Conference Weekend

So this post really isn't about General Conference, but that just happens to be a great way to encompass the whole weekend. Just know that I did love general conference and I look forward to watching the "reruns" possible while Charlie's sleeping.

This post is more to celebrate the visit of my brother's family (with their brand new baby boy), share photos from my new camera ( so Elizabeth can take the ones she wants), and talk about all the things we were able to do this weekend. I also think I figured out how I could make my pictures larger without getting cut off! Woohoo!

James and Elizabeth came into town on Thursday with their newborn baby only being 1.5 weeks old. Brave parents if you ask me. This is also the night that Max was expected to leave for hunting but luckily the time changed and he didn't have to leave until Saturday night.

These pictures are from Thursday but he is just so adorable I had to throw them in. He's pretending to do a magic trick in both of them!

Friday Max went to work in the morning and I got to spend a day at OMSI with James, Elizabeth, Gwenevere, Grace, and baby Everett! Some of my favorite people! We spent a whole lot of time exploring. Here are some pictures from that.

Wind in her hair

They were all pretty cute in the earthquake simulator. Dancing and holding hands. 

I love that they play together more now that they're older. 

Their whole family worked together and they almost made the complete arch!

Moving blocks with the big crane!

This was a pretty great musical instrument, and Charlie sure loves to hit things!

I love this girl!

Sisters!

Going to the moon

Everett is the youngest astronaut ever!

Money!

He was so alert!

Sand Time

I forgot how much newborns sleep (during the day) so I was constantly trying to get pictures of his pretty blue eyes when they were open. 

I know this is totally blurry but once again, I thought it was so cute how they played together. 

This was the pose Gwenevere gave me when I was taking her picture! Still a beautiful girl!

Then these two were just being so cute together again!

On Saturday, we stayed home to watch General Conference. Max was in and out all day trying to get some last minute, vital projects done at the house next door. We found a renter...woohoo...

During the afternoon session Charlie was napping so I was able to listen more closely while I deep cleaned the fridge...it desperately needed it and the thought of doing it over the last couple of weeks made me gag. Luckily this second trimester has brought some reprieve. Something that really stood out to me in conference was the many references to gender roles and how both men and women have a divine nature and both are needed in God's plan. It really left me feeling much more positive about being "just a mom" not that I've really had issues with that, but sometimes I feel that society makes me feel guilty for graduating college and not having a career. Anyway, great words were spoken on this topic!

We even watched the priesthood session at home and Max's dad and brother came over.

After the priesthood session, Max was planning on going over to his uncle's house to leave for his hunting trip while my grandma was going to take my family out to eat to celebrate our birthdays. Luckily Max's meeting time was postponed another couple of hours and he got to go out to eat with us. My red grandma took all my siblings and my dad out to celebrate our birthdays. It was great that James and Elizabeth were able to come too. We went to Old Spaghetti Factory and had a great time and stayed pretty late. WE then drove Max's to his Uncle's house and said our good byes. I really don't like spending time apart from Max, but for this particular trip, I was pretty excited. He has been so busy , and stressed, and sometimes frustrated with everything he needs to get done so I was pretty happy that he got to have a much slower paced weekend..not to mention that we could get some good meat out of it. I also love the extra butterflies I get when he arrives home! 

The next morning Charlie and I got up nice and early and went to my mom's house to watch conference there. This is where James and Elizabeth's family was staying. Also, because I am on my own for a couple days, I planned to take full advantage of my mom's cooking. She was making cinnamon rolls and I was not going to miss that! 

I think grandma enjoyed having all her children and grandchildren with her!

For the final session of conference, Charlie and I went home so he could nap and I could pay closer attention. when the final session was over we loaded up the car and headed over to red Grandma's house for a BBQ and get together so everyone could meet baby Everett. 

I practiced more with my new camera on all the kids. 

My cousin Timmy's action shot.

