I should do an update.....

Well hi!  

I'm pretty sure no one follows this anymore since I'm not good at keeping it updated!  Well it's been about 5 months since I last got on here and I was trying to come up with reasons as to why it's been so long.  (Since I had that goal of writing every week....pa!)  Well I guess the biggest reason is.....I have two kids now!!  Crazy!!  Cache LaMar is 3 months old....ok he was 3 months old when I started this post but he'll turn 4 months in about a week! :)  I think we are finally getting the hang of life too!  Yeah it takes me awhile to get used to change!  Anyways!  I should introduce him a little since he's going to be a common character on this blog!

Cache LaMar was born March 25th at 8:58 pm.  He was 6 lbs. 15 oz. and 19 inches long.   He's a pretty good little kiddo!  He wakes up once at night to eat just a little-and when I say little it's like he gets up long enough for me to be awake and holding him and ready to nurse and then he's asleep again!  He goes to bed around 9 and then at 3 ish he wakes up and then sleeps until 7 or 8.  I think we got so blessed on this kiddo since we put up with Huxley for so long not sleeping!  Oh and by the way...Huxley has decided to wake up in the middle of the night again and need milk too.  Back to Cache!  He has reddish brown hair that sticks straight up!  He looks a lot like his Daddy but acts like me....slightly onery and tempermental.  He has HUGE little thighs and chubby little cheeks and loves to make noise-especially grunting and groaning noises.  He takes a binky but prefers his four fingers on either hand and sometimes his four fingers on both hands.  He loves to kick his legs and he kicks them hard!  Huxley and Cache have started playing footsie and kicking each other.  It's pretty cute.  He has some pretty cool tricks but the best ones right now are smiling and trying to laugh and yesterday he rolled over!  Onto his stomach!!  What the!?  So much fun!!  

Some things that Cache has gotten to be apart of since he was born are:

• A sinus infection-I promise I tried everything to keep him healthy but I guess sickness just happens when you have an older brother who gets into everything and likes to share binkies.
• A plane ride to Alaska-he did really well actually!  He was 2 1/2 weeks old and slept pretty much all of it.
• My Medical Coding graduation-he didn't like it at all.  Poor Todd had both kiddos by himself and it was bedtime.  What a great guy I have!
• High School graduation-Todd's taught for 3 years!!  Can ya believe it?  I kinda can't!
• A plane ride to Utah-not too bad but he did get a little overstimulated on one of the segments.
• Lots of walks-he loves the KozyCarrier and Huxley loves the stroller and I would love to lose weight so it's a win-win for everyone!
• Dropping Aunt Kristina off at the MTC-he slept but the rest of us had a good time driving her down and she even taught Huxley how to do the 'Chicken Dance' and make a pretty goofy face. Oh how I miss her!  Utah is great with all of the family but it sure isn't as great without Kristina here.  I'm proud of her though and it's been one of her biggest goals.  She'll be a great missionary!
• Going to Yellowstone-WHOA!  Haha I thought driving down from Alaska with a 6 month old was dumb and hard.  This was way harder!  Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Huxley takes only one nap a day so driving long stretches is close to torture or maybe it's because Cache is a total hog when it comes to eating and ate just about every hour to hour and a half around the clock which made it hard to do anything.  Either way we did it!  It was fun though.  I've loved going to Yellowstone growing up and I used to go just about every year with my family.  Now it's my turn to start doing that with my family and show them the things I love....I just wish it were easier! :)

Swinging in Grammy and Grampy's backyard-they have THE BEST swing set ever that my dad built when we were little.  So fun to see Huxley on it now! :)

Cousin Joshua and Grace came to visit for a few days!  So fun!!

Cache's Baby blessing!  Todd did such a great job and I know our family's enjoyed being apart of it!

Such a good big brother!!  And I wonder why Cache gets sick?!

:)  He makes me smile!

Yeah for family pics at the end of a long day!!  We look tired!

We went to an end of year party with the Henke's for the school district-lots of fun!

I wish we would have known about this room in the Anchorage airport sooner!  We spent 4 hours in here waiting for our flight to Utah.  It was AWESOME!  Quiet, enclosed and we were the only ones using it!!  SO GREAT!

Our great missionaries!  We miss them so much!  They were on fire up here in Barrow!  Huxley LOVED them!

Another 'good brother' picture! :)

Reading time with daddy!

Huxley wanted to go 'peep' and I was nursing Cache and forgot to close the bathroom door.  This is what I found.....:)  You just have to laugh at this!  Oh wow!  

