The CARRS

We have moved!!!

2011-07-25T01:13:00.002-04:00

Our new address: http://thestoryoflojo.wordpress.com

I just updated with new pics....but thats about it as of right now

oh, so we have officially moved our home as well. But our blog has moved also, I was tired of the limitations of Blogger/blogspot, havnt you ever noticed how long it takes to put pictures on here? well I like to put several pictures on at once and was getting iritated with wasting 2 hours to just update my blog with pictures, I so I discovered Wordpress.com, same thing as blogspot, its free, only it lets you upload pics 100 at a time or more for that matter and it does it in minutes, I am still learning how to use it so no glorious blog for my visitors but so far I like it WAY better. Infact I am researching about websites in general so who knows perhaps in a month or so we might move again, only this time I will build my own website.

so here is the new address:

http://thestoryoflojo.wordpress.com

Tidbits of Easter, Birthday and Projects

2011-06-13T16:54:00.035-04:00

Well I have had quite a go at trying to get these pictures up here. How annoying. But alas I have succeeded with most of them. I don't have time to properly update and have figured out how many times I take pictures with some other camera than mine. I remember taking pictures throughout Kyrens 2nd birthday but it obviously wasnt on mine becuase I only have pictures of us at the park. Which is bummer cuz there were some good ones, hopefully I will find them. So we threw a Megamind birthday party for Kyrens 2nd birthday. We decorated the house in blue, made a blue round megamind head cake, wrapped his presents in blue and as you can see made a megamind lookalike PINATA. It was way cool, only we had to really convince Kyren that it was okay to hit it, he was kinda scared of it. Then theres more pics of working on our table, easter...we went down to the chatmans for easter along with eldon and kimi. Kyren caught onto picking up the eggs real fast and ran around getting them and putting them in my basket. Then he would empty the basket and go find them again. :) It was really cute. And then there is Jordan out in the pouring rain on the tractor, he loved using that thing, I didn't see him for 3 days as soon as the sun was up he was out there "playing" in the field tearing down trees and blackberry bushes and you can kind of see part of the fence he built with my dad....more pics on that later.

baby goats

2011-04-18T02:12:00.001-04:00

we got to let them out of their pen for the first time. they seemed to enjoy it.

our table

2011-04-18T00:32:00.000-04:00

our table is done!

2011-04-15T13:30:00.001-04:00

our table is finally done and useable. It was really fun to have everyone eat around it on saturday for Donna's Birthday.

Our New life in WA

2011-03-20T04:06:00.019-04:00

Boo!! Its been awhile, I feel like life has been in the fast lane, even tho its technically in the slow lane right now. Well you know how it goes, with two little kids, over ambitousness towards projects and finding ourselves surrounded with family has kept us very busy. But here is a very short summary of our life in the last 3 months. We now live in Salkum Wa, and LOVE being with family. This is chelsea pushing Kyren in his yellow dump truck that he got for christmas, he loves pushing this around the house, his favorite is to ram it into other toys and say "Oh no...Crasssh"

This is Kyren interupting Chelsea and Sasha's game of California Speed, they would have Kyren count to ten and then say "GO" and then he would jump in and scatter their pile, he saw them throwing their hands around like psychos and slamming piles, so he wanted to do the same.

Parry is 7 1/2 months, I just took this picture yesturday

He got up onto his knees and starting rocking, he actually did this for the first time in Utah during Laura's homecoming at 6 months

Grandma has SWINGS in her house!! how cool is that? Since this picture we got a bucket seat like at the city parks for Parry that swings right next to the one Kyren is on. This was his first time on a "big boy" swing. He did great, and has only fallen off once since.

It has been a pretty cold winter, especially for WA, and it SNOWED, not only that but it stuck! We had snow coverage for about a week straight. Kyren didn't like snow over thanksgiving but this time he loved it, he really liked being able to see his footsteps behind him.

I taught him you could eat the snow and no that is all he wants to do when hes in it. He says "more?...More?"

Kyren lovcs to push Parry around the kitchen in this thing, it is sooo fun to see them "play" together, Parry of course loves it when Kyren gives him any positive attention.

He started sitting up by himself at the beginning of 6 months, don't you just love that spiky hair, we all think he looks completely different when he has his flat.

This is my older sister Mandi with Parry, during one the many visits at her house.

This is my niece (the only one on the Parry side) and she is whole YEAR older than Parry but they are the same size, and actually his head and hands are bigger than hers.

alright so this is Kyrens smile, he looks like hes about to burst a blood vessel when he does it, tensing completely up. This pic kinda gives him a MegaMind head, which he actually doesnt have.

So Yes this is Kyren in a dress, I bought this adorable skirt and tights for Jordans neice for her birthday and since they were about the same size I just couldnt resist trying it on Kyren, it was sooo cute. Jordan was mortified. I think I need a girl.

Jordan took me salsa dancing, they had an hour lesson before and then all night of dancing, it was our first time leaving Parry at home. Since I never posted any Christmas pics, this pic does NO justice to the majesty of this tree, it was HUGE, by far the largest christmas tree we have ever had, its 9 ft tall and like 7 feet side to side. We actually got two christmas trees this year, cuz we got them for free from an old man who used to grow them and sell them but just wanted to get rid of them this year. I have now been sold on have two and will always have two....as long as we can afford them. cant beat free. We did this one red and gold and the one upstairs was blue and silver. They were Gorgeous, that is my favorite part of christmas, decorations and trees! Sadly I didnt get to wake up to this beautiful tree on Christmas morning, but it was worth having it before we left. This was sooo cute, I came in to Jordan working on his anatomy coloring book and Kyren begging to color with him, so he got to color on his CARRS coloring book. Jordan and I built these shelves in my parents garage....mostly Jordan but I would go out and help when the kids were sleeping. It has made a world of difference for that garage. Building shelves is really fun actually and very rewarding. I love making chaos orderly.

I am sure Maura will not appreciate this pic BUT its the only one I took apparently, while we were in Utah visiting Jordans family over christmas we got to spend New Years eve with Maura and her sister. It was really fun, Jordan went sledding behind their jeep on the icy neighborhood roads. And then at midnight we went to the church parking lot and let off roman candle fireworks. It was soo fun to see Maura and Ben and little Merilee. Kyren and Merilee are destined for each other!:)

Kyren fell asleep after like 15 min in the car. so cute. My mom, chelsea, and Parry hangin out at my parents house (ie...our house for now) Once again, I couldnt resist dressing Parry up with this cute christmas present bow, I cant wait till I have a girl, she's gonna be bling. Grandpa Parry (Kyrens favorite buddy) reading Kyren a story, Kyren LOVES books, currently he really likes his CAR (movie) books and Clifford. Anything with action. Hes finally to the point where he will tell you whats happening on the pages. I was so excited, on our drive back down to Utah in february for Laura's homecoming I was able to stop at the SLC airport during her lay over and see Katie before she went off to Africa (Nigeria) for the next couple of years. And I got to see and hold her new baby Monson, I miss being able to call Katie.

Seattle Space needle Chelsea had her 19th birthday February 10th, it was really fun to be around for it, so my mom and I surprised her by taking her to the seattle Ballet featuring Cinderella, it was all of our first time going to a real 100% Ballet. I LOVED IT, so did they but I have decided I really like Ballet's I like how there is no singing. but I have always loved dance so not much surprise there. During our second trip, coming back from Utah we stopped and stayed and my Sister Mandi's house for 3 days. During our trip Jordan got to help build them some shelves in their Garage that Mandi had been wanting for awhile. Can you tell that he loves to build shelves? Jordan bottom, my brother in law Ryan on the top Celebrating our 4 year anniversary (Nov 25th) and valentines day around feb 20th, we were moving and doing thanksgiving for our anniversary and were traveling from utah over valentines so didnt have time before then. BUT we had sooo much fun. Jordan took me out to a really fancy seafood restaurant in olympia, afterwards we went country dancing all night and then returned to a hotel....our first time "getting a hotel"...and without kids :) It was a blast and I loved dancing again!!! I have such a stud for a husband. Oh and we both actually really liked teh seafood, we got a combo plate which let us taste a little bit of everything, we had never had most of it. I also got a blackened salmon that was to die for. So this is our new BABY!! We are sooo excited, its our new Dining room table. Were making the whole thing ourselves. We have not had a real table since we left pittsburgh, in California we used one of our folding tables with folding chairs waiting the day we would have time to make our own perfect table. Jordan's parents bought a new table a couple of years ago and we have copied it, all except for the legs....I designed those myself. I am so proud of them,so far they have come out awesome. Its a square table that has "leafs" that flip up to make it round. When their down it seats comfortably 4, easily 8 and when flipped up 10-12 ppl. So this is me sanding down the legs after routering them. It was our first time playing with a router, we just taught ourselves, before this project I really didnt even know what one looked like. Their easy enough and really really fun to play with. One leg of the table after rough sanding and on to fine hand sanding one table leg stained Red Mahogany these are the wings of the table that fold out from underneach on each side of the table, before sanding.... So I HAVE FINALLY FOUND IT!!! I have been searching, not that dedicated I might add, on and off for the last 4 years for a perfect whole wheat bread recipe, well my friends, I have finally found it, at last. Actually I was introduced to it, by my sister Mandi who makes it every week. It is marvelous and so soft, fluffy but stiff at the same time and doesnt crumble. Its also really easy to make and so we no longer buy store bread and I have been making this one, Kyren loves it. Our next obsession is Green! we invested in a Blend tec Blender (the one you see at Costco that can blend up a hammer head!) Yeah you can literally put a hocky stick in it and it will grind it to dust. The things a beast and its perfect. WE LOVE IT!! best buy we have probably ever made. It has revolutionized our eating habits. We now get 5-10 servings of vegetables a day and 5-10 servings of fruit, in the complete raw form. We got all our recipies from www.greensmoothiegirl.com and their awesome. Great usage of our blender. that is what this beautiful pic of a green jar is, a smoothie I created called the "Blind Date" and yesturday I just invented and mastered a new one, the "Cacaoholic" Its good, my whole family like it and it has 5 servings of veggies including, spinach, kale, chard and collard greens (5 servings in a jar). and its great cuz now Kyren gets his vegetables every day. I will post the recipes on here later incase yall want to try them. The rough draft of our table, It will be veneered Mahogany (thats actually already done but I forgot to take a pic) and stained a very dark red mahogany and covered with Mirror Coat. (the stuff that covers a bar counter) This is how the legs are attached to the table, they are removable so it will be easier to transport the table when we move. all you do is undo that large bolt and thats it. Jordans doing. My beautiful LEGS! Oh I love them, their awesome! This is what we do with our kids when were working on the table, right not the table is in an unfinished room upstairs in my parents house, so they can play around in the living room while we work. We got the new bucket seat as you can see Kyren in, HE LOVES THIS SWING.....he wakes up in the morning and the first thing he says (even before hes out of his crib) "bucket.....bucket please.....bucket swing....please momma" you will also notice the board on he floor, that is where I am cutting out the fabric for our new quilt. Yet another project that I am working on. More on that later tho. Its gonna be sweet.

Oh yeah and this is the finished garage, after building it jordan sanded the entire garage, sealing and all, and we painted it. Jordan also framed the windows, and I caulked them.

Ta-Da, thats our life folks, well not all of it, but the high lights.

Who ya Gonna Call?

2010-10-29T01:45:00.003-04:00

DR. CARR!!!!??? Jordan, thats who.

It actually happened, after WAY TOO much money and time invested in applying to medical schools, Jordan was ACCEPTED to his number one choice school of Medicine.

We are soooo excited!!! We have been waiting and dreaming of the day we were finally accepted and now its here. And even better is that it is exactly the school he wants to go to. After interviewing there he fell in love with the school and knew that was where he wanted to go. And he is sooo pumped to be studying the body in great detail, he loves anatomy and that is also my favorite subject of all time, and I am looking forward to learning what he learns, we plan on studying together as much as possible. Out of all the careers we have looked into and all the jobs he has done being a Doctor has always been his number one goal, he has always wanted the skills to help people when they are physically ill, and even more the ability to help his family and has always hated depending on other Doctors to diagnose/help his family. And if any of you really know Jordan you will also know that he is a "prepare for the end of the world" addict and has always had the goal of being completely self reliant, and that includes being a Doctor. Its soooo exciting to actually be accomplishing your number one choice path, instead of number 2. Hooray!!

So the school........is
Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences, located in.........drum roll..........the next place of habitation on the Carrs journey all over the country :)..........our future home for the next 4 years*.............yes yes, you didnt guess it, good ol (and ugly) YAKIMA WA. I am so excited that its in WA, but it is quite the bummer that its on the ugly side, altho it is very close to the pretty side. BUT it is only 2 hours from my (loni's) family. YAY And my sister lives in Boise which is only 6 hours away and we will be only 13 hours from Jordans family,which is the same as we are right now and is definately close enough to drive!! HURRAY!! Its a very small school, infact it only has 2 buildings and the class size is 75. Jordan starts september of 2011, so one year away. We probably wont move until next august, late july. Until then its ENJOY paradise.

We still can't believe it, it seems so unreal. I have gotten so used to waiting to hear from the schools that feel like we still have work to do regarding applications. In fact we are still recieved secondary applications from other schools and its SOO nice to be able to throw them away and not waste another dime, or spend the time writing essays.

But the greatest part of all, is.....thats it. We feel like this has been the last great unknown, the last choice, the last curtain over the future. Its been lifted and we can now see which direction we are headed in. When your 15 you wonder what its like to be 16, when your 17 you wonder about graduating high school and how you cant wait......and what the future will hold for you, then you wait some more and speculate about what colleges you are going to be accepted to, where you want to go and what you want to do. Then freshmen year of college you wonder what major would be best for your future. You wonder about whether you will go on a mission (at least I did) and for boys you wonder about where you will be sent on your mission. Then you wonder when you will get married and to whom, and how you will meet them.......wonder wonder wonder.....and then its still I wonder what we should do with our lives, what career? what path? What area? What jobs are out there? Which career would allow me to stay home and still have security? Will I as the wife be able to stay home with the kids? Always I wonder what the future will hold?!

So whereas the question is never completely answered, I at least will always be asking and obssessing about the future, we both feel that this is like right after our engagement when we realized that the question of WHO?, was actually answered and we knew who we would be spending all of eternity with, the wondering was over. Well thats how we feel right now, the wondering is over. Sure theres more questions to be answered, what area of medicine, what residency, where to live, own a practice?, etc, but it is no longer a great big IF, the big fat door of medicine has relinquished and swung wide open, and we are free to walk through.

We have been doing much studying, talking and praying, along with trips to the temple to decide if we should indeed walk through that huge gate....and luckily and thankfully we both have decided and agree to "marry" medicine. And unlike when we were married to each other blissfully, this "marriage" to medicine is much more of a Selfish partner and not always the easiest partner to live with. But its right for us. So here we go....

Subject to change, Jordan would like to go in family medicine, or PCP, something where he can open his own practice in a small town....he calls it the "village doctor". It has more flexible hours, especially if he joins or creates a shared practice where he only has to work half the week, and it has less exposure to crap, as in the atmosphere he would be working in all day. Albeit family medicine is rather boring as compared to surgery.

For those unfamiliar witht the process of becoming a dr: so just like any path farther than graduate degrees you have to take a standerdized test called the MCAT, its all chemistry, physics, math, biology, an essay section, and a reading section. It officially has 3 section and then the writing portion. It takes about 4 hours to complete and costs around 200 to take. It scores from 0-38 plus a letter of the alphabet for the writing. A score of 22 is considered pretty low, you would have to have a sweet GPA to get into a school with that score, and a score of 34 and up is considered "genius status", a ten in each section (so a 30 )is basically a gauruntee into any school as far as the MCAT goes. Jordan scored a 10, 10, 9, Q, so a 29Q. We were of course pretty downed that we didnt hit the 30 bench mark but it is still considered to be a very good score, the average score is 25.

Medical school is all about waiting, and Loni is never about waiting. It was close to murder to make me wait for all the slow secretaries out there to get results and answers back. Once you take the test it takes about 2 months for the scores to be released. Then once you have gotten 4 or more letters of recommendation and shadowed several doctors and recieved there letters of recommendation you send your scores, GPA, MCAT and letters to your schools board for review and their cumulative letter or status of recommendation to any schools reviewing your application and that of course costs 200. Once they recieve that you have to fill out all your info: transcripts, essays, service hours and logs, personal info, personal essay, professional resume etc onto a medical school internet Portal, called the ACOMAS. Once that is done, which usually takes about a month you get your results back from the board and then pay An ABSURD amount of money to apply.....the first year we spend about 4,000 to apply to about 14 schools. ( and now that is all over we have spent around 6,000 total!! eek) And this is not mentioning all the head ache dealing with tons of unqualified secretaries to do their job which caused me soooo much stress! and of course add into that mix, school, graduating, pregnancy, first baby, moving, new job, now place amongst all this essay writing.

THEN about 3 months later, cuz you have to wait for Acomas to get and process all your transcipts, the schools send out letters for Secondary applications. Which means you passed the first screen of just number qualifications. then you have to fill out all the SAME information as the first ones, lame, and write about 5 essays per school. So times 14 thats 70 questions!!! And of course pay the schools more money, each seconday costs about 60 dollars. Infact the school he was accepted to we almost didnt apply to because the secondary fee was 175!!!! so thats another 1200 down the hole. then you wait wait wait....................

And about 4 months later hear back and are invited for an Interview, so you spend more money on plane tickets and rental cars and places to stay. Money money money...... At the interview you get a tour of the school, some students talk to you, Jordan even got to spend the night the night before with a student family (who happened to be LDS) and then the interview is a series of questions about current events, theoretical scenarios, what if questions, medical related questions and general test of character, it lasts about an hour. After the interview luckily you only have to wait 1-2 weeks for the results of the interview. However on our first year applying to this school, PNWU, they lost some info and so were not invited to interview till later in the year and so were put on the waiting list......more waiting and loni is almost out of hair!!!

