HAPPY BIRTHDAY CLAY!!!

My little boy is 1 year old!! I can't believe it has been a year already! This year has been CRAZY, but tons of fun. Clay is so fun to be with all day. He is constantly learning new things. Yesterday he pulled the mop out of the closet and started pushing it around the kitchen floor, he is such a good helper! He loves sorting the clean clothes, and helping me put the wet clothes in the dryer, or the wet clothes in the other room. Last night he woke up at 2:30 ready to go, I kept trying to get him back to sleep and nothing worked. He kept kicking me because he couldn't get back to sleep so I starting holding his knees down when he would kick, and he thought that was HILARIOUS! He was laughing! I was like seriously you are laughing. . . . then I thought screw it I can't be mad at him when he is giggling, so I decided to make him laugh even more by tickling him and hoped this would wear him out. He did eventually go back to sleep, and slept until 8 this morning!

For his birthday we had family and close friends over. The night before his birthday however our sink got clogged. We tried to clean out all the pipes under the sink, we used drain o, we did everything we could think of and it was still not draining. So the next morning Mike took off work to figure out what was wrong. He ended up taking apart pipes that were in the basement and in the process breaking one of them. YEAH! So after Mike and Travis got all the pipes cleaned out and almost barfed because it smelled so bad, Mike went off to the store to get some new pipes. In the mean time, I still had not showered and I couldn't now because the pipes downstairs were taken apart. My kitchen was a complete disaster with dishes everywhere full of water from the sink! So Mike got home, fixed the pipes, and by 12:30 I was in the shower. Everybody was coming over at 1, by the way and I still had to make all the cupcakes and lunch for everybody too! So I had Jen make the cupcakes for me, and had Travis and Megan help with the decorations and food. All in all it turned out really good, lunch was good and the kitchen no longer smelled bad. Clay had a great 1st birthday and he loved all of his presents! I don't know why but it seems we are always working on something when Travis and Megan come to visit us, we are going to scare them away!

The cupcake tree! Thank-you Theresa and Melissa. Also thank-you Jen for making all the cupcakes!

Opening presents, he wanted to be sitting on my lap the entire time.

Last but not least he loved his little cake, after every bit he would say mmmmm

Now for Christmas, I am so excited to go to St. Louis I can hardly wait! I am so excited to see all of my family and my parents new house!! It is going to be so much fun, we will be there for a week! YEAH! It is only a week away!

CHRISTMAS TREE!!

So the other night Mike, Clay and I went up into the mountains and found ourselves a Christmas tree! It was so much fun! It was pretty cold and there was a lot more snow than we had anticipated. We did find a good tree after a little bit of walking and searching. We ended up hiking up the side of the mountain in about 6 inches of snow. Mike carried Clay under his arm, and I cut down the tree!! We had a lot of fun, and got a good tree. I just have to finish decorating it and then I will post more pictures of it all completed!

Clay's 1st birthday is this Saturday!!! I can't believe it has been a year already! We are excited to celebrate his birthday, and I will post more about him for his birthday. I will tell you how great he is, even if he is mad at me right now for not letting him play with the computer!

FALL!

So the other day I raked up all the leaves and let Clay play in them. I didn't know if he would really pay attention to them, but he loved them! He had so much fun crawling in all the piles of leaves. The really big piles he would try to crawl right through the middle of them and get stuck, all you could see was the back of his head. Later that day some ward members came by with a big trailor full of leaves and picked up all of them! YEAH! So all in one day I raked them, Clay got to play in them and then they got picked up!

Lately Clay had been dancing to music it is the cutest thing ever. He is walking everywhere and has been loving it.

The other thing I have been doing is working on a book that somebody ordered from me off of Etsy! It was so fun to make and it turned out so good! I hope she loves it too! She is getting married on the beach so she wanted light blues and greens. The crab was the theme throughout her wedding, so I stitched one on the front! Oh and it is going to be her sign in book.

Halloween and more!

Well everybody else was posting Halloween pictures so I thought I should join in the fun! Our costumes were not quite as good as Amy and Randy though I must say!

