I forgot!

How could I forget! Well, I didn't forget, I just didn't mention it: Andrew is 10 months old. As of yesterday, which I didn't mention in the entry I posted then.

Ridiculous.

The time has passed so quickly, and yet it's been the longest 10 months of my entire life. These months have been some of the lowest and happiest of my life, all blended together. I know the 10-month mark isn't exactly a huge milestone, but I don't think I can accurately describe to you how happy I am that I have this little boy in my life.

In the beginning of it all, I had a really difficult time. I felt completely overwhelmed by and afraid of all the things that I was suddenly responsible for. I didn't have any experience with babies at that point. I changed more diapers in the first day he was born than I had the whole rest of my life. Let me tell you, that was just the beginning of this huge learning process.

Now that 10 months has passed, I feel so grateful for everything that I've learned - about taking care of babies, doing things on my own, taking responsibility, and not letting the worry overtake me. I may need years of training, but along the way I'll just try to be the mom that Andrew deserves.

Yay for this milestone. I'm glad we've both made it.

Trick or Treat!

The city I grew up in is kinda strange with Halloween because we have what we call "Beggar's Night", a night separate from Halloween when the kids get to go trick-or-treating. We do it, I think, because Halloween brings out some creepy people sometimes, especially when the holiday falls on a weekend. Anyway, this year, it was last night, and I have pictures!

Before I post them, I must do some explaining. Andrew has had 3 Halloween costumes. The first one we bought before he was born because they were super cheap after Halloween last year. That turned out to be a not-so-good idea, because Andrew ended up being WAAAAAAY too big for it. It was really cute though. It was a pea pod, but it only fits babies up through 9 months. Ummm... Andrew's in 18-month clothes now. We gave it away.

A couple weeks ago, there was this huge sale going on at one of the local middle schools, put on by this group in Columbus made up of mothers of twins in the area. We found this cute lobster costume that looked like it would fit Andrew, and the size was 1T. 1T? What size is that? I've never heard of it before! Anyway, it might've fit Andrew when we bought it, but it was just a titch too small yesterday, when we tried it on him (which is why he doesn't look too happy):

Initially, he liked playing around with all the arms and stuff sticking out of it, but then I think it began getting a little stuffy.

Fortunately, my mom and I went shopping for some clothes for Andrew last week (because he was growing out of his 12-month stuff), and found a cute OSU jersey and matching pants that we thought might be able to double as a costume in case the lobster outfit didn't work out. Which it didn't. We put it on him, and he was ready to go outside to help mom, dad, grandma and grandpa pass out candy to the kids!

There's the whole group! Excluding me, of course, since I was taking the picture.

Later on, it got cold, so we had to put a jacket, a hat and gloves on Andrew to keep him warm, but he loved being outside!

Yay for Halloween!

As a side note, I only just barely realized that the colors on the background of my blog look really Christmassy. Well, it's going to stay! I love Christmas. I meant for the background to look fall-ish, so I'll be changing my background as soon as Thanksgiving is over to an obviously Christmas background. Haha.

New Background, Realizations, and pictures!

I seem to get bored of my backgrounds pretty quickly. I haven't updated lately because I've been working on coming up with a new top picture and background for the blog. I hope you like it! Oh, and I also just added new music. I felt like classical music, for some reason, so I hope you like that too...

Random tidbit: I have come to the realization that I want to be "Super Mom". I want to take care of everything, and do it perfectly: laundry, cooking amazing meals, baking homemade bread, cleaning, taking care of Andrew, decorate the house for holidays... you name it, I want to do it. The thing I need to remember is that I don't have to do it all. I CAN'T do it all. I mean, I could spread it out into a lot of days and maybe be able to do most of it at some point, but I don't need to put that kind of pressure on myself. I think at one point while I was in Rexburg, just after Andrew was born and Jason was going to school, I was just about the lone person to take care of everything in the apartment, and I really think that since I was cooped up inside all day (it was snowing outside) and Andrew was the only one I could talk to, I became kinda depressed that I couldn't do everything. I felt so overwhelmed by all the things I believed I HAD to do that I couldn't do anything. I'm glad that I know now that I don't have to be perfect and I don't have to do everything. If I don't make cute decorations for the house, it's not going to be the end of the world. If buying bread saves me the time I need to do something else that's more important, I'll do it.

Sorry about the rant, but I just had to get that out.

