK MA! I'M THREE MONTHS OLD!" picture... Like what? Three months ago he was born? Time flies... 

Sometimes in church it's super cool when your baby decides to not only spit up all over his Sunday clothes, but also spit up on yours, have a blow out, and refuse to take a nap. It's moments such as these you throw a blanket on the ground, give him his toy, and just say FINE. Cured. He sat and talked to his toy elephant and laughed at me for being so silly to think that he would ever take a nap with so much spirit being felt up in here. Silly silly me....

Oh you guys... Life is wonderful isn't it? A friend of mine posted a picture on instagram of her 5 (?!?!?!) boys and said, "While we're busy trying to teach them all about life, they are teaching us what life is all about." It's so true. Granted, I've been a parent for a mere 3 months, but in that short time I've learned so much about myself, and how much our Father in Heaven loves us. I mean, he gave me one of his children and trusted B and I to raise him in righteousness. That's amazing. I can barely leave my son for work in the morning, let alone entrust him with someone else to teach him all the eternal truths that his Heavenly Father wants him to grow to have a testimony of. Can you imagine?  Nope. 

As for an update on everything else... B is taking chemistry 111, which I think I mentioned before? His teacher is one of those that has zero patience. Half the time he's saying, "You should already know this!" or "I don't know why you guys aren't getting this." For real. We got a tutor to basically teach Brandon the same chapters this guy isn't able to teach himself. B was telling me one of the girls in his class is from China and was a doctor there, but when she came to the US she had to go back to school to get her degree. She's never ever failed anything in her life, and on their last test she failed it. So to me that speaks volumes. I sincerely hope this tutor will help! Seems to be. 

B's company merged with Sleep Country this last week, so things have been slammed for him there. They have switched their computer software system over to the one Sleep Country was using, and are training how to use it as well as train the Sleep Country staff the ways of Mattress Firm. B runs his own store, and they gave him an assistant guy to be there with him consistent, which is nice to have stability and have someone accountable for the store rather than just him, ya know?

We are supposed to be getting more info on Hawaii by the end of the month, and it sounds like it will for sure be in September. WAHOO! #daydreaming

Until next time peeps.... xoxo