The Leaves Are Falling

It is turning into a beautiful fall in Utah.  Still warm in the afternoon but pretty chilly in the morning and evening. 

Gratitude:  I am so grateful for such a happy baby.  She spends her days smiling the majority of the time and is playing on the floor a little more by herself. I have been trying to put myself out there a little more and be more willing to talk to people that I do not know.  Devin is always so nice when he passes by people and can say "hi" and things like that while I am more comfortable just passing by without a word.  Lately I have been trying to be more friendly because ever since Noelle came around people stop and talk to me about her all the time.

Update: So much has happened since my last post but I like to do most of this with pictures.  Something there isn't a photo for is Devin's job news.  He was offered a job downtown with a new company but we ended up passing.  His current place promoted his on the spot when he told them the news! It was great! We really didn't want to commit to being in Utah for another job.

Here we go...

 

Noelle took her first bath in the bigger part of the tub.  I'm not sure why we didn't do this sooner but we were nervous.  She LOVED it.  She was kicking like crazy!

I think Devin liked John and Kate's gift, can you tell?

 

Then it was Devin's birthday. He was able to use a floating holiday at work and have the day off.  I gave him the brand new Kindle Fire HD but I must say I am enjoying having it as much as he is.  Then John gave Devin this huge Heavy Bag stand. 

Kate, John, Eddie, Jeff, Meghan, Me, Brad (father in-law)

Then came the Dirty Dash. This was a real triumph for me doing a 10 k in the mud 4 months after having the baby.  I was almost unable to do it because I pulled a muscle in my back just days before but I some how did it.

Sadly Dev couldn't race because his broken foot was still healing.

We celebrated Dev's bday a little bit while his parents were in town visiting.

27 lookin' pretty good!

 

Saying goodbye to Brad and Diane
It was so much fun having a full house for a weekend. 7 of us in  our apartment.

Noelle is still loving going on walks in the baby bjorn. She cries after like 15 mins in the stroller but loves this instead. Stinker.

 

Noelle loves eating rice cereal and bananas. She gets so excited when she sees the food!

The little one scoots backwards pretty well now.  It's a little sad though because she sees a toy in front of her and scoots the opposite way lol.

Last Saturday we went to Sugarhouse park to walk the trail and then got ice cream It was fun and very pretty there.

Noelle all happy!

Noelle turned 5 months old!  I can't believe she is getting SO big!

I was just sitting there and all of a sudden I am being eaten!

You can also see my ugly big toe.  I got a "red toe" from the dirty dash. It doesn't hurt anymore.

I moved my foot away and she came to get me!

There's No Place Like Home

Gratitude: This might sound weird but I am grateful that people still surprise me sometimes. Sometimes I expect the worst from people and get surprised when they prove me wrong. That is one of the best feelings to be proved wrong in a good way.

This is a picture of Noelle sleeping at night.. we just thought she was too cute to pass up.

Update: A couple of weeks ago I took Noelle for her 4 month check up and she weighed 10 lbs 12 oz and is 23 inches long. Yes, she is still a tiny girl but she is slowly but surely getting bigger. I had been doing really well going to the gym and training for the dirty dash race that is coming up this Saturday until I got a sinus infection last week. There is not much I could do about it with nursing. Then today I pulled a back muscle, so we will see if I can walk tomorrow let alone run on Saturday. I am pretty upset about it but o well.

She is just too cute!

I will finally post some pics of our apartment. We are finally all settled in.

One side on our family room.  

Noelle playing on that blanket.

Our comfy new couches.

The view out our windows are pretty nice.

 A bigger view of the front room.

Kitchen. 

Our bedroom.

Noelle's nursery.

Last Days of Summer

Yes I am posting again already...

Gratitude: I realized I should have wrote about this on my last blog. I am so grateful for the opportunity I was given to go back to work at my old job. Even though I decided not to take it, I am glad the company liked me enough to contact me with an offer to come back. I decided working 40 hrs a week until 7 pm every week night was not something that would be best for our family. I am not actively seeking employment right now and I am grateful that we are able to have our needs met without it at this time.

Update: The weekend was SO busy and SO fun. I already wrote a lot about it but I am going to put up more pics and even some videos. I am liking putting more pics on here than on facebook as it feels more private. I do not think I mentioned that Noelle now has a bedtime. Noelle started going to sleep every night between 9-10pm and it is great to have some time alone. Hopefully it will get a little earlier soon so Devin and I will go to bed earlier than we do as well.

This is Devin getting Noelle ready to go swimming again! We do not want summer to be over and are trying to get in all the time we can in the sun.

Noelle and I met Daddy, Uncle Jeff, John, & Kate at our apartment pool after the gym/daycare. Noelle has been having a blast going to the gym daycare everyday and seems a little more tuckered out by getting so much interaction and having things to watch.