The things he comes up with!  Pretty creative! :)  

He's all mine! :)  So cute!

Yeah!  We're so glad when daddy comes home!

Hahaha!  That's my child!!

His new cheeser face that I just love!

First bath together!  Cache really has onery looks!  This makes Huxley look so big too!

Playgrounds are so fun when it's warm outside!  We have lots in Barrow but it's usually too cold and windy to go and have lots of fun!

My sister and niece came from North Carolina to visit!  How fun!!

Huxley decided he loved the slide!  He was pro at it!  No injuries at all!

Auntie Kristina!  Oh we miss her!

Easter egg hunt!!  Our first one!  It was fun!

Such a cute little boy right?! :)

First family pics after Cache joined us! :)  He was about a week old! 

Huxley learned that he LOVES bike rides in the bike trailer! He also learned that it's more fun to stand up and turn around!  Such a brave kid!

Bah hahaha! :)

Learning what trees are....something we can't do in Barrow that's for sure! :)

Kristina opening her mission call!  She was called to Colorado Colorado Springs Mission.

As Baba said when he was holding him, '94 years and 4 days old....what a span'.  We just love Baba!

Our first journey in the car seat home.  He's so little!

First time meeting Cache!  Huxley was so great he just smiled and held him and was so cute!  Then he climbed into the little bassinet that Cache slept in!

Such a cute little sleeper!  This was on our Temple trip down in Anchorage.

Having a baby!  I was 7 cm here and not in any discomfort at all!  I won't post about it all since I might offend some people but if you're interested in how I prepared for Cache's birth I used Hypnobabies.   I highly recommend it!

Our little climber.  He gets into everything!!  Yup we still have the orange counters!  They do their job well though so I'm alright with them! :)

I got the bassinet out so that Huxley could get used to it!  This is how we spend a lot of afternoons....just climbing and playing in it!

Huxley and his baby.  He loved that thing!  He'd carry it around everywhere and feed it and push it in a chair around the house.   It payed off too having it!  He's such a good kiddo to Cache!

Yup I let him do that.

I also let him do this.  He's a climber and there really isn't anything I can do about that except keep the things he climbs on safe for him in case he falls.

Sick I know but really you just have to see this!!

He's a cute little keeper when we get him clean though! :)

Sister Hendricks!  Such a pretty girl!

My dad and his awesome garden...well one of them!  What a great guy he is and he helps my family so much with all his effort he puts into his gardening!  Thanks dad!

The dreaded 'drop off at the MTC' day.  I just didn't ever think about it and then it finally came.  Bittersweet.  She's fulfilling one of her life-long goals and I'm proud of her for that.  P.S. Yes I'm not in church clothes-I figured since we weren't going to get out of the car at the MTC it was ok not to be in church clothes.  However I kind of wish I had been.  It was a comfy car ride though not having to sit 'like a lady'! :)  Another p.s. I made that skirt she's wearing...pretty cute eh?? :)

Yup that's us!  You're welcome mom!  Oh and I cut my hair like oh ya know 12 inches!  I donated it!  Ok I will donate it!  I still haven't sent it in...hey I have two kids I'm busy ok! :)

Our little family went to Yellowstone!  This is Huxley in Jackson, Wyoming playing with the little chipmunks that kept popping out from underneath the boardwalks!

This is at the Lower Falls.  Pretty crazy that I'm old enough and have a family of my own now.

It was SOOO hot in Yellowstone.  So Cache pretty much lived in his PJs half way off!

Yellowstone Lake.  Huxley enjoyed the cold water and the waves.

Climbing...again.

He has the funniest looks!

:)

We went on a stagecoach ride in Yellowstone.  We all enjoyed it a lot!  There was a buffalo that we scared too and we got to watch it run...almost into a car that was driving down the road.  It was pretty cool!  I kind of wish that it had hit the car just so we could see what would have happened....yeah I'm rude I know.

Cool hat huh!

There's been TONS of other things Cache has been apart of.  He's a great trooper and lets us pack him around to do just about anything.  He's pretty easy going if he's fed and his diaper is clean but if he gets tired-boy can he scream!  Yup I've got a screamer for a kid.  My sisters have both asked me if it's normal and why does he do that...I think he just likes to be heard and doesn't want to leave any doubt with anyone that he can keep up with Huxley.

Well I think that's it for now!  I now have a computer in my home so I can blog more often than oh you know every 5 months!  :)  

Bye!

P.S.  I am enjoying this new Blogger!  It was so much easier to post pictures this time!  Way to go Blogger!

