New apartment, new job, new age, new blog post

It is really hard for me when Spencer works overnight for many reasons... First and foremost, I miss him like crazy. Sleeping alone once you are married SUCKS! Not to mention, I turn into such a hungry hungry hippo when he is not home. I just want to eat the whole house. There is only one (and only one) good thing about Spencer being away though, I really have NO excuse to spend the time writing in the blog. So many things have happened to us in this past month. It has  really been great. We are so truly blessed and really couldn't be more grateful for all our many blessings. Since it's so many different things that have happened, I going to deviate from my usual chronological blog post and just write about things as I think of them.

First of all there are three new buildings in our lives

Number one,

Mountainville Academy :) Spencer is now what they call an INSTRUCTOR. He teaches his own math class (that's right, he has his own math class. With his own classroom and everything) for an hour and then helps a second grade teacher name Mrs. Richardson with reading in her class. So far from what he has told me (It's been 4 days) the kids are loving him. From his description, I think that some of the girls in his class have a crush on him. And why wouldn't they? He is so cool and hot! I have been helping him grade things and it is so fun. He usually has a story about the kid whose paper I'm grading so it makes it even cooler. Now I just to convince him to let me decorate his room super cute (he is kind of a minimalist where I want to just blow it up with fun boards and colorful paper).

The second new building in our lives

Nature's Sunshine in Spanish Fork. I stared working there (well I started the training) on Monday. I am so excited. From what I've seen so far it is a great place to work and it will be really easy and laid back. I'll be working the the order sales department so people call us to place orders. I will only working part time in the morning so I won't miss any time with the Little Guy and since it is in Spanish Fork, I can drop him off at my parent's house and Laura takes care of him. It worked out so nicely. I really couldn't be happier and more thankful.

And now the third and best building of them all

Our new apartment! I don't have pictures of how it looks now all set up with everything put away but here are the dreaded move picutes

It was awful for me to have the apartment like this. I made Spencer help and we got everything put together in one week. This is how the Little Guy helped

 We are so incredibly bless to be living in this apartment. It is the basement of Grandma and Grandpa Swenson that they have given us such an amazing deal. Not to mention is so great for the Little Guy. As it is shown in this picture.

He loves the open space that we have to crawl (again pictures to come) and he loves spending time with Grandma and Grandpa. It feels incredible to have our own space again. We really couldn't be more thankful to my family for letting us live with them for two months, but it really is amazing to be all of our things back (not to mention it is really nice to walk around in a towel after I get out of the shower again). One of the greatest thing about the apartment, DicterTv DVR. That's right, we are moving up in the world.

Of course with trials come blessings... and here is a pretty big trial

Spencer was on his way to his first day of training (July 22nd) and he was on a stop sign to turn left and a girl driving hit him coming from the left. I guess he was too far out and they a little too far to the right, but anyway, he got the ticket for "Improper Turning". The worst part of it all was that they towed the car away without even telling him where it was going and the tow truck charged $180/hour. When we got the the place where the car had been towed to (after Spencer went to his first day of training, Grandpa and I went and picked him up) we found out that it was going to take at the very least $600 in parts alone to fix and with the car already having over 230,000 miles on it, it was definitely not worth it. So Spencer signed a paper signing away the car. We both about maybe donating it or selling it for parts but we were looking at about $360 pay the tow truck and get it out of impound. A bad deal to say the least. So we have been with only one car from that time, but really wasn't that bad. With Spencer getting out of training everyday at around 3 and the Little Guy and I not needing to go anywhere, we managed. However we had to do something because now I am working everyday in Spanish work and Spencer is staring school tomorrow (it's been two days since I started writing this post). So meet the newest addition to our family

It is a 2010 Hyundai Elantra and we are so in love with it. I'm the one that gets to drive it everyday since we drive farther than Spencer does. I love it so much.

In the middle of our move, came my third favorite holiday (Christmas and Thanksgiving being the top two) the 24th of July. Unfortunately we didn't get to do anything this year because Spencer actually had training that day (to everyone's surprise) causing us to miss the parade in the morning, and training the next day, causing us to have to go home early and miss the fireworks. I was pretty sad about it, but that's what you get when you move the week of a holiday and suddenly find yourself with only one car. We did, however, make it down on Friday night for my parents' 25th wedding anniversary party. Yeah, they have been married for 25 years, how crazy is that? It was at Canyon View park and a lot of people came. It was really nice to spend some time outdoors in the fresh air after having been stuck in our apartment all week. (this was before everything was put away. Imagine living for a week in the pictures above). The best part of all, the food was off the hook! (I picked up that term from watching Mel B on America's Got Talent).