So Mike has gotten quite a few comments about how he looks like Syndrome on the Incredibles. So we thought that costume couldn't be more perfect for him. It turned out a lot better than I thought it would. He dressed up for work on Friday and everybody loved it! He kept having people coming over to find him because they heard he had a good costume.
Halloween night we got all ready for the trick or treaters, come to find out our ward had a trunk or treat that we didn't know about so we didn't have very many people come over. We went to visit Jen and Cody and they had over 100 kids already! After that we went to Tammy and Nate's house to show off our cute little smokey the bear! It was a good night and now we have lots of left over candy... I don't know if that is a good thing or not.

This picture of Clay and I is when it snowed quite a bit. Clay kept pointing out the window at the snow so I let him walk around it in for a little bit, he loved it! He is walking every where now he doesn't want to crawl any more. He is getting super good at it. He still falls quite a bit but he is getting better.

The other thing I never posted about was our Nebraska trip!! We drove to Nebraska a few weeks ago for my friend JJ's wedding! It was so fun to be there and see all of my friends. The wedding was great and JJ was beautiful of course. We stayed with Brad, Emily and Mya. Mya is so cute and so full of energy just like Clay. Clay didn't know what to think of her at first, I think he was a little intimidated. It was also Mya's first birthday! It was so fun to be there for that and watch her smash her face into her cake. We also went to a Husker game!! That was so fun and it was Mike's first time going! It was a great trip, a long drive, but fun. I can't wait to see everybody for Christmas!

Walking, Vegas and more

Well my baby boy is now walking. Well trying really hard! The most steps he has taken has been about 12!!! He is doing so good, and he loves it! He is standing up on his own so well, and usually takes 2-3 steps then sit down to crawl the rest of the way. He is such a fun little boy to play with all day long. Yesterday for lunch he had almost an entire thing of easy mac and lot of little slices of pear! For dinner he ate an entire banana and most of his quesadilla! He is eating so much it is crazy. He is happy as ever, except for at night when he doesn't want to sleep very much at all. He loves to play and not sleep.

A couple of weeks ago we went to Vegas because Mike went to a big bike expo there. It was called interbike, he had a blast. The first day all they did was ride all the bikes they wanted to. They went up to a mountain and had access to anything they wanted. He loved it! I got to spend all day with my Aunt Lori and my cousin Amy and her two adorable little girls. I had so much fun spending time with them, which doesn't happen very often. They next day I went to interbike with Mike and wondered around to all the booths and saw all the new fancy bikes and accessories. It was a fun couple of days, and Clay did amazingly well in the car!!! We are going to drive to Lincoln next week, so hopefully he will do well then too!

Other than that not too much has been going on. I put up some fall decorations in my house which is so fun! I love fall! I also got curtains put up in my bedroom and in Clay's room! Our room feels much more like a room now. This last week was my birthday, so I got a new dresser/shelves for my clothes! It is so cute, I love it! I got it at Ikea of course, but it is just a bookshelf but has a glass door on the front that is frosted glass with flowers! I also got some new clothes at Gap. Thanks Mom and Mike's mom for my new stuff!!!

OH! I do have another story to tell. So for my birthday Mike's sister Jen asked me if I wanted to go to lunch, which sounded awesome. So I chose to go to Olive Garden, I never go there but I really like it. So little did I know it was UEA week and all of the schools were out. Still I didn't think Olive Garden would be packed for lunch on a Thursday. Well, it was pretty full, and the wait was 15-20 minutes, so not too bad right? Well we waited for 20 min and nothing, so Mike went to talk to them, and then we got in. So we sat down, got our menus and decided quickly what we wanted to we could get our order in right away. We then waited and waited and waited some more. We sat there for 40 minutes with no water, no waiter, nothing!!! So we left! Nobody even noticed us leaving!!!! The girl at the door asked how our meal was and we told her we don't know, we never had it. We then explained what happened and she just stared with her mouth and eyes wide open. She didn't even say anything!!! No free meal!!! We then went to Iggy's, they guarantee you get your food in 15 minutes!! Perfect! It was really good food, and good for Clay because there was lots to look at there. Then we went shopping and got some cute new clothes for Clay and a little walker which he loves. It was a great day!


