The past week–since last Wednesday–has been mostly characterized by a rather cranky Fay. Some kind of bug has been going around our apartment building and Fay got it. 🙁  Over the weekend, it was mostly just a runny nose, a cough, and all around “icky-ness,” but on Monday–just about two hours before we were supposed to have the missionaries over for dinner–Fay threw up. Fortunately, she had been able to take a really long nap before, and another really long nap, actually during the missionaries’ visit.

Because of her extra nap–an hour before bedtime–she was feeling a little better by the time that we were trying to go to bed. She is lucky to have a daddy who loves her enough to play with her late into the night.

She has been feeling progressively better, I think, and she is definitely acting more like her cheerful self. She still has her moments, however.

For example: Yesterday at lunch she happily ate about half of her PB&J sandwich, and then wanted some milk and the cheese crackers that Mommy was having. I got her the milk and asked her to eat one more piece of sandwich before she could have crackers. It was the end of her life.

I don’t know if you can really see, but the piece I asked her to eat is in the bottom middle of this picture. She would put it in her mouth (once she realized I was serious) and then gag and spit it out. It was SO FUNNY! When I told her she really had to chew and swallow it, she buried her face in her hands, as though her puppy had just died.

Sorry, that isn’t the best picture.

But today, she is really feeling much better. She has been far less picky with the activities she does and how long she does them, and she has been giving me lots of smiles and laughs!  I’m happy that she is feeling better, for her sake and for mine and Josh’s. 🙂

I know it is already the end of January, but I thought it might be fun to note a little bit of how we have changed in the past year.

January 2013 was the first month of “the rest of my life” as a stay at home mother! It turned out to be quite an adjustment for me–moving to the world of no real milestones of my work (Fay has plenty of milestones!) and much less praise from those (she) I do all my work for. But, as you can see from the above picture, I couldn’t have too hard of a time, because I really did have the greatest job ever! I still do!

In April, we got the chance to “walk” in graduation! I thought that it would feel kind of empty because we had actually finished everything back in December–and my high school graduation felt empty even though I had just BARELY finished everything–but I was wrong. I definitely felt like we had accomplished something big! Especially since we did the last year pregnant and with a baby. (Not too shabby, I’d say!)  And because Fay was so much a part of our experience there at the end, I made her a cap and gown! (I made it from a free t-shirt I got in a class one time my sophomore year!)

In May, my parents took Josh and me to FRANCE!!!!!!!!!!  It was really an amazing trip, and just thinking about it makes me wish we were there right now! I would show you more pictures, but alas, we only took so many and my DADDY (hint hint!) has yet to send me all of his!

We spent our summer with Josh still working full time, and Fay and I playing full time! But Josh’s work ended at 5:00 every weekday and we didn’t have any homework or anything on the weekends, so we tried to do a lot of playing together. I think we had talked about going on some cool adventure during the summer, but we ended up saving our money so that we could afford our next big thing…

We left for North Carolina in August–we left from Josh’s brother Aaron’s wedding reception. It took us a good 3 days to get there, but Fay really was a champ!  She did NOT like her carseat for hours on end. BUT she was so good to us! She took her regular naps (two hours in the late morning and two hours in the afternoon) and even went to sleep for the night at the regular time. When we got to Chapel Hill, she would still cry whenever she saw the car for the next two or three weeks. Poor girl!

On our trek over, we got to stay with my brother David and his family in Columbus, Ohio! I think that we were their last house guests there, because they moved to Utah only a week later! But it was SO good to see them! Especially since we got to meet their new little baby, Calvin! (Oh yeah. I colored my hair red in early August. You can kind of see it here.)

I just like this picture because Fay is wearing a Carolina shirt at Duke Gardens. That’s our family for you!

October was an exciting month for us because we had a big announcement! We are excited to become a family of four in April of 2014! And Josh is very excited to have a little boy! (I am too, of course!)

For Halloween this year our family was Peter Pan! Fay was the cutest TinkerBell the world has ever seen!

We had Thanksgiving at our house in November and we had one of Josh’s coworkers over (as well as a friend from the ward later on in the evening), and I know that we took pictures, but I can’t for the life of me find them. My apologies.

Another thing I can’t find pictures of is Christmas. But I don’t think that we took our camera to Utah as we could barely fit all the stuff we absolutely HAD to.  But we had a FABULOUS holiday visiting with Muhlesteins and Monsons! We ate tons of super delicious food, and Fay played with all sorts of doggies! And we got to talk to both our missionaries!

