Summer Lovin'

This is pretty much just going to be a little bit of a photo dump of the pictures I have for time we spent living in Spanish Fork. They kids just both loved being outside and it was fun to get to spend a lot of time together as a family!

Kimbri absolutely LOVES being outside. Anything to do with being outside, including being in water.   The trampoline was among her favorites of the outside activities at Grandma Haycock's house. At first she would try to say 'bounce' or 'jump' but it eventually became a combination of the two - 'bump'. She would go to the door and say 'bump' and we knew that, that meant she wanted to go jump on the tramp.

Doing tricks on the tramp.

Rides in the wagon with water and ducks! 

Helping to fill up the big pool. 

Uncle Zach played dress-up with Kimbri :)

Garrett is just growing so fast! We love our little man so much. His smile just melts my heart. And a huge thank you to Dawson and Stacie for letting us borrow Luke's clothes! Pretty much every picture on this post, Garrett is wearing Luke's outfits ;)

He discovered his hands and loves sucking on them!

The Nebraska gang was in town for Nolan's wedding and we got the two little boys together to take some pictures. They are exactly 4 months apart. Luke was born on Sept 4, 2012 and Garrett was born on Jan 4, 2013. They are going to be mischievous little boys some day, running around together getting into trouble. Haha!  

Garrett's shades. They're the perfect size!

Then Kimbri got jealous and decided to take them off...

...and wear them herself.

It's Been a While...

Well what a couple months it has been! And I haven't blogged during that whole couple of months. Things have been so so busy but life couldn't be better! 

Wow. There is so much to catch up on. I'm not even sure where to even begin. 

I guess the last time I posted anything was mid-April. Around that time Rick was finishing up at BYU with the last few days of classes and then finals all while I was trying to pack boxes here and there in between naps and making meals for Kimbri and nursing a baby and just handling life in general.

Kimbri sure enjoyed playing in the empty boxes! Ever since moving to that house we saved all the boxes we got from buying diapers and wipes, etc because we knew we'd be moving after Rick's graduation. There was an outdoor shed/storage thing and we seriously saved boxes for that whole year and a half! We had plenty of boxes when it came time to pack up our house for our Arizona move!

Then right after that, on April 26, my little brother, Nolan, got married to Brooke Comstock in the Salt Lake Temple. That same day just happened to be graduation for BYU. Haha. What a day! We were exhausted by the end of the day. But we were so happy that we got to be a part of Nolan and Brooke's wedding and that we also made it in time so that Rick could walk at graduation. 

We took a few photos out in front of our house before we walked up to the Marriot Center for the actual graduation ceremony. I am so in love with my boys! 

This is the only picture I have after graduation was over with all of our family. Kimbri was obviously totally worn out after a long day of wedding and graduation stuff! She wasn't in much of a smiley mood... but then again, it's always hard to get her to smile for a picture. You really have to work for it.

Anyway, I'm so proud of Rick and all that he has accomplished. I know I've mentioned it before but he worked so hard during his undergrad to complete all his shadowing hours, volunteering hours, lab hours in the Neuroscience department, etc, in order to get ready for applying to medical school. Let alone the enormous amounts of time and energy he had to put in to writing essays and filling out applications to actually apply to medical school! He did all that on top of going to school, getting good grades, working at the MTC, working as a scribe in the Payson Hospital ER, and being an amazing father and husband! He is seriously incredible!! And I love him :)

............

After all of the wedding and graduation festivities, we moved just a couple days later. I can't even express how grateful we were to be able to live in Spanish Fork with my parents for about 6 weeks to save money on rent. Thank you mom and dad! A mere "thank you" doesn't even do it justice. But we are soooo grateful. 

So we moved on April 30 and stored most all of our belongings in our parents' garage. Some stuff was in Salem and some was in Spanish Fork. Another thank you to each of our parents for letting us use their garages as temporary storage units. 

We got all moved in and unpacked, only to re-pack a suitcase a couple days later to make a trip to Arizona to look for housing. We stayed with Rick's cousin Shelby and her husband, Rue. It was a quick trip and we fell in love with the first house we looked at. We looked at some apartments as well but with rent being cheaper to rent a whole house over a small apartment, we obviously really wanted the house! We filled out an application and then had to play the waiting game. We drove back to Utah and found out within just a couple of days that we got the house. Yay! 

(On the drive home we also discovered that Kimbri gets motion sickness. We therefore will ALWAYS pack Dramamine with us whenever we go on long drives so we don't have to clean up throw-up 9 different times! Gross.)

Anyway, long story short we got our dream house for while we live in Arizona. We are so excited!

Here are some pictures from our quick trip to AZ:

Kimbri fell asleep with her finger in her mouth. Ha!

Getting out of the car to stretch for a while.

Date Night!