So then we talked to the admissions lady, who also interviewed Jordan, and she told us we were basically garunteed admittance based on his qualifications and interview results, if we just applied next year but super early (in june) so that we could be in the first interview group of the year (in october) and come the next year sept of 2011. Afraid to bank completely on that but also unwilling to accept any other school instead, we applied to 6 schools this year (more waste of money) just incase we didnt get in to PNWU and could accept somewhere else. After interviewing at PNWU Jordan liked that school alot and felt like that was the place to go. So he had his 2nd interview at PNWU oct 8th, the friday before PArry was blessed, and we found out our results the 13th. In fact Leann Hunter (the lady I mentioned) personally called him to tell him the good news, she was quite excited to deliver on her promise, and SO WERE WE!!

So we got a call saying WE WERE ACCEPTED. And of course were soooo excited and relieved that the hunting was done!

Oh and med school works like this: 2 years of class/book learning. the whole cadaver cut up thing, they usually take a year to dissect one cadaver per 4-6 students. Then they start rotations (means like 4-8 weeks in almost every field of medicine, from pediatrics to OBGYN) and more hands on hospital learning their 3-4 years. And actually this will probably not take place in Yakima since it is such a small town, so we might move again in two years, somewhere not too far tho, like vancouver, boise etc. Then you take lots of board exams and skill exams and apply for a residency based upon the specific field you want.....think of it as a two year minimum internship. surgery fields are usually 4-6 years residency and PCP is usually only two. THEN you take more exams and boards for states and pay pay pay to get licensed to practice.

A blessed lil Parry at two months

2010-10-22T01:28:00.005-04:00

Well we have had a lot happening over here. Tho the first to note, because it goes in order, is Parry's baby blessing. He had the CUTEST lil tux for his baby blessing outfit. It actually has the cutest little suit jacket that goes with it, but being in southern california it was too hot for him to wear it. I had to force the blanket to stick around cuz I made that one myself and didnt care if it was too hot or not. Isnt the bow tie adorble? Definatly the most fun I have had dressing up a lil boy, I would say it even rivals the cute girlie dresses.

I made the blaket underneath him, it turned out sooooo beautiful but I don't actually have a good pic of it. I plan on doing a little studio shooting in our house of Parry in his baby blessing outfit and blanket later this week so hopefully i get to putting them on here as well. The blanket is what I worked on while I was too big to do much else. Oh and I loved the waist band!

This is the crew that came for Parry's blessing, minus one who is Kristen, she is taking the picture. We were so grateful for all of their sacrifice to come all the way to our house just for a short weekend. Jordans family drove 13 hours from utah and Jordans grandma and Aunt drove up from san diego, which was a huge deal.....I don't know the last time she drove anywhere that far, but we were so glad they came, they are the sweetest funnest two ladies, and we have been so glad to be living closer to them, we visit every time we go to the san diego zoo. My dad flew down from WA so I got to spend the weekend with him, which I enjoyed, its not very often that I get to spend one on one time with my dad. And to be fair to the rest of the crew, my sister just spent 4 weeks here helping out and my mom also was just here in september and then Eldon and Kimi came over a couple of weeks ago. So every one has been able to see and spend a little time with Parry (well except Mandi but she gets to see him at thanksgiving), which I am soo glad of.

This is a pic of all the Carr side grandbabies/ kyren and Parry's cousins. Kyren had a blast playing with all of them, he loved having so many people around, I could tell he was very confused as to why all of a sudden there were tons of people in our house and they kept coming back. He especially enjoyed playing with Sakara, shes the little girl holding Parry, they were so cute together.

Friday I got to hang out with Jordans family while Jordan was actually gone, he was up in Wa having a medical school interview. He flew back with my dad saturday morning. Saturday Jordan went with his fam to Knotts Berry Farm and as reported had a lot of fun. Luckily the park was not empty and it was a perfect day to go and he had a lot of fun going on rides and hanging out with everyone. I stayed home with my dad and the two boys and we actaully had a very enjoyable day. Grandpa Parry got to see Kyrens mad skills in the pool and was able to hold Parry a lot. We also went for a long walk down the boardwalk to the pier and generally just enjoyed good conversation and amusement provided by Kyren. Sunday we of course had the baby blessing and after church we came back to our apartment and had a BBQ with delicious watermelon. After that we just hung out at our apartment. My dad flew back monday morning but Jordans family was able to stay unti monday evening, so we played tennis, and went to the beach and played in the waves. It was Jordans brothers (Nathan) first time in the ocean!

Kyren and Sakara taking a bath together after the beach

I LOVE baby toes! oh I just wanna chew on them!!

My naked little boy!!

This is my dad, we made it to the pier just before sunset which took about 30 seconds, I couldnt believe how fast the sun was going down, it was completely up when I started to get the phone out to take a pic and was almost gone by the time I took the picture!

Oh and this is our new "baby" to hold our new baby, we LOVE this double stroller, definately our favorite toy and a life saver, I can now go anywhere I want with the kids by myself, it transforms between stroller, jogging stroller and a bike trailor.

Parry and Kyren

2010-09-26T22:42:00.004-04:00

We finally bought an MTS file converter so that we can use our videos from our camcorder on the blog and Youtube. They were too high def to be used, hence why there have not been videos on here for a long time, but fear no more, there will now be videos. So these are the most current videos of Kyren, Parry and Jordan, I think I was recording all of them so I am not in any of them. Kyren is 16 months and Parry is 5 wks old, look how well he holds his head up. .

Random Kyren and Parry

2010-09-26T13:31:00.002-04:00

These are just random videos of Kyren over the summer and some recently of him with Parry

Kyren's First Birthday

2010-09-25T13:31:00.001-04:00

So here is Kyrens first birthday videos and pics, I feel bad that I never posted them way back on his birthday, and seeing how I use this as my surrogate journal I feel like I should even tho it is way past.

So for his birthday we decided to take him to his favorite place, the mall. We had been there once before and he loved climbing on all the stuff and it was great that it is all enclosed so that we could let him wander at his will. After that we came home and he took his afternoon nap. When he woke up we went swimming at the community pool, he LOVES swimming and always enjoys all the people. Back them he was just learning to kick his legs.

After swimming we came home, and it was around 7pm, I don't remember why anymore but for some reason I was unable to make his cake earlier that day and so I was trying to hurry and make his cake around 7:30pm. The cake was done....kind of....aruond 8 and kyren was really tired, but I really wanted him to have his first cake on his birthday....now that I think about it I probably should have just waited till the next day, its not like he knows what day is his birthday. So the cake got halfway finished...as far as the Fondant went, I had glorious plans of course but they got put on hold. So as you will see in the video, there is an ugly side of the cake. :)

He didnt like his cake anyway, which I was kinda sad about, I wanted those cute pictures of one year olds with frosting and cake smeared all over. (which was kinda an oversight with fondant....seing how it doesnt smear) Anyway it didnt matter cuz he wouldnt even eat it. I later tried a cupcake with real frosting on it to see if he would eat it, and he didn't he doesnt like frosting or cake....at least not yet anyway.

After cake we opened up a few presents. We had made this family picture book, and got him some hotwheels with a "Mack" truck that he can load them in. He actually liked them and 4 months later he Loves his hot wheels.

Ladies and Gentlemen please welcome BABY Parry!!!!

2010-08-27T13:21:00.013-04:00

Which is Which? Parry or Kyren?

Alright so this time I will post pics first and put the story down at the bottom.

Look at all that back fat.

We think Parry looks just like Jordan, especially when he made this face.

Heres Kyren at 2 days (below)

Heres PArry at 3 days (below)

This is how we keep Parry safe from Kyren during tummy time.

The CARR BOYS

Parry (above) at 4 days old, heading home from the Hosptial

The one above is Kyren at around 2 days old.....Can you believe how much they look alike? The one below is Parry at 1 week

Parry at One week old, the swelling has decreased in his face a ton, pictures of course don't quite do justice.

Its amazing how the last two months feel like the whole 9 months, making pregnancy feel like its at least 18 months long!! I spend the first 3 months being awed by the idea of being pregnant, and of course all the nice side effects of being nautious ( i know thats not how you spell that) and not wanting to eat, not being able to eat and just feeling all over sickly, but pregnancy doesnt seem real, you are showing anything yet, and it just feels like you have a bad cold that insists on sticking around for 3 months. I think about being pregnant and about the baby and look up on the interenet what stage he is at etc, let just say its very much on my mind and yet seems unreal, all the while looking forward to being week 20 so that we can go get our ultrasound. Then the awaited day of the ultrasound comes and its almost like your having the baby that day, its here, we get to see him! Then all of sudden its like you forget your pregnant, about week 25 my sicknesses finally go away and I can choke dont food (previously i have been subsisting on dole juice and chocolate milk 24-7). I almost forget I am pregnant, its too far away to really hope for or get excited about delivary days (that will just depress you) and I am not quite big enough to make daily living an impossibility, so your forced to "pretend" that your not pregant, pretend like you think its a beautiful "miracle" that your getting fatter and puffier every day, and it is really quite amazing that you can't breathe when you bend over any more, and its always fun to ignore the 2 hour long hiccups inside that make you feel like your spassing but you cant even hold your breath or flex to get rid of them and then of course there are the relaxing evening/nights when I like to stay awake pondering (best accomplished in the bathroom of course) on the beauty of being a woman cuz I can no longer sleep..... that last about 7 weeks.....and then I hit the dreaded 32-33 weeks along. Now I should give pregnacy some credit, it is very fun around 6 months when you can feel the baby move and Jordan can finally feel and see him move also, there is a 3 weeks span in there where its not soooo bad and the babies still small enough to move . At 33 weeks however, I am done! This time around especiallymy belly was already bigger than most full term women, thanks to my small torso and my bodies inability to correlate a small torso with a small baby! The ultrasound at 34 weeks declared Parry 7 + pounds and I still had 6 weeks to go. The last 2 months are awful and I will not hide my contempt for the whole ordeal of bringing children into this world, there should be another way. Animals have pregnancies of 3-4 months, why cant we? And 200 lb panda bears give birth to a pound cub! Now is that fair? I don't think so. And the worst part is that there is no choice, once you decide you want a child, thats the end of your ability to choose, it just grows and grows and grows and the little glutenous baby gets to decide when HE wants to come out, without consulting me! There should be an eject button, or a "Times UP!" button, a warning sign that they only have 3 weeks left till you want them out so they better hurry up and finish, don't worry about putting fat on just finish the vitals first. These are the lovely thoughts that posses my brain the last 6 weeks. You start getting things together, you think about what its going to be like and as it gets closer you start wondering every day if Today is the day!? I might not be so impatient if Kyren hadnt come 3 weeks early, so at the 3 weeks mark I really start getting bitter. Oh and then you add the Constant remarks that I am having twins. I didnt get that with Kyren, he was pretty normal sized as far as the belly went, I think he sunk down lower cuz I had a lot of problems with numb legs, and swelling in my feet and pelvic pain with him that I didnt have with Parry. Even my doctors wife looked at me and said...."You know I only ever reached 40 cm with my twins" And a lady in my ward with twins liked to remind me constantly that I was way bigger than she was so that baby was going to pop out any day. Which at first was kinda excitng to think....maybe he would come at 35 weeks! But then at 37 weeks when she said the same thing I felt like saying...." NO he is not coming out he is going to stay in there FOREVER and next week my belly will be so BIG you won't be able to see my FACE!!!" Then I started feeling ripped off, heck I should be having twins, how ridiculous is that? I have a huge belly and I am only getting one out of the deal, they atleast got two, I want the two for one deal, what newspaper was that coupon in? Oh and thats not even mentioning the fact that with Kyren i got 2 little stretch marks that you could barely see, and Mr,. Parry here was having fun turning my belly into a tiger pattern, I never really cared for animal prints, so I really didnt like his taste in remodeling my belly for me. Jordan seems to like them tho, he says it looks like my belly is on Fire, it gives me that wild look....hehehe well what ever. And whats up with not being able to get in hot tubs!! I won't even go there!

So I waited 9 months for the next part of this little story and you only had to wait like 9 minutes while you read this, so heres the part you actually want to read. As you know Jordan flew out to pittsburgh at 36 weeks, now Kyren was born at 37 weeks and this pregnancy I had already had serious false labor that they had to stop so I was a little worried that baby Parry would come while Jordan was gone. Pregnnacy is a horrible thing to have to plan around cuz you cant plan for it. So just for precautions Chelsea flew down the day after Jordan left, which was the last week of July. Which was fun cuz I got to celebrate my birthday with Chels. She stayed for 4 weeks, and it worked out wonderfully. The first two weeks we got to play around and do girly things, like watch girly movies, go to the beach, go boogie boarding, paint nails, get our hair cut/permed, and go shopping. We got to get new outfits for her and buy some college stuff she needed to get. Oh and I found I love the store Nordstrom Rack, I cant wait till I have my body back to go and get some cute, cheap stuff for me.

Anway so two weeks passed and we were getting kinda bored and so decided to go to a water park. I had been to my OB apointment the thursday before and was "high and closed solid" meaning I wasnt dilated or effaced or even close! We almost bought the tickets to the water park online the night before but didnt because we found a coupon that you had to use in person. So we got everything ready and went to bed. That was Monday, Tuesday morning I noted having contractions pretty consistant around 7:30 but didnt give them much credence since I had been having contractions alot (since we had been trying to induce the thing) but they always went away, I had resigned myself to give up hope and just live with it till my due date, Jordan and chels had too, hence why we were going to a water park. But about 40 minutes later I started noting the times between contractions mentally, but I didnt say anything, I tried to tell myself that today was not the day, dont start hoping cuz its two weeks early and your just oing to have live with it for 2 more weeks! At 9 when we were to be leaving we finally decided that we should wait two hours (the park didnt open till 10 anyway) and see what happened. So we kept track. The first hour of keeping track they were every 7-8 minutes apart, then the second hour they were 4 minutes about with minute long duration, and they were really painful, so we finally called the doctor and he said we could come in right then. I was still worried they were going to go away by the time we got there or that even if I was having good contractions I wasnt dilated so they would just say to wait. So we took a shower, ate breakfast, packed out bags etc. Taking our time, by the time we left they really really hurt, but I know how hospitals are and they like to tie you to the bed which just makes them hurt worse, walking around feels much better, but I wasnt sure how c-sections worked, I was pretty sure once they checked you just went in, but again I wasnt sure if you had to be dilated and I was pretty sure I wasnt since I dilate really really slow ( atleast I did last time and I wasnt dilating this time even with serious contractions the week before) So we went in, and everything was very calm, which made it seem unreal, they hooked me up and affimed that I was having contractions every 3 minutes and they were lasting 60-80 seconds. Oh and I was dilated to a 4, which was great news, so the nurse said the c-section should start within a half hour. And they don't give you the spinal shot until you go into the c-section room. Now a little pause for those who don't know, I scheduled a c-section beacuse my tail bone is still not completely healed from giving birth to Kyren. He was 30 hours of labor (30 hours of serious natural labor with contractions starting at 3 minutes apart and by the end of were only 30 seconds apart lasting a minute and half) Anyway he broke my tail bone and pelvic bone coming out, and I learned afterwards that tail bones take a year to a year and half to heal and if broken before they completely heal will take almost twice that to heal the second time. So if the baby was small, around 7 or less I was going to try vaginal delivery again, but he was determined to be a big boy, so we scheduled a c-section, which I really didnt want and was rather apprehensive about.

Anyway so at 12:30 the nurse tells me that a lady came in 10 min before with some complications and so they were attending to her first and the other c room had just started a c right before I came in so I had to wait. So I got to go through 2 more hours of awful contractions before I was admitted, but at least it make it seem a little more real that I was actually going to have a baby by having to go through the contractions. Man those things really hurt, I get that stupid back pain like crazy. They give you something called a spinal shot instead of an epidural if you want, which prevents your baby from being drowsy cuz they give it to you right before the surgery so it doesnt really have time to get tothe baby. Oh and the stupid nurse kept insisting tha tI stay lying down in the stupid bed so that she could monitor the baby, contractions hurt way more when you have to be on your back, at least with the first one I was able to move and walk around (I was with a midwife) and didnt have an IV, it was much better. So I went in and got stabbed in the back and then went completley numb almost through my arms. It was really weird, I couldnt feel anything! I expected to be able to feel tugging and know when my body was moving or being moved, but I couldnt, If i didnt know better I would have declared myself to not even have legs or a torso. Whcih made the whole c-section kinda sureal. It was like watchig someone else have the procedure done. I got to watch the whole thing, which I thought was pretty cool, and of course Jordan loved being able to watch it. It really went very smooth, by the time I went in I had been having contractions for 7 hours and so was more than ready to be done, it was almost like vaginal in that its pain pain pain and then its gone and you see a cute little fat cheeked baby and sigh with relief when it starts screaming. So Parry was "born" at 2:56 pm on Tuesday the 17th of August. The doctor and nurses did a great job, they let me see him and hold him and then did their usual stuff, measuring etc. Jordan said the wierdest part was extracting the fluid from Parry's lungs, I of course didnt see it but the lady had a little hollow mallet that they wack the rib cage with to get all the fluid out and use suction and try to get the guy to scream a much as possible, Jordan was amazed at how much stuff came out. He was measured at 20 inches long and weighed 9 lbs 8 oz. (kyren was the exact opposite and was 8 lb 9 oz at 22 in long)

I'll tell ya, Parry was one Fat little dude, he looked massive, with huge fat little cheeks and fat eyebrows so much so that he couldnt open his eyes. And the funniest part was his back fat, he had rolls on his back just like a new puppy, you know how they are picked upby the nap of their neck. Then it took them about 15 minutes to stictch me up and then I was transfered into another room where I had the skin to skin time and breastfed. He does great at eating. I was very lucky this time around again for he latches on great.

