(28 November 2014)
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday, hosting the event for the extended family. The house is decorated for Christmas (we started early since we won't have time before the family party next week). To quote my brother, "Life is good."
Cody finally had his 3-year checkup the other day and got a clean bill of health. He made everyone smile with his antics. My favorite part was when the doctor was asking if he eats foods from all food groups and started naming them. Cody heard "fruit" and piped up with "Fruit snacks!! If I don't have an accident, I get fruit snacks!!"
The Q3 pictures are up.
BYU football has been interesting. After the 4-game winning streak to start the season, our QB broke his leg and BYU lost the next 4 games. Fortunately, they started winning again and are Bowl-eligible. They'll be playing on Dec 22nd.
(27 September 2014)
Work has been insanely busy and here at home, I've been busy with harvest time, so updates have fallen off the radar. Sorry!
In home renovation, the major stuff was DONE! We now consider that the "renovation" is done and we are just doing a few home improvement projects now. The 3rd floor is now complete (except for trim) and used often as a hangout area. The new carpet was installed on the 2nd and 3rd floors and it is soft. Love it! Most of the bedrooms were painted. Cody still talks about his "new beautiful room" with green and blue walls.
Cody continues to grow and thrive and has become quite the chatterbox. Like most almost-three-year-olds, he's
quite curious about everything, though he isn't asking too many "why" questions yet. Instead, he
asks things like "Who was that?" and "Where is that car going?". BYU football is off to a 4-0 start, including an impressive win over Texas. I'm loving that too.
(1 July 2014)
Summer is upon us -- with the temperatures hitting 97 today! Whew! The early blackberries are ripening, so we had waffles with fresh blackberries for dinner tonight.
The home renovation continues with gusto now that the hubby is on summer vacation. There are certainly perks to being a school teacher! When things settle down and reach their "after" state, I'll compile a slide show with before and after pictures. I think that will be awesome.
The Q2 pictures are up!
Cody continues to do very, very well. He is showing a great interest in music, with his favorite song being Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. No, seriously. It is. We went to a concert (as part of youth conference) and that was the closing song. Cody sat there, enthralled, moving his arms in time with the music. Afterwards, when we were putting him in the car seat, he started singing it at the top of his lungs. He's such a great kid. How happy I am to have him in my life.
(16 June 2014)
Once again, I'm falling behind on my blog updates. I think part of it is because I put pictures up on facebook -- but I find that I like having this space to put as long or as short of an update as I want. Facebook updates just feel -- limiting -- sometimes.
The last two months brought the typical end-of-the-school-year flurry of activity for my hubby. He is now on summer vacation and spending almost every waking minute doing something to further the renovations on the house. I'm so glad that he's willing to work hard for his family.
It's also been busy at work, but there's also been some time for fun. Most noteably, I competed in my first 10k run. Well, actually, my first TWO 10k runs... within a few weeks of each other. The first one was near my house and that's the one that I really wanted to push myself and get a personal best. I'm pleased to say that I did, with a time of 58:40. The following week, I did a 5k with my work group and, as luck would have it, took a bad step on some uneven terrain. No serious injuries, but my ankle was bothering me a bit after that so I took it easier for the second 10k, finishing in just over an hour. It was also 83 degrees for the second one while it was a much more comfortable 70 degrees or so for the first one. All in all, I'm quite proud of myself.
Cody continues to do very well. His vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds, and he's showing a love of music. He can hum his way through Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing and All Creatures of Our God and King as well as kid favorites like Row Row Row Your Boat and Jingle Bells. Yes, he sings Jingle Bells in the middle of the summer. He is his mother's son. :-)
The farm is in full bloom. I love it. Tonight, I was outside with the dog, walking among the trees on our property. I thought about how whenever we'd go outside at the previous house, there were always cars driving by. Here, the cars are few and far between. It's like having my own little piece of heaven as I sit and watch the sunset while birds (and even some bats) fly around, with hardly anything to disturb the peaceful feeling of nature. I'm picking strawberries every other day and discovered that the cherries are starting to ripen. I'm truly blessed.
