Awesome Baby Clothes

So, big E has something I have never had. He has 2 designer shirts.

A friend of mine in my ward gave them to us. They are ADORABLE!! I think they are my new favorite clothes to put Big E in. My friend's daughter started this company in California in an effort to stay at home with her little baby.

Check them out. The company is called Rocker Roos Clothing and she has cute little baby boy and baby girl outfits. If you look at the boy clothes, Big E has the Bennett and the John shirts. Seriously, I may need to buy them in bigger sizes and Big E grows out of the ones he has.

Private

I have been thinking of going private for some time now. In the past, I have had some very random, and very unappreciated, comments on my blog from people I don't know. This is one of the reasons I moderate my comments now. I am concerned about the safety of my little guy and this would be the main reason I would go private.

I still am not 100% sure if it will happen, but if I do, and you would like to be invited to view my blog, drop me a line at travelingbeula at gmail dot com or leave me a comment.

Thoughts

Last Sunday, our home teachers came. I love that we now have regular home teachers. In the 2 1/2 years we have lived in our ward, we were visited twice before our new home teachers. Anyway, back to their visit. The lesson was on our Celestial lineage. This started me thinking and I got a little worried. There is so much that I feel responsible for teaching E! After all, our Heavenly Father trusted this little guy to me and I need to raise him so he will be a well adjusted adult. I need to raise him so that he knows his Heavenly Father and Savior. It started to worry me a little, all this responsibility.

I voiced this concern to our home teachers. This is what they replied.

C - (Who has teenagers) Whenever I left my home, my mom would say, "Remember who you are and what you are to be." I hated it when I was growing up. Looking back though, I know by her saying this, it kept me out of trouble. It really made me remember.

M (who has a little baby himself) I haven't been worried about the responsiblity because of something Boyd K. Packer once said in a sealing he was performing. He asked the bride and groom what their responsibilities were going to be as parents. After a bit of discussion, he answered them. A mother's responsibility is to love and nurture her children. They should never not know that their mother loves them. A father's responsibility is to play and praise his children. If both parents do this, their children will grow up well. The gospel teaching moments will fall into place. Your children will be happy and well adjusted and will grow up knowing the things they need to know.

I loved these little thoughts! I have continued to think on them all week long. I have shared them here and there, but decided I needed to write them down so that I always have the record of them.

It has been a long time since I have posted. I am very sorry about that. With me working full time, I tend to be a little selfish when I get home and spend my time with my big E. Right now, he is helping me type. Big E is growing by leaps and bounds! He is over 16 pounds now and wearing anywhere from 6-12 month outfits (depending on the outfit.) Nobody ever told me they grew up so fast! Well, I guess they tried, but I didn't believe them.

Since it has been so long since I posted, this post will have a TON of pictures. I apologize beforehand. I do hope you enjoy.

Here is a picture of big E wearing the hat that Grandma Winnie made. Isn't he handsome? It isn't the best picture. but he was having fun kicking and giggling in his crib as we were getting ready for bed.
This is big E showing how big he is! Look how good he is sitting up in the bumbo! He has now taken to chewing on his hands. He bites pretty good for not having any teeth. This is one of my favorite shirts that he has. M has taken to calling any plaid shirt a Bampa shirt, because that is all that Mike's dad wears. So here is big E wearing his Bamp shirt.
A while ago, I decided to try on the shoes that belong to Skooter, Big E's build-a-bear (that is really a wolf.) They fit! They did look rather funny though as they were much to wide and poor little E couldn't lift his legs. Who knew that a doll shoe was so heavy? Sorry that the picture is sideways. I always edited in photoshop, and that is on my computer that will not currently take a charge (or recognize that the plug is plugged in.) I need to figure out how to edit without photoshop. I am sure there are many ways, I just need to learn.
This year, we spent Christmas Eve with the Proctor family. It was a blast! We went to Rosie and Mark's new house and enjoyed yummy enchilada's and good times. Big E got a book from Santa that sings. (Trust me, there were 3 of them singing all at once.) Big E also got spoiled with new clothes and toys. Good times were had by all. The best? Mike and I got a beautiful picture of Timpanogos Temple from the Skinners. I love it! It got hung that night when we got home.

