Before the End of the Year

On October 30th I was sitting in church, minding my own business. The lessons and talks were very well-prepared and I was thrilled to be in Sunday School and Relief Society, as I had spent a year and a half in Primary prior to Dean being born. I love primary and the simple Gospel truths taught there, but I have thoroughly enjoyed being in SS and RS for the past few weeks. One of the speakers related a story that hit me very hard. She talked about how she started to slack off in regards to her testimony after her children were born and spent most of her time happily watching Regis & Kathie Lee or other things rather than spending time pondering and studying the Gospel. At this point in time, I had watched all of Numbers, Bones, Lost, among other things because Dean refused to sleep anywhere than in our arms. He has since grown out of this (at least at night time and we are working on day time naps), but I spent a whole lot of my time watching TV shows because there was nothing else to do when holding a screaming baby 24 hours a day. Thankfully, John took a picture of him screaming just so we can remember what it was like. See:



Dean has made a huge turn around and has turned into such a sweet, gentle, cute, loving boy who rarely cries. I started to realize that I needed to find something else to do besides turn my brain to mush. I read The Help in 2.5 days and decided that I wanted to read more. I think it was the very next Sunday that I had the following experience based on the story related in the talk. I felt very strongly that I needed to re-read the Book of Mormon from start to finish before the end of the year. I figured that I haven't read it quickly since I was on my mission, which ended 5.5 years ago. I committed to this without having any clue of how many pages I needed to read in order to achieve this goal. I got home, figured out that I would need to read somewhere between 11-12 pages per day in order to achieve that goal. I just started reading in Jacob today and I cannot describe the difference this has made in my day-to-day life. I have found so many answers to problems and worries with Dean just by calming myself down through reading the Book of Mormon and allowing the Spirit to speak to me. I am excited to see how the rest of this experience turns out, but so far I am loving reading it so quickly. I feel much like Dean who used to scream without the ability to be consoled, but now he is a happy, smiling little guy.

2 month stats and a new job

I took Dean in on Monday for his 2 mo check up. He weighs 10 lbs 14 ozs (30%), is 22.5 in tall (33% and she measured him way shorter than he is) and his head is 40.5 cm (65%). He got some lovely shots and behaved like a champ. We love this little guy so much. I tried to get a picture of Dean smiling, but he wouldn't cooperate. Oh well.

In other news, John has started a new design job at Unicity, a company that makes health and wellness products, similar to NuSkin and others.

We found out about a week before Dean was born that Logoworks was going to be shut down by HP and John would need to find a new job as of the middle of October. You might imagine that was stressful news for us to take in, but we both felt peaceful that we would be led to something great.

John was contacted by a previous coworker whose wife is the creative director at Unicity. It led to John being hired. We are so grateful for this great opportunity. John keeps very busy at work, but is having great design opportunities and gaining great experience.

We are looking forward to this holiday season and feel especially grateful for the Gospel and our Savior this year as we have learned so much about trust as we have had instances when we could do nothing but trust in His plan for us and our growing family.

Baby bjorn love

So I recently discovered that Dean is big enough to fit in the baby bjorn that one of John's sisters gave us. It has changed my life. I have my hands. I can make dinner. I don't have to put Dean down and deal with the crying. We have Deans 2 month appointment on Monday, so I'll post his stats then.

An update - with pictures!!

Dean is doing great, which means we are too. I think he is on the brink of sleeping for more than 3 hours during the night, AND sleeping for more than one chunk during the night in his bed. Woo hoo!

He us adorable and makes the cutest cooing noises I have ever heard. We love him to pieces. He is 7 weeks old today and it's depressing to think about our lives when he wasn't here.

Dean is Here!

Hello everyone. Dean is officially here and keeping us very busy. He is 6 weeks old and is just barely letting us put him down for 30 minutes or so at a time during the day. Eventually we will post pictures. He is a sweet, sweet little boy who is very colicky, but we still love him. :)

He was born on August 31st. I went in to work that day (it was my last day), was having contractions all morning and finally decided to go home around 12:30pm. My water broke around 1:30pm and he was born at 6:28pm. It was very fast and let me just say I am soooo glad for whoever invented the epidural. I don't know if I could've had a labor/birth experience that was that fast without it. Anyway, we'll post more later with pictures of the cute little guy.

The End

We are officially within a week of the due date. Things are progressing, but we have one veery happy to stay inside forever little baby. If we don't have him first, we are scheduled to be induced next Wednesday the 7th. We are excited to know that there is a definite day that we will hold our baby and I can hopefully sleep for more than 45 minutes at a time. Send us good thoughts that day.

Another semester has started and we are excited for John's classes. We hope that between church responsibilities, work, and a brand new baby that schoolmwill be manageable for John. Tomorrow is my last day of work, which is very bitter sweet. I have been there for 3.5 years and have grown to love it. But there is a season for everything.

We will post some pictures when things calm down and let everyone meet our little baby, after he arrives, that is.

Craft Lake City is Upon Us

Some of you, including myself, might be wondering what I was thinking when I applied to Craft Lake City, knowing full well that I would be 37 weeks pregnant when it happened. I think I was thinking that I wouldn't get in, so what was the harm in applying. Well, I was chosen to be one of 180 vendors. I was a little floored, but very honored and happy to have been chosen. I have been pacing myself and working hard to make what I feel like is enough onesies and shoes to have enough selection. Well, tomorrow is the big day! John is a champ and will be sitting at my booth with me for the entire 8 hour event. We were assigned to be there to set up at 11am, which seems a little on the crazy side that I have to be there 3 hours before it begins, but there's nothing I can do about it. So, for those of you looking for something to do on a Saturday afternoon, come on down to the Gallivan Center and say hi! I am told it is a really cool show, with LOTS of different things. Supposedly there were dudes there last year making skateboards for people.

In other news, no baby yet. That's about all I have to say about that one.