Poor little blog, so neglected

My blog hasn't really been feeling the love lately.  Maybe it's because not a ton of interesting things are happening at the moment.  Life is great, though not hugely noteworthy just now.  We've just been going to class, working some, looking for a summer job, and oohing and ahing over all of Spencer's new exploits.  He's finally big enough for the baby backpack, so we should get to go hiking this summer.  We just picked up a family-sized tent at Target the other day so camping should be happening too.  Bill hasn't found a summer job yet, which could be stressful, but mostly I'm just really enjoying that we get to spend a lot of time together.  He's so busy during the school year, so that has been really nice.  A bit of money would be nice too, so hopefully something will work out on the job front soon, but I've decided I might as well enjoy the moment instead of getting buried under stress.  That's totally not worth it.

I played the organ in church today.  It went well, but I got last minute notice last night that I would need to play since all of my organists were out of town or I couldn't reach them.  I didn't have time to practice on the organ, so I couldn't play the pedal part, but I just played without it and it went fine.  I taught Young Womens too and I actually felt like the lesson went pretty well.  The girls are pretty hard to get to comment, but they got involved a bit today and that was nice. 

We took naps tonight and they were wonderful!  Of course now it's super late and we need to go to bed, but oh well. :)  Anyway, here's  a couple fun pictures from recent days.

Spencer fell asleep after enjoying a little light reading :)

We are ready for some hiking!

Spencer is a big fan of playing airplane

Enjoying our new tent.  Spencer thinks it's fantastic :)

Spence likes to play with our faces.  It's cute.

Good News

I babysat for a friend in my ward yesterday.  I played in the yard with her kids for a couple hours.  Bill even came along after a while to enjoy the sun.  Just a simple little thing, but we came away with more than we expected.  See, we have this cute apartment we live in, but it's not really that big and it doesn't have a washer/dryer.  We are going to be around Prove at least 2 or 3 more years and we love our ward, so even without the washer/dryer we expected to stay in our apartment until Bill finished school.  That is, unless we found a better place still in our ward.  It's only 3 blocks by 2 blocks big, so the chances didn't seem high that would happen.  Except that after the little babysitting trip yesterday, it looks like it has!  See, it turns out this family is going to be moving and their house will be available.  That's right, I said house. Not apartment.  It's a 3-bedroom house with a yard and a washer/dryer in it so we don't even have to buy one.  Oh, and did I mention that it costs less for rent and utilities than our current rent alone?  Yeah, that's right.  Bill and I are pretty much ecstatic.  We'd really love to be able to buy a house, but that's not going to happen for several years, but this is a definite step up in the right direction for us.  Yay! 

Oh, and in other news, Spencer's hair is officially long enough for him to have woken up this morning with bed hair.  I tried to take a picture, but it didn't really show.  Just think mini faux-hawk.  It's so cute. Here's a few pictures of his favorite things to do these days.

1. Hold things

 2. suck on his fingers

 3. Sit up

 4. Drool

And a four generation shot from Easter(s) :)

Clothes Shopping

Bill was so nice and spent the afternoon yesterday with me clothes shopping.  He gave me money for Christmas and I've gotten some graduation money that I am using to get myself a new wardrobe.  I looked in my closet the other day and realized I have three short-sleeved shirts.  Summer is going to be a problem if I don't do something about that.  So we went shopping and I picked up several shirts and a couple sweaters that were on huge sale at the moment.  The shirts I got were cute, but they were seriously the only ones we found.  We went to pretty much every store in the mall and the clothes at the moment are just not calling to me.  Why is it that whenever I actually have money to spend, I don't find anything I want to buy?  I'm trying to branch out for t-shirts and jeans.  I'm pretty tired of that look.  Where are good places to get cute clothes?

I'm graduated!

Thursday and Friday was graduation.  Bill and my parents came.  Spencer slept like a champ or was in a good mood the whole time, and it was fantastic.  It's a little bittersweet to not see all my friends in the program anymore, but for now it's just awesome to be done.

This makes my day

Update

The classes are over.  What a strange feeling.  I don't know whether I have any more organized schooling in my future.  PhDs sound interesting, but not for a long, long time.  For now I finished my last class of my foreseeable college career at 8:15 PM tonight.  It even got out early.  How nice of the professor.  Great guy.  He's the Utah State Treasurer and I thoroughly enjoyed his class even when I had a hard time focusing because it was in the evening and I was suffering from a severe lack of sleep.  I know a lot more about how to manage cash in a public entity now.  I spent every minute from 11:30AM to 6:30PM tonight finishing the final project for the class, but it's done and I'm done save for a law final and a quiz.  I still have a couple programming projects, have to figure out my summer job and Bill needs to find a summer job, and I have to close off the details of Spencer's delivery bills, but things are looking a whole lot more doable now that classes are over and that project is done.  Maybe I'll even find a way to fit exercising in my schedule this week.  How awesome would that be?!  I'm ready to get back into shape and working out again.

