Oh what a weekend!

Wow, the last few days have been rough!  Spencer has been sick since Thursday. Friday and Saturday were horrible.  Sunday improved, but then he got bad again that night and we finally took him into the ER yesterday morning to find he has an ear infection.  He's by no means out of the woods.  We had the worst night in his entire life bar none last night but thankfully he ate some food this morning and is sleeping.  I'm praying he feels a lot better as the day goes on because he's had a rough go of it.

This is how Spencer spent most of the weekend.

He was a bit better here but still in PJs.

Genevieve picked up a phlegmy cough too.  Nothing more at the moment, and I'm praying that will stay that way too.  Bill and I are both a little off too, so it's just a house of sickness around here. So yeah, here's hoping we all get well soon.  It's been far too rough on all of us, and I still don't feel completely back to normal from the crazy last few months getting ourselves packed and out here.  Here's to all of this calming down and improving very quickly.

5 Months

This little lady is five months old and just delightful. She's getting such a cute personality and we lover her to pieces. Not as if that's as surprise, but it's so fun to see her starting to interact and learn so many new things. 

 She's just started this thing where she sucks in her lower lip.  She does it all the time, smiling and serious face.  You guessed it. It's adorable. :)

 She's happy as can be on her stomach, which is definitely different than Spencer was.  Until he figured out how to move, he didn't want anything to do with his stomach.  Genevieve is completely content to just chill.  She rolls back and forth and can nearly roll from her back to stomach, but she's so content on her stomach she hasn't even tried to roll to her back.  It's fun to compare how she does things to how Spencer did. He was rolling already at this age and starting to scoot. She's happy stationary. She is pretty good at sitting up, albeit propped. She doesn't like to be in her bouncer anymore, so I put it away a couple days ago.  She wants to be upright or on her stomach for the most part.  She'll tolerate her back if she has toys to play with.

Genevieve is a total chunk.  She weighed about 17 pounds yesterday when we were at the doctor. She's solid and has the best leg rolls and chunky tummy. She loves to smile and laugh.  She is utterly fascinated with her hands and holding things and puts everything in her mouth.  She waves her arms frantically kind of like a seal when she's trying to grab something.  It's cute.  She has pretty good hand control, but not so good large motor movement getting to the item. She's getting more accurate every day though. Ha!  Give her a piece of cloth, a blanket, a shirt, whatever, and she is happy as can be.  She loves her blanket she sleeps with.  She wraps it all up in her fingers and pulls it halfway over her face.  A lot of the time she doesn't even cry when we put her to bed, just cuddles up with the blanket and starts sucking on her hands.

She's teething, but it hasn't caused her any trouble yet.  She does drool quite a bit, and we can see her teeth starting to thicken up her lower gums, but no actual teeth yet.  She's getting fascinated with our food though.  She's started to watch us eat. I can't believe I started feeding Spencer real food just a couple weeks from now when he was this age.  I'm not in any hurry with Genevieve.  I'll probably try some semblance of baby-led weaning this time around. In essence, just giving her big chunks of food for her to gnaw on and try out before I push any kind of baby food. I sometimes wonder if Spencer has such strange eating habits because I didn't let him eat enough normal foods when he first started.  I'll never know, but I'm going to go about teaching Genevieve a bit differently about eating and see what the results are.

So pretty much we love Genevieve to pieces.  She's definitely stolen all of our hearts.  Spencer can't help but hug and kiss her every time he sees her.  She loves him just as much. They're going to be besties and I'm sure partners in crime much sooner than I'm ready for. :)

Hello 30, how are you?

Monday was my 30th birthday.  It was a low key day. It's hard to make a huge, elaborate celebration come together when we've only been in this new place for a few weeks, we've spent more money in one month than the last year, and more than both of those, we just don't have the oomph to do much more than relax and enjoy the fact that it was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, so Bill had the day off and we could hang out together as a family. It was a successful day. :)

That low key factor feels good to me.  I think it's a good way to start my 30s, or end the last year of my 20s, depending on how you want to argue how counting works. I generally take the latter approach, but for this 30 feels like a start, not an end. The 20s were good years.  I came into myself more and more as the decade progressed.  They were the years I earned my college degrees, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed.  I discovered my love of the outdoors. I had a full time job. I got married to the love of my life and had two kids. I finally made it back into a family ward after years and years in singles wards. I learned tons about myself and made a lot of personal improvements. Sometimes things felt rushed. Other times it felt like life was taking forever to happen.  All in all though, it was a good decade.

