What's been goin on...

He did it to himself, I swear!!!

Well, a few weeks ago, we went to the Utah State Fair here in SLC. We had a lot of fun and fried food, and Zachy greatly enjoyed a blue slushy. We saw a GINORMOUS ox and a bunch of other livestock. Zach especially like the bunnies. He enjoyed playing on the display tractor and looking at the race cars as well, and somehow got Thad to buy him one of the ridiculous plastic cups with lemonade. A lot of fun was had by all.

Last weekend, Thad's brother Gabe and his family came up from Vegas to visit. We went on a little hike up in the moutains and were greeted with a rather significant amount of snow! The kids toughed it out though and had lots of fun. We came back and had a nap (it was so nice!) then had a picnic in the park with 3 of Thad's brothers and their families. We got to go to the Aviary as well, and Zach loved seeing the flamingos and owl.





Zachy was pretty pooped after all the fun

Summer time!

Long overdue...

So, apparently I'm not that great at updating when I'm not getting paid to do it :) Today is my second Friday of being in Grad school, and things are fantastic. Zachary has started at a new daycare, it is just down the hill from our apartment, about 50 yds from our front door. We walk down there every morning and then I hop on my bike and ride to school. My schedule is such that I get to pick Zachy up most days around 2:30, right after his nap, and we get to go play! I love that I can walk to the library, the zoo, and ride my bike to school. I never HAVE to drive if I don't want to, which is fantastic. We bought a season pass to the zoo because we live about 1/2 mile from it now. We have loved being able to go for just 30 min and see only a few animals.
Zachy is progressing on the potty training front. As soon as we tackle pooping in the toilet, we'll be good. He wears Batman unders most of the time, they're adorable.
He is always impressing me with the things he picks up. Last week, we went to a playground where there was a little girl that was sure Zach was infringing upon her territory. She was being a little bossy, and Zachy came running over to inform me that she was being grumpy. I was laughing to hard to agree, but she was. He also asks me why I push him all the time, stemming from the fact that I tell Thad he pushes me all the time.
He's becoming very away of his body and its many functions, I always cringe a little when proclomations of "I Faart" come from him, as well as, "Mama, I got a Booga!" in the middle of the grocery store.
We were able to go on a quick camping trip before school started. We went to Bear Lake where an adventurous group of skunks happened to be living about 4 feet from our tent. We weren't away of this little fact until after we had set up camp and were roasting marshmallows, but Thad determined that we would be fine. Neither Zachy nor I strayed too far from his side the whole time, just sure the skunks would attack us in some horrible way.

I will post pictures over the long weekend, Zachy is going to visit Gramma and Poppy and I getting ready for the next week of classes.

Finally!

I can't believe it's been almost a month! I'm so sorry! Time flies when you're having fun... I guess.
Well, this month we've gone through quite a whirlwind. Upon investigation of my housing options for school, it became clear that I needed to move into the student apartments right next to campus. The bonus of this being it's about an 8 minute walk to and from school/work. The major bonus is that in the middle of the complex is a daycare, one of the best daycares in the state actually. And if I live in the complex, I get a whopping $100 off a month. Along with cheap rent. So, being a poor student, that seems like the place to be. Pretty good set up, right? Yes, except it became clear to me that I needed to find someone to take over my lease ASAP and vacate. I placed adds, dealt with tons of weird people calling and not showing up, and then finding someone, moving my stuff into Mary's/Thad's/storage, and then living at Mary's house all in one week. It was intense. The good news is, my loans are set up and I'm registered for classes, our apartment number is all picked out, and Zachy has a spot in the new daycare. We move AGAIN at the end of the month. Thad has remarked that in the year we've been together, I will have lived in 4 different places. Not good.
Zachary is holding up remarkably well though. He has started his potty training and is enjoying the immense applause he gets every time he pees in the toilet. Along with the sugar free gum. The only ill affect I've noticed is a constant clinginess to Mommy, which is to be expected. My one goal in all this is to be as available to him as possible until we get through our second move. I know he will love living in the new complex, there is a huge playground in the middle of the complex. The poor kid won't know what to do with the vast expanse of lawn and slides available to him 24/7. Couple that with the pool at Thad's and we've got a really fun summer for a 2.5 year old planned!
This last weekend I took an extra day off work and we tried to go camping, but the weather had other ideas. We headed home and enjoyed playing with Zach's new flashlight and sleeping bag. For the fourth, we just had a bunch of friends over to Mary's and fired up the grill. We shot off some fireworks and Zachary enjoyed the noises and sparks, much to my surprise. We had a fantastic evening. Lately I've been finding myself floored with gratitude for everything I've been given. My fantastic and fairly easy going son, my amazing family, the best boyfriend in the world, and great friends. I look back at my life and realize that this is where I've always wanted to be, in this position with all these people to love and care for. I sometimes have to just stop and say a prayer of thanks and be in awe. So, a big thank you to all of my amazing friends and family whom I love and treasure. I think of you all often!
Here are pics from the fourth!

