It's a......................................................

Today we found out that we are having a..........................................





Yep, number two will be here in September. He is growing well and everything from the ultrasound was fine. Jami is half way there and counting down.

We are both excited to have another kid, as long as he is as good as Evalyn.  I am sure that he will be fine. We have been working on the house and the sink just arrived, but the counter-tops are still on there way. We bought a couple of apple trees and are preparing the garden for the upcoming season. Everything is really starting to get green and I am glad that we are here earlier so that we can keep on top of the work that needs to be done out side.   We took a quick trip to Utah to visit Jami's family and went to general conference.  we will check back in soon.............until then.....

Baby #2 is On the Way!!

And, no, I'm not very far along. It's a little out of the ordinary, isn't it? Telling everyone you're pregnant when you're weeks into it? Different, yes. But, I feel like we've got some good reasons why we're doing it. I recognize that doing it this way isn't for everyone, and I'm sure everyone has their reasons to wait. But, for our story, it makes sense.

Reason #1: We're happy about it, and it's convenient
Sure, maybe not all happy surprises need to be shared immediately. But for this, I really don't see the need to downplay my feelings just to keep the truth hidden. Because, it's almost like people can sense it. When I was pregnant with Evalyn I had people asking me at work when I was going to get pregnant, after I already knew, but before I had told anyone.  This time, I had two family members ask me when the next one was coming within one day of me having that positive pregnancy test. And then, there was that phone conversation when she asked how I was feeling, and when I said, "fine," she said, "Are you sure? I don't think you're telling me the truth." To be honest, don't think I could pretend like there really wasn't a baby growing inside me for three months. So, for me, it's much more convenient to tell people I'm pregnant rather than avoiding questions, or downplaying the fact that my world has completely changed for 2-3 months.

Reason #2: I believe Life Begins at Conception
I haven't always had this idea backing my inclination to announce my pregnancies "early." In fact, it wasn't until I read an article similar to this one that this was even on my radar. But, when I read it, it made complete sense to me. I believe that life begins at conception, and so whether a person is 5 weeks along in pregnancy, or 99 years old, he/she is still a life that has value. I feel like many people wait until after the first trimester to announce pregnancy because that is when most miscarriages happen. But, if that baby is a person--a precious life--shouldn't people know about that loss? It's an important/devastating one, and no one should have to go through that alone. For me, I don't think it would make that loss any easier if I hadn't told anyone I was pregnant. I feel like anyone who has experienced loss needs support from people around him/her.

I think that recent political happenings have lit a fire under the abortion debate, again, too. I choose to announce this pregnancy earlier than the "standard" because (for me) it's hard to say I'm pro-life when I don't openly acknowledge the existence of a baby until I'm 12-13 weeks pregnant.

Reason #3: I'm ignorant
I, personally, have never experienced miscarriage, so I realize that I may be saying all these things without knowing the other side of it. Maybe it is easier to grieve with a select few people, rather than having to tell everyone you've already told you're pregnant, that you have now lost the baby. Maybe that would be another heartache all on its own.

I'm sure there are many reasons people wait until after the first trimester to announce pregnancy, and I'm sure I don't understand many of those people's circumstances. But, for us, we feel like it makes sense to announce it now. That, whether we announce it now, or go through some stressful secret-keeping weeks and announce it later, our baby will still be our baby. No amount of time or circumstances would change that.

Fall 2016

Fall is here and we are trying to prepare for winter. We made some salsa and I have 2 exterior doors prepped and hopefully can get the hung soon. It seems like we never get as much done with trying to take care of Evalyn, but that is what is most important so I guess some things get put off.

I had jury duty this last week and come to find out that is was a case that Jami was working with so I got dismissed. We have been busy working and trying to fulfill our callings.

Evalyn is growing fast as she is getting both of her lower first molars and she loves to copy and try to say everything we do.  She is getting to be a little more squirmy at church and it makes it harder for others to watch her for us till the sacrament. She loves coming outside with me to mow the lawn and run around while I work. She knows the words let it go and is memorized by the youtube video.

These two pictures are of some reaction that Evalyn had but she was over it in 24 hours.

Catching up and Out to Utah

Life has been crazy! We bought a house in Lincoln, NE and have been working to fix if up.
This is a picture of when we bought it.

Evalyn getting into the cereal in our pantry and getting caught!

We went to the zoo and Evalyn loved looking in the tunnel aquarium. 

We went to Utah and went on a hike with family.

Evalyn loves the water and she just wanted to stand and pick up rocks and through them into the water.

THe Jackson grandparents and us.

Evalyn playing with cousin Abby while we were out in Utah.

We went to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Pioneer Day concert which was fun and the King Singers were there from the U.K.

At Thanksgiving Point, Evalyn  rode a pony and loved. She did not really want to get off at the end. We saw lots of other animals which she loved.

This is a park by our house that we walk to where Evalyn can swing which she has loved to do .

Evalyn loves the zoo. We watched them feed the bears and went to the aquarium where she loved pointing at fish and watching the penguins play and swim.

1 Year Old!!

First off, I can't believe this little girl has been with us for a year. In some ways, it has flown by. In other ways, it feels like she has always been a part of our family.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to celebrate in a way she deserves. Will she remember it? No. But, she has definitely grown and learned a lot in the past 12 months, and that is absolutely worthy of a big celebration! June has by far been the craziest month of the year for us, so her birthday kind of took the back seat.

Justin has been working hard on getting things ready in our house so we can move. I've helped when I can with work, but it definitely was not as much as I would have liked. We definitely appreciate all the help we've gotten from family during the past month.