This was at my Aunt Lori's house, he had a great time doing this.

Etsy!

So I have been wanting to open a shop on Etsy for some time now, but have failed to do so. Until today!!! I finally got a shop all set up! It is so much fun! It will be even more fun when I actually sell something, so wish me luck.

I started out with the name enjay, which is my initials NJ just spelled out, my creative little brother came up with that. So I debated for like. . . . 5 months ish, and finally decided to just do it. Well I went to set it up and it was already taken!!! I was so sad. Then I decided to do enbe, which is what my creative husband came up with. So after playing with logos forever, because I already had one for enjay, I finally got everything set up. I posted all of my books for sale this afternoon, and now I need to make more because there are not very many!

Here it is http://enbe.etsy.com

Other than that, we are going to Vegas tomorrow to a bike expo. I am super excited! We are going to stay with my Aunt Lori in their beautiful house. Tuesday I am going to play with her all day, while Mike goes and rides tons of different bikes. Then on Wednesday I will go with Mike to the bike show and look at all the new bikes!! It will be super fun. Then we are going to drive back Wednesday night, wish me luck, Clay hates the car at night!

The other night at dinner Clay kept making a super funny face. He does this face quite often but I haven't ever gotten a picture of it. Well I got tons of pictures and a couple of videos, he couldn't stop making that crazy face. He is so much fun and so full of energy. He is going to be walking any day now I can feel it. He is so dang cute I can't handle it most days.


Look at those faces and just try not to laugh.

Updates

So we are all moved into our new house! There is still a lot of organizing to do, but mostly everything is done. There are still a lot of boxes in the garage, we do need to work on that. We are loving it though. We had a problem with some spiders when we first moved in and when we saw one crawling out of the attic door, that is above our BED we decided to call somebody. They came the next day to spray and we haven't seen a spider since! Now that, that issue is over it is much better. I have been loving all the space, and Clay loves it too. He crawls around everywhere, and really wants to be walking. He pulls himself up on everything still, and has balanced on his feet by himself a couple of times. The other thing we now have is stairs. He loves going up them and when I want to help him go down, he is thrilled. We have loved being in Hyrum, everybody has been really friendly. We already planted a couple of trees!!

The day we closed on our previous house, my mom flew out to help us! It was so nice to have her here! She made me beautiful curtains, and there should be more on the way! My dad also came that weekend, and helped a ton with the yard. It was so fun to have them here. I feel like that was forever ago, I am ready to have them back! Travis and Megan have been up a few times to visit and have helped a bunch with getting everything put together. Travis has assembled all of the new furniture we have gotten, thanks Trav! We lost the bolts to Clay's crib, so we finally gave in and just went and bought new bolts, I am sure they will turn up one day.

This last Tuesday Mike had the entire day off. Well except for UPS but he is usually home when we are waking up. So we went to the Children's museum in Salt Lake! It was so fun!!! I think Mike and I had more fun than Clay did. There was a little area just for little babies that Clay loved. There were just a lot of soft toys and a little slide.


That is pretty much everything that has been happening. Clay did have his 9 month check up. He was only 16 lbs. which is below the 5th percentile! So we need to fatten him up. The doctor said to put melted butter in with his peas and feed him shredded cheese. He loves the shredded cheese, I haven't done the melted butter yet. He said he can pretty much eat anything now, there is just a few things he can't eat. We have been having fun trying new things. He is still just a cute as ever!

Bike Riding and Chasing Clay

Yesterday Mike watched Clay while I went on my first bike ride!! YEAH!! I got a new road bike earlier. . . I have picture on an earlier post. Last night was my first ride on it, and I had so much fun! I rode for about an hour and loved it! I went after we had dinner so I got to see the sunset while I was riding. I felt really good to get outside and be by myself for a little while!

Meanwhile, Clay is keeping me really busy. He is crawling now, but he doesn't do it all the time. We went to Travis and Megan's apartment on Wednesday and he just started crawling. He still likes to scoot though. He new favorite thing is pulling himself up so he can stand. Since I am packing he loves all the boxes, he loves to look inside them while I am packing, and eat the newspaper. Today he pulled off some big ceramic bowls that are on a shelf in the kitchen. That was fun! So I am excited to get into this new house so we can put all of that stuff away, so he can't hurt himself. Poor little guy! He never stop moving, he wishes he could walk so badly! I however would love for that to be delayed.

