Our Water Baby!

We've had the opportunity to go to the beach twice this week. We went on Saturday when my mom was visiting and also Tuesday while my sister was visiting. I wanted each of them to see Grant's reaction to the water. He hadn't gone swimming in the ocean since last year, and he didn't really love it last year. But now that he is a little older, he really enjoys water and swimming now (and playing in the sand!) so I was hoping for a really fun experience at the beach.

We had a great time!

Here is Grant hanging with Nana!  He loved all the attention that she gave him during her visit.

Here is the cute new hat I found for Grant for only $3!  Of course he kept taking it off and wouldn't wear it, but we tried!

Grant's cute little belly is poking out because his swimsuit is just a tad too small.  He wore the same one last year!  It was pretty big on him last year (even though it was the smallest one we could find).  So hey, at least we save a little money, lol.

Grant was mesmerized by the sand.  You could tell he loved the texture.  I love that sweet little grin on his face.

The Vance's were also there!  Benson wasn't sure if he liked the water or not but you can tell from his cute smile that he still had fun.

When Karyn and I took Grant to the beach yesterday, he got to try out the new beach toys that Nana bought for him before she left.  Wow, they were a BIG hit!  He loved moving the sand around and filling the buckets up and then dumping them out.  I think he could have done that for HOURS!

Grant was so engrossed with his buckets that he didn't notice that he got buried in the sand!  No worries, it only took him 2 seconds to get out.

Fun in the sun!  Grant was braver in the water this time than when we went over the weekend.

Grant and Aunt Karyn!

And here is a cute little video of Grant playing in the water.  He got so happy when the waves would come up and hit him.  It really is the best feeling to watch your child enjoy life and be happy...and everything just seems so much better experiencing it through their eyes.

The rest of June

The rest of June we had a chance to glimpse into the past, present, and future...and we had a fun time doing it! 

I had a blast from the past when I got to reconnect with a few old friends and softball teammates via Facebook.  It started with someone posting a picture from our "Cinderella season."  Everyone started tagging and looking for everyone in the picture, and we got to talking about having a mini-reunion. 

Not everyone was able to come, but a group of 5 of us met at a restuarant in San Antonio and reminisced, laughed, and talked for hours!  It was great catching up and seeing where everyone is in life.  We realized that it was difficult to sort out our memories because we all had played SO much softball (year round...fall ball, high school spring season, and summer tournament teams, not to mention hours and hours of practices, hitting lessons, pitching lessons, and batting cage trips, lol).  We had played on so many teams that we couldn't keep our stories straight, haha.

It was so weird to realize that it had been over 10 YEARS since we had seen each other.  I found some old pictures from our "glory days," lol, as well as an article that was in the San Antoni Express-News about our team that year.  You can find the article text here.

Here is the team that went to the National tournament in 2000.  I was 16 years old and my teammates ranged from 13-18 years old!  We had recently placed 1st in the Regional tournament a month or so prior in McAllen, TX and returned to compete in nationals, where we placed 3rd.  It was incredibly hot!  I remember it being hard to grip the ball because our hands were so sweaty, haha.

Here are a few pictures of me with some friends, but these were actually taken during the next year's season in 2001.  Here is me and Katie...we got into a lot of fun trouble together that year!  :)

Me and Ashley...awesome catcher.

Me and Leanna...AWESOME player!!!  We had a lot of great laughs together.

And here are some of us...about 10 YEARS LATER!  Thanks for the great times, girls!

Ashley, Sam, Me, Leslie, and Katie.

That same weekend we had a baby shower for my sister-in-law, Melanie, who is due with my nephew Liam ANY DAY NOW!  We had a blast celebrating his anticipated arrival at the shower in San Antonio.  He has got a lot of love from family and friends...what a lucky baby! 

I LOVE this diaper cake that my sister Karyn made for the shower.  It is ADORABLE!

Melanie opening up some awesome gifts.

Here is the taggie blanket that I made for baby Liam. :)

The cutest cake EVER that my mom got for the shower.

Picutre of the group after the shower...some people had left so we didn't get everyone, but we still got a great pic!

Me and Mel.  Congratulations to my brother and Mel!  We are overjoyed to be meeting Liam soon, and to introduce Grant to a new cousin.  Ya'll will be wonderful parents. :)

A few weeks ago we had another FUN summer experience.  We took Grant to the Aquarium.  He LOVED it.  He kept pointing to all of the animals and jabbering at them.  He was interested in the very big fish and the dolphins.  We watched the dolphins swim underwater and they were very fast!  We also learned an interesting fact about dolphins--that they don't really sleep!  Part of their brain is awake all the time to keep them swimming and going up to the surface for air.  We saw a "sleeping" dolphin while we were there and it was pretty funny.

For some reason the sea turtles weren't a big hit.  Right after this picture, Grant started bawling!  He didn't like them.