This is my cousin Aaron, Charlie gets most of his hand-me-downs from him because Aaron is exactly a year older. I'm worried Charlie will be bigger than him soon!

Lexi-girl

Kaden...walking around like a pro!

Micah...trick-or-treating

Everett opened his eyes again so of course I took more pictures!

Not-so-happy Everett

He just needed some Mommy cuddles!

Blurry again...but they are so adorable. 

Little Pumpkin heads

Grace is 3 months older than Charlie but Charlie looks like a giant.

They had some cousin Ring-around-the-Rosie time. They all had a blast!

Modeling his pumpkin hat.

Then Grace and Charlie had a grand old time pretending that the croquet mallets were vacuums. 

The night ended with Charlie sitting down to watch some baseball with his Uncle Daniel!

This was probably our most successful get-together at grandmas' house since Charlie's been born. He is such a busy boy that he is usually banging on the TV or piano but this time he was more interested in interacting with all the other kids. He  listened when I gave him instructions and he had a great time. I used to dread taking him to Grandma's especially without Max but he is just getting so much more independent that we all enjoyed ourselves. We stayed late because I wasn't particularly excited to go home to be alone. We also were able to spend more time with my sweet nieces and nephew! We eventually went home and that is the end of our weekend. We also can't wait to see Max when he gets home tonight!

Birthday festivities!

So I'm a little more high maintenance than Max when it comes to birthdays. My main criteria is that I don't want to cook for myself or do dishes on my birthday, and I want to spend time with Max. Max has been out of control with busyness getting the next door house ready to rent. He was planning on leaving on a hunting trip the day after my birthday and really wanted to get a renter in before he left but also finish all the indoor repairs and updates. After he got home from work, he would eat dinner than work on the house sometimes until 1 or 2 am. It was getting pretty stressful for him...and me too. So the very selfish side of my got frustrated thinking I wasn't even going to see him at all on my birthday. ( I know I sound like I monster...but I'm also a fan of saying it like it is. There could also be some pregnancy hormones involved here.) Let me also say that all of Max's hard work is done to take care of his family, because he works so hard on the property we are able to live in this nice house, because he works so hard at his job we are able to eat and even have some luxuries, and because he does take time to be with Charlie and me, he have a happy household. I can't say that I've seen Max ever sit on the couch and turn the TV on to relax...it is so rare for him to take a moment to himself. Even though he really deserves it. So that being said, I was kind of expecting a sporadic birthday. The night before I found out that Max would be able to come home for breakfast (after an early meeting) and lunch. He had to come home for breakfast to meet with a laborer that he hired to work on the house next door. He came home just as Charlie and I were waking up. I went downstairs with my robe, bed head, and thick goggle glasses. Max greeted me at the bottom of the stairs and showed my an interestingly wrapped package sitting on the couch. It was wrapped in some magazine I had never seen and could only assume it came from his work. He recommended that I open it right then. I thought I should wait until Charlie got up or at least until I put my contacts in. I usually don't like to open presents until the day is done so that way I have something to look forward to all day long.He was persistent and obviously very excited. I opened the box and found...a brand new....    

Nikon DSLR camera. We have had a nice camera on our wishlist for several years now...and that wish grew when we had Charlie...I just really wanted good quality photos of him that we could keep for a lifetime and pass down to our descendants. 

