Camping!

Matt and I like to spend time in the mountains and even though we love the local ones we wanted to go somewhere different. I had never really been in the Big Horns so we went up there above Ten Sleep and it was a blast!
This was our path. The red was the way up, star is about where we camped, and purple is the way back. Isn't this just a beautiful state? I love it. :)

Our vehichle didn't have AC so it was a pretty long, hot drive, especially on the way back between Buffalo and Casper (I "offered" to drive because the sun was beating in the passenger side window) :) but the boys were just awesome in the car. Dean got restless a couple times but I either had to feed him (20 min max) or one of us sat in the back by him and he was fine. Brennen was SO good!
We got there pretty late Tuesday night so we found a random spot to camp in the dark. First thing in the morning Matt did a little fishing and then we packed up and headed to a new place. We spent all day Wednesday exploring the area and hiking and fishing around a couple of lakes.

The creek by our first campsite.

Brennen zonked out in the tent. He slept past 7 both days!

Dean asleep in the car. Don't worry, he didn't sleep there all night and we didn't do any driving with him there. :)

Me and my Dean! I carried him in this pack most of the time.

Matt getting his lure out of the lake. hee hee

Brennen and a rainbow trout Matt caught. He liked it until it started flopping around.

Then we found a new campsite and hiked and fished the creek around there then ate a yummy dinner and went to bed. Thursday we packed up again and then did more exploring and hanging out by Meadowlark Lake and fishing on the creek that went into it (forgot its name). Then we decided to head back. Matt wanted to spend another night but two nights in a tent with a 3 month old is about the max for this mother. (Matt actually was on board with me after he spent half of the second night with Dean in HIS sleeping bag). :)

Our second campsite.

Dean hanging out in the camp chair.

Matt with Brennen down by the creek.

Me and my boys! I love them. :) That view behind me looked WAY cooler in person.

Brennen needed to be distracted during meal preparation so we had him building a tower out of wood. He actually moved some of those logs by himself!

Matt is always our camp cook. Good thing we have this stove. Propane was allowed but we couldn't make a fire. I actually kind of liked that because one thing that I don't really like about camping is the smoke smell all over everything.

Our friend John. At least we think that's what it was... we opted not to go inside.

Kickin' back.

Some wildflowers.

Notice anything amiss in this picture? That was our "fridge."

View from our campsite. Again, way better in real life.

Brothers! Dean looks like a gansta.

Did you see that sky today? Talk about blue! :) This was Thursday morning. If you look closely you can see a little sliver of the moon in the lower left corner. Brennen spotted it before we did. He's very observant.

Our family down by the river!

Brennen LOVED it. The whole way up in the car he kept talking about camping and the mountains. Then he got as dirty as a two year old can get and loved playing in the dirt. He slept SO well, too, once he actually fell asleep. Both nights, we had gotten Dean to sleep and then after awhile of telling Brennen to go to sleep, too, we just decided to ignore him and listened to him sing wheels on the bus (did you know there is a mother penguin on the bus who says "quack, quack quack?"), frowny face, and a few other primary songs until he sang himself to sleep.

Playing in the dirt.

Dean had the same sleeping and eating patterns that he usually does and was just the same, good, happy baby the whole trip!

All tuckered out.

 It was SO nice to get away! I loved spending these few days with my little family and no one was grumpy and we were all happy and relaxed. I really needed this little vacation and I really love spending time out in nature and exploring the beauty all around me. The only thing I don't like is the bugs. :)

Dean at 3 months!

This is about a week overdue but I wanted to do a short post about Dean! He turned 3 months old last Wednesday. Some of these are just silly random facts mostly for me to read later on. :) (In case you care to compare, you can click here to read about Brennen at 3 months).

• He weighs just over 14 pounds!
• He wears size 2 diapers already.
• We swaddle him to sleep at night but he's always busted out by the time he wakes up in the night. Not sure why we do it...
• He is not sleeping through the night. I can't keep him awake much past 9 then he usually wakes up between 2:00-3:30 every night and then is up for good before 7. But he goes right back to sleep after I feed him in the night and sleeps a lot during the day (naps are still irregular).
• He is a very good eater. He is only breastfed and eats like a champ. He gets right down to business and I've never, ever, had to spend more than a half hour feeding him and it usually takes less time than that.
• He is trying with all his might to roll from back to belly. He did it once but it was on the couch so it was probably a bit easier. :)
• He can hold onto toys for quite a long time and actually tries to shake them. He also sucks (and gags on) his hands all the time and like to eat toys, too.
• He loves Brennen! He can be upset (on rare occasions) and if Brennen comes over to talk to him or hug him he calms down and smiles. It's pretty cute. :)
• He continues to be a really happy, low-maintenance baby! He smiles pretty much all the time when he's awake and it's easy to make him giggle.