We had a nice view of the Lexington on this beautiful breezy day.  We are having a great summer so far and hope that we continue to make more wonderful memories. :)

Update: 101 Goals in 1001 Days---with pictures

Once again, I am updating some of my progress on my 101 Goals in 1001 days (a list of goals that I want to accomplish, some big, some small).  I will highlight a few things here, but the full updates & notes have been made on the original post.

Completed Goals:

2. Run a 5K  

4. Lose 15 more pounds 


I DID IT!!!  31 pounds lost and a 5K completed!  I completed these two goals that I thought I NEVER could do.  These are very significant to me because of all the physical and mental effort that were required.  It feels awesome.  I've included some details in this post.  But for your viewing pleasure I have included some before and after pics of the weight loss.

Other completed goals:

51. Learn to sew a new project twice per year  (This month I learned to make a pillowcase)

72. Help build a Habitat for Humanity house 

This was really fun.  Some of my coworkers and I saw a Campus announcement that volunteers were needed so we decided so sign up.  We ended up helping build the two main walls to the house.  So the boards were marked and we aligned the studs, and then helped nail everything together.  It looks and seems very easy but it's really not!  It was a LOT of work and the particular way we had to bend over made all of us very sore for about a week.  Also, the nails kept bending so it seemed to take forever to get all the nails properly in place.  It felt good to help others and we had a good time doing it.  We might sign up to do it again, too! 

Goals in Progress:
26. Personal scripture study every day for 1 month
80. Family prayer daily for 1 month
95. Hold a real family home evening at least twice per month


I used to be so diligent about having meaningful prayer and scripture study literally every single day, but becoming a mommy makes finding a quiet moment a lot more difficult.  Many nights I just fall asleep at a moment's notice and I am usually running late every morning.  So James and I have been making a significant effort into being more consistent and I love it.  I love having family home evening ("family night") together where we just focus on having good quality time.  You can really feel the Spirit more in our home and we are able to focus more on what truly matters and less on the petty things.  We're still FAR from perfect, but working on these goals adds so much to our lives.  Here is a picture from our most recent family night, where we took a nice long walk up and down the bay.

46. Build a year’s supply of emergency storage (in progress)

I updated our 72 hour kit in June.  This is basically a kit you can pick up and take with you in the case of an emergency (food, water, change of clothes, and a few other necessities) or evacuation.  We had a lesson in Church about being prepared for Emergencies and this is especially important since we are in a hurricane area.  The government also recommends having one.  The link to the list we used is found on this page (of course I don't have everything on the list, but it is a great guideline).  It's a really simple concept but I feel great that we did it---we are prepared!  Here are some other websites that talk about emergency preparedness:

http://www.ready.gov/america/beinformed/hurricanes.html

http://providentliving.org/content/list/0,11664,8034-1,00.html

Well, that's all, folks.  More to come about other family activities later!

16 Months

Grant turned 16 months in May!  I can't believe he is almost a year and a half.  He amazes me with how smart he is and how quickly he can learn things (all kids are amazing in how they learn!).

A few things he has been doing lately:

• Will use a fork to pick up food and eat it
• Going through a picky eater phase.  He doesn't want to eat a lot of the time and will throw all his food on the floor or spit it all out.  It takes forever to feed him and we still worry he isn't getting enough food.  He has gotten small obsessions with junk food that we are trying to phase out (goldfish crackers, french fries, etc...when he sees them, he will scream till he gets it and won't eat anything else...oops!).

• Shake his head back and forth and say no, no, no ("N-n-n!")
• Shake his finger back and forth and say no, no, no ("N-n-n!")
• Loves playing with cars.  He will carry them around all day, placing them on different surfaces, lining them up, and pushing them around.  He loves them so much that he won't let go of them at night, so often he goes to sleep clutching a little car in his arms.  Instead of a blanky or lovey, he clings to his cars (PS ignore the dirty outfit, lol).

• Likes to put things on his head.  He like to put toys on his head like hats and put shirts or fabric on top of his head.  It is very funny.  He also loves to steal Daddy's hats and put them on.  He gets the hugest grin on his face when he has accomplished getting a "hat."

Here is is getting upset when his "hat" won't stay on. 

• Likes to put things on his arms.  He wants to wear things as "bracelets."  Here he is wearing mine.  He also has rings that stack and he puts them on his arms a lot, too.

• Says dad, dog, duck, no, and light, and will point to many other objects that he can identify
• Runs everywhere!  He love to get where he's going fast 

• Laughs a lot and often copies when people are laughing or clapping (even on TV)
• Loves being outside.  Here he is begging me to let him out on the porch (I was doing laundry).

• Will talk to himself while playing with his cars and reading his books.  It is very sweet.
• Getting a little bit of separation anxiety.  He gets very upset when we leave the room, especially with James.  James calls Grant his "shadow" because he follows him everywhere.

