What we've been up to...

With the plethora of pictures I have been taking and posting, I really haven't written many updates here! Thought I'd catch you all up on the happenings of our exciting life...

*Most importantly and most exciting is the news that Jonathan went permanent at his job this month! Up until now he has been working there as a temp, and as such he hasn't been getting any benefits. We were VERY blessed that a position opened up and they offered it to him! He got a great pay raise as well as EXCELLENT benefits, which we are very excited about! We are feeling more and more like "real adults" as we get our 401k, cafeteria plan, etc. up and running. What a blessing :) We are very excited!

*We are currently planning and preparing to find a place of our own to live - looking into possibly buying a home, fun stuff like that! While we are so grateful to my Grandma for letting us live in her house, we are SO excited and ready to have a place of our own again.

*I have started teaching piano again a little after not really teaching for a year and a half - and I love it! I currently have one cute student who is really talented and I am in the process of looking for more.

*Jonathan and I are teaching the 8-year-olds in Primary, which is fun but is QUITE the challenge as some of these kids are SUPER rambunctious. They are sweet though, and it is fun to have a calling with my husband!

*James has been going to nursery, and this past Sunday he went by himself and stayed the ENTIRE TIME for the very first time! We are so proud of him! He did cry a lot when we left, but then he did pretty well and (we think) had a fun time! Our boy is growing so fast!

*If you couldn't tell, I am obSESSED with photography and photo editing, and have been doing that a ton during James' naps. I can't seem to get enough! I would love to (eventually) have my own little photography business - we'll see what happens with that!

*As posted earlier, James is obsessed with cars (toy cars, books about cars, the movie Cars, riding in cars, "driving" cars, drawing cars, etc.), his Grandpa (he is CONSTANTLY saying "Bapa!"), and babies (he loves to "be a baby" - he lays down on the bed and has us wrap him up like a baby - which is really funny because when I was a toddler I went through a phase where I would always want to "be a baby!"; he loves looking at pictures of the "baby" (aka himself) on the computer or the camera and he gets SO excited whenever he sees a baby or a picture of a baby - it's pretty cute!)

*James' vocabulary is really expanding! Aside from other previously posted words he uses, here are some of his most recent words:

bet (bed)
bet (bread)
book (yes he can now say it correctly!)
bux (box)
wake! or make! ("I'm awake!")
baby
dit (treat)
bus
bat (bath)
bash (splash)
'nike! (goodnight!)
dosh (drive)
goy, agoy, or yago (yogurt)


Also, his new FAVORITE word seems to be "NO." Terrible twos, here we come...

Our little family has sure been blessed - we are so grateful!

While Daddy's at work...

...James and I have lots of fun together! Since he is feeling better and the weather is BEAUTIFUL (hope it stays like this!), James and I have gone outside a LOT. This kid loves going on a walk and seeing things like cars and trucks (which he likes to touch) and rocks (we've gotta stop and pick them up). Here is a picture of us all ready to go on a walk!


We are excited for Daddy to be all trained at work and start his regular hours (3pm to 11pm) so we can do lots of fun things with him during the day!

We are also enjoying spending some time with James' great-grandma. They love to read books together!

Life is great

Life is so wonderful! We are so happy that Jonathan was blessed with a great job after SO many months of looking. It's funny how things work out completely NOT the way (and in the timing) you expect, but they DO work out :) He is LOVING his job at Cephalon, we are currently looking for an apartment or duplex or something to rent, and we are just so happy!

James hasn't been feeling well the past few days. He had a fever of 102 the other night, it was so sad! I think he may be teething again, and that might be part of it. Poor boy! You can tell from this picture how he was feeling. I at least was happy that he was INCREDIBLY cuddly that night - which is rare! :) Don't I look lovely and exhausted myself? So it is as a mommy :)


James' FAVORITE activity is to go outside. He grabs his shoes and stands by the door and says "Go! Go! Go!" Well the past few days have been VERY hard, because all he wants to do is go outside, but it is much too cold and snowy for our little sicky to go outside. Here are some pictures from last week, when he just INSISTED on going for a walk.