            Now here is a little back story that Max began to relay to me when I opened it. 2 weeks earlier (a day after Max's birthday), my friend Kerri came over so our kids could play and we could visit. She had mentioned that she had gone to Best Buy that morning and they found this amazing deal on this camera. She said it was a one-day only deal. That kind of turned me off because I'm not an impulse buyer and I hadn't been doing very much research on camera prices. I have been wanting one even more recently since Anna came to visit in June and took amazing pictures. I haven't been satisfied with my point & shoot camera and all it fails to capture. She spoils us I tell you! That evening Max went to a church meeting with Kerri's husband, Corbrett. I started researching cameras and found the deal that Kerri was talking about. The more I researched, the more I realized that this seemed like a really great deal. I text the link to Anna (our personal life photographer, and amazing friend) and asked her what she thought. Her response seemed less enthusiastic than I was hoping. She mentioned that cameras will always go on sale when new models come out and you can usually get used for cheaper and she is definitely partial to Canons. I've heard her mention buying used cameras before from people who are upgrading their equipment so I had no reason to doubt the truth in her response. I asked her what I would look for when shopping for a used camera and she just said to send her the craigslist postings that I thought were great deals. I felt that was very generous of her to help me so much in our camera pursuit. As I started looking at craigslist I was finding that the prices weren't much lower and I didn't want to spend the same price for something with wear and tear. I kept going back to look at the best buy deal and felt that it was a great deal. Max got home and I told him that I had researched the deal and talked to Anna and what Anna said and how I doubted her! Max just told me that it wasn't a good time for us to spend money on a camera and there will be other deals. (Let it be known that it's usually me trying to convince Max not to buy stuff) I left it at that but continued to casually research cameras and play with the ones on display at Costco. 

              So, after opening my birthday camera I'm thinking "How did this happen?" He told me that on that same night I was researching cameras he had called Anna earlier than I had texted her (she really has to be involved in all our big life decisions. She is the one who taught Max how to say "will you marry me" in Armenian so he could propose to me) and her response was more like "Buy it now,  that is a great deal that comes with 2 lenses and you can always continue to use the lenses if you upgrade the camera..." She also warned Max that I had contacted her and was now doing some craigslist shopping. I also found out that Kerri's husband had bought one too the same night and Kerri knew about it immediately. I see Kerri at least twice a week and she kept it a secret the whole time, never mentioning the camera. I got a little emotional after Max told me this..I know it was part hormones but mostly it was because I had a bunch of good friends excited to surprise me. I guess, maybe I should be concerned that My husband and friends are awesome liars but really they are just excellent surprisers! 

            After some hugs and kisses Max went next door to start the laborer on his work while I got Charlie up and made a Cream of Wheat breakfast with fresh strawberries. Max came home to eat with us then had to head back to work. 

That morning I turned on Sesame Street (ELMO! as Charlie calls it) while I set my camera up and started to read the manual. Yep, I wasn't being the best mom. I think I even let him watch more than one episode which I usually don't do. I've found that it's the only show that catches his attention. He loves it. 

Anyway, I learned a little bit then took Charlie outside to start his modeling career. 

 I was pretty pleased with the close-ups..

I was not as pleased with the not-so-close ups. I need to figure out some settings...Anna?

I played with my camera for awhile and shortly after I put Charlie down for a nap, I had a possible tenant come over and look at the house next door. He loved it and came in to fill out an application. Max usually deals with this stuff but I was home so I did it this time. Shortly after that Max came home with Subway lunch for me. We ate lunch together then enjoyed a short home date while Charlie slept. I'm thankful to the people Max works for. He took more than the normal hour off by coming home for breakfast and lunch but they are kind and know Max works so hard while he is working that they allowed it. 

Max had to go back to work again so Charlie and I cleaned up the house to get ready for a little birthday party that Max had planned. We planned to go out to eat with some close friends then come back to our house for ice cream sundaes.

When Max got home, we were ready to head out the door to go to Red Robin. We met Richard Marissa, Lacey, Kerri, Corbrett, Madeleine, Joe, and Lindsey there.  

I meant to be better about taking picture that evening but I didn't do that great! Here are a couple.

Kerri and Madeleine

Richard with Lacey dancing on the table with Ketchup. 

Then I was practicing taking pictures in the dark with no flash and I caught this handsome man.

Lacey's growing up. 

I'm pretty sure Madeleine and Charlie are best buds. 

After eating ice cream sundaes we played a round of catch phrase. We were grateful our friends didn't mind keeping their kids up so late. We had a lot of fun and I definitely felt the love from everyone...especially Max on my birthday.