It was perfect for Chelsea to be here, we were able to leave and not worry about Kyren, by that time she new his schedule perfectly and so we were able to stay in the hospital for 3 days and nights while she took care of Kyren and brought him to visit. Chelsea was truly a life saver and we loved having her down with us for amonth. Chelsea got to spend the first week with Parry and then flew home the same day my Mom flew in, so they switched places. Jordan was stuck in Las Vegas doing work for 3 days (they told him just one day but kept extending it every day) so it was a little stressful to figure out how to drop chelsea off and pick up my mom since I cant drive, but it all worked out and Jordan is now back. So now Grandma is here. Which we are so glad for, there's nothing like Grandma being around to help. Kyren does really well with Parry being around. Its so weird taht now we have TWO kids, it makes me feel really old. But I love it, it feels so right and I am so excited that they are close. They are 15 months apart. Kyren is such a good boy and so far Parry is unbelievably good that I don't think its going to be as hard as it could be if either one were less so. Of course its a little early to declare Parry's personality but so far he is a very calm baby. He sleep ALL the time. Last night I fed him at midnight and he didnt wake up again until 6 am. Of couse now Grandma is here he will be sleeping all the way through through the night pretty soon. Kyren slept from 10-6 at two weeks so we will see if Parry learns as fast. He doesnt really cry, he just grunts when he is hungry, and he LOVES belly time. He had his one week apointment and 9.4 lbs and 21.5 inches long and his chord has already fallen off. At first Kyren didnt know what he was, it wasnt untl he saw him naked that I think he realized he was a little human, and he gets very concerned when Parry crys when he gets his diaper changed. At first he would go to touch Parry and then would run away at the last minute and giggle, or poke him and giggle. But a week later he has gotten comfortable enough to give him kisses and he likes to poke his nose and rub his hair. He is finally learning what being Gentle means. two days ago was the first time Kyren held Mr. Parry and it was really cute to watch him go between loving it and not knowing what to do with him.

Well Now it is just reccovering time. Its 6 weeks till I am supposed to be completely healed ready to resume normal life. 2 weeks till I can leave the apt and drive around, I am already 1 and half weeks so only a bit more till I am not a complete invalid. The hardest part is not bending over or picking up Kyren.

july duplex trip

2010-08-03T14:24:00.014-04:00

SEASIDE!!! With da Girls!

2010-06-23T22:56:00.009-04:00

So for Chelsea's graduation party she wanted to go to Seaside with all her sisters, isnt that awesome? How many peeps do you know at 18 that wanna hang out with their sisters instead of friends? Thats cus Chelseas Awesome!! So we all planned a girl getaway to Seaside for a whole week right after she graduated. We stayed at my parents timeshare resort, which was sooo nice, had a pool and hot tub and was literally on the beach. And even better was the weather! It never rained and was partly sunny all week. We had a blast! It was Mandi, Me, Jennie, Kimi (our new sister in law married to eldon this last october who now lives in hillsborough OR) and of course Chelsea. We left sunday night and stayed until friday. We just hung out and relaxed and basically did whatever we fancied.

We each painted each others toes, went to breakfast, went window shopping where we all bought a sweatshirt.....oh how I miss sweatshirts and WA cloudy weather.......played around in a fun hat shop......watched movies, made meals, we played softball and a 3 hour game of volleyball, had a bonfire with hotdogs and smores, went to cannon beach and built a sand temple and had lunch on the beach, traveled down to tillamook Cheese factory and stopped at all kinds of lookouts on the way down, went to the aquarium, got salt water taffy.....etc, it was a lot of fun, and to was great to have no schedule to go by. Mean while Grandma was watching all 5 of the grandkids, two of which are still babies.....she said she had fun with em and thoroughly enjoyed it. And of course Kyren didnt even miss me, he waved goodbye and my mom said he was great, didnt cry, wasnt whiny and just wondered around the house.

We had a bubble fight after the bonfire cuz all our feet were freezing, but the jets in the tub kinda sent the bubbles crazy.

Great profile pic of me at 29 weeks pregnant, Jennie is 37 weeks pregnant and could have popped any time...arent we hott?!!!

We all got these sweatshirts the first day we were there.

View from our balcony

my awesome sisters/ sister in law.

This is Kimi the newest addition to our family....shes awesome!

Jennie, chelsea, Mandi and Kimi

Us girls at the Tillamook Cheese Factory

This was our sweet ride around Seaside....we had a lot of fun in it, it didnt have the best breaks and so it felt like we were always going to get hit at a stop sign

Our awesome sand temple on Cannon Beach....notice the palm tree

That is our awesome mote which protected for 3 whole waves!!!

Yes thats a real picture, it was a beautiful outlook point on our way to tillamook, it looked just like that!!

We were in the hat shop for like an hour just trying on hats...it was fun.

I really liked this headless shot....hense why I took it

Chelseas Graduation in WA

2010-06-23T22:31:00.006-04:00

So Kyren and I (Loni) flew to WA the 9th of June for Chelsea's (my little sister) graduations. On friday she graduated from Centralia College with her associates and on saturday she graduated from Mossy Rock High school and afterwards we had a party/barbecue where we played catch, soccer, played around and had cake and presents. She got the usual set of suitcases from mom and dad that we all got when we graduated from high school and then we all pitched in to get her a camera which she loved and of course the sewing machine from Aunt Sandy....we all got that too. then on sunday she graduated from YW with her YW Medallion.....quite a weekend for chels!

This is Chelsea's high school graduation with all nephews and neice

My mom graduated TOO, chelsea was the last one now shes an empty nester!!!!

Dallin 7 and Landin 5 , mandis boys at graduation

all the siblings oldest to youngest excpet Ethan who is in Guatamala.....I successfully hid my belly

My mom and Dad at chelseas graduation from centralia college with her associates.

Mom and Dad at Chesleas High school Graduation, there were 45 total graduates.

Kyren at chelseas college graduation, hes now 13 months old!

Kyren would clap everytime the crowd clapped

That is my dad following Kyren around....he just loves to wonder and explore

College grad

Eldon and Kimi at chels's high school graduation.

Our Awesome Homemade Filing Cabinet

2010-04-21T14:23:00.006-04:00

So when we left most of our wood furniture in pittsburgh the plan was to make their replacements ourselves. We both really like working with wood, after sanding and refinishing over 2400 sq ft of hard wood floors in our houses in pittsburgh ourselves we were introduced into the world of stain and polyeurathane, and fell in love with poly. Its so fun to make something shiny and glossy feeling. We would sit and lay on our newly finished floors and just admire them. So we decided it would be really fun to get into wood working and make our own furniture. When we went to go buy a chest of drawers we were even more convinced...."its SO expensive....we could make it look better than that WAY cheaper".

So our first project was our new Filing Cabinet. ITs SO COOL! This was our old one;

Right before we celebrated throwing it in the dumpster. I must give it some credit, it has done amazingly well for the last 4 years, but when we moved the drawers broke and so it has been sitting just like this in our bedroom with the file drawers on the ground.....much to blobs excitement, and moms dimsay. So we finally got motivated enough when Kyren started figuring out how much fun it was to pull ALL the files out as fast as he could. He is really cute when he does it, he throws them behind his back as fast as he can.

So without further ado, this is our NEW filing cabinet:

These are the cooolest thing ever, we got a new toy called the Kreg Jig (its a tool) and it makes perfectly deep angled holes to which you then put screws in so that you CANT SEE ANY MARKS on the OUTSIDE, isnt that awesome? So no screws or nails show at all.

We bought the brackets from Ikea, since all their stuff comes in parts to assemble you can buy just the hardware if you want. And their really nice they have a magnetic hold and release, so it sucks it in tighter when you close and they roll really nice.

This is the after staining process, we stained it a red mahagony, our fav color, and then applied polly, which before the last coat you have to sand it so it is very smooth with no bumps.

Jordan doing some sanding before the poly

TA DA here is our finished product.

Here is our filing cabinet from the side, all finished

Here is the bottom drawer, it all works great and now we are soooo organized. It has plenty of room for everything, all my scrapbooking/pics and room to spare.

top drawer

This is the amazing trim job that I picked out and created. It is actually two peices of trim put together and then sealed to the drawer front, but you cant tell you would think it came as one peice. AND you should know... that Jordan cut these angles with a hack saw! with out a miter box, they came out perfect!

So there it is in our bedroom next to my side of the bed, it acts as my nightstand for now.

This is Kyren asleep in his crib, we have discovered that he has really taken a liking to his frog pillow, its currently upside down, and its about as big as he is. We came in at 9 in the morning wondering if he was still alive cuz he always wakes up around 7 and he was still dead asleep, so much that he didnt even wake up after I took this picture.

ITS A........BABY........

2010-04-15T01:30:00.002-04:00

SO, as most of you know we didnt find out what the sex of our first baby was, Mister Kyren, until he was born. We also went all natural birth and all that jazz. So on this one we decided to do just the opposite and find out what the sex is at the ultrasound. We also plan on inducing and getting an epidural, hey you gotta know which way you like right?

So....we had the ultrasound......and

!!!!!ITS A BOY!!!!!

his name is going to be "Parry Henry Carr" named after my dad and my maiden name, my dads name is Henry Edward Parry

we were actually shocked, very schocked. We were SO sure it was a girl we would have put stakes on it. And for those you got it all wrong, sorry for the confusion, the name Dallas was actually for our little girl, so no we didnt know it was a boy, nor did we think it would be. Why you might ask did we assume it was a girl? WEll because we had just had our first ultrasound at 14 weeks in a very nice lab and the guy had most definately said it was NOT a boy beaucse you could see nothing, but it also wasnt obviously a girl either so he said to wait a little longer. So at 20 weeks we go in there and are almost bored to do it because we were so sure it was a girl. I had already looked at the fabric I was going to make her blanket out of, and I had been eyeing down flowers for head bands at micheals. Now I am glad I waited. So the very first thing we saw was his little pride, SO OBVIOUS, in the middle of the screen....there was no denying the evidence and he was not being shy in the least. We both just stared at it in unbelief, and kept saying...."two boys?????" really TWO boys......14-15 months apart????? OH BOY, OH BOY!!!

And there you have it folks.....its so weird cuz it really changes the demensions of our family, I came from a family that goes girl, boy, girl, boy, girl. And Jordans family goes Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl. And both my parents families go alternate sexes the whole way through....so its totally different to think of having two boys right next to each other. But we are soo excited, they get boy playmates their whole lives. Were gonna put em in wrestling at 4, and they can go together, and practice on each other, and then theres tee ball, and school, and highschool sports and dating and then even 2 missions at the same time.....which is better than two girl weddings at the same time...if you know what I mean. boys get the easy side of weddings.

All we can say is....there goes any hope of saving on the food bill!

Jordan's Medical School Interview

2010-04-15T01:23:00.004-04:00

So Jordan was invited for an Interview to the "Pacific North West University Medical School" or also referred to as PNWU. It was SOOOO exciting! The school is in Yakima Washington, which for those who dont know is in the middle of the state of WA, is very agricultural and kinda boonie land. Its about the size of Idaho Falls. So not too small like Rexburg, but by no means a city of any consequence. It is about 3hours from everywhere else, including seattle, portland, spokane, CorDeLAne ID, and an hour from the Tri cities.

His interview was Monday the 12th of April, he flew into portland and took mister Kyren with him. Which means Loni had a great girls only weekend with Katie and Kristen (college roomates)and no babies! It was a lot of fun. Jordan stayed with my parents in Salkum WA which is 2 hours from Yakima. He left Mister Kyren with the ol grandparents while he was in Yakima. THey were so excited to see the blob. He flew out sunday and returned tuesday night.

The school so far is only one building, like a large 2 story stake center. on the one sid of the building on the 1st floor is the classrooms, large with microphones hanging from the ceiling. the professor also wears a mic, and when he talks the other hanging mics turn off and he can be heard by the whole class, when he stops talking the overhead mics turn on and that way the whole class can hear when another student has a question or comment. the class size is 75 students and you take every class together as a big group. in the middle section on the 1st floor is a library and a conference room. the other side is administration offices. on the upstairs one side is the cadaver labs, the middle is hands on labs with tables, this is where you learn and practice the hands on side of Osteopathic medicine. the other side of the 2nd floor is study rooms, on the bookends of the building is a large foyer, and the other side is a simulated doctors office, everything looks legit they even have someone role play the receptionist. they have volunteers from the community come in and role play different illnesses. each room has a hidden camera or two to watch how you handle each pt. afterwards you review the films and see ways to improve.

When I arrived and entered there was a receptionist who gave me a name badge and told me to sit in the foyer and wait. there were 18 of us interviewees. and we all looked the same, black suits and dresses. there was one kid from west point so he had on his officers uniform. ofter only a few minutes a woman asked us to follow her to the conference room. we there had a two hour presentation on the school, including admissions info, history, future plans of the school, introduced a few faculty members, and went over financial aid and curriculum. after that for lunch they brought in whole whear hoagies and chips, we had lunch with some of the students and it was cool to see that they were very happy, honest, friendly, and down to earth. we were then given a tour of the building and the students giving the tour were very informative.

after the tour we were brought back to the foyer to wait for our interviews. They went alphabetically so I was one of the first. the interviewers game and got you from the group in the foyer. i was happy to find that the person who came to get me was the same that had given the presentation that morning, she was very friendly and easy to talk to. during lunch I had got to talk to her for 10 to 15 minutes just talking about the school and her presentation. so I was glad it was her.

The layout of the interview is 21 generic question that everyone gets asked, and you are allowed to answer them in any way that you like. there are two interviewers, one has read your application and essays, the other knows nothing about you. The questions were fair and balanced and asked to know your interest in medicine, the northwest, pnwu, people. there were questions about yourself, the healthcare system, there were scenario questions to see if you are a sympathetic person. i feel that I was able to answer them as i would have hoped, and that I accurately represented myself. Something that made me feel positive about the interview was the other interviewer. as the lady brought me into the room he was already sitting there at the table. he tried to look scary and tough. It was great to see that as the interview progressed he loosened up and by the end he was jovial and laughing with me. So anyways I feel good about it, and feel that it went as well as it could have and I did as well as I could have. Now its just to see if it was good enough.

