SLACKER

WOW. It has been almost a year since I have posted ANYTHING on this blog... I can't believe how big of a slacker I am. Life has been pretty crazy, but I guess that is nothing short of normal in our life. Kylan will be 2 on the 9th of August, I can't believe how big my baby boy is getting. He is SO wonderful with his little sister! He just loves her to pieces, well, most of the time. :) They are so darling together, I just couldn't be happier or more blessed to have them. 

Leighton is the happiest kid you have ever seen - but she definitely has a streak of drama queen in her. She laughs and smiles to no end, but when she wants something she has no problem letting you know! 

Kylan LOVES cars. We watch that movie at least twice a day, if not more. It is so fun to see him excited about something - even if it is a move. But he loves cars in general. I have a feeling he is going to be just like his dad! He is talking up a storm lately, and it has been so fun to see him learn new words. He also loves my iPhone. I swear he is on that thing more than me! Again, just like his dad - he loves technology! 

I hope to get around to posting some pics of the kids soon. They are too darling not to show off. :) 

Due Date

Yes, here is our first picture of baby #2! As I said, I am betting money that this one is a girl. I am so tired of being sick!! *ugh* counting down the days to trimester #2! The worst part is that it makes me sick to run through pictures in editing, which is potentially problematic. But the bad part about almost being to the second trimester - HERE COMES THE HEARTBURN!!

I am due on Feb 9th, exactly 18 months to-the-day from the day Kylan was born. How often does that happen?! I doubt I will deliver on that specific day, of course, but if I did it would be kinda funny. :)

pregnancy woes

I hate the first trimester of pregnancy. It really sucks. I swear on my life I'm having a girl this time. I am 10 times sicker than I was with Kylan! With Ky I threw up twice, I was just nauseous all the time. Now, I throw up twice A DAY! Well, once a day lately. It is starting to let up a little. With Kylan I knew that no matter how bad it got I could keep down cheerieo's and not feel too terrible. Not anymore!! Every time I eat them they come right back up! They say saltine crackers curb the nausea? Load of crap! I threw those up too! Salad with lime and salt is the worst when coming back up, I have found out. And TV dinners and that instant rice stuff? Forget it! If I even SMELL them I have to go to another part of the house and light a candle! (that just goes to show you what a bad house-wife I am, that we have a freezer full of TV dinners and a pantry full of instant-stuff for the not-so-rare occasion when dinner isn't made. Even then, Matt cooks most of the time!)

And my latest..... About 2 years ago I was in 2 car accidents in exactly 1 week. Both of them were toatled. The first one threw my back out a bit. The second one... Well, I was in a tiny little lancer and got sideswiped on the freeway by one of those big Utah Redneck trucks. I was thrown across 4 lanes of traffic, into 3 other cars, and into a cement barrier, where I did almost a compete 360. My car looked like a crushed soda can and I was taken away in an ambulance. Needless to say, I still have a lot of back problems.

When I am pregnant I crave Little Cesars like a mad-woman. Crazy Bread is nothing short if heaven to me! Matt was sweet enough to stop and pick some up for a late lunch/early dinner on his way home today. I don't know quite what happened, I think I was just so exited at him supporting my little addiction that I ate too much too fast... Well, I found out that pizza is actually painful when it comes back up. This was not your average throwing up, this was VIOLENT. It was so bad, in fact, that it threw out my back!! Within 5 minutes I was on the ground with tylenol and a heating pad on my back. (that is the drill, per my DR, at the first sign of back pain.) A few minutes later it just kept getting worse. Within 10 minutes I was near tears. Unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened. The remedy? A good back cracking, Vicoden and a 12 hour release pain patch. Unfortunately that was my last one - OF BOTH! I felt better after another half hour or so being on the medication, but WOW is that painful!! I just hope my back isn't thrown out again before I can get into the doctor!

You have to admit, it is nothing short of pathetic when your morning-sickness lands you on your back and on narcotics!!

