Where did my baby go?

I was looking at my iPhoto and realized I haven't taken any pictures of Spencer since the beginning of March.  Oops.  Don't worry though.  I took a few today. :)  It made me wonder where the heck my baby went and where this toddler came from.  He's being so cute these days.  Okay, I always say that, but it's still true. I figured it was time to give an update on what he's up to.  It's been a while.

He inherited a bunch of shoes from his cousin and today he was sporting a pair of Nike high tops.  People, they are sweet and he loves them.  He stomps all over the house when I put them on and just loves it.  Shoes mean going outside in Spencer's head, so he absolutely loves it when I put them on.  This kid LOVES being outside.  I'm sure he's going to be so tanned by the end of the summer.

Look at this close up.  He looks so old!  He's getting his canines all in this week. Hopefully those will push through soon so he'll be happier.  When they arrive he'll have his whole mouth of teeth minus his back molars, but those shouldn't come in for like six more months. 

We went to DI for a youth activity tonight and he got a little tired by the end, so I laid him down in the cart.  I couldn't believe he actually stayed there for a minute.  This kid is a mover, so anytime he sits still is a surprise to me.

 He's talking up a storm these days, though what he's saying only he knows. Mommy, daddy, and boo are understandable, but nothing else. He babbles to himself, me, and anybody who will listen all day long.

We have a Winnie the Pooh pack 'n' play with a totally useless mobile.  Well, it was useless when he was little.  Now those stuffed animals from it are his absolute favorite toys.  Until he latched onto them, he's never had any kind of lovey item.  But Pooh Bear, Piglet, and Eeyore are his absolute favorites these days.  They mostly stay in his crib, though sometimes he pulls them through the bars.  When we put him in there, he always laughs when I hand them to him and calms right down.  It's so nice.

Spencer has always hated being restrained.  He likes to cuddle, but not be cuddled, if that makes sense.  I do a lot of exercise videos these days and whenever I lay down to do the ab parts, he takes that as his personal invitation to run and flop on me and cuddle for a minute.  I'm not going to lie, sometimes that is enough to get me motivated to workout.  I love cuddling with him. :)

He's eating better these days, but he's still pretty picky.  It's all good though.  We'll get him to realize how awesome food is one of these days.

He's recently discovered how much fun it is to shake his head no.  He laughs and laughs when I imitate him.  In fact, he laughs most of the time.  He's got a really sunny personality.  I love it.

Okay, it's getting late and that's plenty of details.  We love this kid!  Oh, and we find out what we're having in a week, so that's cause for great excitement too.  Woohoo!

I want to write on my blog but I can't think of anything to write about.  Things are just moving along.  The job hunt is happening, grad schools are being looked at, the child is being adored, etc, etc. We just bought a tent and a bike trailer.  This summer is going to be awesome now. :)  We always need another tent, right?  Spencer loves the bike trailer, and it has an attachable front wheel, so now we at least have an option for toting two kids somewhere in a few months.

I did just see this article on my friend's Facebook page and it really made me smile. It's several years old, but timeless. Enjoy.

Deja Vu

So it's the 13th of March and it's feeling a lot like it felt this time last year.  Bill had what he thought would be a totally sweet internship at a company he really wanted to work for coming together only to hear on Friday that for some unexplained reason they don't even want to interview him.  What?!?!  It feels a lot like last year around this time when a bunch of potential internships didn't come through.  So here we sit, a month from the end of school and no internship or job in sight.  Oh joy.  Last summer a job never was forthcoming.  We did odd jobs for family and friends and somehow made it through.  We are hoping and praying that that part of the deja vu doesn't repeat itself.  It wasn't that great.  I will say we were really blessed and have made it through this last year despite that.  So if you happen to know of anyone hiring or have any job connections, we're all ears.

Aside from the very present need to find summer employment, this turn of events has really made us rethink where we're headed.  Bill only has one semester of school left and we've been looking at grad school options.  With this super sweet internship we thought we had, it was looking really good to stay put here, do grad school at BYU, potentially have a job waiting afterward and we'd go along our merry way.  Tons of our family lives here.  How could that not be a good solution?  The funny thing though is that I've been feeling lately that we really aren't meant to stay in Utah.  I didn't have any basis for the feeling since everything seemed to be falling into place, but with this turn of events, suddenly it doesn't feel so strange.  So we shall see how the future goes.  I don't think we're destined to stay here, which is just fine, though definitely uncertain.  There's so much to do.  A job to find, the GRE to take, schools to apply to, and lots of decisions to make.  Who knows, maybe this time next year we'll be in another state.  South Carolina is looking pretty good.  Or maybe Pennsylvania or even Oregon.  We shall see.