Big E and M got to spend some time with Grandma and Grandpa. Big E LOVES Bampa!
Here are all the boys with their new jammies made by Grandma! You know how hard it is to get five boys (two of them babies) to look at the camera (or the 5 that were being used?) at the same time? But aren't they cute? T & B, I didn't call you cute! You two are handsome in those new jammies!Here is one of the outfits that Big E got. Again, sorry for the sideways picture. As you can see, Big E had to eat everything he got. That is how he knew if it was a great present or not. This one passed!
Here is Big E again in his Bampa shirt. I love this little guy! We have to put a bib on him if we want his shirt to remain dry. We have a BIG drooler!
Here is Big E with Grandma Winnie. We also went to see her on Christmas day. It was fun to see her two days in a row!
Here is E and Grandpa Jack on Christmas day. Don't you love the windswept look that E is going for with his hair? It is all the new style. Big E and Grandpa talked tractor talk with the John Deere blanket.
Christmas morning was so much fun with a baby! Even though E had no idea what was going on and was just along for the ride, it was fun. We would tear a little piece of the paper, get E to grab the paper and then we would pull the present away and it would "open." It made for a long time in opening presents, but it was fun!
For Christmas day, we started a new tradition. Because we have a little guy now, we wanted to start some traditions of our own that are important within our family. We decided that we would invite the grandparents of whichever family we didn't spend Christmas Eve with over for a Christmas dinner. It made for a fun day of going and seeing great grandparents and still knowing that we would get to spend some time with both of our families for the holidays. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of this, because I was a bit busy and forgot.

This is how Big E welcomed the New Year. He completely slept through it! He did wake up shortly thereafter though when I put him in his pajamas and then kept both mommy and daddy awake into the new year. It was a fun evening.
Can you believe how big E is getting? You can see the little haircut I gave him. I trimmed the top so it wasn't so wild and crazy. It is a little difficult cutting the hair of a 3 1/2 month old, but I think it turned out pretty good. This is one of his 6 month onsies that if we had delayed anymore time, he wouldn't have gotten to use. He is just growing too fast. In the next few pictures, you can also see what a little drooler we have. Trust me, he can soak you if you aren't careful. If he keeps it up, we may need to invest in some rain slickers. :)
Last but not least, I wanted to show my new haircut. I was so tired of living in ponytail land (I think I have worn one almost everyday since June) that I chopped it. It is now too short (mostly) for a ponytail and I LOVE IT! Mike is trying to get used to my shorter hair. He better hurry, because it might be here to stay for a bit.

Pictures!

In my last post, I talked about projects that Mike discovered took longer to do when watching an infant. One of those projects was our bathroom. Mike was laying linoleum (it looks like tile and looks AWESOME!) and this is where my toilet was for 2 days.

Mike did finish the project and my toilet is (thankfully) right back where it belongs. This is the finished product (now I just have to clean it, meaning the bathroom.)

I have to admit, with Mike home, my home is cleaner than it has been for a long time. All of our moving stuff is put away (please don't go upstairs) and the projects are getting done, if slowly but surely.

Last Saturday, we took E to see Santa Claus. E was less than impressed. He sat on Santa's lap just long for me to snap a picture, and looked a little bored. But, I am sure he had fun. (As the mom, I hereby declare that my little E-guy had fun sitting on Santa's lap.)

I hope you have enjoyed these pictures. I will have to take more of my new little home and post those. It is cute, and it is ours. Mike is most excited because I will let him plant rose bushes in the spring. I couldn't see paying to plant them in a rental, only to have to move and leave them. We did leave the Hibiscus...sadness. Have a most wonderful weekend!

New Things

A week ago, Mike got laid off from work. Yeah...how excited are we? Not. Since then, he has become Mr. Mom and I was luckily able to get more hours at work. While it is hard to be away from my little E-guy (Big E as Mike calls him) it is necessary right now. Mike also gets the experience of becoming the sole caretaker during the day of a 3 month old.

Mike has learned that projects take longer to do and sometimes don't get done until somebody else comes home. He now gets the frustration I had when he would call me 3 hours before I went to work and give me a list of things he wanted me to accomplish. He gets how time consuming it is to take care of our little guy.

I have learned that I have to look in the diaper bag for things I never thought I would find in the diaper bag. Not diapers, or burp cloths, or toys. Nope, I have to get into the diaper bag to find Mike's tools. This is a conversation we had tonight.

"Honey, can you get my tape measure?"
"Sure, where is it?"
"In the diaper bag."
"Did I hear you right? Did you say the diaper bag?"
"Yes, the diaper bag."

Mike is learning how much fun taking care of our little E-guy is. I miss all the time we got to spend together before and now you may find me even more possessive of my little guy then I was before.

We hope that everybody is preparing to have a most wonderful Christmas. I personally am so grateful for this time to really remember and focus on the reason for the season. Isn't it so wonderful to remember that our Savior came to this earth for us? He died so that we can return to our Heavenly Father. I can't even tell you how excited I am to be able to create traditions with my little family that hopefully, our little E-guy will cherish and remember. I want him to grow up knowing that Christ is the focus of this time of year, not the presents we can get.

For me, I have already received the best present this year. I have my little E-guy. What a tremendous responsibility my Heavenly Father has entrusted me with. Yet, it is a responsibility that is full of joy. I love my little family.

Update

I have been told that I need to seriously update my blog. Yes, I admit that I do. It has been a long time, but I have been BUSY! Don't ask me doing what, I have no idea. I know I spent the entire morning yesterday just watching my cute little guy sleeping until I had to get myself ready for work and E ready to go to the babysitter. While there was so much I needed to be doing, I felt that this was so much more important (and rewarding.)

So, I promised I would show a picture of E in his blessing outfit. Here it is! Isn't he cute? Although he is not loving the sun in his eyes. My mom buys little shoes for all her grand children's blessings. She was so worried that the 3-6 month shoes would be too large for E. She forgets that my little boy is huge and has his daddy's gynormous feet. They fit perfectly! The best memory about the blessing outfit? On the morning of the blessing, while I was getting ready for church, Mike decided to get E dressed. Mike spent 5 minutes trying to undo these little tiny buttons on the vest of the shirt. Poor Mike, it was a faux vest and didn't need to be unbuttoned to be put on!

So, when E was about a month old, we found this adorable little Sunday outfit in a 3-6 month size. Mike has been trying to get me to put E in it for awhile, but I have been stubborn and insisting that it was too big and that he keep wearing his little onsie with the tie that Aunt Amanda made for him. The onsie was getting to be quite the muscle shirt and was getting more and more difficult to put on, so I gave in and put this outfit on him, thinking it would be way to big. Wrong! I should have put him in it a long time ago. As it is, we cannot do up the top button (really we can but it is very uncomfortable for E ) which means that the cute little tie that came with the outfit doesn't look good. You can't really wear a tie with a shirt that isn't fully buttoned up now, can you? Here is a picture of E in this outfit. Notice how red his hair looks in this picture! I am sad to say that I will probably have to be extra diligent with the sunscreen the entire time E is growing up. I have a hard time being diligent for myself (which is why I look like a lobster at least once a year.)
This is one of the most recent pictures of my little guy. It was taken on Thanksgiving day. His daddy picked out this sweater for him. Mike does have good taste, doesn't he? But then, he married me! haha (Mike will say that is extremely cheesy.) How could you see this little guy and not fall in love? He is my little chunky monkey (nickname comes from the obvious fact that he is a good eater.)

Thanksgiving was quite fun for Mike and I. We were lucky to have two Thanksgiving dinners. We had one the Saturday before with the Proctors (I had my first taste of Kansas corn which I have heard about since Mike and I got married.) and then another dinner on Thanksgiving day with the Lewis'. It was fun to be able to spend time with both of our families. Mike and I tried the black Friday with E. He was so good he slept through the entire thing! We were bad though. Every year I have done black Friday, I have HATED the people who wait in their cars for the doors to open and then casually walk in past the people who stood in line freezing after the doors open. Well, this year, because we had E, Mike and I became those people. I have to admit, it was nice to sit in the car with the heater while we people watched all the people waiting in line. I did feel a little guilty as I heard people saying, "Hey, back of the line, we waited in the cold!" but I still kept going.

Mike and I are officially all moved into our new home. We are still trying to get the apartment rented, so if anyone knows of anyone looking to move, let us know. Now comes the fun of putting everything away. Yeah...our DI pile keeps getting bigger and bigger. It is a good time to clear everything out that we don't need or use. I have discovered that Mike and I have a lot of crap. I know, it isn't all crap, but man, we do have a lot of stuff! How much of it is really needed?

We hope that everybody enjoyed their Thanksgivings. We look forward to celebrating the Christmas season and remembering the sacrifice that our Savior made for us.