This Wednesday Mike had the entire day off, well except for UPS. So When he got home from UPS we hopped in the car and headed for Park City. Mike went mountain biking at the Deer Valley Resort. I went shopping at the outlet mall, and Travis drove over to meet me. Travis then discovered how crazy and how much Clay likes to move around. Then we drove up to Deer Valley and met Mike for lunch and by that time he was pretty tired. So we decided to go and make our visit to Ikea! I got my shelves that I have been wanting, and my desk! I am so excited to get it all set up in our new house! Megan met us after work at Ikea, and then we went and had some yummy dinner at Applebees. After that we headed home. It was a great day!

My new desk!! I am so excited!

So now with the houses, we are just packing and trying to get the few things done for our appraisal. We didn't know this, but they go through our house one last time, so we have to get it all cleaned up. Right now it is full of boxes and stuff everywhere! Our Realtor just brought over his trailer for us to fill up! We can start moving stuff in on Monday, but we don't officially get the house until the 15th. Everything is going smoothly though and we are thankful for that!

Houses

So we found the house we are going to buy! We already gave them our offer and they accepted!! We are so excited! I absolutely love the house! It was built in 1890 but has been completely redone inside. It is so nice, and I am so excited to live there! It has a garage/shop that has room for all the cars, and a bike shop!!! It has three bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.





As for our house the siding is almost done and it looks SO GOOD! We had our appraisal done, we are just waiting to hear back from them. If we don't hear back that means everything went great, so I guess we don't want to hear from them. That should be by today though. Then they will do the home inspection and then we start packing! The closing date for our house is August 11. The closing date for the house we are buying is two weeks after that, so we are hoping we can move in sooner. They said if everything is complete we can. All that is left to do is the upstairs bathroom, tiling, and wiring. There is some painting and wiring in other rooms to finish. The sellers live in Ogden now and come up on the weekends to finish things with the house. Hopefully it will be done August 12! Oh, and we have to do the inpection and appraisal on the house we want. So much to do! Selling and buying a house is a PAIN! All of you that have done it or are in the process of doing it, know what I mean.

Other than that, Clay is doing really good! He has two teeth now and wishes he could run around still. He pulls himself everywhere, and loves sitting up by himself, and getting into EVERYTHING. He has been so much fun, and he is excited to have a bigger house to scoot around in!


As for Mike, this is his last week working at Hyrum Dam!!! YEAH!!!! I am so excited for him to be done with that. Even though the house we are moving to is right next to the dam, that would've been nice this summer! He will be working at UPS and Al's sporting goods still. He should be getting done with work around 4 though! I am not going to know what to do with him! I am excited to have him home more!

So Many Updates!

There are quite a few things I need to write about, so here we go . . .

I went to El Paso for a week to visit my sister Racheal and her family. While I was there Mike went on high adventure with my nephew Trent in Lake Powell. He had a good time, and said it was very relaxing not having to work 3 jobs. He actually got to read a book!!! That rarely happens. I had an awesome time with my sister and her family. We did tons of fun things like, go to the pool, made terrariums, made picture frames, went shopping, and made plum jam! My mom was also able to come up for a few days too. I also got tons of good baby boy clothes from Racheal. One night we made plum jam from their very own tree in their backyard. It took a while, but it was really fun, we all had our stations and made a good little assembly line. The jam turned out really yummy!! I think we had like 52 bottles of jam, something like that. They are getting ready to move to Illinois, so it was fun to visit them in their house before the moved. I had a great time. We had fun staying up late and talking every night, that is my most favorite thing to do when I visit my family.