After everyone left, we left the dishes in the sink and read our book together. 

We were then able to go to bed at the same time which has been a rare treat over the last couple of weeks seeing as I am exhausted by 8pm and Max is working on the house next door until the wee hours of the morning. 

    I was amazed at how hard Max worked to make me feel special on my birthday, he went above and beyond. all while running around so busy all day long. ( At one point during the day he called me to ask me a question then forgot he had called me while I was still on the phone because he was trying to do and think of a million other things at once.We laughed pretty hard) It was an amazing birthday! I really am spoiled!

Max's Birthday!

And now we get to Max's 27th Birthday. It was a pretty low-key celebration but we just tried to make Max feel appreciated all day long. I woke up at the same time as Max so I could make him a delicious breakfast. As we were waking up, we found out that Max needed to be at a meeting an hour before he normally goes to work..so the best I could do was gather a couple items for a breakfast on the go.  

In the meantime..Charlie and I worked on some arts and crafts to give Daddy.

This was his first time finger painting, I was pretty impressed that he didn't completely dive into the paints and smear them all over.  He was pretty controlled and clean.

We met Max for lunch which ended up being another bit of a bust. We had plans to go to one restaurant that we thought we could get a free meal, we called ahead of time to double check and that wasn't going to work so then we thought we'd go to Denney's for their free grand slam. When we got to where Denney's was supposed to be it wasn't there. We ended up going to Panda Express which is delicious but it took quite a bit of Max's lunch break to get there. After a lovely lunch at Panda Express we walked to See's candy to get some chocolate. We got some free samples and some chocolate to take home. Charlie picked out a sucker, gave the cashier his money, and then dived in. 

Would you like some cheese with that Sucker?

We then dropped Max off back at work. Charlie and I went home and got Max's dinner, present, and birthday pie all ready. 

 For his birthday present we stayed simple because we are going to Washington DC and New York in mid-October and since we've invested money in that we didn't want to spend too much on birthdays. And like I sadi before, Max isn't big on gifts anyway. He had mentioned that he would like to go on a man date with his best friend Richard. He hasn't wanted to plan anything with Richard because he has been so busy and any free time he chooses to spend with family. He didn't want me to be mad if he chose to spend time with his friend. HEHE! So basically we gave him the gift of me giving him my blessing to go on a man-date. He absolutely loved it. He got movie tickets, a Chipotle gift card, and a man-date invite to give to Richard.  I guess you would have to understand their bromance to understand this gift

After prepping the present Charlie and I worked on making an apple pie. Max usually prefers pie instead of cake so that is just what we did for him.

It's been fun to involve Charlie in the cooking process, especially now that he understands he shouldn't touch the stove, but pies are a lot of work and pretty time consuming. It may be awhile before I attempt making a pie with a toddler again. He was a pretty great apple peeler and slicer though. 

For dinner we prepped Shish kabobs. This was per request of Max and something I had never attempted before. I'm pretty proud of how they turned out

Charlie was excited too, although when it came down to it, he wouldn't eat his vegetables. 

After dinner on the deck, Charlie specifically requested that Max sit on his bike so Charlie could push him around. I guess Charlie thought that Daddy needed the royal treatment for his birthday.  I like that Charlie is wearing shorts with his rain boots. That's an Oregon boy for sure. 

A little bit later Max realized we really needed to pick up the paint for the house next door that we're flipping. So, we took a family outing to home depot. 

 Charlie sure loves going to Home Depot with his daddy.

We got home and put Charlie to bed then enjoyed a nice evening together. We didn't even get to the pie until the next day.

I sure am glad Max was born. Not only has my life been uplifted and made better. He has made the world a better place in so many other ways too. I'm not good at getting all sappy on my blog so I wont even try but Max just should once again know how much we love and appreciate him!

Charlie Update

I haven't done an update on Charlie in awhile and he has just been learning so much and I absolutely love the little boy he is becoming.