Fishing

Well, as the weather has gotten gorgeous here in Salt Lake, my desire to fish has grown immensely. I have been literally itching to catch some fish, and after a couple of unsuccessful endeavors, finally picked a local pond and loaded up Zachy. It was a pretty successful little trip, 2 rainbow trout. Unfortunately, after I got my first nibble on my lucky lure (it really is lucky!) I tried to set the hook and it came flying out and got stuck in my arm. Gross!!! Zachary was running around playing with rocks and sticks and power bait and not really concerned about the predicament I was in, so I knew he'd be no help... :) I proceeded to analyze the situation, and decided that since this WAS my lucky lure that had just gotten a nibble, I needed to do everything in my ability to save it. So ended up yanking the hook, barb and all, out of my arm with pliers. It took several really impressive pulls with all my strength to get it out, I was amazed at how tough skin is. Anyway, I got the hook out, and was able to finish up our fishing expedition with two fish which made a yummy dinner. Zach thought the fish were super cool, and he enjoyed himself immensely.

On Memorial Day weekend, we went up to Idaho to visit overnight and took Thad to see all that good old Mountain Home has to offer. It was a quick trip, but we had lots of fun and ice cream. Zach loves to wear my silly socks that Thad refers to as a "Seussian Nightmare" Zachary has even taken to wearing them to school on his bad days, they just make him feel better. All the little girls in his class are so jealous! Being the only boy, I guess he doesn't have anyone to make fun of him.

The Terrible Twos...

Well, I never really understood what people meant when they talked about the terrible twos. I mean, Zach has had has moments, but the other day, I became educated. When we got home from our long day of work/school, I decided to have a quick run before we went for our bike ride. When I got done, I was pretty sweaty and needed a shower. I should interject here that I may have gotten my nose pierced on Sunday and it has had kind of a tough time healing, but its much better now. At the time, it was bleeding. Zach thought it would be really cool to start flushing Q-tips down the toilet. Funny for a few minutes, but I put them away and thought that would be the end of it. During my shower, Zach came running in and told me something about a carrot. I, being a big dumb, said, "Ok, cool, Carrot..." in my usual questioning voice, sometimes I don't really know what he's talking about and just agree for simplicity's sake. Anyway, I get out of the shower and proceed to find him with a shovel in his hand, his shirt wet, and grinning, saying, "MMMMMM, water!" I shuddered inside, wondering where he found water to drink. Then it all hit me. I RAN into the other bathroom to find him drinking water out of the toilet!!!!! He had a huge self-satisfied grin on his face. Lucky for us, it was his bathroom, which, oddly enough, never gets used because he's not potty trained. Never thought I'd be grateful for that... Anyway, lodged in the toilet was one of his plastic onions. GRRRRRR. I shuffled him out of the bathroom, all the while saying, "I can't believe you did that..." and spend a good 15 minutes trying to dislodge the onion from the toilet, but to no avail. I gave up, and was walking out to the living room, and much to my chagrin, there he was, with a tube of lotion in his hand spreading it all over the carpet, Baby Dumbo, and my camping stuff. Double GRRRRRR! Man, I was pretty upset. Little guy had to go to his room and play for a few minutes while I cooled off, poor Thad called right about then and got an earful. He promptly came over the took the onion out of the toilet and took us for a bike ride to see the horses. It made everyone feel much better, so yet again, Thad is my hero and has saved the day.
I just had to share this story, I am still a little bit in awe at the destructive nature of young children...

Hiking and Biking

Before you get incensed with me for not making him wear the helmet...
Note the helmet NEXT to him. He absolutely REFUSES to wear it, and usually takes it off when I strap it to his head. I decided that since he finally quit getting upset about the trailer, I need to just lay off for a while. We only stay on paved greenbelts with the trailer anyway, no cars around. No tricycles or scooters for him without a helmet though!!!

So, as I said earlier, we've been doing a lot of outside activities. Most notably, tons of biking, but we have gone hiking a time or two. Zach LOVES to throw rocks into the water, and he's recently decided he likes big rocks the best, for understandable reasons. He found a giant rock at the bottom of one of the hills we like to hike and decided that he needed to haul it to the top to throw it in the puddle left from the rain. The whole way he kept panting, tripping, and having a lot of trouble. But, he wouldn't let me carry it and he kept saying, "Almost there mama, we can do it..." Little trooper made it the whole way and had a fantastic time seeing the splash. Totally worth it! He is my hero.

I feel like this picture should become one of those inspiration posters about determination or something.

The one about Grad School...

Well folks, the time has come! I have forgotten my camera, yet again, so this blog is without pictures, but they aren't really necessary. As of late, Zach and I have become "tread heads" and gone biking almost every day. He climbs in his trailer, and as long as there some sort of fruit snacks or my water bottle, he's mostly happy. I'll post more pictures later.