Another Robbery Rant

So, we finally 'finished' cleaning up the remnants of the robbery yesterday. It is always so much fun attempting to put things back together again when they aren't yours and you don't know how they were supposed to be to begin with. (just a HINT of sarcasm....) I brought my dog along, even though my husband and my sister were there, and my dad for a little while, it still freaked me out a bit being in that big house with so many hiding places. Natalie - I remember it took us a good twenty minutes to find you that one time, and everyone was looking for you!! And, to answer your question, it wasn't completely trashed. Just my grandparents room and their den. That clean up took us what seemed like forever. Can you imagine if they had trashed more?! The funniest part about it is the things they took and the things they left. They left probably $30 or more in stray bills and change, but they took the title to an old car my grandparents don't even have anymore. The entire thing was just strange. I am honestly surprised they didn't spend more time going through things more thoroughly. But when I had stopped by Monday to bring in the mail I thought I noticed a closet was open and I thought I heard a toilet flush. Mind you, the house is realy old and makes all kinds of noises so I wasn't TOO terrified, but I had a feeling I needed to get out of there fast... but Matt thinks I probably interrupted them. At this point I have to say I agree. The thought of it just makes me shiver!

Robbery

I stopped by my grandparent's house last night to pick up the mail only to find that their house had been broken into! I had taken the trash cans up from the curb and walked around the back and found the back door kicked in... *ugh* they are the most giving people I have ever met. That this would happen to them of all people is just heart breaking. I called my aunt/sister who is in charge of watching the house and I called the cops. I wasn't crazy enough to go in there by myself!! I was a kid in this house - I know that there are TONS of places to hide, some you would never be found in! Friends of mine from college will attest - we had many very crazy games of hide-and-go-seek there - even as adults!! The cops had to go and we had to wait for the processing unit to come. So, I called my dad! Having been in law enforcement for years and being a very large and scary looking man, who else would I call?! He and my brother and, of course, my darling husband all came to the rescue (baby in-tow might I add). We were there til about 2 am... (needless to say I have a very cranky child). It just breaks my heart to see that. It is such a scary thing. It scares me to be in that house alone even still, and i'm 25 - even when it hasn't been broken into! *sigh* but, so be it, and all we can do is go from here. And maybe buy them a pit-bull or two... 

Standing up

Kylan has been cruising along furniture for a while now, but he has now decided to stand up all by himself! Sunday we were at my parent's house for my mom's birthday and he was chasing a football around the living room with my brothers and my dad. He was standing up, holding on to my dad who was laying on the floor. He let go of my dad, stood there for a moment, did a full-on squat, picked up the football with both hands and stood back up again!! Mind you, the football is as big as he is... He thought he was hot stuff for that one. I must admit I thought it was pretty cute myself... :) 

UNLV

Matt and I have "Officially" been accepted to UNLV and will be starting school in just a few weeks! It's a little terrifying to be diving back into school, but I know we need to finish. If I went to school full time it would only take me about 3 semesters to finish my degree in English. I love photography, don't get me wrong, but I don't want to take a bunch of classes from teachers who obviously couldn't make any money doing it, telling me how they think I should be creative. (UNLV isn't knowen for it's photo program, put it that way) And, for those of you who don't know, English is my first love. I can devour a 600 page book in a day. It drives Matt crazy when I read because I don't resurface until the book is done. :) And usually I will read it a few times in a row. He hates that too... but he's a good sport about it. We find out on thursday which credits transfer and if I will have to re-take any english classes out of the million I have already taken. 

Matt is going for a double major in Business and Psycology. Plus, as of now, the plan is that he will be taking the extra sciences required to do graduate work in the medical field. WOW. DEFINITELY did not see that one coming! Originally he wanted to get his MBA... But that's not the road the Lord has planned for us, apparently. It's going to be a long road of schooling, but I know it's what we need to do. The funniest part about grad school, we have no clue what field he is supposed to go into! We just know he is supposed to prepare to go... So be it. The Lord will provide a way. 

No crying over spilt milk...

In all of our craziness with work and church it is always good, I think, to take a break for our sanity. Kylan usually plays on the floor while we work but is getting a little more mobile, so that may have to change soon... Today Matt and I were at our computers and Ky was just having one of those days. He was SO fussy. He hates it when I work though. Well, that and he has his mommy wrapped around his little finger... :) I got down on the floor and played with him for a while, which he thought was pretty fun. He has learned that his bottle is not just for eating but is, apparently, a very cool toy. He took it by the nipple and started waving, shaking and throwing it around and got formula EVERYWHERE! And what did we do? I laughed hysterically while Matt got the camera. I am not sure how well the blog will show the image, but if you look close you can see he his new little teeth and the formula all over his head and the floor... We got a sequence of about 30 shots that are just hysterical. If you scroll through them really fast it looks almost like a movie. SO funny! I can't wait to finally sit down and design his baby album. He is just so dang cute... maybe I am a bit biased. :)

Leno

Matt and I are night-owls and Jay Leno is our favorite late-night talk show host. We hate commercials (doesn't everyone?) so we just record it and watch it later. Around midnight last night Kylan woke up. I tried to calm him but he just felt like being held so I brought him out to sit on the couch with us for a few minutes. Normally my son goes to bed without a hint of a tear. He is a wonderful sleeper and loves bed-time. Well, half way through Leno I tried to put him back to bed. He was NOT having it. So, he stayed with me on the couch until Leno was over and then went right to bed without any problems!