kyrens determination

2010-04-05T02:00:00.002-04:00

Journal entry on the blob. Or Kyren Jordan Carr. He is now 11 months, it is April 18th, so really he is only a couple of weeks from being 1 year old. Which means I need to plan a year old birthday party. That’s crazy I cant believe that we are already at a year point, that means one year ago I also graduated, ITS BEEN A YEAR!!! Wow time really does pass whether you want it too or not, whether your enjoying it or hating it.
So we’ll start with his stats, he finally started slowing down as far as his growth curve, he was in the 90-95th percentile for weight and height, and has always been in the 50th for his head circumference, all the way up to his 10 month check up. Which was supposed to be his 9 month but it took forever to find a pediatrician that we liked and to get the insurance going. Anyway so at his 10 month appointment he is now in the 75th percentile for height, 70th for weight and 50th for head. Its funny cuz we started noticing the “shrinking” or actually just a lack of getting bigger when he went on formula and normal food. He started eating mostly baby food during the day with breastfeeding only around naps during the 7-8th month and then somewhere towards the end of the 9th month he stopped breastfeeding altogether. He just decided that he didn’t want it anymore and has never shown any signs since that he wants too. So I got to go through the lovely process of being engorged for a couple of weeks, lovely. Ya know women really have to sacrifice their bodies for babies. Greedy little things.  So at that point we tried giving him milk formula and he got awful bloody rashes, took us awhile to figure it out, since we were also trying out cheese and some fruits and veggies. But I had a clue since I could never drink milk while he was breastfeeding either, it gave him really bad gas and he would be super cranky. So we tried soy formula and he does great. So now he gets 8oz at 3 and 8oz before he goes to bed. Its really weird to adjust to him having a smaller appetite, the kid used to eat like a monster, he would down 4 packages of gerber baby food at each meal, he went through 9-12 a day for like a month. At 10 months we stopped Gerber food altogether, or I should say pureed food, we tried making our own baby food too and stored them in the Gerber bottles and plastic containers in the freezer or fridge until he ate them. So then he all of a sudden has become the pickiest little thing. It can get very irritating! Its funny tho cuz we noticed when we first introduced baby food he was just fascinated to be trying something new. He had no opinion whatsoever about what we fed him. He would eat every veggie the same as he would the fruits. And he loves baby oatmeal and multi grain cereals. Anyway you could tell that he just loved trying new foods. So now adays he will eat anything you put in front of him….once! He will always try it and wont ever spit it out, making all kinds of faces while he gumbs it death. The only exception is ranch dressing, he doesn’t like that to even touch his lips. But he starts getting all “high and mighty” with his opinions when it comes to the second to third bites. That’s where the battle begins, cuz he is not allowed to spit food out. But we don’t force him to eat the food, for the most part, once we have figured out he doesn’t like it. Although I think it is becoming more of a power trip for him than it is really not liking the food. Cuz he trys to spit out cookies and things that I know he likes. Its so funny to watch them push the few limits they have placed on them. He can practically do anything he wants. Lets see, so….. he is not allowed to touch pretties, like vases and a few glass things, but he really doesn’t try to touch those anyways, their pretty boring. He can’t touch or play with our wireless mouse or keyboard, he cant stand up in the bathtub, or in shopping carts. And he cant spit his food out. That’s it! Is that so much to ask? But he still indefinitely looks at me at least once every bath as hes on his knees and starts to put one foot down like he is going to stand up…just to hear me say…..uh huh blob! And then he sits down. He always reaches for the keyboard…..AS he is looking at you waiting for the flick on his little grimey hand….and pulls it away as soon as I stick my arm out to threaten to flick him. Apparently he actually succeeded in touching the keyboard today and then dodged Jordans attempts at flicking him, moving his hand all over the place. And he opens his mouth and cries allowing his food to “accidentally” fall out of his mouth, knowing that the flick is coming he winces’ but continues to let it fall out. And he loses every time, every time we sit there until he swallows it! Silly boy.
Alright on to other things besides eating. He took his first couple of steps April 8th!! Hurray! We were waiting in a waiting area…how profound…at the ultrasound place, and he walked from Jordan to me! It was really cute, he did it like 4 more times after that, and then was sick of it and didn’t want to walk anymore. He doesn’t really like walking, its funny, I think its because he is such a good crawler and loves to explore with his hands that he doesn’t really see the point in standing up. AFterall you cant touch anything if your are just walking around. But around the 12th he started to walk even farther when Jordans family was having a family reunion in San Diego for Wilmas 80th birthday. He took like 10 steps in a row in her living room and seemed to be very proud of himself. Since then he has started to just wander off objects where he is standing up until he falls, and then he goes back to crawling. So pretty soon he will be a little walker. For now he improvises by doing the monkey crawl, he crawls on his feet and hands. He does it mostly on hard surfaces where it hurts his knees.
He is becoming so obviously a BOY, in every way! He loves to explore and figure out everything. If something is new or out of place in the house he immediately goes over to it and crawls all over it or inspects it. He has no attachments to anything or anyone, he just crawls off at will, if we are at the park he will crawl forever, once in a while he will stop and look back but then keep crawling until he finds something interesting he deems worthy of his attention. At church he just goes up to everyone and demands their attention. He did that as a baby with his smiles he would make noise at a person until they looked at him and then he would smile at them. At church today adults were trying very hard to focus on the teacher and he was out to thwart them. He would crawl past and if they didn’t look at him and smile he would go up to them and tug on their shirt, he did it to one guy from the back, once they look he is done and runs away from them. They always want to hold him but unless you’re a girl and have something shiny and pretty he won’t let you get to him to pick him up. He is obsessed with peoples feet, and California is the perfect place for that. All the women have pretty toes that are painted and sparkly shoes, they all find it very amusing and some are embarrassed and some are really ticklish when he plays with their toes. I used to play like my feet were coming to get him and tug on his cloths and he would just crack up laughing.
That’s the other thing he laughs at the weirdest most random things. My mom was watching him up in WA a week ago and he put something in his mouth and she said “ EEW Yucky” and he thought it was hilarious and started laughing out loud, like a deep belly laugh, so she said it again and he laughed again. He likes to play “boo” or be surprised. Peek a boo doesn’t make him laugh but if you actually startle him he will laugh. Today he has been obsessed with pushing books around on the floor. He has three drawers that are full of misc items in the kitchen, mostly Tupperware lids and baby bottles, that if he ever gets bored he will go over there and empty them. He loves to empty bins or drawers or boxes. He picks something up and just throws it behind him with the really cute straight arm with a bent wrist. Until the drawer is empty and then he is down with it. He has started to hand things to us and sometimes he is just showing you what he has and if you get up to get it from him he dives forward and crawls away as fast as he can and puts it behind his back. He is also obsessed with opening and closing doors. He loves to shut himself in rooms and wait for you to open it at which point he immediately shuts it. He doesn’t even care if it’s a pitch black room and you wait to open the door.
He has a walker that we got for Christmas and he could slowly walk with it when we first got it, he was around 6 months but now he can run with it. Every once in a while we take it to the tennis court and he walks with it all over the tennis court, he does a really good job. And is very proud of himself. He just learned to walk to the opposite side of the walker and push it the opposite direction instead of waiting for us to come and turn it around. He also loves birds, especially at the beach, he crawls after them and watches them in the sky or whenever he can see them. He likes going to the beach and loves climbing at parks. He knows how to go up and down stairs really well. Hes really smart. He figured out stairs in the first 20 minutes…going up and then learning to turn around and go down feet first, and had them mastered by the end of the day. He learned that at Katie and Victors house. He loves them too, he will spend an hour just going up and down. So he is also really good at parks and knows to go down slides feet first but chooses to go down them head first because he likes to see where he is going. He also loves ceiling fans, wherever there is a ceiling fan he is staring at it, he just stares and stares and stares.
He has this royal decree he does with his hands, when he is done with his juice he swipes it away with the back of his hand as if to say “remove that from my sight slave, I am done with it!” And he will push you away if he doesn’t want you all up in his face or space. Its really funny to watch him do it to jordans kisses. He doesn’t cuddle, almost at all. He will for a tiny window before he goes to sleep, usually 10-15 minutes and then you just go put him in his crib and he puts himself to sleep. He is very good at putting himself to sleep and has started to really like his frog pillow. He says mamma and dada very clearly now. He says them to get whatever it is we are forcing him to speak to get. Mamma usually means food but before we pick him up when he is whining or crying he has to say dada or mamma, and he does. Other than those he just does jargoning, or jabbers all day long. Hes actually very communicative, or noisy you could say. He knows how to pass a ball to you and likes to play with his jeep and pass it back and forth. He loves to shake and wiggle everything. He also LOVES being roughed around in the love sac, Jordan throws him all around and he just giggles and looks at him wanting more. He really likes hide and seek too and to be chased. He loves to close books and turn the pages. He will listen to the stories but mostly he wants to turn the pages as fast as he can.
The other day we had a neighbor and her son over on our porch. Kyren hit his head on something and started crying which of course made the other boy cry and as soon as the other boy started crying Kyren started laughing at him. It was quite amusing, the other boy just cried more.
Hes a brute when it comes to playing with other kids, some he is interested in, and most he doesn’t really care abaout. Well I should specify that is only with other babies his age or younger, he LOVES older kids and loves to follow them around on the playground. With babies his own age he usually will go check them out and then just runs off by himself. He loves to take their toys away from them and he really likes to take off anything that might be ontheir face or head, like sun hats on girls he loves to grab it and yank it off their head. He also bats their hands and arms away quite forcefully if he wants what they have or wants on something they are on. Like a piano or his walker toy. We are of course working on that, but he really needs more kids around so we have more situations to teach him from. That’s what Parry’s for, so we will get “GENTLE” engrained into this little stubborn head. He also loves to tear glasses off faces, but we have discovered that its really just with us, he is much more gentle with strangers (adults).
He goes to bed at 8 and usually wakes up at either 7 or 8:30 in the morning. Oh and he is still all gumbs, he has no teeth yet. But we don’t mind. Except it kinda hinders what he can eat.

All in all Kyren is a very smart little boy, when he looks at you, you can tell he is studying you. He always responds to people in a very intelligent way. He is also very social and interactive, he loves to be adored by people and people love to adore him. He has the prettiest blue eyes you have ever seen! Hes a good baby, very easy and learns very quick.

Family Pictures taken over christmas

2010-04-04T02:30:00.001-04:00

KUNG FU BLOB

Kyrens silly laugh

2010-04-04T01:57:00.004-04:00

Kyrens silly laugh

Huntington Beach California---All settled

2010-02-09T15:56:00.003-05:00

Well its official...cuz now we have internet, which means I can finally update this thing again. It has been a very round about trip to finally land in Huntington Beach California. We left pittsburgh the 16 of december and went to my parents house for christmas (Loni's). That was a blast! Jordan started training with the new company Physiom January 4th in Colorado. I stayed in WA with the fam. Which was very nice not to have to be all alone, but poor jordan was all alone for 3 weeks!! He was miserable. Then on January 21st Jordan flew from Denver to Huntington Beach and checked us in to our new apartment, the cars arrived two days later and our pod arrived 4 days later....which was the day I flew in from WA. And being the handsome robust manly man that he is emptied all of our stuff from the pod into the apartment BY HIMSELF!! He was supposed to have help but they all bailed on him the same day. So in 4 hours before he had to be at the airport to get me he hauled all our stuff up a flight of stairs into our apartment...including our queen bed....I still dont know how he did it.

And here we are. and WE LOVE IT. It really is like paradise to us....well as paradise as you can get in an apartment. That does take some getting used too. I realized that I have never lived on the bottom apartment before. and of course we are under a bunch of bachelors that wrestle and dont ever go to bed. but I am getting used to the noises. And really the only other annoying thing is that our shower water always changes on us from hot to cold to hot to burning to warm to cold. thats dumb. but it is everything we were hoping for. you can literally see our apartment from the beach, and it has a tennis court and basketball court and volleyball court and are nice apartments in a very safe area, and best of all we have awesome management. That makes a huge difference.

It has been sunny here most days, but we have had a pretty cool storm, which people around here think is crazy.....which is hillarious....cuz it was just rain and wind. The palm trees make it look cool tho....like were in some hurricane thats on the news. Today it rained all day....sunday was a perfect 65 and sunny all day.

We went and got rollerblades at a play it again sports store down the road, and Jordan and I take turns rollerblading with Kyren in the stroller and the other person on the long board down the board walk along the beach. (eldon and kimi let us borrow their long boards while they are in rexburg....they are SO much fun) and everything is so flat here that you can get cruising. Kyren loves it. It is a lot of fun.

We are almost all the way unpacked, we got everything unpacked but there are still 3 more boxes and they are still in boxes cuz we are compeltely out of space in the apartment so I dont know what to do with it. Its a 2 bedroom apartment, 2 bath, living room and a joined kitchen dining area. and they have no storage space besides the bedroom closets. Which Kyrens closet is packed all the way up with food storage and tools and christmas stuff, along with baby stuff like car seats. Once we get some bookshelfs that will help a lot.

Oh and it is so much more convenient to live here than in pittsburgh, we have every store....and I mean every store/mall/gas station....all within 5 miles of our house right down the street. thats been really nice.

The only thing that has tainted our stay has been Jordan getting sick.....he had a fever of 104 for like 3 days and it is still at 100.4 and has been for the last 10 days. And now he has this terrible cough and is feeling terrible. And of course after enough time Kyren is now sick. I took him to a pediatrician today and he has an ear ache and a nasal drip he thinks is causing the coughing...so what did the doc do? put him on an antibiotic of course, thats all they ever do. And i wouldnt even use it except he has had this cough now for 3 months (since november) and hopefully this antibiotic will get rid of it. I have been really really tired and achy with a runny nose....hopefully it doesnt get worse than that. LAst night jordan created sign and put it on our front door saying....."QUARENTINE......leper unit, stay away!" cuz we have been just laying around the hosue sleeping like every 2 hours and getting up to eat and maybe do laundry for the past week, we have all been so tired that we havnt done much. so we practiced laying around and maoning like some sick unit. :)

Anyway I have to go to an apointment in like 20 min so hopefully I can get some pictures on here soon. Oh and sad news all the pics I took over the break are on our terabite which so nicely BROKE and the stupid company wont pay for data removal....i suppose thats not a surprise but it was their machine that just started malfuntioning after only 6 months and it has all of our pictures on it and like 108 gigs of other stuff and they wont do a thing about it, they are sending us a new terabite tho, but who wants it if it is just going to break? I have to get a back up for my back up? That stuff is annoying,.

Well ta ta for now

Weeee're OUTTA HERE!!

2009-12-15T01:19:00.002-05:00

We are OFFICIALLY MOVING!! Away from Pittsburgh. And now that were actually doing it I am not sure how I feel about it. I am going to miss several things, but there is so much more I will not miss.

Here we come HUNTINGTON BEACH CALIFORNIA. We just put a deposit down for an apartment within walking distance to the beach...........oooooh its gonna be soo much fun. Its perfect for us, it has tennis courts, a pool, a workout room, a spa, and beach volleyball court. It seems WAY too good to be true. I am sure it will have its downsides too but for now it sounds like paradise compared to pittsburgh.

No more contstruction, no more thousands of dollars on building materials and fixing things. No more bitter harsh winters, which are double lame cuz theres no mountains out here to ski on which makes winter pointless. Were done with all the liberal psycho's, not that you can evade them anywhere anymore but at least were ready for a different type of liberal psycho for a while. No more being stuck indoors, and most of hopefully we are moving into a BORING life style, where we have an apartment and have nothing to do but be creative, explore, and serve. IT will be so nice to have time to do things again, like read a book, be a devout visiting teacher, play with my blob. We have been so crazy trying to hit all our deadlines out here, and fix and build a bathroom and manage properties that we are always so busy we dont make it to bed till 1-2.

Anyhoo we are leaving the 16th. Jordan got on with a company named Physiom, hes doing the same thing, monitoring nerve activity during neural surgeries, like spinal surgeries and brain tumors. He stabs em with needles and shocks them throughout the procedure to make sure everything is still connected. Our stuff is all in a pod being shipped to cali, our cars our being shipped and we are flying to my parents house for christmas. Jordan has a 3 week training in Denver Colorado starting jan 4 so I will be staying with my parents for that time just hanging out and letting the ol grandparents play with Kyren. Its gonna be GREAT!! I CANT WAIT. We have waited for ever to be done here. We have loved it, and have had SO many great opportunities here but we are ready for something new. I have had the new bug really bad for like 5 months.

I am going to miss our house tho, especially owning, its gonna be weird to rent again.

so we should be officially in cali at the end of january.

Our Bathroom is almost DONE!!! and LOTS of Pictures!!!

2009-11-23T11:54:00.028-05:00

University of Pittsburgh Football Game in the Steelers/Panthers Stadium in down town. Kyren loves the football games. We have season tickets and so far have won EVERY game, were ranked 8th before the last win so its probably higher now. The last game was HUGE, Pitt vs. Notre Dame....we of course won, 27 to 22, it was an intense game, it was sold out with tickets going around $250. Can you believe that? Lucky we have student tickets that were 5 bucks each. Kyren was our little sections mascot during the game, all the students loved him in his Pitt garb. Every time pitt score its a tradition for students to lift other students into the air body surfing style for how many points there are, so the whole section would count (practically yelling) as we bounced Kyren in the air for how ever many points we had at that time, it was really fun.

This is our new floor, theres a better picture later, this one looks kinda green.

Thats me sweeping before we put the new floor down.

This was our tub right before I refinished it.

Jordan and Kyren at after a Pitt game.

This is the back of the house that we added on completely, this shows the siding and the roof section that is all new.

That shows how well the new roof matches the old one, we had professional roofers come in to do the roof and then Jordan and I did the last 10 feet or so, and you cant even tell it was added later.

This is our bathroom, the ceiling is now like 12 feet high, big difference from 5. This is looking into the bathroom, and the window is facing the backyard with thte shower right below it.

Kyren taking a bath, hes really out grown our sink so it will be nice when the bathroom is done so he can take baths in the tub. Hes five months here

Kyren right before a bath, I had to put him down for a sec and he was so cute that I had to take a picture of his little bum.

I was so excited when I came up to get Kyren in the morning, he was playing with my ties I made on the bumper pad I made him. I had hoped that he would like the texture of the frilly fabric, and he does!

This is the bathroom looking towards the front of the house, thats the sliding door we installed, and at the top of the picture that wall you see was the old outside wall of the back of the house.

This is the beautiful leaves at a park that we always go play tennis at, thats the tennis courts in the background.

More bathroom looking into our living room.

This was at Kristens Wedding in LA, thats my roomate and friends that went to China with me, Katie is on Kristens left right next to her. It was so fun to see both of them again.

These are Jordans Custom Shelving, he gets paid really well for doing them and is doing two more rooms for 2 other people next week. Notice they float off the ground. My mom actually taught us how to make these when she came out for Kyrens birth, we put them in our closet in our room. Who would have known they would be our main source of income for a while.

My older brothers wedding, (eldon) at the LA temple.

Jordan was a Groomsmen.

My sister chelsea, I love this pic, we all tease her that shes gonna get married by 21 and then she goes and catches the bouquet!

My dad giving a speech at Eldons wedding.

My sister Chelsea and my cousin Jenny camping on teh Oregon Coast with our hair rag rolled. That was so much fun. I love camping!!

This was taken at my moms house right before Chelsea and I dyed our hair blonde. I cant believe how dark my hair has gotten. Since then I have dyed it back to this color.

This is Jordan, who was buried and made a hot chick in a bikini at Hermosa Beach California during Eldons wedding weekend.

I did Kristens hair for her wedding, and it looked awesome!

Kyren loves this exersaucer.

My older sister Mandi on the Cali beach at Eldons wedding.

One of my best friends Katie at Kristens wedding in LA.

My running in the park by my house. I rolled my ankle right after this picture and nearly died!

Since this picture Kyren has mastered the "worm" he gets around sooo fast, but when this was taken he would lift himself up on his arms and then fall forward like this and get frustrated that he didnt move. IT was sooo cute cuz he would do it over and over expecting to go somewhere.

Eldon and Kyren the day before he got married.

My cousin Jenny and her daughter Olivia on the Oregon Coast during Camping.

I love this picture of the boys. I came over the sand dune and saw all of them lined up like this just talking and wathcing the waves. Thats my dad and brothers and Jordan of course on the oregon coast.

This is the awesome view of Pittsburgh from the football stadium during the pitt football games.

My dad, Kyren and Jordan in LA

This is me doing the Karatee kid move on the Yellowstone national park lake.

I was supposed to be Ursala from little mermaid.

This is ethan right before Eldons wedding, he is holding Long boards and thos things are SOOO much fun. And there surprisingly easy, I cant skate board at all, but I could long board. Jordan and I decided that if we move to Cali we are investing in some of those.

Ethan, Chelsea and I on our road trip somewhere in the middle of south Dakota.

Chelsea and Ethan at the Gardens at BYUI.

Chelsea and I were being goffy and trying to fly like superman, this is by teh Nauvoo temple.

My little brother Ethan and Kyren, Ethan is now in the MTC, hes going to Gutamala for his mission.

I love this picture!! I love how Kyren is even looking at the camera like " Yeah I'm bad!" This is at Far West Missouri.

On the Oregon coast.