Rick and I got to go out twice this week! And we owe a HUGE thank you to my cousin, Allison, and my sister-in-law, Jessica!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! :)

Wednesday night Rick was invited to a dinner put on my Intermountain Healthcare for all those who had been accepted to medical school for this coming year. They fed us a very nice dinner (salad, a roll, some sort of delicious chicken and rice entree and an incredible raspberry dessert!) and gave a presentation. Their presentation was basically saying that they want doctors to move back to Utah after they finish their schooling and gave us a bunch of reasons why Utah is such a great place to live and work. Anyway, it was really fun to go out to dinner with Rick, without any kids. Thank you Allison for being willing to watch Kimbri and Garrett for us while we attended the dinner. 

Oh, and they also gave each future medical school student a $30 gift card to Barnes and Noble AND a $30 gift card to Olive Garden. Wahoo!! 

.......

Then last night, Jessica came over after she got off work and babysat for us. We had to run a couple errands and then went out to dinner at Olive Garden, again, thanks to Jessica! She gave Rick an Olive Garden gift card for his birthday last month.  

It was about a 30 minute wait so we walked across several parking lots to The Quarry - a rock climbing place - and picked up a $10 gift card that I won. Then we still had time to kill so we wandered through Shopko. We looked at the toddler underwear to try and find some "Dora the Explorer" underwear for Kimbri. We found some... but they were $10 just for 3 pair! So we'll look to see if Walmart is cheaper. If not, she will have to do with plain underwear. I was just thinking that it might be a good way to get her to understand not to pee in her panties, you know, saying something like, "Kimbri, you can't peepee on Dora, ok?" Haha! Anyway, we'll see what happens.

Anyway..... I got a little side-tracked there. But right as we were leaving Shopko, our buzzer rang so we booked it across the parking lot back to Olive Garden. As always, the food was way delicious!! I had a strawberry smoothie and vegetable lasagna and Rick got raspberry lemonade and the chicken alfredo pizza. We both tried food we haven't ever tried there before and it was great! And of course we got the free breadsticks and soup/salad that comes with the meal. Yummy!

It  was sooooooooooo fun to go out on a date with just the two of us. I love our kiddos but it was nice to just get to completely relax and spend some time together. So thank you Jessica for babysitting for us!! 

Home

We've spent quite a bit of time at home lately. Mostly because I got my wisdom teeth out, then Rick was crazy busy translating for General Conference last week, and I've been busy starting to pack up boxes for when we move. 

So anyway, here are a few random pictures I've taken the past little while. They don't really have any rhyme or reason but I wanted to have them on the blog so they'll be included in our family journal/book thing. 

Kimbri practicing sitting on the toilet. She insisted
on having a wet wipe and she pretended to "wipe". Ha!

This was when it snowed the other morning... we made it a lazy morning
and Kimbri watched Charlotte's Web with a pig figurine on her lap.
How fitting since she was watching a movie about a pig! Haha :)

Wild hair after taking a bath. Her hair is finally starting to grow!

And here is our little munchkin with his adorable chubby cheeks.

Lately he has been way in to sucking on his hands :-)

Garrett likes to be propped up on the couch- then we
can  tickle his belly and play peek-a-boo!

More pictures of him eating his hands....

Kimbri and Garrett are such a joy in our lives. They bring us so much happiness! I'm so grateful that we get to be together forever. Oh how I love them so much!

Garrett ~ 3 Months

Garrett turned 3 months old yesterday! I feel like I say this all the time but it sure seems like time flies. He is growing so fast and I feel like he's changing and getting more grown up every day!

- He loves to be held facing outward. 

- His smiles melt my heart!

- The newest trick of his is laughing. I love to hear him laugh. Today I was tickling him on his belly and sides and he was laughing so hard! And it just made me so happy. 

- We weighed him today and he is already 14 lbs 8 oz! He's a big, chubby, squishy, handsome guy. I love those chubby rolly legs of his! And of course his chubby cheeks. I have to use the word chubby a lot when talking about Garrett. Haha :)

- He is wearing 3-6 month clothes right now and we are moving up to size 2 diapers. We need to be able to get the diaper around his fat bum and thighs!

 - Garrett does NOT like tummy time very much. He seems to enjoy it only a tiny bit more if I prop him up on a pillow. He's like Kimbri when she was a baby... she didn't enjoy tummy time either.

- He has been sleeping pretty good. Just within the past week he has seemed to get a schedule down, so hopefully it sticks! He goes to sleep around 9 ish, wakes up around 3am and again around 6:30 or 7am.  It's not always exactly those times but he usually does one pretty long stretch of sleep and then another shorter stretch before waking up again to eat. Hopefully he keeps up with this schedule... and hopefully his sleeping stretches start getting even longer and longer!!

Garrett was pulling some cute faces earlier so I whipped out the camera:

Potty Time & Dinner Time

Earlier this afternoon Rick had to head out the door for a shift in the ER at the Payson Hospital.... It is now 9:30pm and a lot has happened since then! 

We worked in Kimbri's room for a while. I'm starting to pack some things that we won't need between now and the time we move.  I propped Garrett up on my body pillow on the floor and put Kimbri in her crib with a bin of toys. I had to put her in the crib cause I didn't want her accidentally stepping or falling on Garrett!