Picture time! I just uploaded pictures from my camera. Hurray! Most of these are from Hocking Hills.

We didn't have a hiking backpack for Andrew, and he wouldn't have been able to get around in the stroller on the trail, so this is how he got around! Grandpa loved carrying him around.

As you can see, Andrew loves his Grandpa!

Jason posing for the camera.

I love this picture of us!

Me and my sisters, Susette and Carrie.

The three of us again, close up.

We had a friend of Susette's take family pictures (not the ones on this blog right now... I took those), and hopefully she'll get done fixing them up soon so you can see some of them. She took some pretty fun pictures! If you want to see some of them, click here to go to her blog. She has a video of some of the pictures and a REALLY cute picture of Andrew on there too. :)

New Blog for Jason

Jason started his own blog about the LDS church. If any of you would be interested in taking a look, posting a comment, and passing the link on to friends, feel free! Here's the link:

http://jasonsmormonblog.blogspot.com

Ta da! Take a look. :)

Andrew pictures

These are from my phone. I have more on my camera from our trip to Hocking Hills, but those pictures will be reserved for another post. :) My phone may actually die before I get them all on here, but oh well.

This is what his face looks like every time we go outside. It makes me happy that he loves being out there so much, especially for fall out here. It's gorgeous.

We went outside to play, and he loved pouncing on the leaves.

Carrie, my sister, is a hairstylist, so she decided one day that he had enough hair to do something with it. This picture was the result! I think he looks just like Jack Jack from The Incredibles. Don't you think so?:

He still gets sleepy on long drives. And I love the hair. :)

He was having fun smacking the coffee table.

And last but not least:

Andrew fell asleep on Jason's lap, and then Jason proceeded to fall asleep. It was cute. :)

I love my boys.

It's been a couple weeks...

So I figured I would update. Not too much has been happening, which is why I haven't updated recently.

Well, Ohio is great. We're loving being here. The weather right now has been wonderful (except that it's raining today. Yuck!), and fall is in full swing now, I think. The colors of the trees just makes me want to take a deep breath and pull a blanket around me. Mmmmmm... :)

Andrew's almost 9 1/2 months old, and I'm continually surprised by how much he's learning and how big he's getting. He learned how to open the kitchen cabinets and keep them open the other day. We're going to have to baby-proof my parents house really soon! He can put food in his mouth, and loves feeding himself. He loves his puffs, but he REALLY likes graham crackers. He could eat them all day long if he wanted to. He also loves it when his grandpa shares his yogurt. Haha. I wish I could update you on how tall he is, how much he weighs and how huge his head is, but since Andrew doesn't have a pediatrician back here, we're just going to have to wait until his 1-year appointment. Which will be in under 3 months. That's crazy.

Jason's still doing well in his internship. He's enjoying interpreting in Spanish and the people he works with.

As for me:

• I stay home with Andrew and Carrie and we take care of him and each other. I've read 5 library books since I've been here, and I think I may begin two more Mitch Albom books here in the next little while.
• I'm loving having a tv again! Jason and I have a tv, but don't get any stations. My parents have DTV and have a DVR, so we record shows all the time and watch them later when we're all able to get together and watch them together. It's really fun.
• I'm drawing Halloween decorations to put up in the house. I haven't made very many yet, and I'm not the greatest artist, so I imagine that once Halloween is over the decorations will be coming down and going in the trash. *sigh* Oh well.
• The next couple days will be busy for me! Today, Carrie, Jason, Andrew and I will be going to this local hands-on science museum called COSI. I used to volunteer there a couple times a month one summer when I was in high school, and I haven't been there since. I'm excited to show Jason, and hopefully Andrew will like it too.
• Tomorrow, Carrie, Jason and I are going to Cedar Point! I've been telling Jason about the place since before we were married, so finally, after two years of marriage, we're going! It's supposed to be kinda chilly, but I don't care. I'm excited!!! Roller coasters, here we come!
• On Monday, my family is going to Hocking Hills. It's a beautiful part of Ohio, full of rolling hills. We're going to be having family pictures taken there as well, the first since before Jason and I were married. I'm happy that Jason and I will have pictures of our little family taken. We don't have any pictures of Andrew up around our apartment at all, which is upsetting to me, so we're going to fix that. Hurray!

Here's one picture of Hocking Hills that I found on google:

Things have been good. I've been terrible about getting pictures from the camera and my phone to the computer, so when I've done that I'll have another picture posting!