Family Portraits

I'm ecstatic because I checked the mail yesterday, and inside the mailbox was a CD of our Family Portraits!
Johanna Lakin, with Johanna Lakin Photography, did an excellent job. It was hot and there were mosquito's all over the place, but you cant tell!
My plan is to send a newborn photograph I took of Finn and a family portrait and sent them out for everyone to have  pictures.
Feast thine eyes...

These are just a few. More on FCBK. Wooooo I love them!

Merry Christmas!

I know it's a tad bit early to get in the spirit, even for me, a holiday enthusiast.
On the day after Christmas this year, I bought a cuuuuuute little reindeer sleeper with footies and a matching hat. It was 9 months size, right, because Finn would be 9 months. Well I didn't expect to give birth to a baby who now at 3 months is wearing 9 months size. So ... he wore it this week!
Every morning we sing the good morning song to Finn then to mommy, then to daddy, who's usually not with us. Then we will cuddle and sing some more songs, read a book, or just talk. The morning he wore that outfit, we sang Christmas songs!

It was funny to me, and Finn enjoyed it! Grandma said for me to let her know when he wears size 12 months, because she also has a holiday shirt for him. I guess I will wait until December to get him his actual outfit! 

BIIIIIIIIIIG changes

Since we brought Finn home from the hospital ... Babyhood, we'll call it, I have learned about my baby and bonded with my baby.
I feel comfortable with him and he with me.
While I was pregnant I had these great plans to be all 'green' and eco-friendly. Well when I brought that baby home, all my plans went out the window and I was only concerned about taking everything in one day at a time. I could only focus on the present, and NONE of my plans were accomplished except one. I was and am able to give him breast milk. whew!
Well, now I finally reached the point where I feel comfortable enough to venture out, so to speak, and try all of these ideas I had.
One was diapers. I really wanted to use earth friendly diapers. I am more focused on helping the earth out in this particular topic.
It's estimated that a baby goes through 7500 changes in their lifetime. That's a crap ton, pardon my pun, of diapers. So I have reached the point where I am ready to give the earth a little break from my child.
So I started researching different kinds, and somehow on BBC (babycenter.com) Ie came across a forum  on cloth diapering. CLOTH DIAPERING?!?! WHAAAAAAAA???
Yes, it's true. I researched a lot about the process of cloth diapering and I am pretty sure I have the guts to try it. So I am trying to figure out which route I want to go. There are several options available when it comes to CD, and its not just your grandma's way of doing it anymore! Now, I haven't actually CD'd, but It seems pretty easy if you stick to a routine of washing and drying them on a 2 day basis.
We would still use disposable diapers at night and when we went out for extended periods of time. And if you're reading this and thinking, OMG, I HOPE SHE NEVER ASKS ME TO BABYSIT, have no fear, we don't expect anyone to do this with us if they don't want to. I would have disposables when we went to friends homes or those days when he spends time with grandparents/great grandparents. NOW, if you're ok with it, let us know! While we don't expect you to change a cloth diaper, we would appreciate your support and non-ignorance. If you have some ignorance, educate yourself, or keep it...because we don't want it.
So that in itself is a huge undertaking until we get used to it. I will have to do a special post all about CD!

Another thing I am super excited about is making Finn's baby food! When the time is right, I want to make his food. There are so many great and wonderful baby foods on the market, and we will be using them too, but I just cant wait to make food for him that has ingredients I know are in there. I am following several blogs and youtube channels all about homemade baby food and there are wonderful and easy recipes to make. And alot of them can be frozen for the month! One of my favorites is a recipe for rice cereal with brown rice that you grind up instead of white rice from a box, which is ok too! I cant wait to do this for my kid!!!
Speaking of my kid...

Chewing on his monkey paci

Pic of my new wedding band. I lost my other one.

the water from the other day. Yep, that's our welcome mat...floating away...

Long story, but the reason why he's in a reindeer Christmas outfit will be saved for the next post.

In his jumper! he loves it!

just plain BAD luck

The nicest thing this weekend was doing absolutely NOTHING. We have been non stop busy since Finn got here, and we just needed a break. I cooked the whole weekend, which I don't really get to do a whole lot anymore, at least not steak and stuff. It was yummy!
Last week was rough. Wednesday we got a crap ton of rain. I mean, roads were flooded around town. But not only were the roads flooded, the area around our apartment was too. So I went to my grandmothers house so that she could watch Finn while I did some of Ben's homework there on the laptop. Well it got pretty nasty at their house, so I called ben to check the front door of our apartment. Water was leaking in a little, but then he called back and said he moved the furniture in our bedroom and nursery because water was coming in the walls and the carpet was wet. He had to go to work, So mom came and got me (my car was too low to the ground to drive through any rain) and we came home and finished moving all the stuff off the wet carpet. Luckily I'm not a hoarder and there really wasn't that much to move.  I have helped a hoarder clean up after a flood once and it was AWFUL. So the carpet people came and sucked out water and I have yet to move all the stuff back in the rooms because the rain has come every day for about a week, and I don't want it happening again!
So our house is very un organized right now, mostly from relocating things for a little bit.