We also got to take a quick trip to Nauvoo to celebrate Jordan's and Aubrey's wedding. Minus me hitting a raccoon and breaking the A/C in our car...it was a nice trip :)  Staci was kind enough to take some year pictures of Evalyn for us.

Evalyn was definitely a trooper. She still managed to give some smiles even though she had been outside in the 100-degree weather all day, without a nap.  I like this one because this is actually the face we get to see most of the time. She thinks most everything is funny, and she tries to get us to laugh at her.

We found out at Evalyn's year wellness check that she is still in the 90th-percentile for height. She's got proud parents about that. She is 80th-percentile for weight. I was surprised, because I think she is pretty solid and thought it would be more. Justin thinks she is slacking :)  She seems to be able to eat non-stop. But, she still hates being fed by utensils (unless she can do it herself). 

The weekend after her birthday, we did a cake smash. Since we're in the process of moving and didn't really even have a place to invite people over for cake, we just did a private photo shoot :) We took a break from working on the house for a few minutes to capture the moment.

Evalyn enjoyed her cake, but has had too much practice eating with her hands, so she kept herself pretty clean.

And, I forgot to take the cake out of the fridge earlier. It was cold and not very "smash" friendly.

Since we were working on the house all that day, Evalyn got to open her presents the next day (talk about an extended birthday).  She got a book...she will always get a book...

...and a baby. She LOVES babies right now.

Again, I can't believe how much this girl has grown over the past year. I'm savoring every moment, moving between being excited for the next stage and what she will learn next, and lamenting that fact that she is no longer my baby. I was holding her tonight just wondering to myself how much longer she's going to fit into my arms, and for a brief moment I just wanted her to stay little forever.  Yes, more babies will come (hopefully), but SHE will never be a baby again. And I miss it already.

Videos of Evalyn

Evayln turned 11 months this past week and she is learning fast. She took a couple fo steps on different occasions just before she turned 11 months. She is not walking yet ut steps here and there it won't take long.

These are some videos that we took that we forgot to post.

Evalyn learning to play the piano

Evalyn when she first learned to clap. She stayed up past her bed time.

Evayln playing with the door stop

The Improper Use of Time

Some may wonder why the title of this is listed this way but at 4 a.m. I have been thinking that this should have been done weeks ago as you can see that our last post was 6 weeks ago.  There may be many things going on in life but not all of them are important. Looking back on the past can be important and be a guide for the future or keep us from doing the some things that we have done before that are not important.  Jami and I have been been busy the last little while with family, callings, work............. but some things have been a little out of balance for me such as journaling and writing on the blog. Working nights as Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital has been going well and I am learning many things. There are many things that can go wrong or keep you on your feet but I think that I have been managing it pretty well so far.

Evalyn has been going and leaning so many things. Thankfully I have kept some notes as the weeks have went by and tried to write what she has been learning and doing. Evalyn loves to pull herself up using our pant legs and try to walk with us. She laughs when we fake laugh with a little fake laugh. She is walking holding on to just one hand of ours. She is willing to eat anything off our plate if we let her(definitely better than off her plate).  She hits a button on the TV remote and then looks at the TV to see if it has done anything. She is loving opening up cabinet doors and taking stuff out as fast as she can. She has learned to say mama, and she has learned to wave bye-bye.

We went to her 9 month appointment and she was 29 inches tall and 19.6 lbs. So we had to upgrade to a new car seat. She has learned to clap and if you say Yeah Evalyn she starts to clap. One night for Jami she would clap crawl to another area sit up and clap again and did this for over a half hour. She is learning to point at things, and she is standing in place on her own. She will hand you things that she picks up if you ask her for it right away.  Something that she has leaned from Justin is that she will stick out her tongue at me and wants me to stick out my tongue.  She has a 3rd tooth coming in. Evalyn leaned several months ago how to turn a light switch off but she has finally learned ho to turn it off and back on again and again and again.  She is starting to wave at people and being a little social like smiling but she still mostly people watches.  She loves to be in the bathroom and she learned how to flush the toilet and love to pull on the handle and not let it fill back up.  Evalyn is starting to get pick about her food choices when she wants to but that has mostly to do with vegetables because she loves fruit and inhales it.  So I trick her and offer her a piece of fruit and then feed her some veggies. These are just a few of the memorable things that we have remembered and noticed.  She is definitely learning and growing up fast. She has been such an awesome baby that she has made parenting to enjoyable and a good learning experience (hopefully we can say this in a few more).

As far as Jami and I have been, we are both working full time and taking care of Evalyn.  Some days have been long for me after getting of in the morning  and then taking care of Evalyn all day but we are managing.  We got pre-approved for a loan for over 200k and so we thought that we could build if we did not find anything reasonable that we were looking for. This may be old news for many but we put an offer in on a third house and it was accepted.  We countered back and forth until we accepted what we thought wold be okay. The whole house looking process has been more stress than I ever wanted but I think that we will survive.  We close on May 27th and have a lot of work to do on the place but over time it will get there.

Jami got her hours completed and was notified this last week that she has her independent license.

These two pictures are of Evalyn at 9 months old.

This picture is of Evalyn when she hit her lip on the dishwasher door.

Floor plan of the upper part of the house

Evalyn loves to swing and is her staring off before starting.

And, another one of her swinging.

Evalyn was introduced to her future favorite sport by Mom. They were watching the Men's Volleyball MSPF Championship. BYU is off to the national championship this weekend!

Pictures of Lot, front and back of the house we are buying