My parents gave short speeches about each other

Aren't they cute?

So in case some of you in cyber land have missed it, Spencer has been rocking a beard lately. It got to a pretty shaggy (and kind of creepy) point, but he trimmed it a couple of days ago and it's back to looking good. The Little Guy just loves it. he loves to grab it and get his little fingers in there. He doesn't even care when Daddy gives him kisses. This is what it looked like when took our family pictures in June. At this point he had only been growing it for a week

and this is what it looked like at my parents' anniversary almost three weeks before he trimmed it

Hobo right? This is closest picture we have before the beard what trimmed. It was on my birthday a week and a half ago

Now it looks like a fuller version of the first picture. This was, of course the perfect segway into my birthday :) I can't believe I'm 24 already. It makes me feel so old. Of course I'm incredulous to the fact I am married and have a kid so being older just adds to that. My birthday this year was pretty low key but I still loved it. I woke up to find this

Flowers, balloon, candy, my favorite drinks and two movies (Easy A and Nacho Libre). Of course, being a mommy now, I'm not just happy to get presents for myself, but for the Little Guy as well. Spencer said that the Little Guy picked it out, it is a onesie and some Dr. Seuss books. To be honest, the best gift of all was the card that Spencer made. He wrote in it and had the Little Guy play with a pen to write in it as well (I about cried when I saw that). Then we went down to Spanish Fork so that Spencer could practice for Classic Rock Night at Boothe Brother that night. About half an hour before it started, Spencer and I left the Little Guy with Grandma Julie and ate at Cafe Rio before heading down (we figured it would be best to not take him since the band would probably be too loud and we were right).

Spencer played the drums while Mark played the guitar and Adam sang. For this coming month's Classic Rock Night, they are going to try to get Nathan to play the drums with them, but for this one, they just had someone there play. You can watch them play HERE and HERE. The best part of the videos is the hot drummer.

Spencer and I got to go to our 5 year High School Reunion on the 10th. I really can't believe it's been that long. It was so much fun to see everyone and catch up. I really wish that more people would have gone, there was only about 70 people there (we had a 500 something class). The craziest thing was not seeing people with kids, but seeing people that had more than one. It is also funny to see how we all ended up marrying each other. There were only two or three spouses there that had not been in our class. I'm not trying to be cocky or anything, but Spencer and I were the talk of the reunion. First of all for the obvious reason of Spencer's beard (it was funny to see everyone do a double take before they actually recognized him) and the fact that no one could believe that we had ended up together. Here we are with who I consider to be the craziest paring from high school: Spencer Barber and Sarah Hakes. I still don't know how that happened.

For those of you that read my blog and went to school with us and didn't go to the reunion, you definitely missed out.

And now the center of our lives, the Little Guy

The move has actually been great for him. At first he was pretty down about it because he had gotten used to having his aunts and uncle giving him attention all the time, but we have now found a perfect balance for everything.

He's has been eating all sorts of new things and tries something new every couple of days. His favorite thing right now is the puffy cereal things. They are actually pretty delicious, I usually have to stop myself from eating them. Most of all, they keep in entertain and are helping him develop his motor skills as he tries to get them into his mouth. It's truly a win-win. So far he has only eaten the strawberry-apple but I just bought him the banana ones for him to try. One thing that he tried this last few days was avocado. He loved it. I like to eat it with just a little bit of salt and dip tortilla chips into it. So I'll get some on a chip and give him some with a spoon. He goes crazy happy over the fact that we eat it out of the same bowl.

In the three weeks that we have been in Orem, he has gone from barely moving on his own, to army crawling, to full on crawling, to crawling and being able to sit, to pulling himself up and walking while holding on to things. So much progress so fast! I think that the main part of it is that he has so much space to do things now and out carpet is perfect for a crawling baby. This two pictures show the beginning stages of his traveling (for lack of a better word). The would get on his knees like this for a couple of minutes and try really hard to move, then start crying really frustrated that he couldn't do what he wanted

Here is a video of his early stages of army crawling. We didn't get the camera in time because we didn't want to miss it and I think that he was already pretty tired, it was the first time he was doing it after all.