In other news, Spencer is still adorable as ever.  He's smiling and laughing up a storm.  I'm so excited to have a bit more free time to spend playing with him.  It's been a bit rough on both of us that I've been so busy these last few days.  He's starting to fall into a schedule, doing better at sleeping at night, and slept a whopping 9 hours in a row last Friday.  That's not normal, but it's getting steadily better the rest of the nights too.

Doesn't he look like a mushroom from Mario Bros in this hat? Love it!

Modeling his rather large but adorable Italian outfit from Hillary tonight

2 weeks

I'm barely making it here, peeps.  2 weeks to go.  Hopefully by then my summer job will be worked out, Bill will have a summer job, I will have finished all my projects so that I can graduate, we'll figure out what we have to finish paying for from Spencer's birth, I might get a bit more sleep, the social venture competition I'm working on will be over, I'll have gotten to the programming project I told my adviser I would do for her and the website project, we'll be able to decide if we're going down to Las Vegas for Easter and the Cancer Walk thing, we'll take my cousins to a movie, go to a baby shower for another cousin, and anything else that comes up in the meantime.  Hopefully I'll see you all on the other side.

Videos

We got a sweet new video camera yesterday and have had a great time already taking a few videos of Spencer.  It's similar to a Flip, but from Kodak and it is waterproof to 10 feet and takes a memory card, so we're only limited by how the size of memory card we happen to have. Here's a few videos of Spencer.  He's mostly just smiling and waving his arms, but at this point that seems pretty amazing to us, so we have to get it on video. :)  He's a social little guy, surprise, surprise, so we have tons of fun talking to him and getting him to smile and talk back.  It's not that hard, to be quite honest, but oh so rewarding.

I just love this little guy!

Looking towards graduation

Wow, the last few weeks have just been crazy.  It is not the easiest thing to have both Bill and I in school plus learning this parenting thing.  Good thing Spencer is so cute because it really makes it easier to do all the work it takes to take care of him.  There is only one more month of school left and the idea of being done with school for the near future gives me mixed emotions: 1. I'm very happy for a little bit calmer life that will be coming; 2. I'm sad because I love school and learning in that atmosphere; 3. I'm so ready to be done with this crazy time with both Bill and I in school; 4. I'm uncertain what I'm going to do once I graduate with work. This is round two for me and it's still weird. I like the being married with a baby part though. It's much better than when I graduated with my undergrad. :)  I probably need to work, plus I want to do stuff with some of the things I learned the last couple years.  But really I want to be a stay at home mom and maybe work on the side and that means I'll have to go out and market myself and that part isn't so fun.  Hopefully the work I'm doing in my department will help me have a good resume to find some stuff to do.    We shall see.  


In the meantime, we took some new pictures of Spencer.  He's as cute as ever.  He's discovered his hands recently and likes to suck on them.  He is also smiling like crazy.  He grins at me all the time and I love it.  He's cooing all the time and starting to sort of half laugh.  I can't wait for him to full on laugh.  Pretty much he melts my heart.  Bill came to take him home tonight while I went to my evening class and I totally didn't want to let them leave.  I just wanted to walk right home with them and spend the evening together.  Today was the first day I put him in the stroller without his carseat.  It was awesome.  He's getting so big!  He can hold up his head really well these days, though sometimes he gets tired and he doesn't want to anymore and he slumps over.  That's pretty funny.  He loves to stand and gets so mad when we hold him laying down.  He only likes that when he's tired now.  I exercised for the first time besides walking yesterday.  I've been wanting to for weeks but have been so busy, but I finally started with a Jillian Michaels workout video.  Let me tell you, I am so sore today!  That's more because the video is harder than any other workout video I've ever used than because I'm that out of shape.  If you want a challenge, definitely buy one of her DVDs!  

And of course, all the fun Spencer pictures.  :)

Spencer likes to sit up, but for some reason he didn't like this much.  He hates it when we leave him alone, so that's probably why.  He's so social.

Look at that stylin' outfit he had for his blessing!  And those sunglasses of Vince's might be just a tad big. :)

All the wonderful family  members that came for Spencer's blessing.  Yay for family!

These are Spencer's first pair of jeans.  I think they're pretty much the cutest thing ever!  And the sweater just makes me happy.

So funny.  He thought it was hilarious.

Love this little face.  So cute!

And those eyes!  I can't believe how different he looks from when he was born.  I just love how pretty his eyes have turned.

He worked really hard to get his hand out of my swaddle to suck on it.  Apparently it tastes pretty good.

Smiles

Spencer has started to smile a lot.  Last Saturday I had a girls day with my mom and sister and we took a whole bunch of pictures trying to get him to show the cuteness.  He has such great expressions, smiles and normal looks alike.  Here's the results:

We like to do things a little bit different

 So lots of people take monthly pictures of their babies next to a stuffed animal or something like that to chart how big they are getting.  Bill and I thought that sounded nice, but stuffed animals aren't nearly exciting enough.  We have all kinds of plans to introduce Spencer to the great outdoors and all the fun things we like to do, so we thought it would be apropos to show his growth next to something having to do with the outdoors.  So behold, Spencer at 1 month, cuddling up to Bill's mountaineering boot. :)  Well, not yet, but he will sometime!

