Thanksgiving

Of coarse we are so Thankful this time of year. It is so great that we have a day set apart from the rest to stop and remember our blessings. We have so much to be grateful for. We have two working cars a warm house food in the cupboards. Marc and I were just talking today about when we arrived in Mumbai, India and how we saw people raising families on the island in the middle of the road separating traffic. There was a long wire that ran across the length of the concrete island and people had thrown sheets over the wire in a tent like fashion to use as shelter. And it wasn't one or two people is was whole communities. It's amazing we can find things to complain about when there are people living like that. I wish I had a bigger back yard. More space, a nicer car.... At least we have a warm, soft bed to lay on at night, and we don't sleep on the hard cold concrete. I am so grateful for how hard Marc works everyday so that I can have the opportunity to stay home with our little Jude. He's amazing. Even though I have to remind myself that a lot. I find myself wanting to ship him off somewhere most days. :) He is a very loving little boy. He will grab you by your hair and pull your head down so he can rest his head on yours. It is painfully sweet. :) He also every morning takes my finger in his tiny hand and walks into our bathroom then tries to reach with all his might for our toothbrushes. He loves them. And will carry them around everywhere all day if we let him. Another funny thing he is up to lately is feeding Sundance her bones. He again takes my finger and walks over to the closet where her treats are and I get them down for him and he reaches in and then takes one to Sundance. He could do this all day long!!! They both love it!

Lovin our toothbrushes


Lovin our heads. :)



Feedin Sundance




I almost forgot to mention we went to the Gateway and watched the tree lighting ceremony. Jude loved the tree!! (sorry about the horrible phone pics)



Also We watched Santa come in on the helicopter at University Mall. Jude is very curious about this Santa character. :) (again sorry about the phone pics)

November... meh

So November has been pretty boring. Which is okay. Usually when I am not bored it's cause something crazy or unwanted is going on. Jude and I have been milking ever bit of "nice" weather we can. Lots of long walks and playing in the grass. (sure hope the neighbor starts picking up their dogs poop soon.) Jude is 10x happier when he is running a muck outside. He loves it. It is going to be a long winter. Ever since we got back from Florida, he doesn't seem to have a consistent night time routine. Sometimes he wakes up around 3 am for a bottle sometimes 5 or 6 or my favorite not at all. I know I need to get tough and start cutting back on giving in to him. It's just so easy to take ten minutes and get back to sleep then to have him cry for an hour. UGH! Sleep training is the worst. Not looking forward to that. I have been trying to not give him his Binky (AKA Boo) as much. Sometimes at bed and the car. I did have a close call with Jury Duty this week too. SCARY!! Luckily I admitted I wouldn't be good for the case. I would be too sympathetic. The Judge got "stern" with me and I was let go. :) Anyway, this is the most boring blog post for one of our most boring weeks. I think there are plenty more of those to come with winter knockin at our door. Anyway, Thanks for checkin in.

He's so stinkin cute playing in his bed.


Playin


He loves his books. He'll flip through them forever!


I love his bed head. He gets it so bad!


He loves to get his hair done though. He just smiles at himself in the mirror. He's a little vain.


Finishing off my whipped milk from my chai.


Quick trip to SLC to help Dad set up his booth.


Our walks (and check out those wrinkles around my eyes. When did I get so old. TEAR.)

One year ago....

One year ago today we were able to bring our little Jude-0 home, after 5 weeks and 3 days in the NICU. It was a cold rainy day. It felt like Jude had been in there forever, until I looked over my shoulder and the baby that had been there for six months who was born at 25 weeks. Then it didn't seem so bad. :) We are still so grateful to all the nurses and doctors that looked over Jude and were so patient with his clueless parents. I felt so ready to bring Jude home when the time finally came. I was excited to be the main caregiver. Funny how quickly that wore off. Ha ha. We learned so much about ourselves in that time and the following year. We just adore our little guy so much. We are so glad he has grown so much and is so healthy now. It's amazing how quickly we forgot about all the monitors and tubes and oxygen and alarms and beeps and shots and check ups and I could go on and on. He's doing so well today and you'd never know that he jumped the gun 9 weeks early.

Somehow we didn't take a single picture of bringing Jude home from the hospital. But these are from the night before that we had/got to sleep over with Jude in our own little room.



I managed to scrounge up a horrible phone pic of the day we brought him home. We lied to Grandma and told her we'd bring him home the next day and stopped by with him.


Jude today. One year later.


Some fun one's from the week.
Jude checkin out his goods the night after Halloween.


Family time


Such a big boy!!


He loves this dog. He always gives it hugs.


Our little ralphie modeling his snow outfit!


Real quick. We got our family pics done while getting Jude's one year pics. We love them!! Jessie did an awesome job for us and was so patient with us trying to get pics of a sick baby and a dog. Could we have made her job any more difficult. She only yelled at us twice!! Just kidding. She was great and didn't even seem bothered. She is Amazing!!








http://www.jessieonealphotography.com/

This is Halloween

We had such a great Halloween. Much more eventful then last year sitting in the NICU. :) We started off the fun on Sunday with my family. We had a Halloween party at my mom's. She is so cute. she made cute scary treats for the kids. They decorated cookies and a Christmas ornament. It just wouldn't be my mom if she didn't through something Christmas in there. It was so fun to see all the kids cute costumes. Then we spent actual Halloween up at Kristyn and Nick's. Their neighborhood can't be beat. It is so darling and there are lots of other trick or treaters. We had a great time. We had some yummy Chili, Thanks Kristyn, then we headed out to Trick or treat. I was so curious if Jude would hate it. He was so funny. He can't take more then about 5-10 steps without falling so he'd hold our fingers and off he went. He grasped the idea of it after the first house. He would troop up the walkways and pull on kids clothes to move them out of the way so he could get to the goods. Then he'd stick his tiny hand in and pick out a prize. Sometimes it was a quick grab and sometimes he wanted to think long and hard about which candy was the right one for him. One time he grabbed two and stuck them in his bag and quickly grabbed for more. It was so fun and he lasted as long and Nixon and Milo who are 3 and 4 years old and Jack who is 8. He was a total trooper.

The Chaos at Grandma pats!!! I love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Always in the kitchen. No breaks for this woman!!


Hangin out!


US!


The gang


The cow and the scare crow!



The yellow brick road to candy.




Towards the end he didn't want to put the candy in his bag. He wanted to hold it.


Checkin out the stash!