And I thought 9:00 church was hard on the nap schedule - 11:00 is much worse! This kid refuses to take a nap before church, and then just crashes when we get home.


Also, I just wanted to say that I am looking for a few piano students. I used to have quite a large studio in Utah County, but then we moved and I had to drop all of my students :( I am so excited to get back into it. I wanted to share my piano teaching website (ok, so it's just a blog, but website sounds cooler :)), in case any of you know someone looking for a good teacher!

A new job!

I just realized that I never posted on here about Jonathan getting a job! It happened last Friday, only five days after coming back to Salt Lake. Anyway, the job is for a pharmaceutical company, and we are SO excited and SO grateful that things worked out so quickly after coming back to Salt Lake. Yay! :)

We're Back!

Well, for anyone who hasn't heard, we are back in Salt Lake! Long story short - we have decided to refocus our job search here, so we moved back a few days ago. We are so excited to be here and we feel so good about it. We know that we had to be up in Oregon these past few months for some reason, and we learned so much and had a lot of fun. We do miss Jonathan's family a lot! It was so much fun to be able to spend so much time with them. Stay tuned for lots of pictures and updates!

Ho ho ho!

On Sunday we went to the Adrian City (is Adrian a city? or a town? hmm, good question...) Christmas tree lighting ceremony. Santa arrived on a fire truck (unfortunately we missed that part, maybe James would have enjoyed that...) It was really cold and we didn't stay too long, but we were excited for James to be able to sit on Santa's lap for the very first time! So there I was, camera in hand, and Jonathan carried James up to see Santa. Before Jonathan even set the little man on the BIG man's lap, James FLIPPED out and just started crying! It was pretty sad. So he didn't really sit on his lap, but Santa did give him a candy cane, which James didn't even notice because he was just too sad and cuddling with his mommy. Needless to say, we left after that.


The next day (yesterday) we stopped at Grandy's office on the way to run some errands, and there was a man there who was a friend of Grandy's. He introduced us, and we were all standing around talking for a few minutes. Then somebody looked at James and realized that he was just STARING at the man, he would not take his eyes off of him. And he looked nervous. He was very unsure about this strange man. And then we realized - this man was an older gentleman, had a slightly larger belly, had white hair and a white beard! James thought this guy was Santa! Poor kid. :( I'm sure by next year he'll just love Santa!

We've been having fun getting ready for Christmas and doing a little shopping. Friday was Jonathan's day off and so we spent the day together doing some Christmas shopping. James went CRAZY at Walmart when he saw all the toys - he pointed at everything and said "da! da! da!!" What a cute kid. I am pretty sure that this is the last year we'll buy his presents for him while he's with us.

We're doing really well. Still searching for a better job. Jonathan is working so hard at his job and at job searching - he is such a great guy! James is walking all over the place and is having fun with his aunts and uncles who are home for Christmas (well, some are home, and more are coming in a few days)! We feel really good about things and know something good will come up soon!

Updates

My family will be very happy to know that I finally posted a couple of pictures of our boy! It has been tricky without high speed internet, because I have a lot of cute pictures I have been wanting to put up!

We are doing well and have a few updates. As you probably know, Jonathan had to quit his job (see previous post) and has been job searching in the Boise area, and we are staying with his family in Adrian, Oregon. It has been a bit frustrating and we have been applying to jobs and sending in resumes like crazy. Well, he did find a job! We were way excited, obviously, however it doesn't pay nearly enough. We knew that it probably wouldn't pay quite as much as we wanted when we applied (it is one of those "depends on experience" things), but we had our hopes that he had enough relevant experience for us to at least be able to scrape by with it. It is a job in an optometry office (ironic) and it is mainly a sales job (selling glasses), but since there are only three people who work there (including the optometrist) he will be doing all sorts of things, including probably making the glasses, which is way cool! We also thought that since that is the case, he would probably get paid an ok amount, since opticians, we have heard, make pretty good money. Well, like I said, he got the job, but he was only offered the BARE MINIMUM amount that was listed. Jonathan was able to talk him up a little, but only 50 cents higher. When Jonathan called me and told me that he got the job, I said "Yay!!" and then when I asked how much they would pay him, he said "you don't wanna know." My husband knows me all too well. :) But, any job is better than no job, so of course we took it.