Other news is: in addition to our house getting a little bit flooded, our washing machine, air conditioning, and car have also malfunctioned.
A few weeks ago Mom came and got Finn and I was going to do about an hours worth of housework and then go to their house and join them. I was doing laundry and dishes and I walked into the nursery (which houses the washer and dryer in a closet) and there was smoke and a horrible burning smell. Turns out, the washer broke. Since Ben doesn't have time to fix a washing machine at all right now, and God knows how old this one was, we got a new one. and a really good deal on it too. This old set was just sitting at Ben's parents house and he asked if we could have it when we got married, so we never had "new" ones. This one works great!
The air is the apartment maintenance persons problem.
The car is Ben's. He can fix it, but just doesn't have the time. So I am without a car until further notice!
:(

Ben really wants to  move when he finishes school, so all these other apartment problems (too many to list) will be gone!
Can't wait to move!

8 MORE WEEKS.

8 MORE WEEKS is all Ben (we) have left in school.
I say we, because it has been a struggle for both of us.
When he started, we lived in our first apartment and we had only been married not even two years and now we have our son and live in a different home.
He wouldn't have been able to do this without my grandparents and my parents. My parents offered to let us live with them for as long as we needed to so he could go to school and we wouldn't have to worry about too many bills since he wouldn't be able to work as much. And my grandparents helped in another very important way. So we had a lot of help. We have officially been in this apartment for a year this Sunday and it has just flown by, granted I was pregnant for most of it. But I don't know how all the other people in his class are, but my husband works his ass off.
Two weeks ago he had clinicals M, T, F from 5:30 am and went straight to work till 11pm. And when he got home, he didn't sleep, he did homework. He probably got a total of 10 hours of sleep that whole week. But he didn't once complain. he even did homework on Saturday morning and then took family pictures that afternoon. He did this often and even had a baby somewhere in there!
So in 8 weeks, it's all over.
clinical paperwork- which I have helped with and let me tell you, it sucks.
journals
Med sheets
Hesi's
drug calc tests
ALL OVER.
 It's not that bad either, with him gone all the time. I have help with Finn since it;s summertime and grandma and grandaddy can help one day a week. but I do get tired keeping up with Finn all night and all day those days.
Good thing for Ben and I is that Finn is sleeping through the night most nights. Last night he slept 9 hours straight!
In 8 weeks Ben will have a pinning ceremony and Finn and I will be so proud of him. We already are.
And then the next June, we will see him graduate.
I'm already planning two things:
1. A RELAXING vacation for me and him

2. A party to celebrate with everyone who helped us out so he could do this!

My Beckers

This is my sweet beckers and I on my wedding day. Beckers, Rebekah, is my cousin. We really hated each other for years based on assumptions we conjured up about each other. She thought I was a smoking, drinking, party girl that had loose morals. I WAS TWELVE!!!!! So when I was around 18 somehow we got in touch after years of not seeing each other and we talked for a good 5 hours on the phone. I talked to her almost every single night for two years and then when I got married and was busy all the time, I slacked off on talking to her. But recently I have been calling her during Finn's last bottle of the night.
She is just the right amount of weird crazy to keep me balanced friendship-wise. That girl's nuts.
But we feed off of each other!
So I would like to give a HUGE thank you to  her for listening to me for 6 years! I wish I got to see her more, but soon she will hopefully visit to meet Finn!

"Mmm chika chika mmm chika pot pie!"

Hella busy May

Why not start with some cuteness??

He was such a sweetie when he woke up!

Avery played his last concert of his high school music career:

Thomas visited!

Finn discovered his feet, and he cant stop looking at them!

Avery Graduated!

So like I said, Thomas visited us! He told us he wanted to come for Avery's graduation and he wanted it to be a suprise. So He got here ans stayed for a week:

He and Finn got along well lol.

And Avery Graduated! It was a nice graduation and we had lunch at Old Mexico.

We then had the photographer that took our wedding pictures, take my side of the family's portraits. I know Finn smiled for a few so I cant wait to see them!

This past week I took Finn to get his 2 month shots. He has grown in height and weight, and he seems to be developing on track. He did extremely well with the appointment and was only upset for a little while after the shots. He's was a little fussy that night, but he's back to normal now.

So while I was pregnant, I planned on working a few days each week this summer, but I decided I wanted to stay home with Finn. So the plans I made with people to watch him aren't really needed. But we decided one day out of the week I will drop him off withe my Grandparents for a few hours so I could do housework and any errands I needed to run. So I have done it 2 times and feel like I get so accomplished in just 4 hours. Then I go back and have dinner with them and go home. It's really nice to have a break and get some time to myself. And it is especially nice because nowadays I am keeping up with Finn at night and during the day because Ben is super swamped with his school stuff and work.

I am trying to get rid of stuff that Finn outgrows as he outgrows it. Not all of it, but just some. I gave a Friend a box of diapers that he outgrew that were left over. And there are some clothes that I am trying to Find a home for. Gotta wait and see if my friend is having a boy before I give them away. She finds out in 6 days and I cant wait!!!!

Speaking of exciting things....there's a WEDDING!!!!! another one! I Love weddings. Ashley and Phillip get married tomorrow and it's Ben and mine's first date since I gave birth. I'm kinda stoked.

Mom is watching Finn for us and I am trying to pump as much extra milk as I can right now with the electric pump for the night.

fun stuff. lol