Every End Has A Beginning....

Well today has been interesting. I woke up at 3:30 am with contractions that were coming every 5-10 minutes. I wasn't worried about it until I looked at the clock and realized it had been going on for an hour and a half and I was having really bad back pain-not the normal 'I've been carrying Huxley too much' pain but pain that I hadn't felt since Huxley's birth. That kind of scared me. Todd gave me a Priesthood blessing and I tried some other things to help things calm down. Normally I wouldn't have worried but being a 12 hour plane ride away from where I want to give birth and only being 31 5/7 weeks along puts a little kink in things. Well long story short everything is ok and we're just going to take it day-by-day and I'm hoping that we can stay with our original plan of me coming down to Utah March 18 after our Branch Temple trip in Anchorage. Anyways-the reason I'm writing this is because I realized how hard it is right now for me to imagine my little family of 3 turning into 4. After Huxley woke up we brought him into our room like we usually do on the weekends since Todd is home and he jumped on our bed and laughed and laughed. I started crying thinking that this would be our last day as our little family jumping on the bed and being goofy (that was before we had seen our NP and decided it would be ok for me to stay in Barrow). There were a few other times today that I had those same thoughts. Don't get me wrong it will be great to have another little kiddo-it'll just be different. I'll get used to it. And it is the ending of our little family but I know it's also the beginning of more great memories like us jumping on the bed every Saturday and Sunday morning.

Another ending was when Todd was released today as the Seminary teacher. Kind of weird. I try/tried to be patient with the calling and I think I did a pretty good job but I didn't realize how attached I was to the calling and it wasn't even mine! I'm crazy I know! Maybe it's because I'm pregnant. Anyways. It'll be weird having my husband around more-not that he wasn't with the calling but he did study/plan for Seminary a lot and it'll be different having him home and not have to say 'what do you want to do before you need to start doing Seminary stuff?'. Like right now Huxley is in bed and this is the time Todd usually prepares-I don't think he knows what to do with himself! :) And tomorrow when the alarm goes off at 6:15 am I won't have to listen to him hit snooze 4 times before we actually get out bed. Also, I get a car now-Todd has always had the car since he'd pick the boys up and do Seminary and then go to school after. That means I'm mobile now. What the? I can leave during the day now? I don't know if I'll have the courage to! I always leave the house with Todd-I might be too scared to go out by myself. I'm kidding! But it will be different! I'm glad he had that calling though. I think it helped our family grow and Todd grow in ways it probably wouldn't have if he hadn't of been called to be the Seminary teacher when we moved up here. I guess that's why we have callings though right? To learn and grow and then we get released. Hmm...I should learn what I need to for my calling....I'm also kidding!!!! This is another ending but it'll be the beginning of something else!

Well that's it!

P.S. Todd wants me to write something for him....

What is a mother's favorite crime?????

A good kidnapping!!!

He's pretty proud of himself. He came up with that 'all by myself, just barely'! :) So that's what he's going to be doing now instead of preparing for Seminary! Hahahaha oh wow!

Out Of Commission...

Well....as you can see we are in week #4 of January and there's only one blog post. Really I was doing good! I have two more written....it's just that my computer is well kind of throwing a tantrum right now. My charger went out on it 2 weeks ago and in good ole Barrow fashion....the mail is taking forever to get my replacement here! So anyways! I really am still trying to keep my goal going-it's kind of frustrating when your whole life is on one single machine and then that little machine decides to freak out.

So...that's it for now! Just an update-the kiddo is still inside me, Huxley is still a little spit fire, Todd is staying crazy busy and I've started my internship for my certificate which has been a bit of a change of pace for the family.

Ta-Ta!!

A New Year....

Alright! So it's a New Year! I'm not really sure why everyone makes New Year's Resolutions-I mean they're very good to have but I've always found myself only doing well with them for a month at the most. So....I've resorted to just making goals one at a time throughout the year and working on it as hard as I can instead of starting out with a list of a hundred things I want to do this year. However, there are some things that I want to start at the beginning of this year and go with through the whole year. Like.....the blog! For some reason I just haven't been able to do well with the blog. Our brother in-law, Bryan, gave his wife Janelle a book of her blog this year for Christmas. I thought it was AWESOME! I want that someday! And looking at our blog....it would probably make a 10 page book! So I want to do better this year.....so my goal is to once a week do a rundown of the week. Definitely do-able!

So here we go! Week #1 of 2012! Hahaha only 51 to go right!?

