Big News!!

Well we have finally figured life out!
Big News #1: Adam was offered a few internships, and after praying about it for a while and deliberating, we decided to take to internship in Vancouver, Washington this summer. We will live with Mom and Dad Brewer and we should get there April 14th and stay until the first week in July. We are excited!
Big News #2: Adam got accepted to ISU for grad school in Pocatello! We are also really excited about this. We'll head down there sometime the end of July and get all settled in before Adam starts August 27th. Then we anticipate living there for the next three years... a good chunk of our lives!
Big News #3: We bought a Mobile Home! (Yeah, I know, it's not exactly the thing you'd think we'd brag about...) But it's in really good condition, the park it's in is small and well-kept and it really is a good neighborhood. When we were weighing our options about where we were going to live down in Pocatello, we came across some mobile homes and found out that we could save a lot of money by buying one rather than renting while we were there. So when we found one for only $6,600.00 that had been redone inside and was in such a nice area, we took it! We'll take pictures next time we're down and post them up so everyone can see.
And other than that, life has just been busy getting everything ready to go. I echo Hoku when she said that all change is preceded by chaos. Adam has finals coming up, we're having a yard sell tomorrow, we're packing up and then moving stuff down, and then Adam graduates, we clean the heck out of this apt, and then we ditch out for a kind of transient summer! Hope William does ok with all the change...
Here's just some random good pictures from lately:

Oh, and P.S.
Before....

And After!!

Let me know what you think, and which way I look better! I want a vote :)

Catch-Up

Playing a little catch-up here, so keep up!

This year Adam and I decided to take advantage of the formal Valentines dance at BYUI. It was so much fun to be able to spend an evening all dressed up and dancing with my hubby ;) We danced the night away while William slept at home with a babysitter (a young woman from our ward). Then we went to get ice-cream at G's Dairy (yum!!). It really was an enchanted evening for us to get out on a real formal date, just the two of us. Then, for actual Valentine's Day, I set up a nice dinner and sparkling cider rasberry smoothy thing, and ... we ate it :)

We also got to go down to Utah for President's day weekend and visit family!!! It was a lot of fun so see everyone and just hang out. (sorry we didn't take more pictures!

A new development: My sister Michelle and I started a craft blog together! It's just in the makings, but we're going to update it fairly often, so check it out sometime!
yourcrapmycraft.blogspot.com

Another development: William finally rolled over again. For those of you who don’t know, William was rolling over fine around 3-4 mo. Then after Christmas (where he got 0 tummy time for like two weeks) he forgot how. He just couldn’t anymore! And he became a great sitter at 5 mo. So he got less tummy time and just hated it. But he is finally showing interest in it again and can scoot around it a circle  So, there’s hope again! Yay!

Last thing, we're preparing for moving in April! We’re seeing our last full month in Rexburg  Still don’t know our destination, which is scary, but we know it will work out and we’re excited for a change!

Breaking Dawn

No, not THAT Breaking Dawn... My own breaking dawn... after a LONG dark night of no dairy! That's right, Dairy is back!! A couple weeks ago I noticed that William's rashes on his body (that were apearantly caused by his allergic reaction) were starting to disapear. And then they went away all together. So I thought maybe I could try some yogurt (supposedly the least sever of dairy products), and he was fine! Next was cheese. I had some in a burrito and on a navajo taco. Again he acted fine, except the rash on his cheek came back for a day. Then a couple days later I had a PIZZA (YAY!!) and not even his rash came back! I still haven't completely jumped back into my old eating habits of dairy (ALL the time). But I'm seeing the long awaited light at the end of a dark couple months. Yeah, that was all it lasted, but it felt like forever!
It would feel like forever to you too if you had to eat rice cakes and wheat thins for snacks and even easy cheese was tempting.
Anyway, just sharing the news :)

A Mother

The other day someone asked me what was the biggest thing I'd learned so far from having a baby.
At the time I didn't know where to start or how to answer that question. I thought about it, and I still don't know about the biggest. But if I had to define motherhood for myself, I'd say:
It's feeling more than you ever have before--both of the deepest blue, and the brightest yellow.
It's nothing easy and it's all worry.
It's exhustion and elation.
It's all work and all play.
It's the fastest, hardest, and most rewarding growing process you can ever put yourself through.
It's being paid in nothing but experience, cuddles, and smiles; and only getting a tip you'd rather not have ;)
It's finding a new reason to pray evey hour, and learning to trust more on the arm of the Lord every day.
I don't know about the biggest thing that I've learned from having a baby, but I know that it's a big learning process itself.
And it's heping to refine me everyday--as a friend, a daughter, a sister, a wife, a woman, and --of course--
A Mother.