Anyway, Drum roll please! I applied to a Genetic Counseling program at the University of Utah. I actually got an interview, which I was pretty sure would be the end of my journey, try again next year. BUT, I got a call on April 29th and was offered a position in the program! I was dumbfounded and I stumbled out a few sentence fragments and said, "Can I call you back, I have to call my mom?!" My mom really liked that. But, anyway, once I gathered my wits about me, I called back and accepted the position, and now I'm headed off to grad school. I'm really excited, its taken almost 2 years for me to come to this point, with different ideas and job offers along the way, but I'm really happy and very ready for this next adventure. If any of you wonder what in the world a Genetic Counselor does, the link to the program is:

http://medicine.utah.edu/genetics/geneticcounseling/about.htm
So, now you know. We'll have yet another move, another daycare switch, and a myriad of other life changes. Things will be very interesting over the next year. My last day of work is August 14th, my goal is to have Zachy potty trained by the time school starts. As of right now, that seems like shooting for the moon, but we'll keep working on it.
I will post some more pictures soon.

Just a little warning...

So I started Zachy on some children's Claritin under the advisement of his pediatrician to help combat his allergies, (Utah has some pretty fierce allergens...) I'm not sure how much they helped, he caught a cold about a week after we started using it, so he's had a runny nose no matter what. Additionally, he's had some really rough nights where he'll wake up in the middle of the night just crying like crazy, or he'll be laying face down on the floor crying, or he'll wake up and won't go back to sleep for hours. I was giving him his dose before bed, thinking it would have time to go through his system and have him prepared for the next day. He's never really had problems like that before, so I couldn't help but think it had something to do with the Claritin. I did some research and actually found a lot of parents saying very similar things and that Claritin caused their kids to act out and have strange behavior, even nightmares. I stopped giving it to him a few days ago and things are completely normal, he goes right to sleep and doesn't cry at all. I might try to give it to him in the morning or half the dosage or something, but just an FYI for everyone.

At the zoo

This past weekend we went to the Hogle Zoo. It's actually a pretty cool zoo, and we took Uncle Ya-Ya with us. We even got to ride on the train, but my camera battery died, so we didn't get photographic evidence. We still had tons of fun.


Zachy showing me the baby geese.



Zachy after I told him to look at me. This is how he usually looks at his mom, it's awesome.




The baby geese. Goslings, if you will.

Dum(p) (Tr)uck...

Zachy loves trucks of all shapes and sizes, unfortunately, sometimes his pronunciation is a little bit off. This is something that we are constantly trying to rectify, but in the meantime, it's really funny. I had to take video of it to ensure that he will be embarassed by this when he is a teenager.

Jump Like Tigger!

Zach always asks me if he can jump like Tigger on my bed.

Britney!

Britney in a picture frame, one of the more revealing outfits of the evening...



Michelle and I, giddy with anticipation...


That's right folks, I got to go to the Britney Spears concert last night! I kind of can't believe it myself, but my amazing friend Michelle got tickets for her birthday and was sweet enough to ask me to go! It was actually tons and tons of fun, if a little scandalous... ;)



I have been listening to her newest CD "Circus" for the past 2 months in preparation for this concert, and I have to say, I wasn't disappointed. It really was like a circus, they had a lot of really talented acrobats and stuff, so it was really cool to watch. An excellent show, even if there were a few PG-13 moments...

Easter!

Easter was lots of fun. Zach woke up and went out to the living room to find his Easter basket overflowing and candy all over the coffee table. He also went on an egg hunt first thing in the morning, and I whipped up some yummy waffles for breakfast. Zachary was running a fever of 101.7 in the middle of the night, so we decided to forgo the church portion of Easter Sunday, opting instead to stay home, eat candy, and watch 101 Dalmations. Later, we went and saw Tio and Tia for a few minutes, then over to Thad's for dinner with some friends and another egg hunt. Zachary really enjoyed the hunt, but wasn't feeling super well most of the day, his fever picked up again in the afternoon and he had a hard time taking his nap. He went to school on Monday, but I kept him home yesterday, hoping that an extra day of sleep and watching Spiderman might help speed up the healing process. So far, he hasn't had a fever and just has a little cough and runny nose, so I think we're mostly in the clear. Here are some pictures of Easter morning, it made me so so so excited for Christmas morning!

I always manage to get some other side of him beside his face...

Maya got Noah's Ark eggs, they are in the shapes of animal heads, they're really cool!

Thad helped Zach open up the eggs and inspect the candy...

The Aquarium, and stuff...

Maya and Zachy at the aquarium



Zachy climbing through the "tunnels"


Zachy driving the speedboat



Thad and Zachy looking at the fishies, Maya making sure he doesn't fall in...


Zachy showing me the fish


Zachy and Maya on a walk



Sledding!



He likes to put stickers on his face...


Thad and Zachy touching the rays



Lots of Fish!!!


So Maya came down for a day or two to visit with us and take Zach back up to Idaho so I could work a whole weekend. It was tiring, and I missed my baby TONs, but he's back now and things have calmed down and we're mostly back on schedule. We went to the aquarium and loved looking at all the fish. Zachy didn't really like the frog exhibit and declared that, "Frog is scary..." We're going to a frog exhibit at the Natural History Museum this weekend, so hopefully he can get over his fear. He has also decided that crabs and all bugs are scary as well. Poor little guy!
Other new: My amazing friend Michelle got Britney Spears tickets, so we're going! The concert is Tuesday, I'll be sure to post pictures!!!