Now we are home, and it is 2014! A few things that I have noticed as I’ve done this post are that  #1. Our life just keeps getting more exciting and more happy! I expect a similar trend for the next year, so long as we keep being good like we’re supposed to.  #2. It is such a beautiful thing to go back and remember things,so I am REALLY glad I have documented them! and #3. Fay seriously has SO MUCH HAIR nowadays! (Check out last January’s picture!)

We are looking forward to sharing more of 2014 with you than we did 2013! Our EyeFi thing we got for our camera (thanks a million, Mom and Dad!) makes it WAY easier to get pictures up!

This afternoon, Fay and I played a brand new game called “transfer beans” (you may feel free to rename it, if you wish). I got out two bowls and put dry beans into one of them, handed Fay a spoon and let her have at it!  She absolutely loved it, and got way into it!

And every so often, she would hand the spoon to me and say “mama!” I would then ask her “Is it mama’s turn?!” and she would respond with a great big “YEAH!!!!!!” that lit up her whole face. Here it is…

Motherhood is the best job in the world!

In our stake, every autumn they hold “Women’s Day” for all the Relief Society sisters. It is seriously the best idea ever! They just have a ton of different classes available ranging from crafts, to parenting tips, to spiritual subjects, to self-reliance, etc.  They have three hours of classes, so you get to choose three different classes to go to, and then they have a delightful lunch at the end! It really is quite a lovely experience. Anyway, I went this past month and loved all three of my classes! I went to “Photographing Children,” “Interior Design,” and “Sprouts.”

In my photographing children class, I learned some new things that I feel have increased the quality of my photography. Granted, I’m still nothing close to professional quality, but I definitely see some improvement. Take a look!So, I know that this one doesn’t have quite the right focal point (it’s more on her nose than on her eyes) but I really liked the lighting.  You can tell me what you think in the comments.

My other two classes were fabulous as well! After the interior design class–a subject that I have become interested in relatively recently–made me want to go back to college and major in it! Our teacher briefly touched on “color theory” and I was so fascinated by it! I would totally love to take a class on that! Plus, I would love to have a beautifully designed house!

The last one was about growing sprouts at home, which is seriously SO EASY and a brilliant idea for food storage. You can keep the seeds for quite a while, and then when you need them, all you need to have fresh sprouts (at a time when you may otherwise have no fresh produce) is a mason jar, some sort of hole-y top (they make special caps or you can use cheese cloth), and some water. You don’t even need sunlight!  It seriously is brilliant! And I have done it all by myself, and I had a big jar of sprouts in about 3 days! If you want more info, seriously talk to me! I will convince you that it is the best food storage idea ever!

So, I was talking to Megan Muhlestein (my sister-in-law) today and somehow blogs came up. I remembered that I really do want to keep a blog so that we can remember things that we have done! So here’s another go at a post.

There are lots of things that we have done that we don’t have many pictures of; so I need to not only get better at blogging, but also at bringing the camera with us places. Some examples of fun things we did that were not on the camera are the Duke Homestead and Tobacco museum in Durham, the Life and Science museum in Durham, and the ward camp-out at Jordan Lake. They were all super fun. Sorry for no pictures.

But one thing we did that WAS documented was Pirate Day at Krispy Kreme donuts!

Now, you may be wondering why we are dressed like pirates at home as opposed to at Krispy Kreme. The reason is actually quite amusing.  So, we got all dressed up, ready to have two DOZEN donuts for our little family, and we drove out to Franklin Street which is where basically every restaurant in Chapel Hill lives. We knew we would have to pay for a parking garage, but it was only $.50 for each half hour and so we were like “worth it!” We just told ourselves to make absolutely CERTAIN that we weren’t there for any more than an hour because we only had $1 cash. So we were planning on hanging out for a while and eating our donuts with all the other pirates. Well, we excitedly walked into our little Krispy Kreme and Josh greeted the woman at the counter with a pirate-y “ahoy!” She said NOTHING, handed us each a box of donuts, and started helping another customer.  It was SO funny! We were just so underwhelmed by the whole experience that we decided to leave and eat our donuts at home. So we did. And we took pictures there too!

The Monson Family is happily situated at the student family housing of UNC called Baity Hill. Josh can walk to his building in 30 minutes or bike in 10; and there is a free bus service for all of Chapel Hill and into the neighboring city of Carborro!

Our apartment is really nice and we already feel very much at home here! Here are some photos for your viewing pleasure!