Super Mom, and Super Weekend!

Yesterday I had one of those days that come far and few between--an AMAZING mom/ wife day.
I made breakfast (egg sanwiches), made a super big lunch for Adam (he was ging to spend all day on campus), washed dishes, I went to the library, bought two used books for .50, visited a friend, washed the diapers, made a great dinner--sweet and sour meatballs with rice and brocolii (thanks Mom Brewer!)--and THEN took some to Adam at the library so he could get some freash dinner as a suprise, worked out while I was there, went home and gave William a bath and put him to bed, then spent time with my lovely husband when he finaly got home :)
Oh, and did I meantion I actually took a shower and did my make-up? yep. It was one of those winning days for me. But before you can think I'm bragging about perfection I actually don't posess... for every one of these days there are twice as many days were dishes don't get done and we're eating romen noodles for dinner etc.
Anyway, it just felt good and I felt the need to document my success.
But for a story with some pictures, Adam and I went on a date last weekend ALONE! It was great and we enjoyed some good lazer tag and dinner :) William was watched by my visiting teacher and enjoyed the new surroundings.

We also had dinner at a firend's house and William played with with his friend Karson!

The Time Has Come

"The time has come!" The mommy said,
"To eat some solid things.
Of barley, and oat, rice cerial.
Not Cabbage yet, Or Burger Kings!
And nothing that is boiling hot,
Or Red Bull (it might give you wings...)."

"But wait a bit!" the William cried,
"Before you give me that.
For I only like to drink my food,
And it's enough to make me fat!"
"No hurry!" said the Kylie mom,
he thanked her much for that.

*adapted from part of The Walrus and the Carpenter

Yep, we decided to try rice cerial. William was watching us intently while we ate and was smacking his lips :) I was a little too excited to wait till exactly 6 mo. But William didn't accept the cerial as well as I thought he would. He digested it fine, and accepted a few feedings, but kind of gets mad at me when I try to feed it to him now. I think that's because I'm making it too cold... I don't know, we're still in experimental mode right now. I'm just trying to figure out what I'm doing :)
You can watch the video of the first feeding on facebook (it takes too long to put in on here).

Another update: William sits very well on his own! Plus he prefers this much more to tummy time, and it kind of satisfies our need for a new development :) So fun stuff!

To Sleep or not to Sleep....

When I was pregnant I read a book (who doesn't?), and it said that babies had the ability to sleep through the night by 9 weeks of age if you provided some structure and regular feeding times to their day (along with some self-soothing etc.). I thought, I'm totally going to have a baby who sleeps through the night by 9 weeks. No problem.

HA

As it turns out it's not that easy... LOTS more complicated with more variables than I thought. Actually William did sleep through the night by 8 weeks for 2-3 nights. Then it was never again. Dairy issues happened which = tummy trouble at night... then Christmas vacation happened with two weeks of go with the flow, whatever works.

But NOW we're home for three straight months before we live at someone else’s' house for the internship this summer, and I've decided that it is the opportune moment for what is commonly called sleep training. I know that to some, this has a negative connotation, but after talking to a variety of moms who had either done or not done sleep training, I decided that it was worth a try for me (plus this is my experimental child right??).

Anyway, this is night 6 of the "training" and while he is not continually sleeping through the whole night on his own, he does go back to sleep on his own almost right after he does wake up, AND he sleeps for a longer stretch without feeding now (8-9 hrs!). So I put him to bed for the night with a final feeding at 7:30/8pm and usually don't have to go in there anymore till 4:30am where he receives another feeding and diaper change for the final stretch of 3 hrs :) So I think I can say it's been successful for us, but as we start solids and he goes through teething and growth spurts, I'm sure changes will inevitably come and the victory will be short lived. All part of the parenting experience we signed up for :)

Look he survived his first night! (This is us that morning)

Then we also went for a walk (still sunny here for some reason...)

Then he survived the second night too :) which was actually the hardest.

On another note, Adam has decided to start comparing William to every baby even remotely close to his age. Cousin Alice is a whole TWO MONTHS or so older than William and is a roll'n, scoot'n, sitting girl these days. Daddy wants his boy to be achieving these skills overnight... I tried to explain the developmental difference. THEN we met a little girl a week YOUNGER than William who's roll'n, scoot'n and groov’n too... As we look at William who's wiggling on his back like he has for the past.. his whole life. lol. I have to admit that this made me have the same feeling, come on William, do a new trick! I know every baby is different, but it would be nice to see him satisfy his own need for entertainment soon. But I think I've settled on providing opportunities and knowing he'll get the hang of it when he has the right motivation.