He had his first day today and really enjoyed it. It is a bummer that the pay is so low - it is definitely enough to pay all our bills right now, but definitely not enough to pay rent. And we are so dying to get into our own place and figure things out. So, he is working there as of today, and we are continuing our search/hoping he'll bring in TONS of revenue for the company and get like a five or six dollar raise. Hey, it could happen, right? :) Anyway, we are really grateful that he at least has A JOB right now.

I have lots of fun pictures of a fun little spontaneous "photo shoot" we had the other day down the road in a pretty little area with some pretty leaves. I actually got a couple of the pictures to load, and will definitely load more later. Isn't he just the sweetest boy? Like my Dad always says, "he's a dandy!"



James is growing like a weed. His favorite thing lately is to look out the window to try and see the dogs and the cats. He gets SO EXCITED when he sees them! He is a great waver and will wave on cue whenever we say "bye bye." Today he was "talking" to my Mom on the phone (aka listening to my Mom talk to him!) and he waved "to" her, it was adorable.

He is my little buddy, and I actually think that in some ways he is a little miniature me! He has this new smile where he smiles so big and squints his eyes shut - which is exactly the way I used to smile when I was little (except my face was a bit more chubby!) I wish I had a picture of me to put next to this one so you could see the comparison!


My parents tell me that when I was little, at mealtime after awhile I would just kind of sit there, not eating much, until they tried to get me out of the high chair - then I would start shoving food in my mouth like crazy! James often does the exact same thing! Just when I think he's all done, I try to take the food away and he just wants more!

Another thing I did when I was little (and I actually have a memory of this) - when I was taking a bath I couldn't STAND for there to be dirt in the bathtub. I would FREAK out and yell "DIRT! DIRT!"and my parents would scoop out the dirt. (Makes me sound like a clean freak or something, but that is totally not the case, anyone who knows me well can attest to that!) Well, the other day I was giving James a bath and he was sitting there playing, when he all of a sudden stopped what he was doing and looked into the water. He found a little speck of dirt and pointed at it! I just had to chuckle to myself.

The other day I went and visited our cute friend Karli, who is in Jonathan's parents' ward. She was so sweet and uploaded some digital scrapbooking software on my computer for me and showed me how to get started. It is SO much fun, I am totally hooked and have already made like 15 or 20 pages. Thanks so much, Karli! Our little boys are close in age and played so cute while we did the computer stuff.

In other news, my best friend Janina had her baby this past week!!! I'm not going to give any of the stats or info, because I know she'll want to tell everyone on her own blog and stuff, but I just can't contain my excitement for her ANY longer and just HAD to say something about it! :) I talked to her on the phone today and it was so much fun. Love you, Janina!

So, all in all we are doing well. :) This has been quite the interesting couple of months for our little family and I have to say that I definitely have learned a bit about faith and relying on the Lord. It is hard sometimes but I know that things will work out somehow. I've been reading the conference talks and they help SO much! I just love Elder Perry's talk and it has actually helped me a lot. I just love this part -

