Thomas's 1st Birthday

Thomas turned one on Thursday, June 14th. Maybrie helped color the hippo decorations for the cake and cupcakes. Maybrie loves to color, and I know I am biased as her mother, but isn't she so good at coloring in the lines for a 3 year old?! She colored the hippo on Thomas's cake all by herself, and she even glued most of the papers herself too. I love that she got to be a part of the preparation, her enthusiasm made it better than if I had tried to do some elaborate, perfect party. This was the first time I tried to make my own frosting rather than by a tub of it at the store. I, unfortunately, learned the hard way that I have a lot to learn about frosting making. It was a mess. In retrospect, I think I may have melted the butter too much, who knows? Luckily, it tasted better than it looked. Also, I'm pretty sure Thomas didn't mind and won't remember anyway! Here are some pictures from our little family celebration held at Brian's parents' house in Grandview. 

Happy Birthday baby boy!

One Whole Year

Thomas will be turning 1 on Thursday. I can't believe it has already been a year, it has flown by! Life really does keep picking up speed. Here is a look at Thomas's first year of growth in pictures:

Here is my sweet boy now. 

It has been such a blessing to have Thomas join our family this year, and he really does bring such a wonderful spirit to our home. He is always making us smile. Right now he is all over the place, crawling, not walking yet. He walks along and around everything and loves to walk while holding our hands, but no steps by himself yet, and I think it may be a few more months because he really hasn't stood by himself for more than a second either. He gets into things more than Maybrie did. He can open cupboards and drawers and loves pulling everything out. He is drinking whole milk now, and I just got him weened to a sippy cup only... good bye bottles! Yay! He is a good sleeper now, except that his internal wake up alarm is set way too early. He wakes up by 6am everyday, though we usually don't go get him until 6:30. He loves to eat and has the cutest lip smacking sounds when you give him something sweet in particular. He is a little drummer boy... he is always banging on everything, he even thinks it is fun to pound on the kitchen floor or the garbage can. He loves his mama, but boy does he love his daddy. Whenever Brian comes home, Thomas beelines it for the door! It is the cutest thing ever. And Brian loves his little guy... no one gets Thomas laughing like daddy, I love it. Thomas is just a solid, kissable chunk of fun that none of us can get enough of! We love our little man so much!

What happened in the month of May

I was just looking through my pictures and realized that I missed a bunch of little tidbits last month, probably because I have been feeling too stressed about organizing my house for our move this summer or too tired and lazy because Thomas has decided to be an early riser, awake by 6am... something I am not adjusting well too. Or it could also be that I went on a reading spree and plowed through several books, choosing reading instead of blogging. Whatever the reason, it doesn't matter. Here is a quick recap of what happened in the month of May at our house:

 Thomas likes to play with Maybrie's toys... or eat them! Here he is with Snow White's head in his mouth.

Maybrie has been wanting me to do her hair and likes to pick out different numbers and colors of elastics. She also finally figured out how to do her wooden 12 piece puzzles all by herself! And you better believe she did them over and over and over again for days!

She wanted pig tails on this day... but picked 6 hair things.

Front view of cute Maybrie's hair

I got on pinterest and decided to finally try out some new recipes I found. Of course I started with desert! This is cream puff cake... yum! We enjoyed it. Thanks Amy Muhia!

We have been doing babysitting swaps for date nights with two families in our ward. Here are all of the kiddies enjoying popsicles in our backyard.

I love that Maybrie has friends she gets along with, it makes me happy to see them having so much fun together. (I like Thomas at the door, longing to be with the big kids in this picture!:))

Maybrie playing dress up at Grandma's house. I love that she is wearing a hat, gloves, and scarf on a hot sunny day.

Here is a yummy Ranch chicken recipe I tried out.

I paired the chicken with these potato wedges, it was a good meal. I love it when I try new recipes and they are easy and tasty.

Maybrie scraped her knee on the track at the park while running with me. It was the end of the world... an owie seriously puts Maybrie out for an entire day or two. She just lays on the couch and has to keep a blanket covering her scrape at all times. Talk about drama!

