I Heart May

What we've been up to:

Visiting every park in town. This one is our favorite! It's like 20 minutes from our house, but it's an equal access playground where everything is wide enough for someone in a wheel chair. It has ramps everywhere too, instead of just stairs. It's perfect for Blaz, he loved it!


Playing with the hippo



Hasn't May been perfect? The weather has been gorgeous and we have been enjoying cruising our new neighborhood. We have so many friends in the neighborhood that last week our 20 minute walk turned in to 2 1/2 hours! Having a toddler is super fun, we've been out doing fun things all over town. Last summer he wasn't in to anything (except eating and sleeping) but this summer he's enjoying everything.


On one of our trips scavenging at D.I. I found this kitchen for $5. I know right? It's not girly and it's not too big, perfect for our house. Now when I cook dinner Blaz has something to play with. He likes putting all of the food from the fridge to the sink. I found a pack of vegetables at Toys r Us for a couple dollars.


Blaz has a funny new thing he's been doing for about a week now. When he wakes up in the morning he finds some random object and holds on to it all day, even sleeping with it. It's a different object every day and if you try to take it away he loses it. Weird! Right now he's napping with a glue stick in his hand. Yesterday it was his toothbrush, it's also been a comb, Juan's back scratcher, a baby lotion bottle, weird stuff. After he falls asleep I can usually sneak it away. This day he was all about this tomato from his kitchen set.



He says ball and baby now. He likes to imitate sounds and actions we do. He loves reading books with me, it's one of my favorite parts of the day. He sits on my lap and turns the pages and points to either babies or balls. He has a few peekaboo books with flaps, and he giggles every time you lift it. No matter how many million times we've done it, it's still funny.

Juan has had a busy spring at work. Lots of builders are building new homes and they've been doing lots of remodels. I babysit a 4 month old girl 1 day per week and I'm still selling aprons. Mother's Day orders got a little crazy and I had a few late nights, but it's nice to have my own little income. I feel guilty spending Juan's hard earned money for our family at Joann's, lol, so it's nice to have my own cash for fun stuff.

We are loving our new house, even though it's still pretty disorganized. We still have several boxes in the garage and it seems like I'm always in there digging around sunday mornings trying to find the perfect shoes.

Anyway, I have a dishwasher to unload and a living room to vacuum before nap time ends. Take care!

New House and Birthday (Just for Becky)

Ok Becky, here is the post you've been asking for! So here comes birthday fun, new house and our growing/walking little man.

Blaz was pretty excited about the carpet at our new house - no more wood floors! He's had fun crawling all over the place at high speeds and is giving walking a try. He here is just after we got our keys. He'll take about 8 steps before either falling or grabbing on to something for support.


This is after the kersplat, lol. This shows our living room and the door behind Blaz opens to a 1/2 bath. There is a nice big window behind where I'm standing.

This shows the edge of bar in the kitchen, the kitchen overlooks the living room. You can see the tiled entryway and the edge of the stairs. The garage door also opens in the entry way. (Juan will probably not like the particular view of this shot, lol, but it was the only entry way shot)

Here is my favorite place, the kitchen. There's lots of counter space and a dishwasher, I'm happy:) I love having a bar, and I'm starting to like the whole open area feel. Just beyond the fridge is a spot for our kitchen table and a door leading to the backyard and patio.

I didn't take any pictures of upstairs yet, but we really like it. The master is good sized, it has his/hers closets that walk through to the bathroom. The bathroom is really big, love that. The bathroom also has a door to the hallway. There are 2 extra bedrooms, one for Blaz and one for the office/sewing room. The washer and dryer are in a little closet in the upstairs hallway. It's nice not hauling laundry up and down the stairs. We really like the location and the neighbors. We feel really blessed to find such a great townhouse that we can afford, plus it's in the ward:)


I didn't think turning 1 would change anything, but it's like he's smarter and more capable already. He's started saying a new word - baby. He loves to jabber and laughs really hard if you imitate his sounds. When I turn on the radio and sing he starts going "aaaahh, oooooh" like he's singing too, love it.


He likes to close doors, then bang on them and cry when he can't open them again. He thinks throwing things down the stairs (especially balls) and watching them bang down is hilarious. Last night Juan made him mad by wiping his nose, so he bit him, lol.

He loves story time with mom and playing in the quilt on the bed. He laughs during prayers (we can't figure this one out, maybe cause our eyes are closed?) and loves having other kids come over and play. He likes dogs, going to the park and driving around in the car.