Those of us who have been around a while—and Elder Wirthlin and I have been around for a long time—have recognized certain patterns in life’s test. There are cycles of good and bad times, ups and downs, periods of joy and sadness, and times of plenty as well as scarcity. When our lives turn in an unanticipated and undesirable direction, sometimes we experience stress and anxiety. One of the challenges of this mortal experience is to not allow the stresses and strains of life to get the better of us—to endure the varied seasons of life while remaining positive, even optimistic. Perhaps when difficulties and challenges strike, we should have these hopeful words of Robert Browning etched in our minds: “The best is yet to be” (“Rabbi Ben Ezra,” in Charles W. Eliot, ed., The Harvard Classics, 50 vols. [1909–10], 42:1103). We can’t predict all the struggles and storms in life, not even the ones just around the next corner, but as persons of faith and hope, we know beyond the shadow of any doubt that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true and the best is yet to come.

We're back!

Well, we're back! We drove home to Salt Lake on Wednesday so Jonathan could go to his follow-up appointment for his ear - which seems to be doing A-OK, he just needs to have a hearing test in about a month, and then keep an eye on it and get it checked again in a year - and then on Saturday we drove back up to Adrian. So here we are! We're staying with my in-laws while Jonathan is searching for a job, and we are optimistic and hoping he'll find one super soon. Until then, we are having lots of fun with his family and enjoying spending a little extra time together.

The awesomeness of our lives...

As I have been blogging in the past few weeks, I realized that pretty soon I was going to reach 200 posts on our blog! Yeah, I know – way exciting! I was trying to think of something really cool to do for post #200, like 200 interesting things about our family, or 200 of our favorite things – but that is a LOT of things. Way too many to think of and way too many for people to read (come on, how interesting would that really be?) So then I thought I’d just post about something really exciting. Well, it’s time to write post #200 and I suppose the recent events worth blogging about are exciting in a way, but are definitely not what we had planned for our family right now! So, here goes -

As you may know, we have been planning on moving up to Idaho and have been job searching for the past couple of months. We decided to move up there for a couple of reasons, one being that Jonathan’s family lives in Adrian, Oregon – not far from the Idaho border and about 45 minutes from Boise. Also, Jonathan is planning on applying to PA school (physician assistant) and there is a program in Boise we want to apply to – so we decided to move here, be close to his family for awhile, hopefully get into that program and be Idaho residents and save a lot of money on tuition. Our original plan was for Jonathan to hopefully get a job and move by the beginning of October. After applying to lots of jobs and having no luck in that department, the beginning of October came and went. Jonathan talked with his boss about working there longer and they said that was fine. We continued our job search, and then found out that Jonathan had cholesteatoma and needed some pretty intense ear surgery. This was a bit of a blessing in disguise for us and we were glad we hadn’t moved yet and that we were able to take care of his ear while still on our insurance, instead of finding out about it between insurances.

Jonathan was home recovering for about a week and returned to work last Wednesday, when his boss talked to him and told him that they wanted him to quit at the end of the month, since they had already hired his replacement. They let him work longer because of his surgery and the whole insurance thing, which was very nice. And we completely understand where they are coming from, but the hard thing was that this happened on October 29 – meaning that he only had two more days of work, and then he had to quit!

While it was a bit of a shock, and we really wish they had told us a week or two sooner, we actually were not very worried about it. We really feel as if everything will work out perfectly and that the Lord will guide us. We see it as a bit of an adventure for our family, and a push to get us up there and finding a job soon.

So right now we are staying with Jonathan’s family and are job searching like crazy. We drove up on Saturday through a pretty intense rain storm and got here late Saturday night. We almost had to pull off the freeway because it was raining so hard, but we were in an area out in the middle of nowhere in Idaho with random exits with absolutely nothing nearby – no gas, no food – and we weren’t sure if we would be able to get back on the freeway if we took them! Luckily the rain died down a bit and we were safe and sound. James likes to pretend like he’s driving when we pull over for gas or for food – this time he even made some driving noises while turning the steering wheel!

We pulled over to feed James and he had a nice little visit with his Daddy.