We got to go see Lori's karate tournament in Tri-cities with grandma and grandpa Naylor. Lori did awesome too, here she is wearing her first place medal!

Thomas enjoying the swing at grandma's house on Mother's day.

My friend Amy and I hosted a season finale party for the ABC show "Revenge". Here is the cool Infinity box she made as a prize for the trivia game.

Here is our glamorous spread! And the finale was shocking and awesome, of course!

Maybrie found a new "prince" in Thomas to dance with!

The kids being silly, playing with daddy.

Maybrie learned how to actually shoot a decent picture with the camera. Here is one of my favorite she took of me, Brian and Thomas. She has taken many, and is so funny posing us... it makes her sound so grown up!

That's a wrap for the month of May.

Save, sell, garbage

This has been the name of the game at our house over the past month for me. Why? Because we are making a BIG, cross country move to Indianapolis, Indiana in August. Brian has decided to go back to school. He will be attending IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis) to get a Master's degree in medical science. It is a one year, non-thesis pre-professional program that should help him get into dental school. We will be living at Manchester Village, a subsidized housing complex where about 15 LDS student families live, mostly dental and medical students. It turns out my old college roommate, Kristin (Smith) Gillespie, who is from my home stake in Orem, UT is living there right now. Her husband will be completing his last year of dental school this year. I am still shocked at what a crazy small world it is and am excited to already have a good friend there. It is going to be a big change for us... a place we have never been, away from both of our families for the first time in our marriage, and Brian in school again. We are really looking forward to the adventure.

Moving all of our belongings 2200 miles across the country is very expensive, so we have decided to sell practically everything except basically our kitchen stuff, clothes, some toys, and memorabilia.. whatever we are able to fit in a small trailer we will tow with our mini van. Therefore, I have been going through our house from top to bottom sorting everything into one of three categories: save, sell, or garbage. I have been selling items we don't use on craigslist left and right, and yesterday we did our first ever yard sale with two other families in our ward. I was pleased with how much we were able to sell and get rid of, and that we were able to make $175 on items we don't plan on replacing anyway! It was a lot of work and though I am glad we did it, I am glad it is over too.

I hate to do a post without pictures, so here is the one shot I caught yesterday at the yard sale. This is Maybrie and her best bud Sadie. I found them sailing in the boat that didn't sell while we were cleaning up! :)

Though we are not leaving for Indiana until the first week of August, we will be moving out of our house at the end of the month. We will be traveling to family reunions for a couple weeks in July, so we thought we might as well save rent money since we will be gone so much anyway. Gratefully Brian's parents are letting us stay at their condo here in Yakima. This week I was able to sell both of the kid's dressers, which is great, but it also means that their clothes are just sitting in plastic tubs on the floor in their rooms. As I start selling our furniture on craigslist we will have more and more empty spaces, possibly sitting on the floor instead of the couch for a bit. It is always hard to know when to post items to sell, not knowing when someone will buy. Oh, well. It will be short lived.

Camping with Kids

On Friday night we drove an hour and a half up to Mt. Rainier National Park to Ohanapecosh campground to meet all of Brian's siblings for an overnight campout. It was Thomas's first time camping, and I admit I was a little nervous about camping with a crawler, how the kids would sleep in a tent, and getting too cold. Maybrie was bouncing off the walls with excitement during the days leading up to it, and the joy carried on while we were there. Thomas actually was really good and loved soaking in the great outdoors too.

 Brian's sister Emily brought this little kid-size picnic table, which was perfect for Thomas to walk around. Though I tried to keep him clean, he did end up crawling in the dirt, and eating some too! That's all part of the camping experience, right?!

This is one of the only pictures Maybrie actually cooperated for. She is in a "turn away and refuse to smile" phase when it comes to picture taking. I caught this picture right after we arrived while Maybrie anxiously watched daddy put up the tent and explored our campsite. Don't you love how she brought her pretty purple purse camping?!