He points at everything now, when he wants something. I haven't done any baby sign language, but when he's hungry or wants a bite he'll smack his lips really loud, it works:) He learned how to take his pants off, lol, and he thinks it's super funny. If you laugh at him while he does something, he'll do it over and over. Last night he put his apple on his head, Juan laughed, and he did it the rest of the night. We've decided we need to be careful what we laugh at, since he loves being a comedian. A few sundays ago he was spitting loudly in church, the teens in the row behind us laughed, and Blaz made spitting farting noises the entire time, enjoying the attention. We have the class clown!



Here Blaz is helping daddy open his presents. He didn't quite know what to think of opening presents, but he loved the new toys.


I'm quite proud of our frugal birthday. We got him the little bike (that flips up into a walker too) at D.I. for $3. I got him 2 new books for 50 cents, Mr. Potato I couponed for $1. The tonka truck is regularly $32.99, on sale for $24.99 and I had a $10 off coupon, not bad. He's like a little robot, he talks, drives and spins. Blaz likes chasing him around the house. If you yell his name "chuck" he drives to you. Kinda fun! I also got 3 shirts from Kohl's for free, on clearance and used a coupon, totally free. Sweet!



We sang happy birthday and let Blaz play in this birthday cake. He squished and smeared it everywhere. I gave him a bite, but he didn't really care for it as you can see below:)




He took a bath after and the tub was covered in frosting and cake crumbs. It was such a fun day! I hope they're always just as perfect.

Funny story too, a year ago at my bridal shower somebody gave us a giftcard to Olive Garden. On monday night, the 20th, the evening before we had Blaz we went to olive garden and got takeout. We sat at home eating delicious pasta and talking about how tomorrow was going to change everything and how excited we were to meet our little boy. This year for dinner on Blaz's birthday we decided to get Olive Garden takeout again. We ate salad, breadsticks and pasta around the dinner table with our little boy. Everything changed, and we love it. What a year!

Ok Becky, was that enough of an update for you? lol. I can't wait for Blaz's new cousin (vote for boy) to come this fall.

Ciao!

Giveaway

Dang Gina Gives is giving away this adorable picture board. Umm, I want it!

Little bit slacker!

(Blaz on March 21st - his 11 month birthday)

I've been slacking a little on our family blog since I've been spending so much time updating Camille's Casa.

I can't believe my little man is approaching his 1st birthday!! A year ago I was on bed rest with swollen feet, an achy back, heartburn and the constant need to pee. Today, I have a fun, active little boy running around the house and getting in to everything. What a year!!!

Blaz has lots of new skills that I wanted to document. He has learned 4 words, in this order:
1. Mama
2. Dada
3. Boon-boon (balloon)
4. Uh-oh

He jabbers all morning long, it's so adorable. Whenever Juan is in the bathroom Blaz bangs on the door yelling "dadadadadadadada" over and over until he comes out.

He can clap and point with one finger. He's getting better and eating solid foods and really loves fruit and spaghetti. He has this scream, the most high-pitched painful scream you can imagine, he sounds just like a firework. When he's really angry and feels like he's not getting enough attention he just hollers. This usually occurs at the dinner table, while we eat and try to block out the painful noise.

He loves to read books, sing songs and go to the library. He loves to try to pull out eyelashes, beware! He will take a few steps at a time, but he's not really walking yet. Juan is really hoping he walks by his birthday on the 21st.


Here we are visiting with Nancy and her kids when they came to Idaho. Blaz and Eli get along perfectly, two rough boys.

We took Blaz to an easter egg hunt. It was snowing outside so they had it indoors in the gym. Blaz was so interested in the other kids that all he wanted to do was sit and watch them. He grabbed one egg and sat down to eat it, while the other kids grabbed handfuls. Oh well, he's not selfish this year:)

We are moving next weekend and super excited. It will be great to have our own place again. We are excited about having 3 bedrooms too!

Hope you all had a fantastic Easter!

Giveaway at Camille's Casa

If you haven't visited my fun blog Camille's Casa in a while, now is the time! I'm hosting a giveaway of my most popular items. I'm giving away 3 towel toppers, your choice in color! So head over to Camille's Casa to enter.




In the mean time, I am doing much better thankfully! After a second visit to the chiropractor and lots of takin' it easy I feel back to normal. It was a miserable week last week, but we all survived with nothing but a messy house to show for it.

