Back to School

New year, new semester, new life... gotta love changes!

We had a wonderful Christmas at home in Alaska. Ryan and I really needed a break. Grad school is stressful, for both students and their families. Hanging out with my parents and Cassi was so fun and relaxing. We can't wait for Cassi's visit this weekend, and Mom and Dad's next month!

Sam is 7 months old now. He has two teeth! We think he's getting his top teeth now, because he's been super fussy the past couple days. Poor little guy. I think he is starting to understand that Mommy and Daddy don't always know what he needs. He also knows when it is bedtime, and he freaks out when he knows he's about to be put to bed. Once he's asleep he's good, thank goodness!

This is my last semester in grad school. I'm feeling the weight of the research project. It seems like such an insurmountable task. I really doubt I'll get 50 participants, and that scares me because I am very intimidated by the Research Oversight Committee. Facing them gives me nightmares. Ryan is an amazing stay-at-home dad. He gives me the freedom to work hard in my clinical responsibilities and my research. I love and appreciate him so much!

While in Anchorage, Aunt Cassi had the brilliant idea of dressing Sam up as "Baby New Year" to ring in 2010. Here's a picture of our (not-so) little guy!

It's the MOST WONDERFUL TIME.......... of the year!

I do love Christmas time, and when I think about it that song always gets stuck in my head... but only that part because I don't know the rest of it. Sad.

I feel bad that I haven't updated our blog in so long. I can Facebook for an hour, but spend 15 minutes to update my blog? Apparently not. So...

Last month I went to Atlanta for the National Society of Genetic Counselors annual conference. It was wonderful. Spending time with my family and having them love Sammy so much was fantastic!

For Thanksgiving, we drove out to Colorado to spend time with Ryan's family. It was the first time for them to meet Sammy, which of course was very exciting all around. Rusty and Chrissy are so great, letting us all stay at their house. My nieces Falon and Rebecca are absolutely adorable! Falon loooooooved her new cousin! She always wanted to be around him, even when his diaper was being changed! Very cute. It was great to hang out with Richard again, I miss having him around all the time, like when we all lived in Fort Collins. And of course, we were so happy that Grandma Penny finally got to see Sammy. It is so sweet how much she loves her family.

I finished my rotation at Huntsman Cancer Institute, and am now back in a prenatal setting at Intermountain Health Care. I really like it. I get to travel between their different MFM clinics, which is great because I get a look at how different clinics operate. I really think that I want to end up working in an MFM clinic, though I would also pretty much take any job I can get right now :0)

Sammy is learning all kinds of new skills. He rolls over all the time now to reach toys and other "fun" things he sees. He can even sit up on his own! He's still kind of wobbly, so we don't let him sit up without supervision or the Boppy pillow. Next week he will be 6 months old, and we are going to start feeding him vegetables. He's been doing really well with the rice and oatmeal cereal, so we think he'll love some new flavors.

Ryan and I went ice skating with our ward last week. It was Ryan's first time ice skating. He picked it up quickly, although he did hockey-check me into the wall a few times "because he lost his balance." Riiiiiiiiiight.

And now for our token picture of Sammy!

For our next adventure, we will fly up to Anchorage for Christmas with my family. Stay tuned!

Halloween and Other Scary Stories

For Halloween, we decided to theme our costumes. Ryan was a farmer, Sammy was the scarecrow, and I was the crow!

We went out to a corn maze on Halloween. We love corn mazes. Definitely a favorite fall tradition. Sam loved seeing new things. What a good baby he is!

Sammy has recently discovered his toes. It's really cute. He loves grabbing his feet when he's on his back and rolling on his side. Unfortunately, we didn't cut his nails until a few days after he made this find, so his ankles have all these nasty cuts on them. I'm pretty sure he can't feel pain in his feet, however, because he smacks his feet really hard into the ground all the time and it doesn't seem to bother him at all.

On Thursday I'm going to the National Society of Genetic Counselors conference in Atlanta. Sammy is coming with me, and we're meeting my mom, her mom, and Aunt Dori down there for the weekend! It's going to be a lot of fun- I get to hang out with a thousand other genetics geeks and my family!

October 17th was the 5 year anniversary of my baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This Friday was Ryan's 10 year anniversary. We got together with the two missionaries who taught him, the girl who was baptized the same day, and the ward missionary who helped them both. It was great- all 5 families had kids, and the 5 reunion-ees all had such a good time reminiscing. Sammy got to hang out with Amber and Tyler's son Josh, who is only a few weeks younger than him.