But now I'm glad to start something new.  I'm where I want to be in life.  Taking the huge step to move far away from family feels good, though I miss them already. I don't feel in a rush anymore.  I could enjoy the slightly slower pace life has taken.  I don't need to rush to get this or that done.  I find my kids so delightful right now and it's so fun to watch them grow.  And they are growing fast.  Genevieve had an 18-month sized jacket on last night and it wasn't even that loose.  She'll be 5 months old next week. Spencer has started to demand a normal cup to drink from.  Little things, but it reminds me to enjoy their stages because they fly by as fast as their clothes sizes change.

So that's how I want to start my 30s.  Relaxed, enjoying the little things, and especially enjoying this time in our life to be together and enjoy a rich life together.  I didn't do a 30 before 30 list last year or anything really to commemorate my 20s because well, I didn't feel the need.  30 feels good.  It fits and I wasn't afraid of it. I don't feel old. I don't feel like I've lost something.  Life is good and I'm enjoying it. It's a really good place to be and I hope I can hang onto it in the long run.  So many things conspire to make that a hard thing to do, so I'm thinking particularly about it now and hopefully that helps to keep the feeling here for good.

We're here, moved in, and loving it

So South Carolina.  It's a nice place.  It's 9:40PM and the temperature is 64 degrees outside.  I can't say I'm complaining. :) It does seem like it's pretty cloudy here in the wintertime, but I think it will be just fine.

It turns out we live kind of in the middle of nowhere.  Well, at least that's how it feels.  There are two main streets and a tiny little downtown in Clemson and the rest of whoever lives here is hidden by an incredibly dense forest.  If I can't see through it with all the leaves gone, I can't even imagine what it will be like come spring.  It has a nice feel though. I'm just getting used to the small town part. :)

Life is settling in.  We're pretty much all moved in.  I have a long list of projects I'd like to build to fit the needs of our new place, but those will take some time to work through. Bill loves his program at Clemson and things are looking really good in that area.  So all in all, a successful move and we're happy for the future that we've just started.

And of course, here's a couple cute pictures of the kids from this last week.

Chillin' on the bed

Spencer loves to give Genevieve kisses these days. She thinks he's pretty great.

Loving having Grandma here to help us move in

This was right before we moved out of our house in Utah. Spencer likes to hang out with Genevieve when she's laying on her stomach.

almost end of year family letter

January 1st seems as good a day as any to write our family newsletter. :)

This has been a great year for our little family, though definitely challenging.  By far it was dominated with the quest to decide our path after Bill graduated, and in a distant second place getting ready for the arrival of our second baby.  Somewhere early in the year we decided to try for a PhD program and started going through the process of finding schools to apply to, applying, contacting professors at those schools, and then hoping for positive results. Everything came together at the same time on both of those fronts as we heard from Bill's new professor at Clemson just days before I went into labor at the end of August.

Our Fall semester consisted of Bill finishing his last semester at BYU, where he graduated in Civil Engineering in December. The rest of our time was taken up getting ready to move across the country as well as welcoming Genevieve Jo to the family and adjusting to the excitement of having two kids. Oh, and Bill and I both had callings in the Young Mens and Young Women's organizations at church, Bill on the stake level as second counselor and me as the Young Women's president in our ward.

Let's just say it was a busy time and this Christmas vacation has been very welcome.  It too has been busy as we've packed up our house and sent off our belongings in an ABF truck, sent Bill off to South Carolina with his dad driving one of our cars, and I have held down the fort with the two kids back here in Utah until this weekend when I also head out to South Carolina so we can start our new adventure attending Clemson University.

Speaking of our kids, this year has included so many fun new milestones for both of them. Spencer is a delightful nearly two-year old. He is smart as a whip and amuses and often frustrates us with his new antics.  He's learning things so quickly and we're constantly amazed with all the things he understands.  His favorite color is orange. He loves the number eleven, the letter w, diamonds, his ninja shirt, fruit snacks, and our tablets.  He could give anyone a lesson in how to use one, much to our chagrin when he steals them away from us to play his games.

Genevieve arrived on the scene August 28th as a hefty 8lb 8oz chublet and hasn't stopped growing since.  She's our little redhead for the moment and we're hoping she stays that way.  She's smiling, laughing, and standing whenever we give her half a chance.  She's officially rolled over twice in the last week, but hasn't quite figured out what she's doing, though I'm sure that will come soon enough.  Spencer loves her to pieces, though his form of love generally runs towards body slamming her.  She loves him anyway and is rather patient with his rough love.  She's rarely seen without her cow lovie, and she'll gladly snuggle up with any blanket or cloth offered to her.

We're so excited for this new chapter in our lives, though very sad to leave our family and friends we've grown so close to back here in Utah.  Here's to a wonderful new year and many wonderful new memories to come!