Going four wheeling on the Oregon dunes.

Outin the middle of no where in Wyoming during our road trip.

My favorite one, we were just sooooo excited to be in Nauvoo, we wanted to go frolic in the fields.

This is Jordan Chasing birds on the Hermosa Beach.

Thats chelsea.....yeah weird.

I'm SO Happy!!!

We went surfing, oh how we miss the ocean and the Cali beach. We both like boogy boarding better tho, and I can never get Jordan out of the water, he would play in the waves 24/7. And it doesnt matter how cold the water is, before oregon he had only swam in Hawaii and Cali water but he even went body surfing for HOURS in the freezing Oregon coast....anyone whos ever been in the Oregon coast water knows it is FREEZING and you have to be crazy to swim in it. So of course my husband is out there. Chelsea and I joined him, but it was even cold for me.

Ooooh what a stud!

My two sisters, cheslea and Mandi.

This is Jordans family at Kyrens baby blessing, I wish I had one of everyone but here is Jordans older brother withis two twin daughters and his older sister with her little girl.

There was this really HOT guy strutting his stuff on the beach so I had to take a picture of him......shhh dont tell jordan.

Eldon and Kimi giving Kyren his first experience in the sand....he loved it.

My dad and Chelsea after the wedding, just goofing around on the beach.

This is Ethans missionary workout countdown calender thingy that I made for him, it took forever, its 740 days and each one has a workout he has to do for that day and it counts down to his last day on his mission.

Our new kitchen floor!! Hurray, oh I love having a new floor.

Chelsea and Kyren and I at Adam-ondi-Ahmen

Kyren in his cool blessing outfit. He was sooo cute, and for some reason he looks really fat in it. It was the same outfit that Jordan was blessed in.

Framing the outside of the bathroom.

Jordan and I got in a marker war! and I think he actually won!

Thats the exact spot that I am mudding in the picture.

My awesome tiling job, its all done now and it looks GREAT. It was really fun to work on it.

Thats the old placement of the window, we filled it in and moved the window.

Alright now for the last month of our existance.....that sounds like were gonna die or something....ok so the latest month of activities. The last post was getting tooo long, so hopefully all the pics will be on this one. Were almost done with the bathroom!! We have done the entire thing ourselves, which of course looking back at it seems like quite a feet...especialy with a baby around. It is much harder to get things done with Kyren and we have to work alone alot more...which is sad cuz we love doing construction together, we make a great crew. So we tore off the roof which was in the post a while ago. In august we got finished the framing and shingled the whole thing ourselves. Jordan worked with a professional roofer in our ward like a year ago in between semesters, and I have done some shingling before so we figured it all out and did it ourselves, Jordan learned how to do the aluminum flashings and saufits and those came out great. Then we did the siding, which also turned out great. Vinyl siding is sooo easy. Then we started on the inside, Jordan and Ethan did most of it up to the dry wall phase, mostly Jordan. He plumbed it, did the electrical, of course did the framing, some cement work, installed the shower and put in the insulation. Then we both laid down a new sub floor....the old one was compeltely rotted. We just finished doing the drywall, the missionaries came and helped us put the ceiling dry wall up, which was nice cuz I couldnt really reach. Last week we finished doing the finish taping and mudding, which is primarily my job, so Jordan watched Kyren, Jordan installed the shower gismos and put up all the hardybacher for the shower walls and then the last two days and today Jordan is watching Kyren and I am tiling our bathtub surround area. Oh yeah and I scrubbed the stinkin tub and refinished it so it is all nice and white now. I cant believe we are this far already!!! The tiling looks really good so far. We got a great deal on procelain tile. This week we are getting a bathroom vanity and jordan is going to build the countertop and I will tile it when its built. The sink has been a nightmare cuz of course we got it dicount at some specialy plumbing store and so it sall goofy. Jordan has spent quite some time getting the wierd overflow valve to work with this really nice sink set we got off craigslist. Oh and EVERYTHING takes forever to do on this house because nothing is level, the existing walls are not straight, the floor wasnt level, the plumbing was a joke to fix and redo. So everything you do you have to customize for this house and usualy have to redo it 2-3 times to get it look normal. But in the end it all does look normal! HUrray.

We are trying to book it has fast as we can so that this house will be ready to rent when it comes time to moving. Which we suspect will be sometime next month!!! yikes! We both cant wait.

We also put a brand new floor down in the kitchen, which we have been waiting to do for years!! the old nasty yellow floor is finally gone!! That wasnt level either so we had to do quite a bit of cement work to get it done, it was off by like 2 1/2 inches!!

In the mean time Jordan has been doing odd jobs so we can survive with out a job. He has been doing custom shelves in peoples garages and walk in closets. He acutally has one to bid today by some guy off of craigslist that called him. How exciting. He has also been working with a friend who is a plumber, they are reinstalling all the pipes and shower gizmos on 15 apartments in an apartment building. I also got a job teaching 2 classes every tuesday and wednesday nights for 2 hours each night. That has been really enjoyable, its for a non profit organization that shelters pregnant women, most who are in trouble either with the law or dont have support or have abusive partners.

Other than that Kyren as learned to be compeltely mobile, he can move really fast too, he finally started moving when jordan was playing with him on the floor with some marbles and he would chase it and then push the marble farther away with his hand when he reached for it so then he would chase it some more. After that he all of a sudden realized that he can move! Its soooo cute. He sees something he wants and worms his way there really fast.

Anway now on to pictures

3 Months Later and Nothing is the same!

2009-11-17T22:41:00.002-05:00

Thats kinda disgusting that I havnt written on here for 3 MONTHS!!! And you know why? Because every time I go to I think of all the pictures I want to post and get discouraged at how long that will take. You know its all ways something, last time I tried, the USB port on our computer stopped working....3 of them, or at least they wouldnt recognize my iphone, that took about 30 min of trying and failing to get pictures off, so I had to use our lap top but of course the only portable USB I could find was full....its a 2 Gig too...so I spent an hour filing stuff off of it so I could fill it with pictures to be able to transfer them onto our terabite which is hooked up to our other computer so that I could easily find them on here. Yeah 2 1/2 hours later and no blog posting....

Which means a REALLY long catch up post......

Anyway......3 MONTHS....and where to start, you have NO IDEA how crazy these three months have been. Well the most exotic news is that WERE MOVING!....we actually came thiiiiiis close to moving to Anchorage Alaska. Jordan lost his job at the beginning of October...didnt see that coming, he just started in May. So since then we have applied to every job that has to do with IOM or EEG positions. (IOM is intraoperative monitoring in the OR at hospitals) Lucky for us it is a very available position all over. All over except in the Northwest where we WANT to go of course. We were offered Kansas City Missouri....which is right by Independence and I just went through there on my road trip...it is a beautiful city and area. Ft Lauderdale Florida, Boston, New York New York, California.......The goal is to be within a 12 hour drive to both families....we'll see if we can make that happen.

Kyren is SIX MONTHS already....in december he will be 7 months which I CANT believe is right around the corner. This fall really hasnt seemed real it has gone by soooo fast. We have been so busy that we havnt had time to pay attention to any holidays which makes it feel even less like the fall since there are so many holidays in the fall. Hopefully everything will calm down by Christmas so that we can actually celebrate it.

So at his 4 Month check up Kyren weighed in at 19 lbs and was 26 inches long ranking in the 95th percentile for both weight and height. He was wearing 6-9 month clothes. Its funny cuz his torso is sooo long that he could only wear 9 month tops but his legs were short enough to fit in 6 month pants.

At his 6 Month appointment on Nov 11th he had grown to 21 lb and 30 INCHES long! He is in the 99th percentile for his height, still 95th for his weight and 50th for his head circumfrence. His head is like 45 cm. So he has a comparatively small head. Which I am fine with. He can now only FIT into 12 month clothes, which is sad cuz he out grew his 6 month clothes really fast, the arms on this 6 month clothes go to his elbows. I would say the most expensive part of babies...at least for us is buying clothes, they grow out of them so fast!

So what Kyren can do:
Sit up without support-started at 4 months
Raise up on his arms-Started at 3 months
Get on all fours-crawling position-started at 5 months-mastered by 6
Can go where he wants too and get what he wants-started at 5 months but just now really good at it
Loves to destroy towers built out of blocks built by mom and dad
Loves being upside down
Really ticklish and laughing with a deep laugh....its soo funny
He just picked something up with his thumb and forefinger 2 days ago-instead of his fist
Loves to dance to music with mom and dad.
LOVES baths
Put his binky in his own mouth-4 months
Loves to play with my touch phone
Jumps with anyone and everyone that that holds him-as if he is in his jumper
EATS pureed veggies and Rice----he does great-started at 6 months
Likes to drink from cups-started 5 months
SMILES all day long-at everyone!Hes such a flirt. Its funny cuz he will pick someone he wants to smile at him and will stare at them and smile his cutest smile until they look at him and smile back and then he moves on to the next target. Everyone falls right into his trap ;) And every one I meet says he is the happiest most smiley baby they have ever seen.....and he is the most happy baby I have ever seen too.
He loves textures-he prefers touching everything than playing with one thing
Doesnt really care for things that make noise....likes textures better.

Well that most the big things, we have discovered that he loves warmed up squash. Course he hasnt had any fruits yet so he probably will like them better when ever we decide to give them.

A typical day for Kyren is waking up at 6:30 am, I feed him and put him back in his crib cuz hes usually asleep in half an hour and he wakes up around 8:30, then he eats a little bit more around 9, plays until 11, usually in his jumper or on the ground chasing things. He plays really good by himself in the mornings. He goes down for his morning nap at 11 and wakes up at 12, eats, plays till 2:30 when he gets veggie baby foods which he loves doing. Usually goes down for an afternoon nap at around 3 wakes up at 4-5, eats again at 6 and then hangs out and does what ever we are doing....by this time he usually has to be around one of us, its funny cuz he doesnt want to be held he just wants to be right next to where ever we are, so he usually hangs out in the bumpo on the counter playing with dishes while I cook dinner. Lately its been tower building on the floor and rolling things away from him for him to chase. If he gets a bath he gets it right before bed, eats and is usually konked out by 8:30 pm.

Then of course we usually stay awake till 12, its been around 1:30 am for the past 2 weeks cuz were doing construction.
So High lights of the last 3 months, My birthday present was going camping with my family on the Oregon Coast for a week in August. Jordans little sister entered the MTC at the beginning of August, unfrotunately we werent able to go to her farewell, she is now in the Philipines..Hurray and is loving it of course. We flew out to Boise in August and had Kyrens baby blessing in my older sisters ward in Bosie Idaho, that way both sides of the family could come. Which both of them did we were so excited. His whole family drove up from Spanish Fork UT and his Grandma and Grandpa came too, one is from CALI. My family drove over from Centralia WA. It was the neatest thing to see the blessing circle be all men from our families....it was an awesome sight. Then we headed over with my family to go camping the next week, we camp right on the coast and go sand duning on four wheelers, crabbing, swimming, play in the ocean , star gazing on sand dunes etc. Thats been a pretty steady tradition in my family growing up but we havnt done it for like 4 years until this year so that was AWESOME to go. The goal is to do that every year...I love camping! My cousin Jenny got to come down and that made it even more fun and special.

After camping I headed out on a LONG road trip with my brother and sister Ethan and Chelsea and of course Kyren. Jordan could only take off the week for camping so he flew home. Jordans parents were life savers and gave us a car when they met us in Boise to take home, our gray pontiac is about to blow any day. It was an amazing gift that we will always be indepted to them for. And its really nice to have a reliable car. So since we had to drive it across the country we decided to make it fun, especialyl since we had to go slower with a baby. So we took about 8 days to drive it to Pittsburh. the Road trip was AWESOME, we stopped at Mt. Rushmore, went to all the church history sites, Winter courters, Independence, Far west, Adam-ondi-Ahmen, Liberty jail, Nauvoo. We ended by meeting Jordan up at Cedar Point in Ohio, which is a HUGE amusement park, stayed the night and made it home to Pittsburgh the next day. Kyren did great in the road trip, he was still small enough that being in a car seat that long didnt really bother him at all, we of course had to stop often to change diapers and get him out anyway. Oh yeah and we went through Yellowstone and camped there.

After the road trip my brother Ethan actually stayed out at our house for 2 months getting odd jobs and just hanging out. That was really fun, especially since he just left on his mission this last wednesday and we wont see him for 2 years and didnt get to go to his farewell either. It was lots of fun to get to spend that much time with him. And not to mention having a permenant babysitter if we needed one. So we got to go to the temple which we hadnt done sine Kyren was born. Now that hes 6 months were fine leaving him for a day and so can go more often. Kyren LOVED Ethan, I think its cuz Ethans a spaz ;) no but he could put Kyren to sleep just by touching him, whenever he held him Kyren went right out. And he was great at playing with him. We played games all the time, it was nice to have 3 people to play with. He would beat us both at Nertz without ever actually winning nertz each round, he was really good at getting cards in the middle.

After the Road trip my pelvic bone and tail bone were finally healed enough to run and play tennis so we started playing tennis every day. Jordan would come home from work and Ethan Kyren Jordan and I would go play tennis. Ethan had never really played before and the first time he played he hit the ball out of the court every time....just like a brute....but he learned REALLY fast and by the end of 2 months I could barely beat him.... I would say our skill level was/is the same now...Jordan is slightly better than both of us, but I can still beat him which makes tennis really fun. We have decided that that is our officialy hobby together, we love playing tennis together, and it works perfectly cuz were about the same skill level and just get better together, so were always a challenge for each other. Although we discovered we dont play very well as doubles. Have to work on that one. We started running in the park near our house too and since its fall out here its GORGEOUS! Oh I LOVE fall, its my fav season. I wish it just alternated between spring and fall. PA is amazing in the fall too cuz all the trees out here are deciduous.

Oh yeah and then just last month My big Brother got MARRIED...finally. hehe. He married a girl from Hermosa Beach California her name is Kimi and we all think shes awesome. Shes nice and spunky and I can tell she will be lots of fun to hang out with. Its fun to have a sister in law, kinda weird too since we have only had boys enter the parry family. THeir wedding was amazing, it was probably the nicest, most fluid wedding reception I have ever been too. Which says a lot cuz I loved our wedding reception. It was a beach theme. They got married in the LA temple and their sealing was very touching. They had a great sealer. While we were down there we stayed in my parents time share resort thingy right next to disneyland, went surfing, boogy boarding, played on the beach a ton and overall just had a blast. It was really cool that my whole family was there, my sister and brother in law and 4 nephews and neices drove down from boise, we all got to meet our brand new neice, Keturah Lynn Gottfredson, shes tiny! And the Chatmens flew down too and hung out with us. It was great we were all together!

Then I stayd a week in Cali so I could go to my old roomates/and one of my best friends wedding which was also int he LA temple. Yay for KRISTEN!! All the while with the blob by my side. Her wedding was so cute. I was a bridesmaid so got to help decorate and hang out with her the nights before, I got to do her hair for her wedding. Which turned out amazing and the best part was just hanging out with girls again. Katie came down from northern cali and we all spent the night in a hotel the night before playing MASH and having midnight nachos/bean dip. I hadnt played mash since on the bus in elementary school...it was so fun. Then I flew home. Which is not easy to do alone with a baby lugging all your crap with you through 3 air ports and 3 transitions! But we made it.

So then Jordan lost his Job in October like I mentioned, we were very SHOCKED to say the least but in reality we both kinda like it. I love having an unemployed husband! hehehe it was a terrible adjustment to having him gone all the time when he was working full time and we both really didnt like the hospital he was working at, really crude co workers.

A New Roof and Kyren is 3 Months

2009-08-07T11:08:00.008-04:00

Well well well, Kyren is already 3 months (aug 3rd). I know everyone says it, but I cant believe how fast they grow!! I had several women in our ward tell me to enjoy them while they were tiny babies cuz it doesnt last very long, and I remember looking at all their babies and thinking they were huge. Well its true, I do think I enjoyed it, but I am still surprised by how big they get so soon. He already holds his head up all the time by himself, and hes learning he has hands and is starting to bring things to his face to eat them. But mostly its just looking at his size, his head seems huge to me and he doesnt even look clost to what he looked like as a new born. That part is kinda cool cuz now we are seeing much more resemblance to Jordan and I. We have decided that he has my round head and ears and forehead and jordans features...such as the eyes, nose and mouth.

He spits up ALL the time, after every meal and wether he is lying down or sitting up or being played with or sleeping, some days are worse than others but he still always soaks his clothes and wears about 2-3 outfits a day because of it.

July has been pretty busy actually, Its funny cuz I havnt really been able to be a bored stay at home mom yet....maybe someday.. ;) So at the beginning of July as already mentioned we went camping for the fourth, then we went to a Carr side family reunion in Ohio which was a lot of fun, then we babysat a family for a week while they were setting up for the stake trek and participating in the trek. After that we organized and were aproved for a home equity loan so that we could fix our roof and remodel our bathroom. The roof has been leaking crazy this summer and its now all done! They just finished yesturday...I tell you what, you hire people out to do work for you and you can get spoiled real fast. It was so nice to have the roof done in 3 days and I didnt have to do any of it. Course it cost a pretty penny too. And now we can finally redo our bathroom, which for those who don't know, its an extremely sad excuse for a bathroom, the roof over the bathtub was MY height, which means Jordan has not been able to stand up in it all the way since we have lived here.....He has obviously been dreaming of redoing the bathroom for some time. So we started. We werent supposed to start until after we returned from Kyren's baby blessing in Idaho but just like Jordan he just went up there on wednesday and started tearing off the roof...so we started. The cool part is that now we have ALL the tools to do it, without having to borrow or rent, thanks to the flea market. And we got our favorite tool yesturday...an air compressor. Its a really cool one too, it only weighs 43 lbs but can run a framing nailer and is tiny. It just came out last week, its a ridgid and only cost 250. Hurray.....you know its funny I have found that I really like tools, their so useful and fun to use and make everything go so much faster. Like I just learned how to use a framing square...those things are cool.