Jonathan’s parents have been in North Carolina for our nephew Benjamin’s baptism (congratulations, Benjamin! We are so proud of you!), so we have had a great time with Rebecca, Anna and Spencer, who stayed at home. Jonathan’s siblings had “waited up” for us and this is what we found when we got home–

James was wide awake when we got here and wanted to play with his sleepy aunts and uncle!

We had a nice Sunday going to church and spending time with Jonathan’s siblings. I took this pretty picture on our way home from church – it is so gorgeous out here!

We were so sleepy on Sunday and we ended up going to bed super early. After being on the phone for a few minutes, I found my boys like this –

I love my boys so much and am so grateful for them.

There are a couple of jobs we are waiting to hear on that seem promising and we are hoping that one of them will work out. Cross your fingers for us!

Tonight we were getting James ready for bed, and Jonathan was reading some books to him, which is our nightly tradition. Usually we read to him from the scripture stories books with the abridged scripture stories and the pictures, and then Jonathan reads some books to him and then we put him to bed. We didn’t bring our scripture stories book with us to Oregon. While Jonathan was reading to him, James was kind of flipping through the pages of one of his books. All of a sudden he started saying “Jesus …Jesus…” It was so sweet – he missed reading the scriptures and wanted to read about Jesus! I went and found a book on the Bosters’ shelf with pictures of Jesus in it, and I think he was happy. It was the sweetest thing and such a good reminder from our little boy.

A Wonderful Weekend in Oregon

Two weekends ago we took a fun trip up to Oregon and visited Jonathan's family. We had such a wonderful time, I love being there with them at their house and it is so relaxing (despite all the work we do while home :)) to be away from the city. I have been meaning to put these up for awhile now, so here you have it - a big long post with lots and lots of pictures. Hope you enjoy!

Here is the boy in his car seat. This was probably like midnight on Thursday night, stopped at some random gas station in Idaho. As you can see, James did so well in the car and was such a happy boy.


We totally meant to leave a lot earlier, but it always seems to take much longer to get ready (especially with a baby) than we plan on. Oh well, we had fun anyway, we left around 7 or 7:30, picked up some *yummy* breakfast burritos for dinner (from Albertos - they have THE best breakfast burritos!) and then got on the road. We finally got to Jonathan's parents' house around 2 in the morning!

So the reason we went in the first place was that Jonathan had some job interviews in Boise (Did I ever mention we're moving to Boise? Well, we are, and we are totally excited and we hope everything will work out soon so we can move up there before the weather gets bad.) So, here is my handsome hubby looking all nice for his job interviews.


Here are my two handsome boys -



Here is a pretty picture of my in-laws' farm - I LOVE going there so much (minus the bad allergies) and it is so pretty in the fall.



We had a lot of fun hanging out with just Mom and Dad and Jonathan's youngest siblings - usually when we're there a lot of the other siblings are home, but this time we just got to spend some fun one-on-one time with Rebecca, Anna and Spencer. I love these guys, they are hilarious and so sweet and fun to be with. Here is a picture of Rebecca playing the guitar.


James is one lucky boy to have so many aunts and uncles - here he is with Uncle Spencer. By the way, I just want to say that Spencer is awesome, he is such a great guy and I cannot believe how TALL he is getting and how much he is growing up. He was WAY shorter when I met the family 3 1/2 years ago...


While we were home we helped paint the outside of the house and stain the deck - it looks so good! We had a fun time and listened to music on my ihome while we painted. By the way, I have to say that I love how it is fall and is getting cooler outside - fall is the BEST season, I love it! Here are Spencer, Rebecca, and Anna working on the deck.


Jonathan's Mom painting the house. She is the greatest, I just love her so much - she is so much fun to be around.


Cute Anna


Definitely a Boster boy . . . definitely.


Me and Jonathan


Here I am in all my loveliness, in my awesome work clothes and wispy, weird hair. Gotta love it.