I snapped this picture of Blaz last week when he wasn't feeling good. He really likes having his back scratched, and while I was scratching I heard him snoring, too cute. He slept like this for almost 2 hours. And another cute thing I have to point out, Blaz is growing so tall that he doesn't fit his footy jammies anymore. It's hard to find one piece pajamas bigger than 12 month size, so I just cut off the feet, lol. Dorky, but we're desperate!


And at lunch today we celebrated Blaz's first St. Patrick's Day. We all wore green and I made Egg Salad Pitas for lunch. Of course, I put green food coloring in the salad. It was delicious!

Mommy Pain

I had an interesting weekend, I barely came out in one piece:) Poor Blaz has been pretty sick with croup all weekend. He's just been barfing, coughing and wiping snot on everything. Nights are the worst because he won't lay down, he only wants to be held. On Sunday night I held Blaz rocking him until about 2 am, when I sat down on the couch in this uncomfortable position and fell asleep still holding him. He only wanted to be held one way and it was really uncomfortable for me, but if I switched him he'd wake up and starting crying. Long night!!

Soooo, yesterday morning I wake up and I can hardly move my back hurts so bad. I tried to shake it off, thinking I was just stiff, but owwwww. I couldn't lift Blaz without almost crying, I couldn't even stand up straight. I ended up going to my mom's and she suggested that I go to the chiropractor. Well, the chiropractor snapped and cracked everything. One time he told me to take a deep breath and pushed down really hard on the center on my back. It cracked so loud and produced the sharpest, most intense pain, then it immediately went away. He said, "those dear, are you disks. You slipped 3 disks in your back." Umm, ow? I spent the rest of the day hardly being able to move and being in major pain, but I woke up this morning being able to walk - yay!!! My back is so sore and I'm not supposed to lift anything heavy, but I am confident I will be back to normal soon.

Being a mom is painful, but next time I have a sick crying baby I will be more gentle with my back. I'm just going to throw it out there, slipping 3 disks is easily as painful and child birth, lol.

So, I'm grateful for lots of things today:
-Juan, who changed all diapers, changed clothes, held and entertained Blaz. He did the laundry, made dinner, brought me everything and still woke up at 7 to go to work today.
-I'm grateful that my mom encouraged me to go to the doctor, I hate going to the doctor and probably would have put it off much longer
-I'm grateful for a chiropractor who knows what he's doing, cracks like a pro, and only charges $35.
-I'm mostly grateful to be able to walk again and that my body is healing quickly. Juan joked that it was like I was 9 months pregnant again, helpless, and he had to grab everything for me.

So, since I won't be taking any stroller walks or trips to the library with Blaz, I plan on alternating between my sewing machine, the laptop and the tv this week.

I'll leave you with a cute photo of Blaz from last week. He has conquered traveling from the kitchen to the living room. This is him just getting around the corner and being quite proud of himself.

Back

Here are the rest of our fun weekend photos:

On saturday we had a mini family reunion in pocatello. Hudson grandparents, my mom, Uncle Mike and our little family went bowling and then enjoyed dinner. Blaz liked a new house to crawl around in and destroy, and he had fun at the bowling alley. I was a little worried that the noise, lights, music and crowds would bug him, but he had fun banging on lots of new things. He is learning how to wave, love it!
We bowled to games, I got a 74 the first and a 98 the second. Juan bowled a 150 at first, then a 99. My grandma beat Juan the 2nd round, hehe, we had to tease him about that.






Sunday was a gorgeous day, 40 degrees and sunny. Juan especially had a nervous morning because we had to speak in church. Our topic was Building and Strengthening Testimonies. When Juan gets nervous his accent gets thick, so he was worried about it, but he did awesome. Someone even mentioned after how weird it is that he doesn't have an accent. We sat on the front row and juggled Blaz, it worked just fine.
After church and lunch we decided to break out the stroller and go for a ride. Community park's pathway is a giant flood right now since all the snow is melting, so we headed down to the greenbelt.
There were ducks and geese everywhere, I should have taken a picture. We are going to go back and give Blaz some bread to feed them.



We stood so that the temple would be behind us, but with the white sky you can barely see it. It's in the top left in the picture.

I also have to mention something else funny that Blaz is doing. I wondered as soon as he was born how long it would be before he started misbehaving. Well, now at 10 1/2 months old he is starting to get mischievous. When I say "Come here, let's change your diaper," he looks at me, smiles, and crawls away laughing. If he goes near the cord for the lamp I say "no" and he just holds it staring at me and smiling. It's like he's enjoying that freedom of not obeying and doing his own thing. It's pretty hilarious! So, he's not necessarily misbehaving yet, but he's trying it out for sure!