Anyway so here are pics, in random order, for some reason when the pics download from my phone the computer jumbles them all up, so you get them jumbled....it takes to much time to organize them all.

This is the roof getting redone, the bottom of the picture shows the low bathrrom roof, the top of the picture is the normal roof over our livig room.

This was AWESOME!!! If anyone is ever bored and needs something fun to do on a saturday...build a slip-n-slide! well it could get expensive if you dont have the stuff already, pictures just dont do it justice. The black part is like 3 adult bodies long and goes at a pretty steep angle down their hill. We used shower backing from home depot that we had left over from remodeling the duplex, and our friend had the clear stuff which is to block windows before the window is put in new construction and then tarps underneath...but unless the tarp is brand new they dont feel so good to slide on.
This is insulation board....very nice stuff, that they put under the rubber whic is over metal sheeting which is over the new plywood they put down.
This is the final product of the rubber part of the roof which is garunteed to last 30+ years along with the caulking, but the cool part is that now our entire gutters work, the old roof which had 7 layers of crap shingles and metal on it overhung this gutter more than half way so we werent getting full usage.
This is Anna Merrerll, she was one of my beehives, we have babysat this family 3 times now, but his is hertrying to hit the pinnatta that we made while I was there babysitting. Isnt the fish sweet? We designed it ourselves and filled with really good candy...like twix bars and pudding cups and flavored tootsies.
These are our flowers this year infront of our house, they are impatients and I have decided they are my favorite kind of flower. They sparkle in the sun...its cool.

This is a better pic ofte slide, this clear stuff was amazingly slick you couldnt walk on it at all.
Jordan cheating and trying to feel out where it was before he swung.
This is Peter working on the pinatta, Anna and Pete are so much fun, we went bowling and Anna beat me! played games, watched movies, played fusion frenzy, along with the slip n slide and pinatta.
Teh nasty box gutters built back in 1910 that were completely rotted out. They had to rebuild that section and put hanging gutters up.
All the trash, some how this house produced amazing amounts of debree even tho it is tiny.
Finished roof, the blue part is covering our open bathroom.
The bathroom

Isnt he HUGE?!!!!

The kids loved calling Kyren the Blob, since that is what we call him all the time so they named the pinatta after him, the Blobster.....although I did ask them how that was an honor considering that you HIT and Wack the pinatta with a stick.

This was supposed to be our flourishing garden of peas and tomatoes...but the peas didnt grow at all, they did last year and the tomatoes are being picked off by our Neighbor kid! so I put flowers in like 3 weeks ago.
This is at outback steak house for my birthday

This is Kyren at 3 months!! HE is gettinsoooo big! And hes sooo cute.

He loves his bumbo chair, he loves to be part of hte action and able to look around, he has also started to master his hands and can grab things he wants and just started to put them to his mouth this week. Notice he holds his head up great. He is so adorable, hes lucky I havnt eaten him yet!!!

Kyrens Two Month Checkup

2009-07-28T07:02:00.006-04:00

So even tho he is one week from 3 months, these are his pics I took at 2 months.

At two months he was: 15 lbs!= 95th percentile

24 inches long=95th percentile

40 cm head = 75th percentile

He gained soo much weight his 2nd month its crazy. Its really weird to me to notice that he is growing longer, I know hes a baby and all and thats what kids do is grow but usually you dont notice month to month, more like year to year. Its usually so slow but its amazing to see that his onsies dont fit him already cuz hes too long.

The funny thing about his weight is that he really doesnt look fat, hes got his fat rolls but he doesnt appear to be a heavy baby until you pic him up. There is this 5 month old in our ward that looks like a chunker...you know the huge fat rolls and massive sagging cheeks that are so cute....well the mom asked me to hold him during relief society so she could take care of her 2 year old in nursery and I was surprised that he felt so light to me, turns out he was only 13 lbs, just looks massive. So Ky is made of lead apparently....or its all his muscle.

Right around the fourth of July he started holding his head up sooo good when he is on his bellly, it still amazes us when he does it. He has always been able to lift his head when he is on his belly but now he lays there and moves his head from side to side, its the cutest thing to watch. He will lay there and follow us around the house as we walk past him.

These were taken on a sunday about 2 and half months, around July 12. He has started to talk/coo a lot. He doesnt do it too much for the camera, theres a little bit but he does it a lot throughout the day, especially when he is in his bumbo chair and were staring at him. On the weekends after feeding him I will take him into the bed and he will lay on Jordans chest, lift his head up and just talk to us for like 45 minutes. Thats my favorite cuz hes just so darn cute when he talks.

He also stands really well now, well for his age of course, we can hold his hands and he will hold himself up on his feet, hes rather wiggly, but he really likes to do it. He loves position changes and to move around a lot. When we put him on the floor he usually does 360's or moves up about 2 feet from kicking and wiggling so much....he moves even farther when he is mad and crying.

Our friends the Abbotts had their baby 3 weeks later even tho we were due on the same day and this is their little Phineus...called Phin. Babies are soo funny and amusing to watch, they just lay here and smack each other in the face and make faces.

These are my favorite little shorts.

The Last Two Months of Our Life and the First Two Months of Ky's

2009-07-06T13:10:00.017-04:00

WE FINALLY HAVE INTERNET!!!! Don da Duuuuuh!! Yay, we can now enter the civilized world, and will from now on have our blog updated, which is a good thing cuz its really the only form of a journal I keep. So of course sooo much has happened these last two months....where should I start? Long Long Ago, in the year 2009, the 26th day of the fourth month there was a couple...very much in love with eachother... that lived in a land far far away. Well on this amazingly hot day this couple was busily engaged in celebrating the long awaited ....GRADUATION DAY!!! I know I know you all know we already graduated but it definatly deserves some blogging so here are our pics We both actually really liked our graduation ceremony, it was still long even tho each class doesnt walk, there were a lot of PhD's and they call them out individually. In the morning we went to the Neuroscience departmental ceremony, they held a breakfast in a very fancy hall/rented out area and one of our professors spoke and then they called us up one by one and took a department pic of all the graduates. Our advisor got our little baby a present, which i thought was really cute of her. It was quite funny being 9 months pregnant and posing for the pics.....it made me feel really old next to all my peers graduating of which most have not even had a serious relationship yet and we have been married for 2 years and almost have a baby. Anyway afterwards we went to church and then immediately after that we went to the large overall ceremony. The speaker was some amazing biochemistry/micro biologist and MD that graduated from pitt a long time ago and has national awards for his research....apparently he founded the whole entire field of biochemistry...he was pretty old too i think he was 70 something. Anyway I really liked him, he was funny, short and gave really good true advice...like not feeling entitled to anything and keeping professionalism instead of slacking off in appearence and performance. He also talked about having convictions in God and not being superstitious and that all success come from hard work and nothing else. He talked alot about families and not being liberal...it was really exciting for jordan and I, a lot of the stuff he said we wish we could have said ourselves to half our class mates. That next week we just hung around the house and put in our flowers and did house projects that desparatly needed to be done but had all been put off due to school. I still cant beleive its all over. OH and we finally recieved our Diplomas in the mail so ITS OFFICIAL....We graduated. For those who dont know I graduated with a bachelors in Neuroscience with a minor in Chemistry, psychology and dance. Jordan Graduated with a Bachelors in Neuroscience with a minor in Chemistry. I hated the chemistry and am soo glad its over....actually chemistry itself is actually very fascinating I just hated the classes and the tests.

So that friday we started getting assuming Ky was going to stay in there and would probably be late cuz i wasnt feeling anything. But then he came that weekend, and was born exactly one week from graduation. I was soo glad he waited! So I was in the hospital for two days and we came home. I would have to say i loved the hospital stay...it was so nice to have food just made and everything cleaned for you. And now 9 weeks later I can offically report on my recovery...it stinks! So apparently i had a really brutal delivary....which i wasnt even aware of until i went in for my post partum appointment. I new i had torn on the inside but figured it was minimal since she didnt tell me much. But apparently I have 26+ stiches and ripped in 4 different places on the inside, I also officialyl have a fractured pelvic bone and a broken tail bone.....which is why I am going to the physical therapists now. Which on monday apparently a woman is going to go inside and push it back into place....it sounds really painful and I am not excited at all.....but maybe a little i really would like to be able to sit down again for longer than 2 minutes wihtout it hurting really bad. So my recovery has been really really slow.

My mom arrived when kyren was 3 days old (she flew in from WA) she had already bought her plane ticket but had to fedangle with eh airlines since i was 2 1/2 weeks early. I am soooo glad she was out here tho, it was soo nice, and I really think it was vital for even my pathetic recovery. She would take him every night from the night she got there, so i was getting a ful nights sleep with a newborn....oh it was soo nice. I really enjoyed having the first couple nights with just kyren Jordan and I tho, it was so exciting and sureal to have a baby and its ours. So when Kyren was two days old Jordan put him on his belly and he rolled over, I thought it was a fluke but we watched him do it 3 more times in a row....and he now does it almost every time he is on his belly. The doc of course said that was amazing and that babies usually cant do that, not because of coordination but becuase they dont have the muscle or muscle tone to lift their heads and push to roll over. So apparenlty Kyren is a little beefy kid....of which Jordan just loves. which I should add that I think it was quite necessary for Kyren to be as strong as he is with Jordan as a dad....who carries him around like he is a year old and plays with him like he is two.

Its really cute...Jordan loves to give him what he calls his "workouts" which is basically Kyren being forced to roll over 10 times in a row. Its really cute tho. At 4 weeks Ky started holding up his head in a sitting position...(he doesnt sit up yet just when you are holding him he can hold his head by himself) and now at 9 weeks (two months) he holds his head up all by himself, Jordans mom sent him a cool Bumbo chair that helps support little babies in an upright position and he can use it already....their not supposed to be able to until 4 months.

So while my mom was out here was got a ton done. Which is amazing cuz Kyren takes upa lot more time than I thought he would. IT really is ture that you spend all day feeding him. My mom and I put him on a schedule of eating every 2 and half hours and he would go to sleep at 10 and wake up at six.

Oh I should probably mention that the day we were in the hospital UPMC called and officially offered Jordan a job, which was such a relief to Jordan....he was kinda freaking out. But alas, they did finally call so he was home for a whole 2 weeks without working and then he started. Which was really nice for him to have time with Kyren and we were both so tired it would have been terrible for him to be working. He is now officialy a Neurophysiology Technician at UPMC which stands for the Universit of Pittsburh Medical Center.....its the major Hospital chain that owns the world out here. So he is in the OR everyday monitoring nerve activity during surgeries....mostly spinal fusions and brain tumor removals. ITs a perfect job for him, and he relaly likes it. It was really cool to find a job that was so perfectly related to our major and that prepped him so well. IT also pays really well and has full benefits. Its a reall job...we feel so grown up. :)

so our list, My mom Jordan and I built our closet from scratch (it wasnt a pre arranged closet thingy) refinished our refigerator to black...and its sooo cool you cant even tell. rebiult the pea garden biult shelves in our pantry...about 6 shelves high and the room is about 8x6 organized the whole house and got rid of all our text books and put stuff in organizer boxes and stowed them away. repainted the baby room in a super cool tropical ocean theme ....made curtains for the kitchen/dining area and living room area along with curtains for the baby room that matched the theme. Mounted the projector and screen My mom made Kyren his official baby blanket from Grandma....ok well Jordan didnt really do much with curtains or the blanket but the rest of it he did. so we were really busy, we played with Kyren, went on walks when I could finally stand and walk around again. Watched movies on our new theatre system....We went to garage sales and Jordan fouudn some really nice speakers and the dude gave them to him for a buck cuz he was packing upa nd just wanted the stuff out ofhis house. Now it doesnt really rival my parents sound system but it does sound really good and makes it feel like a theatre...and hey you cant go wrong for a buck! In there somewhere was mothers day which I was officialy a mother for and my mothers day present was a plane ticket out to WA for a week!! I was so excited. My mom was out here for 4 weeks!! It was soo fun and nice.

At the end of the four weeks we (my mom and I) flew out to WA and surprised the rest of my fam....not even my dad knew I was coming out....which was hillarious cuz my mom kept making blunders all the time and almost letting out the secret. WA was of course awesome. My little brother Ethan graduated from high school so I got to see that. And my older brother Eldon got engaged and brought his Fiance Kimi to meet the fam. I was really glad I got to see her. She passes the test...he picked a good one. Oh and Jennie and Seth came down, so I was able to see Olivia and hang out with Jenny. And they all got to see Kyren. That week was really fun and of course the trip felt way too short. We had a barbeque for ethans graduation and played sword fighting, basketball and other random games. The night before was Sister Chatmans birthday party so we had a baby party for Kyren and Sis Chatmans birthday party...that was awesome to see a lot of familiar faces and friends I had not seen in a long time. Before the party all the girls went and got pedicures done....there was 8 of us I believe, Mandi, Chelsea, Jennie, My mom, Sis chatman, Jocylen and Kimi and then me. Chelsea and I of course did fun stuff...including buying another set of bathing suits at costco that we walked around in with over our clothes looking like goobers....it was fun. Last summer we bought matching wet suit swimsuits....which I love having. I dont do the sun thing and really like having my skin covered so I cant burn. it goes tot he elbow and knee. So now we have two sets of bathing suits that match. Were so cool...;)

So now for pics.....

These are also pics of the cool blanket my mom made kyren while she was out here, the front and back.

This is around 2 months, the pic with the black and white pics ont eh floor is around 5 weeks.

Jordans officially OLD....He turned 25!!!!...It was on sunday but we went to see TRANSFORMERS for his birthday ....and HATED the movie, which made us really mad to have wasted the money to go see it, but we had fun on his birthday anyway. He got some much needed shorts and church shirts, we had a little party at a friends house and of course you cant forget the projector and screen.

This is a cake that our friends daughter made for Jordan, she was one ofmy beefhives...of course this isafter the candles.

I flew out to WA when Kyren was 4 weeks old so the first of june for My little bro's High school Graduation.

Kyrens first bath

This is at a park next to our house and kyrens hand at one weeks old

These are awesome plates that my mom and I found at Goodwill that match my kitchen perfectly!!

Kyren at about 2 weeks

This is kyrens church shirt

This is at 3 weeks, Kyren hates being on his belly and everytime you put him on his belly he lifts his head and rolls over. Jordan calls this his work out.

Awsome tropical fish curtains that my mom and I made while she was out here.

So our tenants left this canoe behind, and after 60 days it is officially ours, so now we have a canoe! It was so much fun, this was on the fourth of July, we went camping and conoeing at Rackoon Creek State Park

More curtains that My mom and I made, she taught me how...these are in the living room/kitchen

This is in WA, the sunday after Ethan Graduated...these are all the boys of the fam...except poor Jordan who had to work.

Yeah so these pics are all over the place but oh well.....So this is Jordans fancy projector set up above our couch in the living room. It works really well to have it up there, he has the cords coming down from the ceiling. and the screen which pulls down inbetween our living room and kitchen area....isnt that awesome? The screen is 82 inches wide

My mom and I painted the new nursery room, this replaced the orange room. Arent the waves awesome? My mom and I made the pattern and drew it on the wall. And that is a really nice crib that my family bought us for christmas...Chelsea went through all the work to find it and buy it and my mom brought it out with her on the plane....it was way over weight but lucky for us they didnt even check.

Jordan made these shelves that are holding the plates and what I call the pretty shelves on the right. It was so nice to have more space for dishes so I dont have to play tetris everytime I want a bowl or plate.

This is Kyren at about 2 weeks

This is Kyren at like 2 days old

My mom and Jordand and I build these shelves also while she was out here, we dreaded going into this pantry before we put these in, now it is AWESOME....and has so much more space.

My mom also created and we all built this closet organizer while she was out here....we got so much done and we are sooooo grateful she came out, our house is so much more organized with cool shelves.

Like father like son? I love this picture

Kyren Jordan Carr

2009-05-06T21:09:00.005-04:00

Pics at the bottom for those who want to skip the book, and they loaded backwards so start at the bottom.....