He is learning at an incredible rate. He definitely took his time to start speaking and he still doesn't string too many words together when communicating but he does communicate. His vocabulary grows everyday. He seems to learn words quick too. I can't always understand him but he finds other ways of communicating with me until I catch on. Some of my favorite things he says are "so funny" after he's been laughing really hard. or the serious face he gets when he nods his head and says "yeah" This is his typical answer to us asking anything from if he wants fruit snacks or a baby brother or sister. I love the way he says "animal" and makes monkey noises. I love when he says "oh man" "oh my" or "whoa!" with as much expression as he can muster. I love that he always sings the clean up song that he learned at church when we are picking up his toys. I love that when he whines he knows my glare means he needs to change his attitude and say please. And he will immediately stop whining to kindly ask for what he wants.

I love when he takes my hand to show me something or when he requests that I sit next to him whether he's sitting on the bottom step or on the floor with his toys. Today while making the long trek to the mailbox he held my hand and walked with me the whole time. I loved it. In the past he usually ran ahead or ran off in another direction.

Charlie has become a better listener and will follow my directions much better. He's not perfect nor would I ever expect him to be but he seems to listen when I ask him to help clean up his toys, follow me, stop running etc. This more than anything has brought me so much joy in the last couple of months...seeing that he understands and naturally wants to be obedient really makes being a mom much more enjoyable.

I'm realizing that Charlie is at a very teachable age. This is so fun for me but also reminds me of my great responsibilities as his mother. We discuss the pictures in books we read, we make up new games, we explore different objects in nature, I give him opportunities to be my helper. I also like to step back and watch him, he is a very creative boy on his own so it is also fun to see his ideas come out.

Charlie is a happy child. That dimple of his can melt my heart. He wakes up happy and falls asleep happy. He gets over things quickly because I think he realizes that tantrums get in the way of playing.

He has already started the "mine" stage a little bit. I don't think this will be my favorite but so far even if he says "mine" about something...he really isn't that adamant about it.

Some updates include that Charlie has officially moved into a toddler bed. I was not even going to consider this transition until Charlie turned two but one morning just over a week ago I went into his room and before I picked him up out of his pack 'n play I put his clean laundry in his drawers. When I turned to go pick him up, he was straddling one of the edges of the bed. It could have easily tipped. He has been in a pack 'n play ever since he was about  2 months old and he was definitely growing out of it, it was also getting worn out from all his jumping and playing. The transition to a toddler bed could not have been better. He loves his bed, I think he likes all the space. The bed has railings that he can climb over but I think when it's dark he rather just stay in his bed because it's the newest and most exciting thing in his room. That's not to say that he has never climbed out at night...he definitely has, but for the most part he stays in bed. One night he fell out of his bed, I'm not really sure how it happened unless he was climbing out in his sleep because I'm pretty sure you can't roll out of that bed with the railings. Anyway, we are just pleased that the transition was much easier than we hoped and Charlie seems to be pleased. He's just becoming such a big boy.

Charlie is a very solid little guy. He was standing on his toes the other day and I could see his rippling calves...there isn't much baby chub left on him. He is a strong boy. He can now jump high with both feet of the ground and he also has some pretty great dance moves.

I don't know what else to say about him, he is my favorite little boy! I can't believe he is almost two...and a big brother!

And here are some phone pictures capturing my little explorer

Playing in his box!

He likes to move all his toys and sit in this little cubby.

OMSI..we just renewed our membership and will soon be able to bring guests! Who wants to come with us?

He turned his box into a slide all by himself and had a blast!

Box fun with his friend Madeleine

Checking out the fire truck!

He always likes to try and do what daddy does! Working on the plumbing here!

Waking up happy.

Puddle Stomping

Playing in his new bed

Exercising with Mommy

This was him trying to do a push-up

Playing doctor. 

Practicing on his potty...no successes yet...I think it will still be quite awhile!