 Maybrie loved playing with the flashlight. In this picture she was lighting her face in the dark, but you can't tell because the flash was too bright. 

Both kids loved watching the fire. While Brian was away flagging down the last family in our party to arrive, I tried to roast Maybrie a giant marshmallow with Thomas in my lap. It turned out to be a bad idea. As soon as the marshmallow was ready I pulled it off and let Maybrie take one bite. Then Thomas, with his quick hands, grabbed the whole hot and gooey mallow. Thomas cried out immediately with a marshmallow covered hand, I frantically shoved the entire marshmallow into my mouth (this wasn't a regular big one, but one of those new huge ones they make) and called for help without realizing how funny I would sound! There was gooey marshmallow all over Thomas's hand, blanket, my coat, my hair, Maybrie's hair, and even on the tip of my nose! After many baby wipes, Maybrie patiently reminded me that she still wanted a marshmallow! I had forgotten that was what I was doing in the first place. :)

Thomas went to bed later than normal, but still really well. However, he must've been wakened by the campfire party, and woke an hour later. We ended up giving him an extra bottle before laying him back down, which led to him waking at 3am completely soaked through his diaper and pajamas. It was already freezing cold, so having to strip him down in a dark tent in the middle of the night was... pleasant. And I'm sure the whole family loved hearing him scream bloody murder during the midst of their peaceful slumber as well! Maybrie slept well except for the fact that her slippery sleeping bag caused her to slip off her mattress and get wedged between it and the side of the tent twice in the night. Brian and I had the makings a comfortable bed, but it wasn't warm enough, so I was up shivering most of the night. I was cranky to say the least, and don't remember the last time my night was so bad that I just wanted to the sun to come up and end it already!

Saturday was good. Though I was dog tired, Brian and I managed to laugh and joke about our miserable night and remind each other that we had a long weekend still with time help each other catch up on lost sleep. Everyone else there cooked and make a hot breakfast of sorts, while we enjoyed Costco muffins. While I may have been nice to eat a hot meal on a cold morning, I was more than happy to sit by the fire, eat my muffin, throw the wrapper in the fire, and relax while everyone else cooked and cleaned!

After breakfast we went on a 2.7 mile hike to Silver Falls. We had planned for Brian to carry Thomas in the back pack and have Maybrie walk, but she did not like that idea, and since there was an extra pack, Brian said he would carry her while I carried Thomas. I am in pretty good shape right now, but Thomas is a whopping 24 lbs. now, so I was hurting really quick. Thankfully Uncle Jon offered to take Thomas and save my back! The rest of the hike was much better. I love the lush vegetation in the western part of WA, and there were so many beautiful water falls on this particular hike- my favorite! 

 

Thomas sacked out on the last stretch of the hike. He was so asleep that he didn't even twitch when we took him off. We didn't want to move him and wake him, so he just sat there sleeping like this for a good 15 mins. when we got back to the campsite. So funny! What a cutie! After lunch we packed up camp and headed home. We had a good time, but boy did we all sleep well Saturday night in our own beds! Brian and I were asleep before 9pm! I think I may limit our exploration of the great outdoors to day trips until we are past the baby/ toddler stage... it is a lot of work!

Mother's Day

Last week, after baths and just before bed, I had an impromptu photo shoot with the kids because I needed a picture of them together for Mother's Day cards for their grandmas. They were both in good spirits and I got so many fun ones of them together, I decided to share them all. 

 Motherhood can be very challenging at times and make me want to pull my hair out. But then at other times it can be the best, most fulfilling part of my life. I think that is probably how every mother feels. I am grateful to be a mom to these two beautiful children that continue to stretch me and bless my life each day. Thank you Brian for being such a wonderful and supportive companion and for spoiling me this past Mother's day weekend by letting me sleep in, cleaning the house, and surprising me with 2 dozen beautiful red roses! I love my role as mother and feel honored to carry that title with all of the responsibility and joy it holds.

Happy Mother's Day to all of the amazing mothers in my life!

 Cool Maybrie & Sweet Thomas