This is why I hand out sandwiches

I have a sad story to tell. So, whenever Ryan and I go to the temple, I make a sandwich for this homeless lady who hangs out on the corner. I don't like giving cash to homeless people, because I never know what they are going to do with it. I give food instead. Tonight we went to Wal-Mart to get some things for Sammy's Halloween costume. As we walked in, two girls approached us and told us a sad story about the one girl's boyfriend ditching them in Salt Lake and they needed to get back to Ogden tonight. They said they didn't have any money on them to buy their Frontrunner (train) tickets. I didn't have a dollar, but I gave them a five because I felt bad that they got ditched. Later, as we were perusing Halloween costumes, I saw them picking out decorations and carrying a bunch of stuff. So much for not having any money for the train... I just bought Halloween decorations for two tramps instead of for our little apartment. This is why I will not ever hand out cash again! Sandwiches are still a go.

In other news...

Sammy went on his first hike in September. We took him along on the Genetic Counseling program hike up Catherine Pass. We took a bottle for him, but it didn't warm up by the time he was ready to eat... so we detoured off the trail so I could breastfeed him!

Ryan carried Sam in the Baby Bjorn. He got to face forward for the first time. He LOVED being able to see things. Now we carry him that way all the time.

All tuckered out!

We watched General Conference the first weekend in October. Our traditional tent got moved to Sunday morning, because Ryan played football before the Saturday morning session. Sam got to hang out in the tent for the first time! I can't wait til he is old enough to play in the tent.

Don't forget, most of our good Sammy pictures are on our Facebook album. You can also watch video clips of Sam at Ryan's MobileMe gallery. We will soon have the clip of Sam rolling over online! He rolled from his tummy to his back for the first time on October 4th.

Sam's next well-baby visit is Friday. We hope he gets to start solid food soon!

Sammy is 3 months old!

To celebrate Sammy being 3 months old, we took a family trip to Hogle Zoo. There was a new baby elephant and a baby giraffe, which meant that Ryan and I had spasms of joy!

My favorite zoo animals are giraffes, and Ryan's favorites are the elephants. The zoo babies are only a few weeks younger than our baby! To finish the celebration we had ice cream and pizza using left over gift cards from Ryan's birthday. Yum yum.

Last week, Sammy and I were both getting over a cold. We felt so crummy over Labor Day that we mostly just hung out on the couch and watched TV. We watched a couple hours of Cake Boss on TLC. Ryan and I got so inspired that we decided to make cake decorating our shared hobby. Well, cake making and decorating is not cheap or easy. We spent 3 days on our first (also last) cake. Here are some pictures from the creation of our "masterpiece".

Fondant is very hard to work with!

We have added more pictures of Sammy to our Facebook album. You don't need to be on Facebook to view them, just click here!

Happy Birthday Ryan!

Today is Ryan's birthday! He is 29. Sammy and I got him a birthday card. Sam picked it out because it had a picture of a baby on the front. We don't know what we're going to do to celebrate, but last night we ordered pizza so we'd have pizza for lunch today.

Sammy has a cold :0( He has a boogery nose and a cough, and he's really fussy. He wants to be held all the time. Poor little guy! He is taking a nap right now. I hope it makes him feel better.

Two weeks of school already down. Only 13 more to go! I'm glad we have a three day weekend. I hope Ryan picks something fun for his birthday celebration!

Ryan finally posts!

Hello everybody in blog world. I thought I would do the posting this time because, although her belly is considerably smaller, Kara now has one less hand with which to do things. I am glad I can do the heavy lifting for her ... like blogging!

Our first wedding anniversary was such a great time to reflect on how far we have come, plan for the future, and, most importantly, get a sweet gift. Kara's parents got a SUPER cool GPS unit for us. The Garmin Oregon 400t. Be careful not to drool on your computer. I hear that our previous GPS was actually used by cavemen to track dinosaurs.

We went to Kincaid Park to take our first family pictures. We plan on taking a family picture every year on our anniversary. I love my family so much!

Kara and I went to watch Harry Potter and The Half-blood Prince on the night of our anniversary. It was our favorite movie of the series.

We are loving the experience of watching our little boy grow. He has nearly doubled in size. He follows people around with his eyes and smiles when he likes something. Kara's family is just loving their time with Sammy, too.

After my salmon fishing experience on Bird Creek yesterday, I can say that I am now a fishing fan. Both of my parents love to fish. I hope they are jealous that I got to fish Alaskan Salmon!

We look forward to a new year with many exciting developments in each of our lives. Thank you for following our blog!