(18 April 2014)
Happy birthday to me! It was a good one. :-) Mom made a collage and Fox took me out for a very delicious dinner. After having watched Johnny Lingo recently, he decided that I am a 10-cow wife, so he put 10 cows on my cake.
The Q1 pictures are posted.
(15 March 2014)
Uh - has it really been four months since a blog update? I know I've done some updates on facebook but I didn't think I was neglecting my site quite so much. I guess I better repent and try to do better.
We had a fabulous Thanksgiving with my dad, his wife and my brother all coming to visit. We spent most of December working on the renovation for the master bathroom, with the help of some contractors. It looks fantastic now! My favorite feature is the jetted tub. We enjoyed spending Christmas in our WARM house, as opposed to the freezing one we had last year.
Thus far this year, the big event has been Fox's parents returning from their 19-month mission in the Philippines. They live a few miles down the road, so once they got acclimated, they started taking care of Cody two days a week - which they have all loved. Some of Cody's cousins came to visit their grandparents and Cody had a blast with them. He will bring their picture over to me and announce that they are his cousins and name them. So cute! My understanding is that the grandparents plan to serve another mission in the fairly near future, so I'm glad they get time with Cody and their other grandkids now.
My mom was just visiting this last week, as it was her spring break. She took this wonderful family photo.
Cody continues to bring new joys into our lives. He is a full-fledged toddler, with a never-ending supply of energy. He is quite easy-going, though he has been known to be disagreeable if he's hungry or tired (like his mother!). He loves trains and balls and trucks. While riding in the car, he'll point out every piece of construction equipment or school bus or ambulance or any other cool kind of motor vehicle that he sees. He can put away entire platefuls of spaghetti and thinks applesauce is food from heaven. He talks well and signs well, though I think his English vocabulary has surpassed his ASL vocabulary, but I think he understands more ASL than he can express currently.
Mikey is right around 13 years old, which is hard to believe. He's mellowed out some, but he is still quite healthy and energetic. He did give us a bit of a scare over the holidays when his toe kept bothering him. The vet feared it was cancer at first but it turned out to be basically a wart that grew into his toe rather than out from it. A partial amputation of the toe resolved the issue and hasn't slowed him down at all. He really seems to enjoy the bigger property. His favorite thing, though, seems to be meal time when Cody is usually willing to share some tidbits. Mikey may have been a little jealous of Cody at first, but they've come to an understanding now.
Cosmo is 4.5 years old and still thinks he's the king of the castle. He got himself on Santa's nice list when he cornered a mouse that dared to sneak into the house. My husband subsequently sealed up all the big holes he could find and we haven't had any further issues with vermin in the house. We sometimes let Cosmo sleep in our room, where he almost always curls up next to my feet. He's so warm and soft! He'd be allowed there more often if he would only refrain from waking my husband up in the morning.
I don't particularly do New Year's Resolutions, but here are a few goals that I have in mind, just because I'm far more likely to a ctually achieve them if I document them publicly.
- Update this blog with pictures from Q3 and Q4
- Upload some movies of Cody from the last year. To be fair, the new camcorder I got for mother's day last year stores the videos in a format that Windows XP doesn't understand. Yes, I still have Windows XP on my desktop computer. So, I'm hoping to build myself a new system using a new chip I got from work, but I have to wait until the big expenditures are done for the house.
- Run a 10k. Since I've gotten back into my workout routine, I've been looking for a goal - something challenging but achievable. I've done some 5ks before, but I wanted to challenge myself with a 10k. I'm signed up for one in May here in town, so the first step has been taken. Obviously completing it is a good goal in and of itself, but I'm taking it one step farther. Since the trail is fairly flat, I'm aiming for a finish time of under one hour. I haven't figured out my reward to myself if I achieve it yet.