TEETH!!

Kylan is getting his front two bttom teeth! The one on his left has officially broken through his gums and the one on his right is working on it. I love pictures of kids with jusy a couple of teeth, I think it is so cute!

milestones

Kylan is now sitting up! Yey! He is also to the point where he is starting to hold his bottle. The only problem with that is now he plays with it instead of eating out of it. A lot of times he ends up chewing on the bottom of it and letting all the milk go out the end... He scoots a little - but only backward and only when he is really mad. He can also roll over. But again only does it by himself when he is mad or when I am trying to change his diaper. I had been nervous he wasn't where he was supposed to be, matt says I don't leave him on the floor enough. Now that he is sitting up he likes playing in the floor a lot more.

Ky was chewing on my phone tonight which was SO cute we couldn't resist breaking out the cameras. Well, I wanted more even lighting so I got out a soft box light. Matt wanted a prettier background than our carpet so he got out the backdrops. I wanted him in something cuter than his onesie, so I got him dressed... at 8:30 at night. Most good parents would be getting their baby ready for bed, while we were doing an impromptu photo shoot. I think it all worked out - Ky got to stay up late, we got his 7 month pictures done, and we all had a good time... until Kylan threw up all over the white backdrop and I blew a breaker because we were in the office and had too many things plugged in. 

Chewing

Kylan is now into chewing...

Here he is chewing on my old cell phone. After getting ahold of the one I use one too many times I finally got this one out for him to play with. Once I actually had to let my phone dry out before all the buttons would work. Hence the inspiration for getting out this phone for him to gnaw on. You have to admit, he is pretty cute though. 

Yes, this is my son chewing on a stick of butter. We were making cookies, once again, we do that a lot around here, and he was "helping" his daddy. Don't worry, he didn't get anything out of it. Thank heaven for wrappers!

The Next Chapter...

Since (technically) no one is reading this but me I thought I would write a few lines about what is going on in our personal life. If anyone is actually reading this blog, I hope you get a laugh out of my little rant. 

It looks like the time has finally come to finish school. In reality it is probably something we should have finished ages ago. I never dreamed our move to Las Vegas would bring about SO MUCH change. Matt just feels like we need to get it done, and I have to say that I agree.  We have talked about going back to school forever. That was the reason we moved back to Utah in the first place, but it just wasn't what we were supposed to do there I guess. We were SO busy with our photo stuff we barely had time to breathe let alone go to school on top of it... But being here.... Last night Matt couldn't sleep, so he found his transcripts, sent in his application to UNLV and started looking at admission and degree requirements. AND he is looking into GRAD SCHOOL. Which will make his graduation for his BS take 5 semesters instead of 3, plus the 2-4 years grad school will take. He feels like he needs to graduate in something that will help other people... My guess is something like Physical Therapy or something like that. He has done so much of it over the years with all of his knee surgeries. It is something he knows. He is brilliant, so I know that he really can do whatever he wants and be good at it. I guess I am just curious to see where it all goes. We still want to do photography, whatever happens. It is something we both love and we can do it together. 

I got my transcripts today and will have just over 80 credits by the end of the semester. I do miss being in a classroom, but I will be so glad to have it all done.  I honestly think this is the only way we could actually do school - both of us I mean - and finish. Here we will have SO many extra hands to help out with Ky. 

Ah well, I guess such is life. All we can do is take a picture to laugh at later. 

Puppies

We currently have 4 dachshund puppies that are almost 3 weeks old. They are so cute and a lot of fun. Since this will (hopefully) be our last litter we wanted to make sure to take a ton of pictures. (Shocker, I know.) My favorite of the bunch is silver with black spots. She is GORGEOUS. Kylan had her sitting on his lap. He thought that was pretty cool.