Below is a picture of our kitchen. It has plenty of cupboard space and, as you can see in the photo, space above the cupboards for big things! It also has a dishwasher!

The next picture is of our living room/dining room. We like the carpet we have in the apartment except that it is under Fay while she eats. Hence  the rug under the table. We still end up manually picking up most of what was on her tray from the floor but it’s okay. The couch you see we got for free from some neighbors down the hall that we met our first couple days here. It was chilling in her parents’ garage this summer and when they learned that we were in need of a couch they arranged to have her parents deliver it to our house! It is SO nice! Best couch we never bought!

Fay’s room! Lots of room to play! I like having a room where toys can live that is not the living room.

Master Bedroom. We have a big walk-in closet with a light fixture! I seriously feel so fancy living in this apartment! The windows are lovely also!

Our first bathroom ever with counter space!

Down the hall between the kitchen/living room and the bedroom/bathroom we have a big storage closet and our laundry closet. Our washer and dryer are glorious and there is space above them for storage also!

We really do love living here! Our ward is wonderful and so are our neighbors! We randomly have 4 lds families living in our hallway and at least one more family on the floor above us!

I didn’t think to add this to my other post. I don’t know why. But I made Fay a little skirt and a matching headband for St. Patrick’s Day and we got the shirt for $1.49 after tax at Old Navy. It pays to be last minute!

It’s getting harder and harder to get staged pictures of Fay. So this is her looking less put together than I perhaps would I have liked to show in her picture. But the facial expression is PRICELESS!!!

Fay is now 9.5 months based on her birthday and 8 months based on her due-date.  She has yet to crawl, but we’re pretty sure that is because she is far too excited about walking. She will walk anywhere as long as she’s got someone or something to hold on to!

Her favorite food is probably oatmeal, but she likes basically everything if given enough time with it. She loves to make TONS of noise, especially in Sunday School and Relief Society. She’s figured out that Sacrament meeting is a quiet place, but not the other two yet. ha ha! She loves eating everything she sees, especially Josh’s glasses, any and all paper, and her own feet! She has also recently learned to open the drawer under the oven. yikes! She now has 3 teeth with two more coming in!

She is basically the happiest baby in the world! If she sees a new person–especially another baby–she will flap her arms and breathe really fast, or wail! She is just tons of fun! We love her SO much!

Here is Fay in her Valentine’s outfit! I love the one with her laying down because it is so dramatic! Thanks, as always, to Crystal for the cute bow!

School started back in August, and we have been well busy. But, Fay is taking a nap, and I am avoiding a research paper, so now is a wonderful time to blog a little! We have pictures of Fay and Halloween stuff, but school is just too scary! Plus there’s not much more to say about it. So, on to the good stuff!

yum!

We were given this ADORABLE tutu outfit by one of my neighbors from back home! It is probably the cutest thing a baby could ever wear, and Fay is the cutest baby there ever was, so it is a great combination!

Also, the other day, we were getting Fay ready for the day and decided since it was cold out she could use a hat. We got this little pink Santa hat out and put it on her! She was just so cute in it and her diaper that we had to document it! Josh said “awww! She’s Santa Fay!” I started laughing and then he said “Oh, I didn’t even think of that!” We have been singing the song to her ever since!

Halloween is a busy time of year because Josh works a lot on the “Nightmare Express” in Lindon.  He and his dad are in charge of the light show which is featured in the line. Usually it is just a show that people watch and not much else, but this year Josh decided to make it interactive by building skee ball machines that go with it!  

Even on the day we were setting up, the skee ball machines were being used more or less constantly!

This is Josh with his masterpiece of computer nerdyness!  Because of all this hardware, we had beautiful lights in sync with Halloweeny music! Plus, it just looks crazy cool back there!

These are our costumes! We used the same ones as last year because we are low on funds. But they still look good, I’d say!

For family home evening at the start of October, we carved pumpkins. Guess which one Josh did and which one I did!

Also, because it is pumpkin season, Josh and I bought three cans of pumpkin purée! Josh labeled all pumpkin recipes “pumpkin wonders”. Thus far we have made creamy pumpkin soup, pumpkin quesadillas (crazy good!), pumpkin muffins, pumpkin oatmeal, and these pumpkin scones. It has been so fun. If you want recipes, you can find the ones for the soup, the quesadillas, and the scones on my pinterest. 🙂 Also, if anybody has some really great tips about food photography, I would love them!