After a while Garrett took a short nap so Kimbri and I read books together. I always have to take advantage of time that Garrett is asleep to give Kimbri some one-on-one time with mommy:) I enjoy it probably as much as she does. I love having her sit up on my lap and reading books with her. She definitely loves books! 

A while later, when Garrett woke up is when chaos began. Oh boy! Garrett started crying and of course he was probably hungry since he had just taken a nap and before that had spent time laying on the floor in Kimbri's room. By the time I went back to our bedroom to get Garrett from his nap, Kimbri was playing in the back part of the house, so I decided I would just sit on the end of our bed and nurse Garrett so I could keep an eye on Kimbri at the same time.

All of the sudden Kimbri came running around the corner and lifted the lid up to her little potty seat (we haven't officially started potty training yet but we have a potty sitting in the back hallway to get her used to it), anyway, she lifted the lid up and then came running into the bedroom, trying with all her might to get her shirt off. 

Side note: The few times that she has actually went to the bathroom in the potty, she for some reason likes to be in the nude.

Anyway, getting a shirt off a little girl one-handed is pretty easy. However then she ran back to the potty and was trying to get her pants and diaper off. I very quickly realized that she actually did need to go potty and that she herself was realizing it too! I hurried and set Garrett down, who was still nursing, so he was NOT happy about having his meal interrupted. I hurried to take off Kimbri's pants and diaper, because doing that one-handed is a lot more difficult, and she sat down on the toilet. 

I ran back into the bedroom and picked up Garrett and went back to the hallway with Kimbri, sat down on the floor and started nursing Garrett, while keeping an eye on Kimbri, this time while she just sat on the toilet. 

Well, she for some reason decided to stand up. I peeked inside the potty thinking that she must've gone since she stood up. Nope. So, I put her back down on the toilet, not wanting her to have an accident on the floor. Then it starting going through my mind that maybe she didn't need to go potty, because her diaper was pretty wet when I took it off. 

So right after sitting her back down on the toilet, she decided to get back up. I again tried to get her to sit back down on the toilet, while still trying to nurse Garrett. Well this time she obviously had another plan in mind. She squatted right next to the potty and started peeing!!!!  I tried so hard to get her back to the potty but the damage was already done. Wouldn't sitting on the pot be soooo much easier than squatting next to it?? Ha. I guess not for a 20 month old. 

After finishing her business... on the floor... she stood back up, turned around, and stared at the pee on the floor. Meanwhile I was panicking because I could read her mind on what her next move would be... to stick her hands in it and splash it all around. And it was not just a few drops, it was like a full on puddle! I had to stop Garrett from nursing, again. Poor guy! And I gently plopped him on the floor in our bedroom and ran into the kitchen to get some paper towels, all the while trying to get Kimbri to not touch the puddle of pee. Surprisingly after the first try touching it, she didn't try again. She just stood there, watching me act all panicked, running from one room to the other. Garrett was crying so hard, so I ran back into the bedroom with the clean paper towels in hand, picked him up and went back to the hallway. I bent over trying to clean up the pee, while holding a baby, Kimbri watching. Then all the sudden she decided she wants to help clean it up! And of course she grabs the soaking wet paper towel full of pee, trying to help. Haha. By this point I had to just set poor Garrett down again and get the pee cleaned up and get a diaper on Kimbri. 

Wow.

By this point I'm just laughing in disbelief at what had just happened in such a short amount of time. (I feel like it just took me forever to explain what happened... but really if only took a few minutes for this to all happen).

I got it all cleaned up, washed my hands, picked Garrett back up and walked into the front room, where Kimbri wandered off to, in only a diaper, and I sat down on the couch and continued to nurse Garrett. 

Then I just had to laugh out loud again, thinking to myself how this will be funny to look back on. It will be a fun memory of being a mother of two young children, sitting on the floor nursing a baby, while trying to help the toddler to pee in her little potty.  

Even though it's hard sometimes, I love making memories like these, with my precious little kids. They are such a joy in my life and I'm so grateful I get to be their mommy!

...

The rest of the night has been just a tad bit calmer. By the time I got done feeding Garrett, Kimbri was ready to eat. How did I know? She was off to the kitchen and getting what she pleased out of the refrigerator. 

Strawberries and pickles.

I gave her some strawberries but decided to save the pickles for another day. Oh how that girl loves her pickles! She hadn't finished her yogurt from earlier so I gave her that and some crackers. Lately I've been trying to let her be more independent while eating, instead of just feeding her myself. So, since she  only had a diaper on, from the incident earlier, I put a bib on her, handed her a spoon and the cup of blueberry yogurt, and let her go to town. 

She loved it... but after a while she decided to plop her whole hand into the yogurt cup and shook her hand, flinging yogurt all over the place. Ha Ha Ha... I'm getting good at cleaning up messes :)

At least she was enjoying herself!