We found some new little kittens --- and I have to admit (I am NOT a fan of cats, at ALL) --- they were pretty darn cute. Too bad a couple of them died...


We had to run into town (which in this case was Nyssa, Oregon) to get a battery recharged, and unfortunately also to get our car looked at, which was making an AWFUL noise (it didn't sound that bad before we left Salt Lake, I promise!) so we hung out at Jonathan's Dad's office for a little while. James had lots of fun exploring and playing with toys while Jonathan and I watched an episode of Lost on the computer (side note - after much trying, my family finally got us to watch Lost and we LOVE it!). It turned out that we needed a new drive axle (sounds pretty important...luckily it wasn't TOO expensive, since we recently bought all new tires for our car...we weren't really in the mood to spend too much money...) and we had to stay an extra day in Oregon - which was actually so much fun! It's always nice to extend your vacation :) Anyway, here is a picture of James hanging out at Grandy's office.


Church was fun, it was the Primary program in their ward that day and that is always entertaining, right? Well James was pretty darn fussy (you gotta love church right during nap time) and would not stay still and quiet at all during the meeting, except when the little kids sang. The sister who was leading the music was sitting a couple of rows behind us and would stand in the aisle to conduct - whenever she started conducting James would stand backwards on the bench and just WATCH her, mesmerized. And then he started conducting with his little arms - it was the funniest/cutest thing. We were so glad whenever the primary kids started singing because we knew he would be quiet for at least a minute or two!

We got to visit a little with our friend Karli and took some cute pictures of Karli's little boy Grayson and James. These boys are about a month apart and they are both growing up so fast!



The drive home on Monday was pretty uneventful, except that at the very beginning James was NOT a happy camper. We were barely getting out of Boise (only about 40 minutes away from the Bosters' house, so we had a LONG way to go...) and he was just screaming and throwing a tantrum in his car seat. We wanted to get on the road and for some reason or another were not in the greatest of moods, so it was quite the experience. We pulled over at a rest stop and the second we got the little guy out of his seat he was happy as a clam (why are clams so happy?). He was so proud of himself for crying hard enough that the parentals gave him his way. It was pretty funny, but cute nonetheless - this boy is impossible to be mad at, he just flashes those cute little pearly whites with the little gap in between and you melt. So we decided we should probably feed him. I, however, couldn't find any bibs and Jonathan was busy washing the windows of the car (he worked as a window washer for like three years - he can't stand it when they are dirty, and he takes pride and much care and time in getting every little bug off) - so I decided to just try holding him on my lap and feeding him with no bib or protection for my white shirt. It didn't work out so well, and I ended up with squash on my shirt, but it sure made for a funny memory.



Then James wanted a turn driving the car like Daddy, so we let him play for a little while before getting back on the road. I absolutely love this picture. Although you can't see his little smile, you can totally tell he is enjoying himself by the look in his eye. I guess he felt all-powerful while at the wheel of such a big car.

family trip to . . . . Gillette, Wyoming?

Yes, that's right - my boys and I took a little family vacation to a random city in Wyoming that we had never heard of before. A little bit random, but we had so much fun! Jonathan had to go to Gillette, Wyoming for his job, and James and I decided to go with him. We took a company truck and drove up there on Wednesday (about a nine-hour drive, but longer with a baby!), stayed in a hotel and then drove back on Thursday. It was a lot of driving, but it was nice to get away!

James and I in front of the truck. We totally want to get a truck now, it was a lot of fun! The seat in the back was just the right size to fit a car seat. I also loved the truck because it was red :)

My boys

Here is James, all ready to go! He was such a champ on the drive - he slept quite a bit, and was a little fussy (understandably) but overall he did great!

James' seat in the back seat of the truck - we set up his little mirror so we could see him more easily, and he loved looking in it during the drive!

Stopping somewhere in Wyoming...in the middle of nowhere...and James is so happy to be out of his seat!

James and Daddy taking a break from driving

lovely

Stopping for lunch