Clay loved Playing with the kids

Cora got stickers and was putting them on everyone, even on Clay's hands

This is just the beginning of plum jam makings

The other thing is Clay is now pulling himself EVERYWHERE! He loves it! He can't stop moving, and when he sees kids running he can't help but watch them the whole time. He wants to run so badly, and that is when I will be getting him a leash! He has been so fun, he keeps me busy making sure he isn't getting into anything he isn't supposed to. He loves cords, plastic bags, paper and sometimes he likes his toys. He can even crawl off the little step we have in our bedroom. He just hangs his little arms over the edge and then pulls himself forward until he falls off of it basically. He also is saying dadada and making new noises almost everyday. He also got a tooth!!! I don't have a picture of that yet. It isn't all the way up, but it is up through his gum's!

Thursday of last week Jen and Cody's ward had their 4th of July celebration. They were having games and treats at the church and then watching fireworks afterward. It was raining for a while before it started so we assumed it was canceled, so Jen and I headed over to Joanne Fabric to get some things. Cody called while we were there and said everybody was over at the church. So we got back and headed over there. They have this train that they do that is pulled by a four wheeler, and the seats everybody sits in are made out of big blue barrels. The kids love it and line up all night to ride on it! So we had Cody take Clay and they loved it. Mike got their right before the fireworks started and then he and Clay slept through all of them!!! It was a fun night though and I attempted to take pictures of the fireworks.

Clay and Cody going on a train ride!

Sleeping through the fireworks

For the 4th of July Travis and Megan came up from SLC. Travis and his friend Cody helped Mike put up a metal shed in our backyard, which is very nice to have. It didn't take too long, and we love it! After they did that we went to Hyrum, they had some booths set up and free watermelon so we thought we would go look around. We missed the free watermelon, but I got a really pretty pentant from the lady I always have to buy something from! She is my favorite, she is at the farmers market usually. After that Travis and Megan headed home because they were leaving Sunday morning to go to Japan!!!! We also made neck pillows for them while they were here, to try and help them sleep on the plane. They had a 10 hour flight! So anyways, after that we met up with Jen and Cody at the bluebird for some dinner. Had some good dinner and got some yummy chocolates, and went and sat outside to watch the Cache Valley Cruise in. It was a lot of fun, Clay loved all the motorcycles. He did not like the cops on the motorcycles, because they for some reason had to have their sirens going! After that we went home, and all went for a little bike ride, and then out for ice cream! It was a really fun day!

waiting for the cars to start coming!

Other than that, we had a couple look at our house for the second time on Saturday. They were here for about an hour. Our Realtor was going to call them this morning and get back to us, so I am excited to hear what they say! Hopefully everything works out!

Clay loves eating grass and dirt, his papa is so proud.

Clay's First Camping Trip

Mike's friend Pat got married this past weekend next to Flaming Gorge. They got married outside by a beautiful lake out in the middle of lots of Pine Trees. It was so pretty there! We decided to camp while we were there. I brought lots of blankets and warm clothes for Clay. He loved it!! He did so well, he slept just as good or maybe better than he always does.

It was free fishing on Saturday in Utah (meaning you don't need a fishing license), so we went fishing there! I haven't been fishing in years!! It was fun, but gross when you actually caught one. I did catch one and so did Mike.

Sunday morning Pat's family invited us over to where they were camping to have omelets. So you put everything in a zip lock bag and boil it in water! It actually worked really well, and was a very yummy breakfast! They also had biscuits, gravy, orange juice, milk and Mike found some candy too.

The drive was really pretty and it was fun to see the dam. Clay did really good, and loves being outside. It was a great weekend. Now I am getting ready to Fly to El Paso tomorrow to see my sister Racheal and her family!

Clay also turned 6 months last week! We went to the doctor and he is 14lbs 3oz (which is the 5th percentile) and 25 1/2 inches tall! So our doctor said since he never stops moving, we need to give him more calories. So I have started to feed him 3 times a day now! We had a 1/2 birthday party for him last night at Jen and Cody's house. It was really fun, we made him a cute little party hat and had cupcakes! Jen posted some really cute pictures of him, he was so cute with his little birthday hat on! I am excited for his 1st birthday when he can have some cake!

Here are a few of swaps that I have done too! They have been so much fun!
This was a pink, green, and yellow matchbox swap.
This was a bird whimsy jar, it was only a 2 oz. jar full of cute things that had to do with birds!


These are summer time ATC's (artist trading cards) So you could do anything that had to do with summer.

TEXAS!!!