This week has been good. We returned from Utah a day before school started so that was nice. We were able to all just hang out and take it easy for a day. IT WAS SO NICE! It's exhausting visiting family! I was thinking that the traveling on the airplanes would be the most tiring parts of the trip but nope! It's worth the exhaustion though to spend time with family! It's also nice that our families live so close so we're able to bounce around and be with everyone for a lot of our trips down. It probably didn't help that we were all sick during our visit and being pregnant doesn't help with the being tired either.

So this week.....the scariest thing that happened was when Huxley woke up a few hours after going to bed crying and barely being able to breathe. It scared me pretty bad! I didn't want to take him in to the hospital though because of the horror stories I've heard so Huxley and I had a sleepover in our extra bedroom so I could hear his breathing. (he's kind of a wild sleeper and I wanted Todd to sleep well so he wouldn't be tired at work so that's why we slept there) Our friend Jenna let us borrow their humidifier and a Vick's plug-in which worked wonders for him. I knew it was croup by the way he sounded so I was worried but not too bad that I didn't trust myself watching him through the night. The next morning I called my mom and she listened to him and she said I should probably get him an appointment so I called our Nurse Practitioner and she saw him and confirmed my croup suspicions and prescribed some medication (that of course the hospital didn't have in so we had to wait another day for it and then when we finally got it the dosage scared me so I ended up not giving it to him-maybe I shouldn't have gone to nursing school!) Well he's doing great now-just lots of snot and junky coughing!

The best thing that happened this week was when Todd was coming home from school and one of our neighbors has been remodeling their home. When he drove by they had put ALL of their cupboards and cabinets outside-some by their house still and some by the garbage. He came home and told me and asked if I was ok if he picked them up since they are the same as ours right now and we could finally get some cupboard doors in our kitchen. I said that was fine and we went and asked if we could take them. The guy said the ones by the garbage were fine to take (there were only two though) and the one's by his house were going to be his daughters (there was like a whole kitchen and bathroom). Anyways we grabbed the garbage ones and that was it. The next day we were grocery shopping and we saw the guy and he said we could come by and get the rest of the cabinets and cupboards!!!!!!!! What?!?! Todd had mentioned we could put them in the utility room before we found out that they were already in someone's name and then I said yeah we could put them there or we could put them in the addition and Todd said 'oh yeah I didn't even think of that'. What?! Todd wasn't thinking of the addition?! That's all he thinks about! Anyways now we have a FULL set of cabinets and cupboards that we can put in our addition which will save us about $5ooo!! Wahoo!! We are so blessed!! It's a great feeling too because it seems like everything is standing in the way of the addition and it makes me second guess wondering if we had misinterpreted the answer we got when praying about it. But when great things (no matter how big or small they are) happen at random times it reminds me that 'yeah we made the right decision and it'll be worth all the struggles in the end'.

The sweetest thing that happened was on the day when Todd went back to school. It's so great having breaks and getting Todd's undivided attention during those breaks but it's a hard transition when he needs to go back to work. I always just thought it was hard on me...nope! Poor Huxley walked around from room to room playing and always called out 'Dad', 'Dada', 'Daaaaaaaaaaad'. It was cute but I felt bad for him and so we looked at pictures of Todd and I tried to distract him. Well, when it was time for Todd to come home we were in Huxley's room playing and he was lying on his stomach reading a book and then Todd came in the house. Kali (our cat) makes a lot of noise sometimes so Huxley kind of just sat there and listened for a second and then Todd made a bigger noise when putting his stuff on the ground and then Huxley yelled/squealed 'Dad!' and jumped up as fast as he could and ran down the hallway squealing/screeching as loud as he could and practically jumped into Todd's arms! Then he just sat there with the BIGGEST smile and hugged him. It was so precious and cute! Oh I just love thinking about it right now! :)

Now on to the picture stuff! I wish it was more quick and easy to download pictures. Any suggestions?

One of our favorite things to do while down in Utah. We don't have stairs in Barrow so I'm not quite sure how he learned so fast! He's good about waiting for help to come back down or going down on his tummy too! How did I get so lucky on that one?! We only had two somersaults down the stairs!

The McMahons! It was so fun to have them here for Christmas this year! It had been a LONG time since we'd seen them! Todd likes 'candid' pictures better so he mostly gets pictures of people not looking at the camera.

Baba and our feast!! Yum!! We're so lucky to have such a great guy as our Grampa!

Hmmm where is Todd-oh behind the camera right! We need to get better about having us ALL in pictures together! Don't worry about the 'no pants' he gets hot and it was especially warm in Utah!