I wish I had a video of his army crawl. He looked like a little worm because his butt would get up in the air. Of course that is when he realized he could start getting into things

and that lead to his first bruise (it wasn't from the picture above but it was a couple of hours later). He was trying to pull himself up stand by using the door frame in the bathroom and lost his balance. I can see the bruise right away but it's probably because I'm the Mommy. It is on the middle of his right cheek.

He gets into everything now. Even though he can crawl normally it still takes him awhile so if he wants to get somewhere fast he army crawls. He also know how to run away and thinks it is so funny when I have to come chase him down. It is the cutest thing to turn around and see him coming around a corner in the kitchen following me wherever I go. Here are some more pictures of His Cute Highness

Truly one of the greatest things about him growing is that he can now sit in the grocery cart by himself. It has truly made my life so much easier

This is favorite place to be while I get ready. I really don't know why he loves being under the toilet so much but hey, as long as he stays out of the garbage (as he does otherwise while in the bathroom) I'm happy

Spencer loves to do photo shoots with him every time I'm away. He always catches the funniest pictures.

We went swimming with the Keele's Ward at the Spanish Fork pool on Thursday this past week and had a blast. The Little Guy an I played by ourselves for about 35 minutes while Daddy and his siblings were going off the diving board and only got out because he was getting cold. Once he got dried and warm in Grandma Julie's arms, he was itching to go back to the pool and was throwing his arms out at it. I sat with him in the 1/2 foot end and Spencer came and joined us. Oh my goodness did he love it. The Little Guy just loves his daddy so much! We played for about 45 minutes until I decided it was time to get out because the Little Guy's lips were turning blue and he was not happy that I took away his fun.

Oh side note: the Little Guy can now clap, give high fives and wave goodbye

It hasn't all been fun and games with our child though. He went through a phase right when we moved in which he would not take a bottle which sucked because I was in the middle of doing job interviews and Spencer had to stay with him by himself a couple of times. Of course, he turned it into a game and caught the fun on video

But he got over it and moved on. However, something much worse is going on. Julie had actually warned me about it because Spencer had done it to her, but what basically happens is that he gets really upset, does that first initial scream and then just locks up. It is so scary! He very quickly starts turning blue and goes limp. His eyes glaze over and then roll to the back of his head. I have been able to snap him out of it before he passes it (Spencer would pass out) but it is still the most terrifying thing I have ever gone through. The first time it happened was two Fridays ago, Spencer was at work with Powerhouse so it was just the two of us. Something fell on his hand and, even though it was pretty light and it didn't actually hurt him, it scared him into one of these fits. I was terrified! Once everything was back to normal I sobbed for about 15 minutes, and called Spencer, my mom and Julie to calm down. Seeing your child like that is something that I would not wish on my worst enemy. I email Dr. McBride and he said that if he was fine afterwards it might have been an isolated event but it it happened again to bring him in. We went in last Tuesday after it happened again on Monday. He asked me a bunch of questions and ordered some blood work to check his iron levels but he's pretty positive that it is BHS (breath holding syndrome). Basically, the Little Guy gets upset and holds his breath. It is something that he is going to have to grow out of. Since the first incident, he has had four more just this past week.  I'm getting really good at catching them on time. He best thing for it is to cuddle him, telling him everything is okay and blowing on his face (which is what the EMTS told Julie to do. The first time Spencer passed out, she called 911). I have been able to look online and find other stories of kids doing this and it sounds like they don't have any consequences from it. At first I was pretty worried that it wouldn't be good for his brain development, but Dr. McBride said that is nowhere near bad enough to affect it.

The last of the fun things we did this month was going to Mark and Alenia's wedding.

Spencer met Mark working at Powerhouse with him and they became fast friends. He was even a groomsman. The reception was absolutely beautiful in Springville. It was the perfect backyard wedding.

Well that's it for now. We are going on our Lagoon trip this upcoming weekend and I can't wait. It could go either way with the Little Guy, he could either love it or hate it. The good news is that Julie already called dibs on him for the entire day at the park so I am going to run around the park like a child and go on all the rides I didn't get to go on last year because I was pregnant (which is all of them). Then in three weeks we go down to the family reunion. September is always such a fun month for us. I'll try really hard to blog about Lagoon before the reunion so that it is not that big of a post but with Spencer staring school tomorrow it makes it hard for me since he takes the laptop with him.

PS I have a new blog obsession. It is All Things Katie Marie. I don't even remember how I found it but this girl is everything I aspire to be