Nine Months and counting....

We took Oliver in for his nine month check-up a little while ago and are happy to report that he is healthy and thriving. He weighed in at 19 pounds 10 ounces and was 28 and 1/2 inches long. Our little dude is so much fun, his newest tricks include clapping, waving, and walking while holding on to our hands. His favorite things are strawberries, cats and playing peek-a-boo. He always insists upon being the loudest thing in the room. He only ever cries when he falls and bonks his head, but he spends the better part of everyday yelling. He is so loud, we love to hear him babble but sometimes wish he came with a volume button.

Beware of falling fence posts....

This concludes our first week living in Riverton and Sam's first week on the new job. I am happy to report that everyone has survived. Sam's new job with B&K Construction (a company owned by my aunt and uncle) has him building fences along freeways and highways all summer. Currently he is working outside of Price, Utah. He puts in a four-day work week and then comes home to rest and hang out with Oliver and I on the weekends. As of right now, he is living in a tent with my little brother. He receives extra pay to pay for a hotel when the job is more than 60 miles from home, but has decided to save that money and camp out instead. What he is really doing is using it as an excuse to buy all of the nice camp gear he has always wanted. With all the new stuff I am pretty sure any money saved by camping will be a wash. Oh well.

Apparently the learning curve when building fences can be somewhat steep. Sam came home this week with a bruised and swollen palm from holding the pliers the wrong way. Nonetheless, he seems to really be enjoying himself (I think he would have been happy to shovel manure 12 hours a day as long as it meant getting out of Wells Fargo). Ollie and I are happy for him, the only thing we could wish for is for Sam to find a place to shower before coming home and hugging us after his four-day camping trips.

He did it!!!

It's official, Sam is now a college graduate. Saturday was a crazy but good day; within a 24 hour period we loaded all of our belongings into a trailer, cleaned our apartment, attended two graduation ceremonies and a family lunch, then drove to Riverton, unloaded everything into a storage unit and unpacked all the rest of our things at my parents house where we will be living for the next three months. Whew, is it any wonder I couldn't keep my eyes open in church today?


I just have to give kudos to Sam for all of the hard work he has put in at SUU over the past three years. Especially this last year as he has been carrying a full load at school as well as working full time so that I could stay home with Oliver. He is a wonderful husband and father. We are so grateful for our decision to come to SUU and for the wonderful professors that have such a profound influence on Sam in helping him to find what he is passionate about, Economics. We hope that our experience at the Colorado School of Mines will be equally as rewarding.

The End of an Era

Our time in Cedar City is winding down and as I am planning to tear apart the computer desk and pack it up today I decided to write one final post from our happy little apartment. I tend to deal pretty well with change and am not the type to get emotional over something like moving away. Nonetheless, I didn't want my lack of tears to be read as a lack love for this town and the friends and blessings that we have received here. Truly, we love Cedar City and will always look back on our time here as a special time in which our family grew in love and in size.


The following are the things that I will miss most about this cozy little town:

1. I will miss the way the whole place mobilizes for war during the deer hunt and the way that even the checkers at the grocery store wear hunter-orange to celebrate.

2. I will miss Friday night dates just wandering around Walmart because there really isn't much else to do.

3. I will miss the fact that there is never any traffic and I can get anywhere I want to go in under 10 minutes.

4. I will miss Pub salads.

5. I will miss watching and laughing about the "foam fighters" that gather every Saturday morning in Main Street Park.

6. Most of all I will miss all of our wonderful friends.

To help me get over the rough spots in the days ahead I will try to think more about what I won't miss about Cedar City, this list includes:

1. I definitely won't miss trying to make it up our steep driveway in the winter and inevitably sliding back down it and eventually parking in the road.

2. I won't miss the wind that never seems to stop blowing.

3. I won't miss all of the hills and never finding a flat piece of ground to run on.

4. I won't miss the way that Cedar City spends all of their money on festivals and doesn't save enough to pay drivers to clear the snow off the streets in the winter.

5. And finally, I will not miss all of the really big trucks with their big tires and the big clouds of exhaust they leave behind them.

Where is that fairy when you need her?

I keep logging into our blog hoping to see that someone has updated it. Unfortunately the good blogging fairy has yet to pay us a visit so I am taking things into my own hands and updating it myself. Perhaps a rund0wn of our past few days will help you to understand and forgive our long absence from the blogging world.

1. To begin with Sam is what you might call dentally challenged. He has bad teeth. It is not his fault, it is hereditary. This year alone he has had to have four crowns. The last thing he needed to get done was a root canal. However, the situation in his mouth was such that no dentist around here could do it. We had pretty much given up hope when we got a call last week from our dentist telling us that he had located a guy in Provo who could do it, if we got there the next day. So, we took an unexpected trip North for the weekend. The surgery went fine and we can now end our dental insurance on Friday with peace of mind.