ITS A BOY!!!He arrived at 6:10 pm on Sunday, May 3rd 2009. He was 2 and half weeks early but still weighed in at 8 pounds 9 oz and measured 21.5 inches long. We were so excited that he is healthy, he truly is a perfect little human. So heres the low down....So my mom and all others insisted that we take a birthing class before the birth. It was quite hillarious actually, we couldnt find any classes that fit our schedule while we were in school, but once graduated (FINALLY) and after much badgering,we found one....it was actually very difficult to find since it was within 3 weeks of the due date, but we found a one day, all day, lamaze class. That was saturday morning, one week after graduation. The class ended at 2:30 pm (may 2nd). We actually really did enjoy the class and are glad that we went, it did make us think of a few things that we needed before he came....but alas my water broke at 4 pm. An hour and half later! I was actually just waking up from a nap and couldnt believe that my water had just broke, I kept staring and telling jordan "I really think my water broke....wow....that means...." And jordan of course was bewildered....walking around in circles being very unproductive :) saying " WHAT? are you sure? your water broke?!!! that means we have to go to the hospital.....THAT MEANS YOUR HAVING A BABY....TODAY!!!" It was really fun. So of course the first thing we did was frantically clean the whole house.....luckily for us it is very small....we vacuumed and did the dishes and laundry all crazy like....and then Jordan packed his stuff....we had actually just packed my bag like two days before, along with cleaning out the car and getting the car seat in. I wasnt having very painful contractions, but they were occuring. I was rather dissapointed that my water broke first, we were planning on staying home until we COULDNt stay home any longer when I finally did go into labor so taht I wouldnt be in the hospital that long. Anyway so we arrived Magee's Womens Hospital at 6:00 pm and checked in. At 6:30 when they checked I was dilated to a 4 and was having consistant contractions every 3-4 minutes. So even tho it seemed too early to be there I guess technically I was far enough along to be admitted anyway. So around 7 I was moved to the delivery room, which was amazing. It was sooo nice and large, about the size of our whole kitchen and lving room space, in the shape of an L, it even had a jacuzzi tub in it. So we set up camp. We were going natural so I refused to let them put ANY IV's in, which I am really glad for too, cuz it was really nice to move around and do what I wanted. They had a birthing ball that I would bounce on every time I had really bad contractions, and walked around the floor in the room and around the labor and delivery section. At around 11:30 pm (it having been 6 and half hours of contractions every 2-3 minutes) I was ONLY AT A 5!!!! So we then moved our guesses to when the baby would arrive to around 4am.... The contractions started to get REALLY painful after about 2 am, so I went into ( WOW lovely side note, Jordan was changning Ky rigt next to the computer while I was typing and he just PEED all over it....hahahhaa) Anyway where was I.....ahh yes lovely contractions, So at 4 am I was checked again and was successfully to a.....6!!! I wasnt very happy about that, so went into the jacuzzi hoping it would help me relax and allow dilation to occur faster, the jacuzzi was VERY nice but the contractions around 6 am were also really painful and were lasting about a minute to a minute and half. and were every 2-3 min apart. At 10 in the morning I was EXHAUSTED and there was still NO BABY....I couldnt believe I was being so ridiculous, but the contractions were harder and longer than ever and I could no longer get up and felt what they called "pushy" which I might add actually felt really good, the pain of the contractions went away and it felt really good to push. The nurse attending started to get everything ready and was pretty sure the baby was going to come in the next 3 hours from teh look of the contractions. So the midwife came in and checked and lo and behold I had moved to an 8!!! I was soo angry, an 8!! what a rip off, you get that close and feel taht ready and are told its an 8 with a 90 percent effacement and only at a station of -2....meaning the baby was not even close to coming! I was completely exhausted by this point, I could tell the contractions were the same pain level but they were starting to feel way worse because I was emotionally tired, so after an hour longer....oh and by the way the worse part about the contractions is that they were almost all BACK pain, which was terrible, I could handle the hard front pain much better than that stupid back pain, it was soo sharp. So the midwife suggested that giving me some form of acupuncture in the spine to relieve just the back pain, I thought about that for awhile, but decided that if she was going to poke my spine and have a lower probability of working and aprobability of her messing up I decided it wasnt any different than an epidural. So at around 10:30 i finally gave in and got an epidural. It did sound just wonderful to be able to sleep and have some energy back for pushing when teh baby did finally decided to come....if ever! So they gave me the epidural and I didnt even feel it, all I could feel were those stupid contractions every 30 seconds. 15 minutes later i was concked out and slept for an hour and half. When i woke up i felt GREAT, i had energy again, it was really werid feeling to be numb in the legs, cuz i couldnt feel anything in my back (hurray) but i could feel contractions (like half of them) in my left side. And i could move my legs but they felt really tingly and heavy. So the good news was that I was checked at 12 and was dilated to 10, 100% effaced but only at a station of 0. So I pushed for 3 hours and got now where, I could see his head of hair every once in awhile. After 3 hours i could feel everything again and the mid wife suggest i rest again for while and see if he would move down. So i slept for an hour again and when i woke up I was finally completely ready!! Hurray!!!! Both jordan and I were so frustrated at this point, I was seriously wondering if it was EVER going to come out, after so many times of telling myself..."only a couple more hours...think by morning he could be here".....then in the morning..."think by lunch we could have a baby....." then by lunch it was pretty much...."nah were not having a baby, just a lovely torture session....I'm sure hes not even in there its all just a hoax!" Anyway during all this some time they noticed that he wasnt descending very normal so they thought he was probably posterior and that was why he was having such a hard time coming while pushing and that would also explain my back pain. So they had a doctor come in cuz neither the nurse of the midwife could feel his soft spots to tell what postiion he was really in, they did note that what ever position it was he had ahuge head and that perhaps that was why also. So the doc came in and felt around and afterwhile, he could really tell either but was pretty sure that he was actually anterior with just ahuge head, but he did note that my pelvis was not shaped normal and was flat, where there should be an arch for the babies head to come through. So he said that could bring in complications but that I could probably push him out as long as my energy maintained it was just going to take a long time for the babies head to mold to my pelvis. So we commenced pushing again, after 2 hours of pushing i was getting really mad at the nurses....not really at them they were wonderful but with the stupid cheerleading chants....all about how great a pusher i was and what a great job I was doing and when i would push they would say "thats it...oh almost there that was a really good one he is moving really well..." but after getting a mirror ( I wanted to see this great progress they were proclaiming) he WASNT MOVING AT ALL! every time I would push, you would see dark brown hair and a little pieve of head the size of a quater and then he would move back in. for 2 more hours, i wasnt see any great movement!!! But at 6:10 he finally did emerge and that was the greatest feeling inthe world to see and feel progress, they kept telling me to relax during the last couple pushes but It irritated me to death to watch him sink back in so I didnt and he finally came out. It was AMAZINGly sureal! Right after he came out....all blue they plopped him on my chest and he took his first breath and screamed right there, it was definatly what dad called the DONG effect, and i was so happy i could have cried, it was so many emotions of FINALLY, and wow there really was a baby in there, and look at it!, and of course the werid feeling that he was mine and our beautiful baby. I would say i defintaly had that instantaneous flow of love and admiration when he screamed. After asking jordan he was flabergasted at how HUGE he was, he said he really wasnt expecting his head to keep getting bigger and bigger while he was coming out and was amazed at the size of his body on my chest. He said he felt relieved and amazed and happy as could be that the thing was out and healthy and wiggling. He got to cut the chord and watched with amazement the rest of the lovely ordeal while I stared at Kyren. I breast fead right away and he really latched on for a good 20 minutes, afterwards he was taken by the nurse fianly to weigh and measure and jordan finally held him then. It was so fun to watch Jordan just stare at him and follow him around in amazment.

Last CLASS for Undergrad at PITT!!!

2009-04-17T13:41:00.002-04:00

So we are crazy busy and I shouldnt even be on here posting this but I thought it was so exciting....quite a momentous occasion.... We just took our last class at PITT!! HAHAHHA. Finally, I thought this day would NEVER come....literally and I still won't fully believe it until my diploma comes in the mail!
So its friday and we only have finals left, we unfortunately have rather difficult finals and of course they are all on the same day! We have 3 finals next tuesday along with our final neuro research papers due, then I have my photography final project and presentation due on thursday and our very last final at pitt is on FRIDAY, which is our easiest one. And then we are DONE....of course assuming we do well on them. ;)

Update on our weird life lately.....our car is dead, actually its not really even the car being SO dead as it is our schedule going crazy and we have no time to work on it. We have to wait until every friday to spend any time one it, last friday I think jordan might have finally gotten the head gasket plugged up with that bars leak stuff, and then of course when it seemed to be running fine, enough for a test drive anyway, we noticed that our rear right tire was completely flat...which was weird cuz its never gone low before and we just replaced the rear tires a year ago. And of course we had just broken our car jack the day before so the car has sat there for another week waiting until today (friday) for us to borrow a jack and put the dummy tire on to go get our tire fixed or buy another one. SO....how do we get everywhere? the lovely busses! :( Actually the mornings are pretty good, there is one that comes right down our street, its getting home that is more tricky. It takes about an hour to an hour and half each way. We catch a bus to downtown, get off and wait for another one to take us up to oakland to school. The annoying part is that every day except friday we dont get off work or out of class until 10pm, which means we dont get off the bus till 11-11:30 pm and at night the closest stop to our house is a mile away...so we dont get home every night until midnight....at which point I am extremely exhausted. But we have now mastered the bus system, having done this now for 3 weeks! And then we have to bum a ride to church....which I dont like doing. I dont like feeling like an invalid.

Jordan just finished his sweet paper on dual income household now compared to the 1950's and how women entering the work force have effected pay rates and the rise of the standard of living...its a good paper, 22 pages long.
I just finished my major photography portfolio, which is 6 rolls of 36 pics of "wheres waldo" waldo being jordan, in the city with awesome pittsburgh buildings and ppl around. We also just finished our 16 page papers on epilepsy and autism and are starting to study hard core for biochemistry, neurophysiology and archeology and then later for psychiatric disorders.

The BELLY is HUGE, and this baby takes up every spec of space, we used to "play" wheres the baby and poke it until it moved or kicked us back, but now its so huge that you dont even have to search, his butt is always in my right rib, he kicks my left one and his head has been down for about 3 weeks now, and when he kicks he really smashes my bladder. We switched to the midwife department at my last doctor appointment, its still in the hospital and actually nothing changes besides the nurses that will attend me will be midwives, the same docs that i have met do rounds on the same floor. Which Jordan and I finally went and expolored last wednesday. We switched cuz after talking to enough ppl and even the nurses we concluded that they really don't like natural births, and a lady in our ward works there and agreed that the nurses get all huffy and irritable and pushy when you want things your way....which is natural, with no IV, able to walk around, no constant monitering if i am in there for a while and i wanna be able to eat food and drink water if i am hungry.....so we switched to the nurses that like dealing with opinionated birthing moms. HEHE But everything that way is good, i am starting to get cramps every once in awhile, I am measuring 36 cm across the belly....the heart beat is around 140 every week. I AM 36 weeks!!! By next sunday i will be full term at 37 WEEKS!!! which means it could pop any day, that happens to be our graduation ceremony too. So one week left of stress and that baby BETTER stay in! and then it can come out anytime. I am hoping earlier than later....i am SICK of being fat and bloated. My ankles puff up all the time now, especially when i walk around a lot...which is every day.

We decided on names....much to most of my families dismay...which is hillarious to hear them bargain with us. If its a girl its going to be
Ava Pepper Carr (you can guess which name they dont like....they all love ava)
and if its a boy
Kyren Jordan Carr... and everyone happily likes this one. we are going to call him Kai if its a boy but didnt want his name to be Kai Carr so created Kairen or Kyren ( i cant decided how to spell it so if you have any suggestions let me know) Actually now that i look at it, Kairen kinda looks like Karen....so we'll probably go with kyren. (oh and the due date in case you dont remember is May 16th)

SPRING BREAK!!

2009-03-27T14:31:00.006-04:00

So spring break was AWESOME! It was so nice to be able to relax, watch movies and go places!
We have been wanting to go to a water park for a long time, and so finally went during spring break. We went up to the indoor water park in Erie PA, which is about 2 hours north of us. The greatest part....it was snowing the whole day up there! But we were at a happy 84 degrees in bathing suits!! SWEET! It was sooooo much fun. We went thursday and spent the whole day up there. This is what the park looked like. Its not letting me see the pics so I have no idea what order they are in, but the pic with the orange slide was amazing! I about had a heart attack the first time I went down it. Its funny how after a while your body adjusts and you dont get such an intense adrenaline rush, but the first few times it really freaked me out. You start by going down a completely black tube and then you just shoot out of the hole at 40 MPH!!! and swish around the "toilet bowl" 3 times before you are "flushed" down the hole into 6ft of water. Its crazy and sooo much fun, we never got sick of going down it. It was weird too cuz you could fall down the hole anyway, once it was feet first, then sideways and then head first....it was really hard to try and correct yourself before you fell down the hole. They also had the larger one that you went down with tubes...you could double. That was a lot of fun too. I think the freakiest part is that most of the slides were pitch black so you couldnt tell when there would be a drop or when you were going to exit or stop.

So on the way home from the water park our cars belt snapped in the middle of now where. You know I used to think that the east coast was packed with people and you didnt drive through endless landscapes of nothingness....well its not true, on our way down from erie we pulled off the road on an off ramp and the closest store...which was a wal mart was 35 miles away. Luckily for us the belt only ripped in half and so we were very lucky to make it home that night without major expenses. It was unexpected cuz we had just replaced the belt about 3 months earlier but found out that one of the pulleys was loose and the belt had slipped off halfway only to be ripped by the loose pulley. Anyway because we had just replaced it we did have the old one in the basement (dont ask me why it wasnt in the car) so jordan was able to replace it with the old one we had just replaced that night until we could go get a new one. So we got home around midnight, and then woke up at 3 am to drive to WA DC!!

Kristen got released from her mission! HURRAY, She had been serving in VA and was able to meet us at the DC temple on friday at 9 am, so after an exhausting day at the water park we made the trek to DC. It was sooo fun tho to see her. We made it there just in time for the session and of course because we were on time they were late and missed the session, so we hung around until they came through and I was able to see her in the Celestial room. It was really neat, and made me really happy to see her. Afterwards we went to applebees with her dad who flew out to pick her up. I was so glad I got to see her, but of course it was way to short of a time and I wish she could have come to pittsburgh for a couple of days before she had to go home...which is in cali.

Then there are just random pics of us, One is of jordan sleeping in our neurophys class....which happens quite often. :) and there is one of a fruit pizza, I had been wanting one of these forever, so last weekend I had the beehives over for our 50 day reading of the book of mormon party and made one. I think it looks really cool, and it tasted even better. The party was a lot of fun, we played softball for 2 hours and then group games, made mini pizza's and then had a fire in the backyard where both jordan and I talked about reading the BOM to them. One of the girls brought two of her non member friends and she gave them both a BOM that night....I was so excited for her. There were 11 girls altogether along with 2 other leaders. We had it at our house, which is the first time anyone from the ward has really been there, it was really fun to see that everyone fit. Oh and then there is a random pic of of a computer place, thats where i work, the little dude on the left is what i do...very easy.

News and Goodies

2009-03-11T13:44:00.003-04:00

So, should I share the awesome fun news or the not so fun news first? Lets go with fun news:
So lets see where to start, three years ago we won a free 13 inch flat screen TV from selling with pinnacle. It has been a wonderful TV, 2 years ago (wow thinking about how long ago that was seems impossible) we damaged the TV on our drive from california back to Pittsburgh, and our nice little tv developed 3 lines that has since grown to about 7. And if that wasnt enough to annoy you we ingeniously mounted the tv on the wall in our living room, which was fine but then rearranged the furniture so that it sits too high from the couch, so we found our selves just standing in front of the tv or sitting on the arm of the couch for movies. (it has one of those screens that goes slightly darker at different angles, looking up towards the tv is the worst)

Then last July Jordan was hit over the head with a desire to have a PROJECTOR. Now we like to live by the idea that you never buy anything over 50 dollars right away and if you still want it you can have it for Christmas or your birthday. Its been hilarious tho, when Jordan first wanted the projector I also wanted a high def camcorder so we spent forever researching them just to conclude that we were being ridiculous and since we couldnt really decided which one we both wanted we decided we would not get one and wait till after graduation. Well then november rolled around and I "caught" jordan looking at projectors online. so then it started all over again, maybe for christmas......but then after a month of looking we decided again that we should just wait and we really didnt need one right now nor did we have the money, especially with buying others christmas presents and all. So then around new years jordan is just going bonkers over getting a projector so we came to a deal that if we "fundraised" the money we could get one, but we couldnt use our monthly incomes or savings for it. Well so I didnt hear much about this projector for awhile. But Jordan started getting really upset with watching movies on our TV, it was really funny, so to ease that one we started watching all our movies on the laptop. Then....dun dun dun

Two months later....and by now I was convinced that we really did want a projector and that the stupid thing was going to haunt us forever if we didnt get one, and I am now all projector lingo savvy, I could write a 30 page report all about projectors. AND to our much satisfaction we completed our fundraising! Hurray!

So OUR projector showed up in the mail LAST WEEK!!! YAY, I was at work and Jordan was at home, useless, waiting all day for the projector to show up. He was way worse than a kid before christmas, but that makes it soooo much fun. And of course it didnt show up until 6pm....just to taunt him all day. So now we have a movie room, we nominated the upstairs room the theater room, and it actually works perfectly, we can darken all the windows and the projector sits up on the top bookshelf next to the ceiling the perfect distance from the wall. And we got a SCREEN. It looks amazing, and Jordan loves it to death. Our screen actually showed up yesturday, it has special crystal beaded fabric, to lighten the pic and enhance color.....oooooh. :p So now the upstairs is the baby room and movie room....dont ask me how that works but it will. :)

But wait there's more: Just to announce, I have the coolest older brother in the WORLD. I got the COOLEST toy ever created, and I am literally convinced of this. I got a free 3G iphone from my brother. Isnt that amazing? He is so nice. Really, I cant emphasize that enough. So that showed up in the mail the weekend before the projector, and it is AWESOME. That phone does everything, it is actually a very bad thing, it is very distracting. I love the calender, the fact that its an ipod, its sooooo user friendly, i love the touch screen and everything else. But the worst part is that you can get really fun games on it. So far our favorite is fieldrunners, its a really silly game but Jordan and I are always trying to see you can make it to the farthest level. And I must say I am in the lead currently.....hehe But I also got tetris on there and a fun mario like game. I think my favorite app tho is Pandora. For those who dont know Pandora is a free internet radio, you type in a composer or song and it plays it along with all other composers and songs that are like it. Or you can just pic a genre and it will play that or a station it already has...like "country" or what ever. Anyway since the 3G iphone is always on the internet you can listen to free music EVERYWHERE. So not only can it hold all of our music that we have but now i can listen to anything i want whenever I want where ever I am for free!! Oh life is soo fun sometimes.

I am so grateful for it too cuz I have really missed music. We were getting pretty tired of just listening to our stuff, we havnt bought anything new in a LONG LONG time. Music is so wonderful! So thats my toy, an awesome phone.