Cousin Stephie! Huxley loved having so many cousins around! I wish I had gotten my mom's camera and got the pictures she had taken. She has a lot more of everyone! We had fun at my family's house! The McMahons came from North Carolina this year so my mom got to have ALL 5 kids at her house this year! How fun right? Yup it was!

These two pictures are for Todd. He took this first one with us noticing and then the second one he did it without us knowing and said it's 'the perfect pregnant picture'. I'm 26 weeks in these!

All the 'kids' (I'm pretty sure I only see a few kids in the picture) at G & G Henke's house. Lots of fun we are so blessed to have such great family!! Huxley was so tired but held up so well! Yes my husband has Huxley by his feet....hahahaha oh what a kiddo!

I was trying to convince him to go and open some presents! Hahaha! Maybe I should have enjoyed his sitting still for the moment because the rest of the day he would be EVERYWHERE! Trying to open EVERONE'S gifts!

Slightly confused little boy! And yes I am wearing 'footy' pajamas. You should definitely try them! SO COMFY!! :)

Christmas Morning at the Henke's! Bright and early too! Poor Huxley-he was sound asleep so I walked upstairs with him in my arms and as soon as he heard everyone he was wide awake....and confused! :) Spencer and Maren even spent the night so everyone was there!!!

Somehow we missed gettin Huxley in there! This can be our 'Anniversary' picture since I'm not sure we got one that day-I'm pretty sure we didn't change much in the two days between them anyways! Happy 3 Years!!! :)

This one is for you mom! :)

See we can take a 'normal' picture! :)

Stephie, Me and Kristina-all 5 kids and their families went down and saw the lights together-so fun!! And yes I'm wearing my parka that I made! :) And yes it was STINKIN hot!!!

My Little Cutie! :)

Hmmmmm that wasn't too hard! I can do this! :)

And the result is.....

Updates from the Top of the World

Weather on the Slope

Barrow, AK

	-16°F Fair Feels Like: -38°F Humidity: 79% Wind: ENE 13 mph Hour-by-hour | 10-day

Here's our beaten up child! He always has a goose-egg on his forehead. No I don't beat my child. He's kind of cute. He's really heavy too. Ugh!

Huxley and a little girl named Aliyah 'shared' their birthday party! Aliyah turned two 3 days after Huxley turned one and we have a lot of the same friends so it was perfect!! It was funny....Aliyah and Huxley didn't really know to blow the candles out so all the little girls you see in the picture ended up blowing the candles out before they could figure it out! We had lots of fun though. I was sure tired by the end!! It's amazing the toll pregnancy takes on a body!

Here's our little 'Charlie Brown' Christmas tree! Our first one!! We've never lived together during the holidays between Halloween and Christmas so I've never decorated and it's been fun! We found this tree at the second hand store for like 50 cents!! We don't have any ornaments up here either-thank goodness for construction paper, glue sticks and popcorn! Except Huxley has eaten most of the popcorn off of the tree now. I also made Applesauce Cinnamon ornaments and he's managed to eat at least a bite out of most of them. Oh kiddo! Oh and yes I do dress my kid in clothes that are too small for him sometimes. Don't judge me. Oh and yes we do have boards over our windows. We're really not as white-trash as we sound! Promise! :)

Here's our little dinosaur on Halloween. Better late than never! :) He's cute huh!

Well it's about time for another update right?! Yeah I think so! Let's see!

• Todd has officially finished his first semester of his MBA...Wahoo!
  
• Todd will finish the first semester of teaching this Friday....another BIG wahoo!!
• Huxley has four teeth on his bottom and I'm pretty sure all four molars (both top and both bottom) are trying to come in.....poor kiddo!
• I'm just about 6 months pregnant....yeah for being in the 3rd trimester!
• We find out what we're having in one week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• I finished my crazy semester of school-going to school full time is tough once it's not the only thing you're doing! And I got a 4.0. Thank you, thank you! :)
• We had our first Thanksgiving all by ourselves. Todd was in charge of the turkey and I was in charge of everything else. I won't lie it turned out WAY good! I think it's because no one else was coming over! Oh and my mom probably won't like my saying this but we even ate Thanksgiving dinner in our jammies! Oh yeah!
• Todd and I have officially made it through our first year of living together the ENTIRE year! Not bad except we've been married for three years now! We still plan on staying married too! :)

I think that's about it! We stay busy, busy, busy!!! We leave for Utah on Sunday night and get there on Monday. Such fun! Especially now that we have a rambunctious kiddo. I'm hoping he'll sleep a lot of it but we'll see!