• He LOVES his shoes and often brings them to us to ask us to put them on.  He loves wearing shoes!!! He will stare and study them and pull at them. He will often walk around with one pair of shoes in his hand while wearing another pair, giggling in delight while running around with them.

•   We started taking Grant to nursery at Church (they start attending at 18 months) to get him used to it. James will stay in there and watch him.  They blew bubbles one Sunday and Grant went crazy, he LOVED it!  It was too cute to watch.  I wish bubbles brought me that much excitement!

 My love for him grows every day.  I am just amazed by this kid.  Even though he is getting bigger, he is still my little baby and I love those moments when he will slow down and let us cuddle together (getting rarer and rarer).  Usually I am home with him at night when James is at class so Grant and I have a pretty good routine down, so I put him to bed most nights.  I really love putting him to bed and having that quiet time together.  We have had a much better bedtime routine since we moved into our townhouse, since the bedroom is upstairs.  It is much quieter.  I will bring him upstairs, let him play with his toys for a little while, then turn off the lights and rock him in the glider and nurse him to sleep while singing to him.  He cuddles so close and I love looking at his sweet peaceful little face.  He's just so precious.  It makes the exhaustion of being a parent so worth it.  Each new phase brings new adventures and although it's never easy, we are loving it.  :)

The Busiest Month of the Year!

Where do I even start with the month of May? There are 7 family birthdays in that month, including both mine and James'. Other activites included Mother's Day, a trip to San Antonio, a trip to the ER, running in my first relay marathon, reaching a new weight loss milestone, and as usual watching Grant learn new things. It was probably one of the busiest months we've had lately.


Mother's Day we enjoyed a quiet afternoon together and James made a pot roast for a nice dinner for us to have together. It made me feel very special and loved.  Grant loves to play with the balloon that they got me (it still hasn't completely deflated yet!).  He just stares at it all the time and point to it.  He loves to pull the ribbon to move it around and will often hug it and press it against his face.  It is pretty funny.

Later that week James turned 26! James had been wanting to go to PF Chang's for a long time and I usually never want to go there, so I thought it would be the perfect place to take him for his birthday. His parents met us there and the food was great. Grant was not very happy though so we had to take turns taking him outside.

The end of the week turned sour when I started getting pain in my ear. I get ear infections often so I knew what was coming. I left work early on a Thursday and went to a clinic to get checked out. It took me a few hours to finally get seen and the doctor wrote me a prescription. By Saturday things were much worse and I kept hoping things would improve but they went downhill instead. On Sunday I made the decision to go to the ER. I was in excruciating pain and I did not want to go back to the same clinic that did not prescribe me effective medication. I went to Bay Area and was the only person in the entire ER so I got seen right away and the doctor knew exactly what to do for me. I was so grateful! I was in and out of the ER in less than an hour. The only bad part is that I just got the bill in the mail!!! Yikes!!!

I reached some new fitness goals in May. I reached the 30 pounds milestone in weight loss! It felt so great to reach that accomplishment and to feel more confident and healthy. I have so much more energy and I feel like I am able to do so many more things. One of those things is running. I have never been a runner (and still am not) but I made a goal to run in a race and kept training for it. I feel very happy that I reached that goal when I ran in the Beach to Bay relay marathon on May 21st. My leg was about 4.5 miles and I ran a little over 3 miles and walked the rest. I wanted to run the entire thing but getting sick and the heat made things difficult for me. But I am still happy with all of the progress I made and I accomplished what I set out to do.

My teammates were such an inspiration to me. They did awesome and I'm glad that we could all support each other. I loved our shirts, we got several compliments on them. They said: Team MST-We're not slow, we're on Mormon Standard Time! LOL. We came in 149th place out of 351 women's teams.

I was surprised on my birthday to see my office decorated by my coworkers when I got there. We all had cupcakes later on, too. I turned 27 this year and James, Grant, and I celebrated my birthday by going to lunch together to Olive Garden. It had been forever since we had gone there due to dieting, so this was a special yummy treat. It was so nice seeing my family in the middle of the day. It is wonderful to celebrate occasions together. Seeing Grant just lights up my day. My birthday present from James was a nice, LONG, backrub which was heavenly and EXACTLY what I wanted!

James finished the Spring semester with great grades and shortly after started his Maymester class (rapid course). It was a rough 2.5 weeks since he had class and/or group meetings and homework every single night. But the good part is it's over now and he has another class complete that is helping him to finish his degree faster. I'm proud of him! He will be taking three more summer classes in the next two months.

We had a nice trip to San Antonio at the end of the month to visit family and to see our friends get sealed to their little boy.  They adopted him last year and now since everything has been finalized we were able to witness him be welcomed into their eternal family.  It was a beautiful ceremony and the look of pure joy on their faces was very touching.

Every year that passes by, I just can't believe all that has happened. I love my family and our life together, and it just keeps getting better. :) The rest of the summer will be crazy busy, so stay tuned!