ABC's: March 2015

March has been a wonderful month. Normally March doesn't have anything to get excited about--no 3-day weekends or anything except for my birthday at the very end of the month. But this year was different! Brent's parents flew us to Denver for a few days as a birthday gift to Brent's mom. We had a lovely time. We got to see the whole Reichman family, which was awesome. We met our nephew Nate for the first time, who is just darling. We squeezed in a lunch date with my brother, who moved his family there about a year ago. The Reichman's even celebrated my birthday! We had so much fun and we were so sad to leave. Caleb loved seeing the "goggies" Kola and Lily, as well as exploring a whole new house. The only bad thing about the trip was that Caleb does not sleep well (read: at all) when he's not in a familiar place. Traveling with a young toddler isn't sunshine and rainbows either, but thankfully Caleb actually did surprisingly well on the plane (probably because he didn't think he could escape). Going through the airport was more challenging, as Caleb wanted to ride every. single. escalator. over and over and over and over and ooooover again, but it's all good.

Caleb could't get enough of this little tiny chair at Grandma's

New toys!!

Cousin bath time!

I think I earned an A+ for censorship here.

Dinner with Dan--there was a giant cow at Chick-fil-a, and it was just a little bit creepy. But Caleb high five him anyway.

Handsome cousins!

Caleb joining in on the basketball fun

Caleb loved the trampoline and we all loved Caleb's hair

Nate! Such a cutie-pie

Taking a good picture of multiple tiny children is just short of impossible

Flying over the beautiful Rockies

I really love these two a lot. And don't judge the leash backpack.

The week after Denver, I flew to Phoenix for my niece's baby blessing. I decided last minute to not bring Caleb with me, which was a good call. It felt like a real vacation and I got some good me-time. I even got to read a book on a plane!! It's the little things. It was wonderful to see my sister and meet her new baby, Grace, who is a perfect little angel baby. When I got there, they had a surprise made-from-scratch birthday cake and some presents waiting for me! It was so unexpected and wonderful! (I'm totally digging celebrating my birthday for three full weeks!!) Kathryn was so cute and gave me gifts that were all golden since it is my golden birthday this year (age 27 on the 27th). The blessing was lovely, as was the after "party" and I was so glad I didn't have to chase my baby around and could just sit and enjoy talking with wonderful people. I love Caleb dearly, but he is a BUSY kid! It was a perfect trip, albeit way too short. On the way home, I was really looking forward to reading more of my book...but the guy next to me had major ADD plus he was so super motion sick the whole time and I had to mother him and he was holding his plastic bag dangerously far away from his mouth. Luckily, he BARELY made it and we were all spared a scene. (Hallelujah.) It is crazy that I probably won't see the Rammells again until our annual Lake Powell trip in August. Two thumbs down for family living across multiple states.

Happy birthday to me!!

post-blessing

Look at this darling picture of these two. I meant to take a million pictures of Grace over the weekend, but I was having such a good time that I totally dropped the ball. Dang.

The next week was my actual birthday (YAY!). I decided I didn't want to do a big party, but just have a nice intimate day with my family. I spent the morning painting with a dear friend, had lunch with my sister Laura at Chick-fil-A, then Brent took me out to dinner to Kyoto, and Japanese hibachi restaurant that has become one of our favorite places to eat in Provo. After dinner he took me dancing at the new rec center, which happens to teach social dance on the last Friday of every month. We learned how to waltz and I just loved it. I wish I had done more dancing growing up. I don't do sports very well, but dancing is definitely something I could get into. Brent has promised me that when we are older and have more money and time we will do dance lessons together. Brent has really been outdoing himself with gifts for me over the last special events we've had, and this time was no different. He decorated our living room with golden balloons and streamers, wrapped my presents in gold wrapping paper, and served a yellow-frosted cake that he made all by himself on gold paper plates served with gold plastic forks. He is so adorable. He gave me the game Timeline, which I've been itching to have for awhile, along with some perfect gold earrings he found. I'm going to really need to up my gift-giving game! We ended the day by watching a movie of my choice, which was 13 Going on 30 (I have an actor crush on Mark Ruffalo).

My man loves me.

I will always love the onion volcano. Always. But why am I always the victim of the fake "I'm going to squirt mustard in your face" joke?

Other than that, we are just chugging along. Brent submitted his second paper for review that will end up being published in a science journal. He also got to do some testing on the largest static rocket firing to ever happen, which was neat. (Static means the rocket doesn't leave the ground.) The end of the semester is approaching, which means crunch time for him, so he will be pretty busy with work and school and papers and research over the next few weeks. In the meantime, I am trying to improve my overall being by actually committing to exercise regularly, reading more, and trying to not be a boring bump on the log mom at home. (Not all the time at least). I am also trying to be more diligent about working on my art. I also have some children's books ideas that I am working on, and I am hoping to have a couple of them done with their illustrations by the end of summer. I also got a little work-from-home job making phone calls, which will be nice. I am trying to find good outlets, and making a little extra money will be welcome. Not that we are struggling, but it will be nice to have a little more financial wiggle room.

Caleb is 16 months old and so busy! We had a belated 15-month checkup for him with a brand new real pediatrician (as opposed to the BYU Health Center) and it was AWESOME. Caleb is in the 98th!!! percentile for height and around 80th for weight. He is a big kid! At this rate, he will outgrow me at the age of five. He can say 9-10 words, loves to go outside, has figured out he can push the stroller to the door and climb up the stroller to unlock/lock the door as well as turn on/off the lights (oh boy), is getting pickier about food, and is super independent. Church is really hard right now. Like really REALLY hard. Especially Sacrament Meeting. Anyone with multiple kids is probably laughing at me, but I don't care. I will admit there are many days where I wonder what the point in taking him is, since he can't understand what is taught, SCREAMS if he is made to sit still, and has discovered that the stand has a piano and that there are light switches almost his height (who thought of that??). I know we are teaching him that church is where we go on Sundays, but oh my goodness, Sunday is not a day of rest. And I know it's just going to get harder with more kids. (Pray for me.) He still only has three bottom teeth, and the top teeth are baaaaarely starting to peek through. He is going through a phase of waking up once a night either at 2 or 5:30 (boo) but thankfully these wake-up calls tend to be just phases for him, and nap times are going great, which means mommy gets a nap too.