Christmas Stockings

I know it's March, but this is a project that was slow to happen after Christmas.  My mom made a super cute stocking for Spencer last year and I decided to make stockings for the rest of us to match.  I came up with four patterns, so there's one for me, one for Bill, one for the new baby, and one for a future child or a friend that comes to visit or something like that. :)  They're not completely sewn together, but they're as far along as they are going to get until I get names embroidered on the top.  I really like how they turned out! I crocheted the snowflakes to go on them and freehanded all the rest from ideas I got online.  It was a fun project.

Abu!

Spencer loves to play peekaboo.  For weeks or months he's been initiating it himself.  So cute.  Anyway, he's just starting to mimic what we say if we ask him to.  And tonight he finally got across to us that he knows how to say boo himself.  Except he says it "abu!" It totally makes sense when you think about how you always take a deep breath before you say shout boo! at someone.  To a one-year old, that's naturally part of the word.  I love it. :)

Goodbye First Trimester!

Here's to being 1/3 of the way through my pregnancy!  If it was my last one, I would be rejoicing because the morning sickness would be leaving, but since I haven't been sick this pregnancy, I'm just happy to be a little bit further along.  Here's to easy pregnancies!  I finally had Bill take a picture of me this morning after I came home from running. And then I cropped my head out of it because it was rather scary.  Ha ha! 

 And for comparison's sake.  Apparently my head was scary last time too :) :

I'd say I'm bigger, but maybe not as much as I thought.  I'm still running and doing workout videos, so we'll see how it all goes down in the end.

Switching Rooms

We've had so much fun having Bill's dad living with us for the last four or five months.  Unfortunately for us they closed on their new house last Friday so he moved up north and we don't get to have him around every night.  As a result though, we were able to switch around Spencer's bedroom and our office so that we could put two beds in his bedroom.  The office was the bigger room before, so now we've switched.  A couple months back we reorganized the living room too and as a part of this we moved the bookshelves out of there and into our office so that room looked a little less cluttered.  I like how it all turned out.  Here's the results.

The Office 

The Front Room

Spencer's Side of the room 

Spencer's other side of the room :) Soon to be the new baby's

Spencer's Toddler Bed

I guess we could have gone straight to a twin-sized bed, but I have to say, this toddler bed I made is absolutely adorable.  And it fits in the bedroom we have with the crib, so that's another plus.

Needing Spencer's crib in about six months for the new baby was a great excuse to get out my tools and build something again.  The finish turned out pretty nice.  It's always my least favorite part of building because I've had several pieces turn out not so great at that step.  I'll figure it out sometime.  This one was mostly a winner.  If you get close, you can see some of the mistakes, but who looks for those? :)  And you know what the best part of this bed is?  It cost me about $60 to build.  That's after a $10 mistake of cutting a bunch of boards too short.  I love being able to build things I could never afford to buy.

Beds, Playing Outside, and our own little Quasimoto

I've slowly been building Spencer a toddler bed that he can start using sometime between now and when the next baby is born.  Mostly it's spent the last month sitting outside built but needing a final sanding, staining, and to be assembled.  Bill's mom was in town this weekend, so I got it sanded and we decided to put it together and see how Spencer likes it while everyone was there.  It's not stained yet, but otherwise it's done.

We put it together in the living room and dragged Spencer's crib mattress out to put in it.  The second it was in, Spencer came running over and jumped on it and then started rolling around playing all over it. He loves it!  It was so cute to watch.  He's certainly not ready to sleep in it, as he won't actually lay on it for more than about half a second at a time, but he sure loves playing on it. The plan is to switch our office and his bedroom and then set both it and the crib up in the new room, which is much bigger than his current one.

Spencer loves, loves, loves being outside.  He'll just sit at the window or the door and stare outside.  The other day I took him outside to wander around.  This is what he did the whole time.

 Played with his truck.

 Walked all over our back and front yard.

And pushed this little scooter around that is our downstairs neighbor's toy.  He even got on it once, but promptly fell off and decided that wasn't the best idea.

So last thing.  Yesterday morning Spencer woke up with his eye almost swollen shut.  We had no idea what caused it, since it wasn't like that when he went to bed.  It got better throughout the day but when he woke up this morning it was all swollen again.  Today though, we figured out what caused it.  Spencer woke up this morning but then quieted down for a few minutes before we went in and got him.  When Bill opened the door, he was leaned against the corner of his crib, totally asleep, pressed against his eye.  Crazy kid!  Here's how it looks.