Here are a couple random pictures of Dean at 3 months.

Happy after a bath.

Chillin' on the couch (he fell asleep like that all on his own).

Laying on the couch with his big brother.

I thought this was cute. :) Dean touching Brennen's foot.

Cuddling with Grandpa up in the Snowy Range (the same day the dumb fire started).

When life doesn't go the way you planned...

I'll try to keep this short but sometimes it helps me to feel better if I tell someone about things that are bothering me. So I guess if you read this blog you get to hear about our life as of late.
I won't go into detail but Matt is no longer in pharmacy school. I personally feel like it was a huge injustice but Matt has a better attitude than I do.
It's just really hard for me and I feel like we wasted 4 years of precious time and money for nothing. I feel like our whole world just got turned upside down and everything that we had been planning on for almost our whole marriage was no longer possible. I feel so bad for Matt and he hasn't really been himself lately and I can tell he's feeling down. It's been a really hard month and a half.
The day we found out happened to be the last day in our apartment. I really loved living there and had such great neighbors. We had planned to live with Matt's parents during his rotation year so that's why we moved. So we lived with them for a few weeks until we knew what we were going to do and then moved out and into an apartment in a building that Matt's parents own.
We're really blessed that we were able to move in here and we're saving money but I'm still kinda bummed about it. We had gotten rid of all our furniture (except the beds) so we had nothing for awhile. This apartment is a little smaller, in a different ward, and we no longer have walk-in closets, a dishwasher, or washer and dryer hook-ups. Plus it's just older so we get bugs a lot and some things just really need to be replaced. The laundry thing is hardest for me, that and the sketchy neighbors who stay up late and yell foul language. (I think I was spoiled at Connemara). :)
Matt has decided to get a nursing degree (which will take him 2 years from now to finish) and then hopefully get an administrative job and/or work as an RN for a couple years and then go to PA school.
We can't really find steady work and we have lots of student loans that we thought we'd be able to pay off fairly quickly once Matt got a job as a pharmacist... (and come to find out we borrowed all that money for nothing!) I don't want to be filthy rich but I guess I'm just so tired of counting pennies and being so poor. It's hard for me because I want my kids to be able to have some things that are a little nicer and to live in a nice place (and I'll admit it, I want those things for myself, too). I get caught up on what other people are doing and what they're able to afford. Like nice baby and family portraits or perfectly decorated "nurseries" and nice clothes that are from somewhere other than wal mart. I know that stuff doesn't really matter but it's hard to remember. And now I feel like there's no real end in sight anymore.
Even though it's been more than a month I guess I just still feel a little lost. I was SO happy before all of this happened. I felt like life was just perfect. I had a brand new, wonderful little baby and we were just a happy little family. It's harder for me to be happy now and I guess maybe the Lord is trying to teach us something. Maybe he's trying to teach me humility but I'm not doing a very good job.

I feel like there's a lot more I could say but I said I'd try to keep it short. But real quick I'll list a couple of blessings to kinda balance out the negative. :)

• On Monday, my sister had a baby more than 6 weeks early but he is doing great! Almost 5 pounds and was breathing on his own only hours after birth.
• My little Dean is SO content and nice! He loves to cuddle and I love that because Brennen has never really liked to cuddle. He won't hold still long enough. :)
• Brennen went to the doc for his 2 year check-up and is doing just great! He's at a 3 year old level developmentally.
• I have a wonderful husband who loves me and my boys so much and he works so hard for us!
• Our parents are so great. Matt's parents are always letting us borrow stuff and just help us out a lot and my parents drove all the way here to give us a couch and table and they always buy us lunch when they come to visit. And both sets love our boys and spoil them rotten. :)

And I'll post a cute picture of each of my boys. The one of Dean was taken a couple weeks ago. I love the stretching poses. :) And the one of Brennen was taken on his birthday. He's wearing Grandpa Kirk's hat.

All About Brennen

Yesterday was Brennen’s 2nd birthday! I really feel like he’s been around for so much longer than just two years but yet I remember the day he was born like it was yesterday. I knew the moment I saw him that my life would never be the same, I just didn’t know just how different it would really be!
I can’t even say enough about this little guy but I’ll try.