Noelle inches her way around the place right now. Lifting up her knees and getting so frustrated that she can not crawl. I am not ready for a crawling baby just yet so I am hoping to have a couple more months.
I must say that I have grown accustomed to the seeing the mountains every day here in UT. Our new apartment has gorgeous views as you can see in this pic and this is what it looks like out a couple of the windows in our place as well.

I just realized I lied when I said the next post would have pics of the new place.. at least there are some of the pool. Things just aren't ready enough to take any pics, it is going slow and steady.. but soon.

check out some videos... (i don't know how to get them to just play on here yet)

http://youtu.be/VHxDb5sdJz0 -- noelle rolling over

http://youtu.be/cU__mNajCsM -- noelle swimming

http://youtu.be/F1XKRuKTWt4 -- noelle eating from a spoon

These Are The Days

Just to start, a cute pic of Nelly wrapped in her Nana blanket...

Gratitude moment:

I am finding it harder than I thought to pin point exact moments to write about for this. I need to focus more on acknowledging them when they happen. I have lots to be thankful for but they are everyday things that are going well for me, instead of standout occasions. Right now all I can think of is being grateful that I was able to sign up for a gym membership with daycare. Working out at home whenever Noelle would fall asleep was really difficult and taking any enjoyment out of it. Now I can go when I want and get my break for the day.. it is really great. I know I can get into great shape and I have the facilities to do so now so no excuses.

Update:

Noelle is going to be 4 months old this week! I can not believe how the time just flies! Noelle became such a big baby recently! One day she decided to grow up all at once

I feel like. She started hitting her toys on the bouncy seat for the first time and rolled over in bed onto her tummy to sleep all in the same day! We were so nervous and kept flipping her back to her back because she had not even rolled over for us one way yet during the day time for us to see. Then she had real food for the first time ever. She even went swimming with us yesterday! We have been keeping busy spending lots of time with friends & family, unpacking/setting up, playing with Noelle, exercising, reading, and relaxing. This is an especially busy weekend.. Friday was a bbq with friends at the old apartment, Sat. spent the day with the O'Farrells, then today and tomorrow we have Jeff (devs bro) over.

Noelle eating some wheat grain mixed with breast milk, really thin consistency.

Noelle going swimming! SO cute!

So content being outside!

Our friends John and Kate spent the day with us swimming, bbq-ing inside lol, watching a movie, walking a couple miles, and playing games. It was a great day, we are happy to live near them.

Family photo

Look at that cute little booty. I'm so happy we were gifted this adorable swimsuit!

We are almost completely out of boxes. Just 1 left. I took a little break on organizing things so I need to get back into it. I promise the next post will have apartment pics.

I'm back!

So I am slow to learn this blogger stuff BUT I'm back for a second post.  I would say that is progress.

I am so grateful for SO many things right now...
-  Number one would have to be that my dad survived a heart attack this past week.  I am rooting for him to make the life changes necessary to extend his life and be around to see his grand kids grow up.  We are so lucky that the pain of the heart attack woke him up and he was smart enough to call 9-1-1.
- The other things are that I now have so many little conveniences in life that will free up some of my time.  We just moved a week ago today and I now have so many luxuries that were not available in the student housing.  We have a dishwasher, a washer & dryer, double the space, comfy sofaS, a real kitchen table, new carpet, and so much more.  I knew it would be nice to have these things but I didn't realize how nice.
- We also have really great friends that we met in the University Housing and I am sad that we moved away from them. But it makes me happy that we are still close enough to keep in touch and hangout.

Since my last post I returned to Chicago for my cousin Nikki's Wedding.  I brought my friend Hannah with me to help with Noelle because Devin could not get those days off work.  We had so much fun and were even able to go into the city without the baby for a day.  

 We took a water taxi from the train station over to Navy Pier and it was a fun way to see more of the city.

 Navy Pier.  We hung out here for a while and then ate at the famous Bubba Gump Shrimp.

 We walked from Navy Pier over to Millenium Park.  It was a REALLY hot and humid day.  

 My favorite part of a wedding has got to be the dancing.  It's always fun to get to spend time with my cousins!

 Noelle and I before the ceremony.

  While I was in town I also was able to attend  Jenny's Bridal Shower.  This is a picture of the neighborhood clan at the shower.

 Another fun thing about this trip was getting to meet my newest niece Aubrey! It was so strange to have Noelle be the "Big" baby for once.  I don't even remember her being that little (and even smaller actually). This is Noelle with her cousins on my side of the family.  They are so cute and had SO much fun seeing each other!

After returning from Chicago, my life has been a little crazy and stressful.  We were packing, then we moved, and now we are unpacking.  In between all of that we went camping with some friends in the mountains and have done a lot of furniture shopping.  I can not wait to be settled into this new place... but then again who knows if we will stay here long.