December

December 2010... What a month! It started out pretty good, but then got hectic. My grandfather fell and broke his hip, had surgery, was taken to a hospital in Salt Lake and then he passed away. All this happened in 7 days. The next day my little sister was put in the hospital with pnemonia and stayed there from Sunday to Saturday.  Needless to say Daniel really didn't work on his thesis after the first week and a half of December.

Daniel and I planned on visiting Logan for our anniversary, but due to a crazy snow storm we ended up just going to his parents for Christmas.  For those of you who don't know how crazy driving through mountains in the winter can be... let's just say that the main road out of our area to the west can be closed during these storms. The day we would have left they were suggesting using chains.

Christmas was fun, we spent it with Daniel's family. We got to spend time with his sister who we haven't seen since she got married while we were in Wisconsin. Eric also got to play with his cousin, Hannah (she's a month older than him.)  We headed home the day before another snow storm was coming through.

We played boardgames to welcome in the new year (probably doesn't surprise any of you!)

Now for pictures:

Eric loves climbing...

Eric loves eating anything chocolate... I think this was a chocolate silk pie. YUM!

Wearing Daniel's hat.

Getting into pillowcases.

I think he was a little tired after he got up. Such a cute photo! I'm sure his parents wish he would have slept longer. He usually gets us up in the mornings.

Playing with a towel. I just loved this shot!

Oh, and this one. HE looks like he's trying to be a shepherd in the Nativity!

Grandpa's funeral.

HUGE snowstorm... Eric enjoyed playing in the snow. He had to lift his whole leg to step!

Playing on an inside slide.

Christmas present opening!

Eric loved this little toy baby bottle at Daniel's parents. He was always sucking on it.

Christmas at my parents.

On the way back we stopped by a cheese factory and got cheese curds  (aka squeeky cheese)

Look at the size of those boots!  He was super cute trying to walk in them.

One day Eric was walking and decided to stick his chest out and stick his arms behind him... so funny but adorable!

November

At the start of November we helped my parents finish painting the outside of their house. Valerie went into the hospital for less than 48 hours - her heart was racing and they didn't really know why.

Daniel has data for his thesis (FINALLY!) We're shooting for a defense in March (February if everything goes well.) He just is doing some more work with the data and then will be able to analyze it and write about it (simplified, but we're still super excited about it!)

Another eventful day in our lives - we took our puppy to the vet and on the way he decided to jump out the window! (He hates car rides.) Luckily we weren't going that fast and he only got a few cuts - plus we were on our way to the vet so he got checked out ;).

Eric relearned how to climb out of his crib and so we invested in some sleep sacks (wearable blankets for infants-2 year olds) and they have worked like a charm to keep him in his crib, although he does complain when we put them on him occasionally.

Daniel and I had been substituting in the primary for a few weeks and then were called to teach the class we'd been subbing for. We get to teach the 3 and 4 year olds in our ward. It's been fun, but they can be a handful. One Sunday we had 10 kids in our class, luckily we usually only have about 6.

All my parent's family came out for Thanksgiving and it was nice to be able to see them. We had a great dinner. My sister had really bad morning sickness so it wasn't super fun for her, but she did find one dish that she could eat - twice baked potatoes!

My grandfather got an infection in his leg at the end of them month and had to get IV treatment every day for a week. My mom took him in every morning which took a good chunk of her time. Valerie has been doing well this month and we're super excited about that!

Photos:
Eric was making a 'stew' - he was placing potatoes in the colander and stirring them while I was cooking dinner one night.
He also likes 'talking' on the telephone. He steals it whenever he gets a chance, and has changed his Uncle's name in the directory.
Eric enjoyed his first ice-cream cone this month. YUM!
He enjoyed playing in the snow as well! It only snowed a bit and then it all melted. We're actually enjoying temperatures above freezing (and above normal!) It's great. I do miss snow, but I'm sure wel

October

At the beginning of October Daniel had a job interview. We were excited because it was in the area, only about 30 miles away from my parents house. Unfortunately the job went down hill after learning about it... Basically he would have been working in a person's basement, with security cameras on him, they weren't set up for taxes yet so he'd have been a consultant for who knows how long. Oh and did I mention that this guy wanted a 2 year minimum commitment? We ended up turning that one down.