• I can’t begin to tell you all the words he knows because he knows them all. Literally. He talks like crazy and carries on conversations. He is very easy to understand because he speaks so clearly. And he can pronounce big words perfectly like “Mississippi” for example.
• He can count to 20 but almost always skips 10.
• He knows all the colors and shapes. He’s a little off on some of the more obscure colors but he knows just about any shape you could think of.
• He knows about half the letters and most numbers by sight.
• He is starting to be potty trained! He's a bit stubborn, though, so we'll see how it goes...
• He is what my mom calls “perpetual motion.” He really never holds still.
• He can jump pretty high with both feet off the ground. He also runs up and down stairs (and everywhere else for that matter) and loves climbing on rocks at Vedauwoo.
• He LOVES being outside. He would stay out there all day long.
• He loves tomatoes, especially the little cherry ones. They are easily his favorite food (fruit snacks are a close second).
• If I kneel down on the floor and open my arms he runs into them and gives me a big hug and a kiss and usually says “I love you so much!” <3
• He loves us to read books to him.
• He loves tractors and our new apartment is right next to the place that rents them out so he loves that he gets to see so many every day.
• He loves watching “the monkey” (Curious George).
• He loves playing with “my baby Dean!” And is already a great big brother.
• I don’t want to say anything negative but let’s just say he’s a very determined kid who knows what he wants and has been acting like he’s 2 since the day he was born. :)
• When he gets mad he’ll run around the house like crazy and then often times finds something random to bite (today it was the TV). I try not to encourage it but it’s hard not to laugh.
• He’s starting to be a little demanding. The other day he looked at me, pointed to the kitchen table and said, “Mom! DINNER!” (Matt said he was going to teach him how to say "cook, woman!" I told him no).
• He has the cutest smile, complete with dimples, and he uses it a lot.

Like I said, I couldn’t possibly say it all so I’ll stop there. I love this little boy so very much. He wears me out and sometimes I feel like I must be the most clueless parent on the planet because I don’t know how to deal with his constant, er, “energy.” :) But he is so funny, smart, and sweet. He never fails to leave a positive impression on the people he meets. I am SO very thankful for him!

Here are a few pictures from yesterday. I didn’t get any with people who came to his party but they were: all his grandparents, uncles Kasey and Brad, Aunt Mary, Sarah and her girls Chelsey and Emma, and of course me and Matt and Dean.

My monkey cupcakes. I'm not an artist. :P

 Getting ready to blow out the candles.

 Some presents.

 A monkey.

 Eating the monkey.

 Playing with Chelsey. Poor girl couldn't quite escape the hug...

 "I'm 2!"

 Brennen's haul: 4 pack of puzzles, bear puzzle, abacas, tomatoes, book, tractors, tools, cards, clothes.

 We both look a little crazy but I couldn't escape the day without a picture of me and my Brennen!

Dean's 2 Month Post

So many things have been going on in our little family and most of them have not been very positive.
But in church on Sunday I was holding my little Dean during relief society and I was thinking about how blessed I am to have my little boys when so many good women want children and aren’t able to have them. Even though I understand the ache of wanting a child and not being able to have one, I don’t have to experience that anymore and I was reminded that I need to count all of my blessings.
So without further ado, let’s talk about my little Dean!
I took him to the doctor yesterday for his two month check up (he actually turned two months a couple weeks ago) and everything was great! He is a chunk, though! Here are the stats. Weight: 13 lbs 2 oz! 75%. Length: 23 inches, 50%. Head: 40.5 cm, 50%. He didn’t appreciate his shots (what kids does?) but I only got a little choked up. :)

Here are a few things about Dean at two months.

·         He started sleeping through the night! He goes to bed at around 11 and usually doesn’t wake up until at least 5 but most times it’s after 6.

·         Size one diapers are getting too small!

·         He is wearing clothes that Brennen didn’t wear until he was 3 months old.

·         He is still such an easy going little guy. He only gets mad when he’s hungry, not even when he’s tired. If he wants to go to sleep he just does. No rocking required.

·         We’d given him a little formula during his first month but now he is just breastfed and is still gaining so much weight!

·         We traveled to Lyman twice during his second month and he slept the whole time in the car both ways, both trips.

·         He is very patient with his older brother.

·         He smiles A TON and has even giggled a few times.

·         He is just so happy and adorable and we all love him so much!

Here’s a picture of Dean at two months. I have a lot more pictures but I’ll have to post them sometime later in a different post.