2. While the trip up North was nice it severly cut into my packing time (which I had been procrastinating until the last minute anyway). So, I have been scrambling to put everything into boxes. I have been tempted on several occasions this week just to burn it all and start over from scratch once we get to Colorado.

3. This may not sound like a good excuse for not blogging, but we got a new stroller. It is a jogging stroller and I am in love. Truly, "I LOVE BOB" (that is a bit of an inside joke for anyone who has ever done the Biggest Loser workout video and knows what I mean when I say my stroller is a Bob). We've been spending a lot of time together. I was getting so sick of getting on my treadmill everyday. Now I can get outside and I can run for longer. Unfortunately I think I over did it and gave myself shin splints but thats okay. Bob, Ollie and I went walking instead of running today and it was just as nice.


4. This really has nothing to do with not blogging, but I got my haircut. I got bangs for the summer. Really, is there anything better than bangs and short hair in the summer? Only if it is short , blonde hair. Anyway, I am loving my bangs. This is the only picture that I have, you can't really see my bangs but you get the idea.

Hail the conquering graduate!!

Just for Grandma

For anyone out there who may, on occasion, find themselves perusing our blog, feel free to skip over this post. I am once again availing myself our blog to show off my cute kid and I know you don't all care. However, there are certain people who are interested. Namely Oliver's Grandma's, who all live far away and haven't been around to see him learn to crawl. His crawl has evolved now from the army crawl to the legitimate baby crawl, the following is a video to prove it. Enjoy (if you want to).

Oliver's Top Ten Favorites

It has been a slow news week at our house these past few days so we borrowed this idea from Oliver's friend Lauren. If anybody wants to follow suit, feel free. The following are Oliver's top ten favorite things:

1. Oliver loves to go to the park. We go everyday that is warm enough. I can't quite tell which he likes more, swinging on the baby swing or sitting and watching the other kids play. Both things bring much fascination and laughter.

2. Oliver has mastered the ability to crawl on all fours now (it is no longer an army crawl) and is very happy with his newfound freedom.

3. Ollie loves to play peekaboo. He laughs and laughs when Sam and I hide our faces and then pop out and shout "Peekaboo." He also takes his turn doing the hiding, his favorite is to turn his face against the wall and then turn back and surprise us.

4. Ever since Ollie was little, Sam and I have made him laugh by growling and attacking his tummy with our wide-open mouths. Oliver now does the same thing to us whenever he finds us lying down. It is so cute and we make sure to yell and wiggle whenever he "attacks" us.

5. Oliver loves to pull himself up on furniture. The couches are his favorite and once he gets up he gets excited and starts to laugh and "attack" the couch too.

6. Oliver has decided that baby food is for babies and that he has outgrown it. He will no longer eat from a spoon, but insists on feeding himself. His favorite foods are bananas, whole wheat bread with jam and macaroni and cheese.

7. Oliver is a huge fan of cell phones. We have given him our old cell phones to play with, but those simply won't do. He wants the phones that we use. Lately I have taken to turning on my speaker phone and talking to people while holding the phone to Ollie's ear.

8. Oliver loves to play with ropes. Things that fit into this category include but are not limited to: shoelaces, electrical cords and necklaces.

9. Ollie has a strange fascination with socks, both his own and everyone else's. By the time I get mine on in the morning they usually have at least one or two wet spots from where Oliver has sucked on them.

10. Oliver absolutely loves the guitar. He sits pretty still to listen to his uncle play to him and is willing to crawl great distances to play with it himself.

A mover and a shaker

Oliver is now officially mobile. While he has not yet mastered the crawl, he has become very proficient at dragging himself across the ground. Of course, he couldn't be more thrilled with his new skill. I, on the other hand, have discovered that his newfound freedom to move about has severely restricted my own. Gone are the days of setting him down with a bunch of toys and then leaving the room. The second I turn my back he makes a beeline for the house plants and seems to find all kinds of popcorn kernels and pennies along the way. Since there is no going back in time, I am trying to look at the bright side. Here are some of the reasons that I am grateful for Oliver's being able to crawl:

1. Never before have my floors been so clean. Ollie's ability to crawl has inspired me to sweep and vacuum almost constantly.

2. Today he did me a favor by pulling down a bottle of sand that Sam brought back from Haliewa and dumping it all over the kitchen floor. I never really liked having to keep that thing around

3. If nothing else, it makes Ollie happy.

Spring is sprung, the grass is riz....

Springtime weather takes you on such an emotional roller coaster ride. One day you are sailing through blue skies and sunshine only to come crashing down the next day under three feet of snow. After our recent bout of cold weather Oliver and I bolted to the park today at the first hint of sunshine. It was great to get outside again. Oliver was mostly interested in eating the dirt, but he did find other things to entertain him as well.