Its spring break! Finally, and a good thing it came when it did cuz Jordan and I could not have lasted much longer with out a break, we have way too many classes. so we had this week to catch up on papers and reading. So nice! Our house was also falling to pieces, so we have finally had time to clean everything and organize everything. Our upstairs room was turning into the junk pile of the house, so monday we spent ALL day up there cleaning it out, and going through our filing cabinet and weeding through piles and piles of papers that were never filed. So now its all done, and the room is finally ready to welcome a baby....well it needs to be painted and all that, but that might happen after the baby is born or just after graduation, but if nothing else it is all cleaned and ready for a crib. I love clean houses!!

We also moved the computer downstairs so we can listen to music all the time in our house!

Alright, now for the not so good news: Jordan finally heard back from his school of choice and of course since it is the not so good news he was rejected. boooo! But we new that was the most likely outcome cuz we applied pretty late, most send in their apps in july or august and his wasnt sent in from the committee until the end of october with the deadline being the beginning of november. So we are out to apply again this year. We also only applied to two schools, cuz he really only wants USUHS, but his year we will be applying to about 20 all over the US along with USUHS again. Hes retaking the MCAT in June. So we get to start that long process of studying for the MCAT...boooo! hehe. Anyway so that means we are here in Pittsburgh for the next year, and we have mixed feelings about that. It is really nice to be able to stay in our house and not have to rent for a year, and we will be staying closer to the duplex which will make managing it easy. It also means I can officially paint our baby room. Jordan is looking into being an EEG Tech for the year we are going to be here. When he was volunteering at the hospital he talked to several and they were all neuroscience majors. The hospital trains you and pays during training and starts salary when training is over. We haven't gotten a precise number on how much UPMC pays yet but the range is between 35-55,000. So that will be awesome if he can do that. It will give his app a good boost, hospital experience, and a different letter of recommendation. That is plan A, if that does not work for whatever reason there is a guaranteed plan B which is to do research for PITT, there are a lot of jobs available and he could get one tomorrow if he wanted. Research also looks really good on apps but its not that enjoyable to say the least and it pays....nothing! We could find a more exciting research lab to work in, but most of them are chemical or the counting cell type which is very tedious and boring.

Valentines Day

2009-02-22T20:33:00.004-05:00

I hearted Jordan. And he was really cute and brought me roses at work, and then afterwards came and got me and we went to eat dinner at LuLu's Noodles, a noodle shop in oakland...my fav. Afterwards we went swimming, which was really fun, they had this mirror on the bottom of the pool in our lane so we couls watch our selves swim over it...it was a huge mirror. And then we went dancing!!!! Overall it was a wonderful night and really really fun. I can actually say it would be my "perfect" date. Everything I like to do and with my fav person. Then this is a video of our cool crafty thing that Jordan and I created together, we actually got the shudder from construction junction...which is like a junk store, but its made an awesome picture frame.

Loni's Big Belly

2009-02-22T20:20:00.006-05:00

So here are the pics that I have taken of being pregnant.
At about 20 wks right before christmas

Around 6 months, these were all after christmas,

Most recent at 27-28 weeks, or 7 months

Loni's Black and White Photography

2009-02-22T18:25:00.005-05:00

I am posting pictures that I have taken for my black and white photography class, every week he assigns a subject matter and you have to expose one roll of 36 exposures, develop the negatives, make a contact sheet (which is a page that shows all of the pics on that roll) and then blow up two pictures and develop them. Its really cool cuz I have improved a ton, and its really fun to develop negatives and pics. So besides the obvious that I have learned, I have also learned how to make pictures blury on purpose as you will see, and what aperature and shutter to use to stop really fast moving objects, but mostly I have learned to pay attention to lighting and what makes a good pictures, where to center it (cuz most pictures actually look better off center) and the biggest one for me was to pay attention to other things besides the main object. As in I am finally learning to look at the background of every picture so that the whole picture is asthetically pleasing. Oh yeah so last week we had to turn in our midterm project, which was our favorite two pictures from each assignment, they were to be perfectely centered on the 8x10 sheet with no dust and proper array of whites and blacks and grays. So below are the ten that I turned in.

The first week was Edge of Frame I actally have 3 for this one, the first two are obvious but the one with jordan in the carr is actually a really good one because his head is perfectly within the frame but on the edge and the ceiling of the car frames his face perfectly and leads your eye to the stearing wheel which is also perfectly next to the next edge of the pic. I had to manually lighten his shirt for this one because it came out too dark in the negative but I made it look white.

The next assignment was depth of field, which is basically making some objects look closer to the camera by the way you take it and others look farther away, some blury and some clear.

Then there was quality of light, which was just playing with lighting, I learned the most from this assignment I think.

Then movement or exposure times, so the teacher really likes these ones and in general I do not really care for them, its supposed to be the art of showing movement in a still pictures, as you can see with the car you can imagine that something was moving, thats what the blur shows, howeverI dont care for blury people even if it is artistic. the second one was showing motion stopped, and this guy was running full speed about 2 feet from the camera so its pretty cool that I shot the pic perfectly to get him on the numbers and stopped his motion so that he is not blury.

The last one was texgture and reflection, the one is texture of the building and the clouds, I had to really darken the sky on this one so you could see the texture of the sky, and then its a reflection of myself taking a picture of myself, so it was a three way mirror, notice the camera in the relctions is perfectly next to the edge.

Anyway I love this class, its really fun, and it actually is pretty hard to get pictures to develop prefectly with perfect negatives first and then to get the lighting good in the dark room with no dust spots, i had to redo 5 of these about 2-3 times before I got them perfect, mostly becuase I was manually changing them, but alot of the time it was just stupid dust spots on the negatives that show up really bad on the pic once its done.

See my article!

2009-02-08T21:39:00.002-05:00

I wrote an article after hearing enough crap about evolution from professors, everyone go and read it. its sciencecantkillgod.blogspot.com

Nothing in Particular

2009-02-06T14:21:00.005-05:00

Well I don't feel like anything big has happened but it has been a whole month so I will update you on our un-interesting news. Its been snowing in pittsburgh like crazy the last couple of weeks, enough so that mutual and church have been cancelled, mutual was cancelled twice in a row. And of course it had to be cancelled right after planning an awesome scavenger hunt and challenge for my beehives to do that wednesday. So we did it that saturday instead. The challenge was: to read the book of mormon in 100 days and then to give that book of mormon (I gave each girl a missionary one) to someone at the end. Jordan is also doing it with us, along with chelsea :) And I am already so glad that we are doing it. Last sunday all of my beehives got up and bore their testimonies during YW about reading and how grateful they are to be doing it with everyone else. They havnt ever gotten up before, so thats already doing something for them. And I think it is doing a ton as far as unity in the beehive class, they all go to separate schools so we have a problem with the girls feeling "bonded". And thats not to mention how great it is for me, Jordan and I just finished reading it together but its fun to read it again by myself. As usual the lessons you learn from it are different, and it seems so much MORE applicable to today than it ever has to me before.

Oh and I finally actually LOOK pregnant. My stomach has literally doubled in size in just this last 3 weeks. My prego apppointment last month I was told that I was really small for where I was but they werent measuring my stomach yet, so I was interested to see where I would be when they did measure it. Well I apparently made up for all smallness in 3 weeks. I just went to my appointment before work today and I am 25cm. And I feel like my belly is huge. Its so weird, although my belly button hasnt popped out yet, but I can actually see the bottom of it for the first time in my life. Jordan and I are curious to see if it ever actually pops out. For those who dont know my belly button has always been really deep set, and is really sensitive and hurts if you touch it or it gets poked. Oh and I found out that Jordan had an outie his whole life until he had his hernia surgery....that made me sad, I love outies. My weight is finally normal, I have gained a total of 15 pounds in 26 weeks. I can feel the little bugger kick all the time. Especially right after I wake up, but he hasnt ever kept me awake at night and there has only been a few times where it was annoying because he was landing on my bladder. For the most part I kinda forget I am pregnant and that the thing moving inside of me is a baby! Jordan can finally feel him tho, which is fun.

Jordan started working for the orchestra band now too, so he does that every wednesday night in addition to the Jazz band. For our final writing project Jordan decided to write about epilepsy....specifically neuron channels suspected to be causing seizures in epileptic patients. I chose to write mine on Autism, mainly becuase it is the neuro disorder I know the least about. Mine is focussing on fMRI studies and conclusions about which brain regions are responsible for the disorder. Its been really fascinating to study for both of us.

We took our first biochem and neuro disorders tests and they were way EASY...which is way EXCITING. Its so nice to come out of a test and feel happy again....I havnt felt that feeling since BYUI. And its really nice to feel like we actually have learned things and know something after 2 years of torture. We both have come to the conclusion that studying Chemistry and Neuroscience straight for 2 years makes learning everything else cake. And Jordan has been on this kick lately about how rewarding science is because it actually has answers and definitives, whereas most other subjects are all subjective and relative to the situation and dont provide solid conclusions. Which I agree is pretty much the case. Despite that, he is loving his econ class because he gets to learn all about the economy right now and hear what others have to say about it, I always get a great energetic report of the state of our economy....or how brainless/inexperienced other students seem to be in his class...either one is really interesting to listen too. Whereas he gets a report about my photography class and how cool pictures are. The only thing he doesnt like, and is not cooperative at all with is letting me take pictures of him! I have to take 2 rolls every week and I always have to fight him to let me take pictures of him. I think he secretly likes having pictures of himself. Alhtough its great revenge for having my face posted everywhere in our house. Our fridge is covered in pictures of me, I am on the window seel above the table, I am above the sink, I am on the coffee table and in our bedroom! Every time I put up a picture (really good ones too) of us at cool places, he replaces them with one of just me. But since I have to be taking the pictures for my class, he is forced to not have any pictures of me.....HAHAHA.

I got to complete the process of developing negatives and doing a contact sheet and then a test sheet and then printing an 8x10 of one of my negatives. They came out really good. I love black and white photography...although I am rather confused on which I like better, negatives vs. digital. Negatives are way more fun, but digital is way more practical. Who wants to pay to have them all printed off anyway? you only develop the few you want on your wall. AND I just got a super sweet movie/pic program that makes DVD's or anything else you want of all of our pictures and home movies. Its way fun to play with, I prefer it over doing the traditional scrap booking cuz I can get way more pictures out on a slide show, and I can still make comments and I can watch the movies intermingled with the pics. And yet having your own dark room would be really fun. but it wouldnt really save any money...but I guess thats all hobbies are when you boil them down....money sucking fun activities. So perhaps when we are rich and can throw money away and I am super bored (wow...the likely hood of having all those things at once is very low)....and dont have little kids to ruin things I will have my own dark room. They are very easy to have.

We have decided that we are going to totally dec out our upstairs room (if we stay here that is) in a tropical ocean theme. My mom just sent me fabric too that I think is really cute for the crib bedding and stuff. We are going to paint half way up the wall with a cool teel blue color with cute ocean curls at the top and paint killer whales and fish all over the room. I am going to make matching curtains and bedding and my mom is going to make an ocean baby blanket and then last an ocean wall paper border near the top of the wall. I think it will be way cool...And i will probably be jealous of our baby for having a cooler room than mine! :) Below is a pic of how it will be painted with the wall paper at the top, and then a pic of the wall paper, it might not be that exact one but one similar to it.

Well besides that there are only the unkown things....that are driving me bonkers...to dwell upon. We STILL dont know about Jordan getting into school, and are unsure about plan B, that one is always changing. We still dont know what our baby is, or what girl names we both agree on. We dont know when ethan is leaving on his mission, so we dont know what our schedule this summer is, even tho we keep trying to plan things for it but cant set any dates for anything because they all depend on when the baby actually comes and when ethan really leaves and what job we have or where we will be living. I HATE unknowns!

Holidays Summed Up

2009-01-05T14:29:00.004-05:00

Well well well, here we are in 2009 and christmas break is officially over, it truly is amazing how fast time goes by, especially when you dont want it too. Anyway so we left pittsburgh tuesday december 17th. Flew to chicago and had a 3 hour lay over but then there was snow and ice so we had a 6 hour delay!! We did however finally leave chicago just to arrive late (around midnight) to Denver and missed our connecting flight. Chicago airport was crazy, everyone was missing their connections. Denver was pretty empty tho, and so we got to spend the night in the Denver airport to catch a morning flight to salt lake. We didnt check any bags, which we were really glad of when we missed our connections, we only had carry ons, which are much easier to keep track of. We got to see Jordans Parents additions to their house. They added on to the whole back of the house and redid the carpet, tiled the kitchen and dining area and redid the bathroom. They previously had redone the living room but it was still my first time seeing it. It all looked AMAZING. And made such a big difference. It felt wonderful and relaxing and best of all it could hold lots of people. And everyone had somewhere to sleep. We played games that thursday night, which was really fun. That weekend we got to hang out with Eldon (loni's older brother ) and bought my dad his christmas present which was a 20 gauge Shotgun! we were sooo excited and HE LOVED IT! Its soo fun to give people presents. We also helped build a sled and took a ride in that thing, they pulled it behind a jeep up to 45 miles an hour. Played games of which I have decided that I really like darts, and we played a kinda vocabulary games which was really fun but it reminded me of my lack of vocabulary. Does anyone think slippery and rough correlate?

Oh and we went to the Rexburg temple. That was my first time seeing it, its really pretty. The week of christmas we shot guns, went shopping and had a christmas eve party at their house. (I already mentioned that below) Oh for christmas we opened stalkings first and then had breakfast and then opened presents together. I was glad that Jordans family opens presents the same, letting each person go one at a time and comment on the gift. In addition to the car and crib we got some really neat books that are a compilation of quotes by general authorities that corresponds to chapter by chapter of the book of mormon. We really like those. My mom got me a really nice knife set and block. It has so many knives in it i dont even know what you do with them all. I got 4 shirts, we got a really nice wheat grinder from his parents and some wheat. We got movies, one of which is Jordans all time favorite lately, Meet the Robinsons! And kung fu panda and spider man three. I was really excited for spiderman I loved that movie. Those were from his brother Nathan and sister in law Lisa. They also gave us some really nice steak knives. We got a really nice pic and pic frame of the first presidency, socks for both of us, I got a watch (christmas tradition :) and some other stuff I cant remember right now.

Saturday morning after christmas my mother in law had a baby shower for me, it was combined with Emily who just had her baby at the beginning of december, she had a little girl and named it Sakara. I was really really grateful for the baby shower, one becuase I dont really know anyone in Lake shore and yet they all brought me a gift...they do know Jordan but still, it was really nice of her ward. So we got some diapers, and blankets and clothes, and fingernail clippers that have a magnifying glass connected to them (pretty cool), socks and other random baby stuff. Now our baby will have a bed to sleep in and wont be coming home naked! Hurray :)

After the baby shower Jordan, Laura and I drove down to Cedar City and met up with Katie and Victor and Maelyn. I was soooo excited that we were able to make that happen, Katie and I had been planning on meeting in las vegas but since they went to st george for christmas we could meet even closer. Unfortunately we didnt get to spend very long at all together but we went out to dinner at applebees and played apples to apples real quick. Maelyn is adorable! I think you should have another one Katie, lets see how your boys come out :) We spent the night at Laura's college apartment in Cedar and watched two weeks notice which I had never seen, and I really liked it, It was one of the better chick flicks I have seen.

We had Carr family pictures on monday, which I think will turn out really good. Not much happened with the Carrs until new years after that, they all went back to work. So Jordan and I hung out. On tuesday we Mandi and Ryan and her boys actually came down to Jordans Parents house in the morning and we played all day. It was a lot of fun and We were soo glad they were able to come down, and that they drove all the way from SLC. We went out side and built snow forts and played war a couple of times. My poor "castle" was dipped the "welfare" castle cuz they all abondoned me to build it all by myself and then ponned the 3 year old off on me. so After a while they had pity and came to help the prego woman and 3 year old build her kingdom. I ended up being taken captive and made a slave half way through the war game and was sent on snow ball making duty. After that we had hot chocolate and played a card game Ruckus, which is really fun. Oh and we also played laser tag with their new christmas laser guns.

While we were there we also learned this new game called acquire that Nathan owned, it is really really fun, I definately want to get that one. It is like an investing money making board game. I won the first time we played...that always wins ya over to liking a game, but I didnt win again the next 3 times we played. We also played like 8 player monopoly with everyone including Collin before christmas and I won at that too. I have never won monopoly before, it was a fun game. We were excited that we got to see collin.

Then on new years eve we had My sister in law Lisas family come down and Maura and Ben came over, I hadnt seen them since their wedding and Jordan since before they were married. We played four way speed with em, and an intense game of spoons that Ben actually won, and balderdash which was hillarious. The we were so busy gaming we barely noticed the start of the NEW YEAR, and we couldnt get the sparkling cider bottles open like a bunch of goobers! But it was way fun, I really enjoyed playing games and just hangin out and eating lots of food.

For new years day we went up to Maura and Bens house and went SNOW SHOEING. I had never been in snow shoes before so Maura gave me a first. We went somewhere in provo canyon and it was a beautiful view from where we hiked up. It was awesome to talk and hang out with them. I tell you what there is nothing better than hanging out with sound minded people who thing the same way you do and know how to have fun. Afterwards we went back to their apartment in provo and hung out and talked and then played scrabble where maura and Jo tied.

And the next day we left and made it home without incident, which was exciting. We cleaned up the house and played with Jo's car, I taught the lesson in young womens and did a spot light of one of my beehives, we decorate a bullitin board once a month of a YW, and now school starts. I work all day monday from 11-10:30, and have classes literally all day tuesday and thursday. no classes on wednesday or friday or saturday. And work again friday from 1-7. We have WAY too many classes this semester but we can atleast graduate if we pass them all in April so we will see if the pain is worth it. We have two advanced neuro classes, a neuro research/writing class, biochemsitry and north american archeology together. Separate I have a black and white photography class, and Jordan has a physics lab and economics writing class. Jordan is also still working with the jazz band mondays wednesdays and saturdays. And thats us!