Eric's been talking a lot and we finally made a list of words he's been saying (as of the beginning of October): Mama, Papa, Eyes, Nose, Grandma, Grandpa, No, Daniel, Dennis, Breathe, Cough, Baby, Happy, 'Aw man', Cow, Please, Moo, Neigh, Yes, Hi, Bye, What, Back, Uh-oh. Eric has also learned the ASL sign for Bear and growls when he does it!

My sister has been in the hospital at least once and to the ER a few times. She finally got off her IV antibiotics for her bone infection. Happy Day. She seems to be doing well on that front.

Here are some pictures from this month:
Eric dressed up as a farm boy for halloween. This picture was the least movement he had the whole night!
Decorating cookies...
Smelling the roses! Then he picked all the petals off them!

It's been a while...

Whew! I can't believe it's been since the beginning of October that I've updated this! Unfortunately tonight is not going to be the night I write about October or November... Really I'm just going to say that I haven't forgotten this site completely and I will be writing tomorrow! Until then I hope you have a great night!

:P

Today, we saw a Belted Kingfisher. You may now proceed to be jealous.

September

Not much news on the job front - we felt really good about a job only to learn that they hired someone else... Not so fun. This month I've been keeping busy with my cooking blog doing Challenges for Project Food Blog - basically a contest to win $10,000 and with the way our lives are going right now we could use the money! I've made it to Challenge 3, which has been great! Voting is open and I'd love it if all of you would vote (reader's votes count for 50% of the score to continue on) for me! You can find my profile here or go to my blog and vote by clicking on the link in the left hand side, or just click here.

Daniel's thesis is going okay, it's been a roller coaster but he may finally be getting close to the writing phase! I feel hesitant to say that because in the past month he's been close then not so close - back and forth. So hopefully he's gotten to the point where it won't get far away again!

Eric turned 18 months in September. We took some cute pictures of him, and we also took some cute pictures of him not on his 18 month day. Here they are (18 month photos first):

This is before we cut his hair.

After the hair cut with the green monkey!

He was staring at his Papa, I loved this shot!

Outside - this is behind the house on a dirt road that leads to head gates for our farmer neighbors. Eric loves taking gator rides up here. Just an FYI that cliff on the top is taller than me.

Same place as above, different view.

Eric eating a ring pop - he loves living with grandma!

Eric eating an ice cream bar - he took the chocolate off the ice cream before eating it! Funny that's how I eat it as well, but I don't think he learned it from me!
Eric found a bag of peaches we bought and started eating one.

He really enjoys his fresh peaches!

YUM! Doesn't this just make you want to bite into a juice peach?!?

That's it for this month. Hopefully we'll be informing you we'll be moving in the near future! We will need to get in to a job interview though!

August

Wow, when did August disappear and September come? I have no idea... August was a full month for us (if you don't want to read our month summary skip to the end for some pictures) - it started out with my sister and her family visiting - they were here for the last week of July and first week of August.

After they left my little sister went into the hospital and was taken by helicopter to the University hospital. Daniel and I sneaked away to his family reunion (8/10-8/13), and on the way back stopped by to see my mom and sister at the hospital.

The day after we came home (8/11), I got a terrible head cold. My sister came home during the next week. Sunday (8/22 - yep my birthday) I was starting to feel better, but by Tuesday (8/24) I was feeling horrible again. Turned out the cold went away I just got a sinus infection. One sinus was so sore that it hurt to chew anything with the left side of my mouth - serious toothache. Not so fun.

My sister went back into the hospital about a week (8/24) after she got home and was home a week later (8/31).

Eric learned how to climb out of his pack & play last month as well, so we decided to invest in a crib - turns out he can climb out it as well... so naptime and nighttime have turned incredibly fun. That's pretty much been our month in a nutshell. We've been applying for jobs and haven't heard back from any of them. We're hoping (and praying) that one of them works out soon!

Here are some photos:
First week - Eric 'helping' clean up - after his cousins baptism dinner. Family photo - my whole family and Eric in his Uncle's boots.
Daniel's family Reunion - Eric was helping take down one of the tents.
Our puppy found a new place to take a nap.
Eric found a new place to hide out.
He's blowing you a kiss. We hope you all had a great month of August. Hopefully we'll have good news to report on the job front soon!