Flopping

Bill's siblings used to wake each other up by running in and jumping on top of each other.  That might be the worst way I can imagine to wake up, but really funny if you're the one doing the flopping, as they called it. Spencer has decided he also likes to flop people.  He started running up and falling on us a few weeks ago and I finally got a video of sorts.  He's not flopping anyone, but he's also started swan diving on the bed whenever we put him up there.  So funny.  When he flops us he does the same thing, just on us. :)  It's so funny.  This kid has such a great sense of humor.  I love it!

Growing, growing, growing

I'm hitting that phase in my pregnancy where I'm thicker around the middle, but not enough so anyone would dare ask if I was pregnant.  My clothes are starting to fit a little weird and mostly I think I just look like I'm getting a little tubby.  This is all fine and dandy except I don't hit 12 weeks until Tuesday.  People, I am going to be huge!  I was barely even showing at all last time at this point.  Remember this shot?  I think that's a few days before I delivered.  

I look at that picture and I can't even believe that's possible.  Can I really get that big?  Sure can!  At least I shrunk back to normal size afterwards.  That's every girl's fear and I'm glad it was unfounded for me, with plenty of help from exercise and eating well of course.  But I'm pretty sure that besides the fact that I can already tell I'm carrying this one high while I carried Spencer super low, that I will hit this phase long before I am ready to deliver.  Ah well.  I feel good and I'm almost done with my first trimester, so I'm not really complaining, just marveling.  My only real wish is that this time around my face maintains some semblance of being an adult rather than reverting to pimply teenagehood.  Here's hoping!

Homemade Bagels

Have you ever made homemade bagels?  If you haven't, you really should.  They are so ridiculously easy and they turn out so amazing.  My mom makes them all the time and has them for breakfast nearly every day, and she shared her recipe with me a long time ago.  I don't make them very often, though I don't know why, since they are easy and don't take that much time to make, but I don't.  However, this morning I was seriously craving some bagels, so I made some!  I had blueberries in my fridge and craisins, so I made half blueberry and half filled with craisins.  I would have used wheat flour but I didn't feel like getting my wheat mill out, so these are delightful white flour bagels.  That's totally a treat, right? :)  I thought I'd share the recipe so all of you can enjoy some yourselves.


Bagels
1 1/2 c warm water
2 1/4 tsp yeast
3 tbsp sugar or honey
1/2 tbsp salt
4 1/2 c flour

Pour warm water into a mixing bowl and sprinkle yeast on top.  Add sugar and stir. Let sit and foam for a few minutes to check your yeast.  Add salt.  Slowly flour and knead to make a soft dough.  Knead for 10 minutes by hand or use a Kitchen Aid, etc. Dough should be fairly stiff. Cover and let rise in warm place for 15 minutes.

Punch down dough, working out air bubbles, and pinch off about a dozen balls.  Let them rest a couple minutes, then work a hole in the center with both thumbs.  Let rise 20 minutes.  While dough is rising, fill a large pan with water and 3 tbsp sugar and heat to boiling. Drop 4-5 bagels into the boiling water. Boil 1 minute, flip over, then boil for another minute.

Remove from water and cool for a couple minutes on greased cookie sheets.  Bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Variations:

Cinnamon raisin: decrease salt to 1 tsp and increase sugar to 6 tbsp. Add cinnamon ( a couple of tsp or to taste) Knead in raisins after dough is desired consistency.
Whole Wheat: Just substitute half the flour for wheat flour. Add wheat flour first and let it sponge or foam before adding the other flour.
Other options: Blueberry, poppyseed, herb-garlic, cranberry, oat bran, cheese & onion.  For ones with berries, just need them in after you've gotten the dough all ready.


And wha la!  You have amazing homemade bagels.   Mine are currently in the oven and I can't wait to bite into one!  Oh and small warning.  They get bigger when you boil them, and get even bigger when you put them in the oven, which I forgot about, so you will end up with some pretty huge bagels if you don't start them sort of small.  See my picture?  Good times!

And for all you Spencer admirers out there, here's what he was doing while I was cooking. 

Wistful Thoughts

Have you ever wanted to be done with a stage in your life?  Who am I kidding?  Of course you have.  I'm to that point with where I'm at.  I try so very hard to be content with what I'm doing and how things are going and find the good in everything.  There really is a lot of that.  I love my friends, my calling, my 1-year old, where we live, having my FIL living with us, being pregnant with another little one, etc, etc.