 

In other news, yesterday I made these adorable booties for Spencer from this pattern.  I copied the ones my sister made out of the same pattern and they turned out pretty awesome.  Don't look too closely at the soles, as they are really strange shaped, but they totally fit Spencer and they don't fall off. 

Our Bald Little Monkey at 1 Month

Earlier this week, inexplicably, all the hair on the front half of Spencer's head fell out.  It's still long in the back, so it looks rather strange.   I'm betting it all falls out and comes back in a different color and curly.  That's what I want at least. :) 

  

Spencer is so much fun these days.  On Saturday I had a little girls day with my mom and sister at my mom's house.  My sister was playing with Spencer, doing "baby exercises" with his arms and legs, and he was smiling like crazy!  I took at least 50 pictures trying to get it on camera, and I got some great shots, but they're on my dad's camera so I'll have to post some later.  

He is officially 1 month old today and growing like a weed.  He weighs 10.8 pounds according to our home scale.  He is starting to interact with us and smile and just generally be more interested in the world around him.  He's out of his newborn clothes and diapers and getting bigger all the time.  He's sleeping in 3 or 4-hour stretches at night, which is wonderful.  Now we just need to get to bed before midnight so we can take advantage of those long stretches.  He has spent a lot more time awake the last few days, which is fun and at the same time makes it very hard to get anything done.  I think we'll keep him! :)

We put up this little stuffed animal net to get them out of the crib so we could use it.  Yes, I climbed up on a stool while holding Spencer in a sling.  It was awesome.  It's amazing what you can do with those things.

His eyes are lightening up and getting so much clearer.  They're so pretty!

Some quality father/son time here.  Spencer was out about 2 second later.

Spencer needed that WHOLE blanket to keep him warm. :)  It's our favorite blanket, so why not let him enjoy it too?  It's lamb's wool kind of stuff on the black side and filled with down.  Talk about amazing.

Valentine's Fun

Bill came up with an awesome idea for celebrating Valentine's Day this year.  He got the idea from a blog he follows.  We did a little world tour via a 4-course meal he prepared for us Sunday night.  It was fantastic!  We had this tasty salad, which Bill and I decided was the best part of the whole meal.  We'll definitely be making it again.  He used to have this same thing when he was on his mission in Peru, and it reminded me of salads when I was in Russia.  They didn't use any lettuce there, so salad was more a mix of vegetables.

The next course was grilled tuna steak over spinach.  It was also really good, though the spices didn't come out nearly as strong as we expected.  Then we had pork chops with another kind of spice on it.  It had the same problem as the tuna, but it was really good anyway.  The dish originally called for lamb, but we could not find any at the few stores we went to, so pork chops worked well as a substitute.  We finished with a dessert of homemade vanilla ice cream and mini cinnamon rolls made from biscuit dough.  Bill discovered how amazing those are last week when he made some biscuits for another dinner and used the extra dough for cinnamon rolls.  They are divine and so much easier than raised ones.  Those will also be on the menu in the future. 

So Bill is pretty much the best husband ever.  The first couple years of our marriage have been wonderful, and now that we have Spencer too, it's even better.  Bill is a fantastic dad.  He does so much to help take care of Spencer and it makes me love him all the more.  Yay for families!  And speaking of Spencer, here's a couple more cute pictures of him.  Oh wait, all his pictures are cute. :)  I'm not biased or anything.

He doesn't quite fit into this yet, but it was hilarious to try!  Can anyone say A Christmas Story? 

Isn't that a fantastic hat?  Bill's dad got it for Spencer, and it's my favorite.  Whenever he's wearing it, when we get to wherever we were driving, it is always twisted around so the Y sign is over his ear or even farther back.  So funny.

Bill's aunt Ann got this blanket for Spencer, and it is wonderful!  He sleeps like a champ under it. 

This is the quilt my sister made for Spencer.  It is beautiful!  Spencer seems to like it too.

At the moment Spencer occupies this little place of honor at night.  It's so much easier to nurse him at night when he's right there, and it's not like our bed isn't big enough.  Hopefully he'll start sleeping a little longer at nights and then we'll move him to the pac'n'play or his crib.  For the moment, he seems to be enjoying the memory foam. :)

The Many Faces of Spencer

Indifferent, but wearing awesome shoes

Hands to the face

Worried

Almost smiling

Kind of pleasant look

Totally relaxed

Falling over

Sucking in his lower lip

Hey what's over there?

Wide eyed

Just chillin' on mom's lap

Yelling at me

What the heck are you doing to me?!

Hi, my name is Spencer and I'm just chillin' here on the couch...

Thinking look

Daddy mimicking the thinking look

Hey mom, I'm kind of tired of sitting up like this.  Can you put me down now?