I went to see my mom for a week and I had the best time with her. So about a month ago Travis called me and told me he was going to Houston and he got a good deal on plane tickets. So I decided I wanted to go with him, I called my mom to tell her and she didn't answer, so I decided she didn't get to know, I was going to surprise her.

The surprise was awesome. I waited inside and waited for Travis to wave me outside when my mom got there. She pulled up and they were putting Trav's bags in the car when I walked up behind her. I didn't know what to do to get her attention. I was just going to ask her if she had room for two more. Travis got out the camera and my mom says "okay we are taking my picture at the airport!" She turned around and saw Clay and I and screamed!! Then she hugged us really tight and the combination of the two made Clay scream as well. It was so funny, I love surprising people! My mom said she didn't have even the slightest clue that we were coming and was surprised to find out everybody knew but her!

The week was awesome, we went swimming, shopping, eating, and had a great time talking every night before we went to bed. My Dad came that weekend, he got in Friday night and we got to spend all day Saturday and part of Monday with him. My niece Afton got baptized that weekend so my mom and dad flew out Sunday Morning early and got back Monday morning!! What a fast trip! Angie also came to visit as well! I had a lot of fun with her, she came Friday and left Monday night.

Clay loved swimming in the pool! The cold water didn't bother him at all!! We got a little crab floaty for him, that had a little shade on it to keep him out of the sun. He loved kicking his little feet and splashing in the water. This video is of him playing with a little fountain thing in the pool. He loved it, you can see his little foot covering up with water and then taking it off. That tickles your foot too!! I don't know how he could stand it, but he thought it was great.


Clay was spoiled at got lots of new clothes!! He got some really cute stuff. His grandma and grandpa love spoiling him. I got spoiled to though, I also got new clothes!!
Clay did so good on the plane too!! I was a little bit worried because our flight home was so late, but he slept all three hours!!!! The plane ride there he slept most of the way too, he was awake for about an hour of it! What a good boy!

My very first Mothers Day!

I had a great first mothers day. Clay slept from 9:30-8:30 for the first time!!! YEAH!! What a great present!! Then Mike made me breakfast in bed, he made waffles with strawberries and whip cream on top, and eggs on the side! YUMMY! It was very good! The friday before he got me a backpack that Clay can go in, so we can go hiking!! It is awesome, and Clay loves it. Mostly he likes sucking on it, and he actually sleeps in it too!
There is also this bag that I have been wanting for a little while, but it is kind of expensive. So Mike was going to get it for me for mothers day. . . When we went to get the backpack he said, I was going to get you that bag you wanted, little bowls (which I also have been wanting), and flowers. So as we are checking out, credit card in hand, he asks me if I am sure I want the backpack for mothers day!!! AHHH! So I got the backpack, and today I got the bag :) I am spoiled! I love it though! It is so cute, and huge!

I had a great mothers day! I also got some yummy cookies from Jen, they were gone within an hour of being home! THANK YOU!

Too much cuteness!

There is nothing to say, he is just too cute and he loves Dirt.

Cereal!! and 3 gift challenge

So I fed Clay cereal for the first time yesterday, and I am going to again this morning when he wakes up! He did really good. He didn't get much food but that is not really the point. He seemed to like it though, well he didn't hate it, so that is good! At his last appointment he weighed 12lbs 8oz. So he has doubled his birth weight!! He is only in the 30% for his weight. He was 25 inches long, I can't remember what percentile that was. He is doing great though! We are just getting ready for our trip to Washington. We will start driving early tomorrow morning!! YEAH! I am so excited to go on vacation!!! It will be a lot of fun, and hopefully Clay doesn't hate the car too much! I am going to get him a new toy so maybe that will make him happy :) Well enjoy the video!! It is kind of long so you don't have to watch the whole thing!




Also I am going to do a 3 gift challenge:

This is how it works..... The first 3 people to leave a comment on this post will receive a hand made gift from me during this year. When and what will be a surprise. BUT, in order for you to leave a comment on my blog, you have to post this on your blog first. (That means that sometime during this year you will send a gift to 3 people as well.) Get it? So, the first 3 people to comment on this post will be the lucky ones!