Yet still, I really think I'd be okay with a change.  Like Bill being done with school and getting a job.  I'd love to have my kids be a little older so we could introduce them to all those fun outdoorsy things that Bill and I love so much and don't do at all at the moment.  Heck, I'd just take Bill having a little more time in his life so that he could actually finish his work and have free time.  I pine for the day he comes home before 6:30PM and doesn't have any homework to do on the weekends.  Then I don't think I would care whether our kids were really little.  We'd both be able to put our minds to planning how to do fun things with them despite their age. Oh, and what would it be like to not at least partially live off of student loans?  That will be a blissful day when it arrives.  Making money again?  What is that like? I'm so used to this school thing, but I could really get unused to it.  What if going on a campout didn't immediately bring to mind how much gas will cost or whatever random food we choose to buy.  What a novel thought.

You know what else I could really enjoy?  A dishwasher.  Even a bad one.  I'll rinse the dishes.  Just give me somewhere to put them to finish them off.  That might be the one downside to our house.  Speaking of houses, I really want to buy one.  You know, someday.  I just wish someday were getting closer, like we were actually saving for a down payment or something great like that.  Remember that whole living on student loans part I mentioned? Yeah, no down payment right now.

So I really do have a lot of amazing blessings in my life.  I could name so many things that are fantastic and another time I will.  But right now, I could do with a change.  Too much to ask?  Maybe.  All those changes will come soon enough.  Today I'm just not feeling so patient about waiting for them.

Crafting

I have New Beginnings on Sunday.  As the giveaway we are giving the girls a "Standards of Personal Worthiness Survival Kit."  I got the idea on a website somewhere.  I can't remember where.  I was putting it together this week and wanted to make a little bag to put them in.  Pinterest saved the day and I made the cutest little bags.  See? :)  I'm feeling pretty proud of how they turned out.  They weren't that bad to make, especially since I was making 15 of them.  Good times. 

First Haircut

Spencer got his first haircut today!  Funny thing about it?  He hardly even noticed we were doing anything except when we did his neckline, then he kept cringing.  It was funny.  Since he's a blondie, it's kind of hard to see the difference, but here's before and after:

Oh geez, this kid is cute.  Yay for finally growing some hair!

Belated Birthday Pics

Spencer loved his birthday cupcake.  It took him a bit to get started, but then he was all over it.  We didn't really get a very good picture of how covered he was, but he ate every little bit of it he could. 

 Spence got a bunch of books for his birthday plus a dragon my sister made.  That's right, she made it!  So talented.  Spencer loves it, as you can see. :)

Happy Birthday to Us!

Saturday was a great day.  It was both Spencer's and my birthday and we had a fantastic day.  Of course we forgot to bring our camera to the birthday party, so I'll have to wait to get pictures from my dad and sister, but trust me, it was great.

Notable events of the day:

1 - Spencer gave himself his first bloody nose by falling out of the love sac onto one of his books.  Not the best start to the day, but he survived.

2 - Spencer ate his first cupcake, loved it, ate every molecule he could find, and thoroughly enjoyed wiping it all over himself as he ate. :)

3 - Spencer got a bunch of books for his birthday, as requested, and is loving all of them.  He's quite the little reader. You know, he chews on his books, flips through the pages, throws them at me.  It's all good.

4 - We celebrated mine and my brother Greg's birthdays as well, since our birthdays are two days apart.  Lots of great presents were given and we had an awesome time at my grandparent's house. Thanks for hosting!

5 - We got what was essentially our first real snow of the winter that was not winter, right as Bill and I headed up to Sundance to celebrate our anniversary and my birthday at the Tree Room restaurant.

6 - Dinner was AMAZING.  It was totally worth braving the snow.   The only picture we got from that?  Us in the car on the way out.  Oops.

7 - We drove between 20-30 mph all the way back down the canyon in quite the blizzardy conditions.  Here's to the Jeep in 4WD!

8 - That's it.  Seven notable things in a day.  That seems like enough. Ha!

Cookie Thief

There Bill and I were, minding our own business chilling on the love sac before I had to leave for a young women's activity last night when we hear a crash and wonder what the heck Spencer just pulled down.  I'm racking my brain, not coming up with anything that was left out in his reach.  Bill went to investigate and what did he find?  A cookie thief!  I had left the tray of cookies I was taking to the activity within Spencer's reach by the front door and he took full advantage.  We came in to find the cookies spilled on the floor and Spencer eating one as fast as he could. :)  So funny!

And in other cute news, the other day Spencer fell asleep on Bill.  It was so presh.

Walking for Real

Spencer's been half cruising/half walking for ages, but it seems today he's finally decided he's walking for real.  See the proof: