goodbye apartment...

tonight is my last night in our tiny little apartment.  the movers are coming to pack on wednesday and i'm moving into my moms tomorrow so i can have everything ready for wednesday.  i'll admit i'm a little sad.  it may be super tiny and way cramped for a family of three, but it has been my home for the last 4 years.

i had just graduated from BYU in april of 2008... my cousin had just moved out of the apartment and my grandpa told me i could take it next.  the nicest thing at that time was i was able to keep my independence of not living at home, but still be so close to family as it was in grandpa's backyard and just down the street from my mom.  when i first moved in i had no furniture... random pieces from all over... a futon from my sis... old bed and dresser from grandpa .. some broken desk left behind from other tenants.. etc.  but i loved it and made it my little home... little by little i decorated and added things.. for a while it looked a little like this:

and i bought couches and a tiny table... and then every couple months i would change furniture around... its just fun.  then i met chris and we got married.  i had a very difficult time making room for him.  i had to store a lot at my moms.  he loved that every couple months i would change the furniture and pictures all around.... NOT! haha but he did it with a smile anyway.

then we went crazy and decided to add a child into our tiny home... we moved our bed out to the front room.  moved couches to my moms along with most of my clothes and had a little room left to add the baby.  they just have so much equipment that comes with them.  in the back ground you can see how the apartment has looked these last couple months.

i am sooooo excited to be moving into a home 4 times the size of this apartment, but i'm sad.  sad to leave the home we lived in when i met chris and then we lived in together when we got married and then brought our first child home to.  lots of great memories and fun times.  onto our next adventure of filling a home... which i'm sure i will have no problem doing!!

little man loves his cereal...

after daniel's four month appointment doc told us go ahead if we wanted with food... so after waiting a week
(cause baby was sick) i decided to start him on rice cereal... and from the first bite he has loved it!!!! i mean love!! i can't get it in his mouth fast enough!!! he now grabs my hand to bring it to his mouth faster.. hilarious!  here pics from that day:

BEFORE

DURING

AFTER

i also got a video of the very first bite... sorry its sidways... first time using my phone video, but now i know how to hold the phone...

i'm glad he likes it so much... maybe he will gain weight now and no longer be mr. 5th percentile. haha

4 months...

my baby is 4 months!! i'm also so late in writing this post between selling chris' truck and getting him packed and shipped off to boot camp and getting other things in order its been crazy! but i'm now sitting down and writing this before i forget.  his stats this month:

height: 25.5 inches (75th percentile)

weight: 11.13 pounds (5th percentile)  

yep he's still tall and skinny but since he is gaining weight the doctor isn't worried at all.  he's getting lots of food as evident by diapers so i'm not worried either.

things he has done this month:

- gone swimming for the first time and loved it

- laughing really hard for the first time as chris lifted him in and out of the water in the pool.  

- and the after the first time he would randomly laugh when i was sitting in the back seat with him and would sing songs while shaking my head like... "thats not my name" or "i whip my hair back and forth" ... i had him going forever on that one!!

- he is getting better at reaching for things on purpose

- he started rolling from back to front but couldn't quite get his one arm out from under him.

- he talks gibberish all the time now!!! 

- he still likes to be swaddled and rocked to sleep

- he cries when strangers hold him.. including my mom... who isn't a stranger but not his mom... 

- sleeps through the night!!!

- always smiles and is happy when he wakes up!

he's the best baby!! and we sure love him!! here are so fun shots from taking his pic... a man of many faces... 

and he also officially has the brownest eyes!!!!

we sure love him and love watching him grow everyday!!

reno reno....

we decided to make one last trip to reno before we make the big move to north carolina... the drive up wasn't too bad but daniel isn't sleeping as much as he used to and he doesn't like to be in the back seat alone so i joined him for half the trip.

thursday night we visited our friends and family the hicks family!  we had dinner and watched the girls play... i snooped around the house to check out all of katelynd's creative stuff.... she has painted all over and made all sorts of really cute stuff for the house to decorate! i'm so jealous! can't wait to have a house i can paint and do fun stuff in!!  then we went over to mama judy's house to sleep for the night... daniel and i stayed there while chris went and played basketball with zack... like good ol times... they had fun and we crashed for the night.

the next morning we slept in, had breakfast and then headed to the mall to do some shopping and kill some time.  then we visited grandma susan and grandpa david at work.  we then headed back to judys for a while... we looked at all these fun pics she has of chris when he was younger since he lived at her house half the time... she even had pics from his baptism which was really fun to see!

that night we went over to susan's for spaghetti dinner. we sat around and talked and had a really good time.. grandma gave lots of kisses and daniel gave lots of smiles... it was really fun!

saturday morning we went over to jeff and stevie's to hang out for a bit and then we headed over to this place called jump man jump.  we met up with my cousin jentry who we hadn't seen since our wedding and she is currently living in carson city... she came with her 3 girls and we had a great time! the kids (including jeff, chris, and stevie) had fun running around and jumping and racing through the obstacle course... and punching each other with giant boxing gloves.  i sat and talked and caught up with jentry the whole time! it was perfect!!

that night we met up with catherine, scarlett, and susan and richard and had dinner.  it was fun to see little scarlett she has gotten so big and cute! i showed her round and round the garden and she kept walking over to me and putting her hand out for me to do it again.. it was so cute! 

sunday we went to church with judy where she kept introducing chris as her adopted son and me as her daughter in law... it was fun! then she fed us some really good food from boston market that was left over from a wedding she helped at the night before... yum!!  that night we went over to jeff and stevie's for a bit and then headed out to washoe valley with pizza for dinner.  we had a good time visiting and watching all the kids play.  the best was when we tried to take a pic with all the kids they all started screaming and david couldn't stop laughing... it was perfect.

monday morning we went to the pool at susan's house with jeff and catherine and their kids.  it was fun but the water was a little too cold for daniel and i so we didn't stay in long.  after the pool we spent a little more time over at jeff's house and then headed back to zack's for a little bbq... it was low key and fun to just relax and laugh with them... life with twins is pretty fascinating and i'm so impressed with everything katelynd is doing with 3 little girls... adelaide was so cute with little daniel ... wanting to hold him.

tuesday we got up and drove home.  it was a fun week and an easy drive home.  glad we made the trip... who knows when we will make it back there for a while!

swimming with laughter...

sam and meesha invited us over for a little bbq one night and said we could swim.  chris really wanted to take daniel in the pool so we got him all dressed up and ready to go.

he seemed to like the water and then chris started lifting him out of the water and something so amazing and fun came bursting out of daniel's mouth... thats right laughter... like real laughter... thank goodness i had my camera ready!!!

and now he surprises us again and again with more laughter... it is so cute!!

daniel's blessing day...

we waited till graduation weekend to bless daniel in church.  we wanted chris' family to be able to come which worked out perfectly since they were all coming for graduation!

I had also decided to make daniel's blessing outfit and my mom gave me the brilliant idea to make it out of the fabric i have left over from my wedding dress my mom made for me.  it was tricky making this tiny outfit and of course my little man is tall and skinny so the outfit ended up being short and fat on him... hahaha i'm not an expert seamstress... but i'm learning and next time will figure out how to alter patterns.

sunday morning we got up and got him ready and  i was trying to time it perfectly where he would fall asleep at the beginning of sacrament and sleep through the whole thing... no luck. he cried. but luckily you couldn't hear it in the microphone at all... it was just loud for the men in the circle.

the circle included: Chris, Sam, Kelly, Grandpa Vern, Grandpa Virgil, Greg, uncle Dave, uncle david, and uncle stacy.

chris did a great job!! he had prepared and pondered all week and he said some really beautiful things!!

after we took some family pics: