Noah 6 Month Photos

This little man is 6 months old already! I cant believe it. He is such a sweet little boy...well he was until he got his first two teeth and he hasn't been the same since...

At his six month appointment he was 18 lbs 15.5 oz and 27.5 inches. You may all be thinking, wow he is huge. Well...Claire was 20.5 lbs at her 6 month appt so to me, Noah is tiny :)

He loves to babble. His favorite sounds are ba and bala. His favorite thing in this whole wide world is his sister and I am pretty sure the feeling is mutual. They love each other. She is the only one who can calm him down sometimes. 

We love this little boy...the only thing that would make him more perfect is if he would sleep through the night...or at least not be up about 17 times a night! 

Finger Painting

Its been pretty chilly here so we have been stuck inside a lot. Today I made a decision to not think about school or do anythign school related at all and so Claire and I made some homemade fingerpaints and we painted for a couple of hours. It was a blast. We had so much fun. I love my kids

Noah just observed the fun from his Bumbo for 5 minutes and then went down for a nap

Dont mind Claires eye. She was playing with our cat the other day and fell off the stairs backwards and scraped up her eyes. So sad...

Halloween

This Halloween was crazy. We moved into a new house again on the 29th and so we were in chaos mode but still had fun taking the kids trick or treating. They were Pebbles and Bam Bam from The Flintstones. I saw the costumes on Etsy for $70 and decided that I could make them myself for cheaper...and I did. They cost me $12.00 total. So I feel like that was a good decision. If you look close, they are pretty ratty tatty, but I figured for one night of running around in the dark, it didnt really matter.

It was so fun to see Claire start to understand what Trick or Treating really is and what it means.

Here is Noah as little Bam Bam. I am proud of the little bone on his costume

Crazy Pebbles - she insisted that we call her Pebbles too...

Here are our pumpkins...they kind of got attacked by the cold, but it was fun to carve them. Kids make holidays so much more fun!

Four Months

I know Noah is almost 5 months now, but I am busy and never have time to blog. We took him to the doctor for his 4 month stats. He weighs 16 lbs 13 oz (Claire was 18 lbs 5 oz at 4 months) and is 26.75 inches long. He is the best baby...he could maybe do a little bit better with sleeping but other than that he is perfect. We love this little boy. Claire is the best big sister to him. It is so funny to watch the natural "nurturer" come out in her. She is always making sure he is ok. I love my kids. They are so fun!

Headaches

I know I have given little snippets here and there, but here is the whole story. Shortly after I had Noah, I started having weird headaches. They would start in my temples. It felt like something exploded in the side of my head. The first few times I thought I had had an aneurism and that the end was going to be in a couple of seconds (morbid I know). I went to the doctor for my six week check up and she said that it was because I had fluid in my ears and there was nothing we could do since I am breastfeeding Noah. We moved to Colorado at the end of July and they got worse. Im talking INTENSE headaches that would last hours at a time. However, we didnt have health insurance since we moved from Utah and my insurance there wouldnt cover Colorado and Brice's insurance from his new job didnt kick in until October 1. So I dealt with the headaches. Finally in the middle of September I couldnt handle it anymore. The headaches were starting to wake me up in the middle of the night. I would wake up with a headache and have it until I finally fell asleep. I quit Diet Coke which was HUGE for me. It seemed to help a little bit once I came down off of the withdrawal. I went to a PA here in Colorado and he determined that they were epidural headaches from a tear in my dura which was causing my spinal/brain fluid to leak out. So he treated me. The second I took the pill he prescribed, I thought I was going to die. I googled the medicine and found out it was loaded with caffeine. I just dealt with the pain drug free for the next couple of weeks and had an appointment for the first day in October. This doctor had no idea what could be causing them so he decided I needed a CT scan. Terrifying. This is how they find brain tumors (which was already my biggest fear) I went in for the CT scan last week...it came back clear. I am relieved that there is nothign wrong with my brain but at the same time, I am disappointed that they cant find out what is wrong. At this point, they said they cant do any more testing until I am done breastfeeding Noah, which I am not ready to do yet...so until then, Ill be caffeine free and pain filled and hopefully they will be able to make this pain go away!

Today

Today I am sick. I have the worst cold I think I have ever had in my life. Add that to this crazy headache Ive had for 4 months!!

I LOVE my kids, but today just makes me want to crawl into my bed and pass out ALL day. Unfortunately if I did that, my house would be in about 5 million pieces and Claire might 'accidentally' hurt Noah. Lesson of the day:
Mom being sick does NOT equal taking a day off of life.

Last Night

Last night this sweet little boy gave us quite the scare. I went to change his diaper at about 715 (truthfully I was counting the minute until bedtime since Brice was out of town all weekend). When I opened the diaper up, to my surprise, it was full of blood - not something you want to see in a four month old. So, just to be sure, I loaded up the kids and went to the instacare (might as well get to know them now right?) I thought they would tell me he was fine. Boy was I wrong. She tested his diaper for blood and once she saw it was positive, she said I needed to go over to the ER immediately and that she would call and let them know I was coming (what?!?!)

At this point I kind of freaked out. I was alone. Brice was three hours away and I hadnt been able to get a hold of him. I called his parents. Thank goodness for them - no ding. They live about 20 miles from me and it was 830 on a Saturday night, but they jumped in their car to help me and be with Noah. I am seriously sooo grateful. Marcy came and got Claire and took her home with Payton so she could go to bed, and so I had one less thing to worry about. Our bishop and my father-in-law gave him a blessing before anything else happened.

The ER took their sweet time figuring things out. They said they needed to draw blood because in babies, blood in the stool can be caused by internal bleeding. Has anyone ever seen them try to draw blood on a giant chunky 4 month old? It was the absolute worst thing I have ever been through. When my kids get shots, I am usually pretty strong because it is over so fast. Well, these nurses COULD NOT find his veins. They would stab him with that little needle and dig around in his left hand, right hand, right foot and left foot. The needle was in his skin each time for at least 3-5 minutes. There is nothing like holding down your screaming child not being able to do one thing to help him. I had a really hard time. The worst part was, after all that, they didnt get enough blood. Guess what? They decided to TRY AGAIN. Ugh. Awful. They still didnt get enough even with that. Finally they did a heel stick and "milked" the blood out of his poor foot. I never want him to have to experience anything like that ever again. There were a lot of tears on both parts - Im not sure which of us cried more :(

In the end, the blood work came back normal and the doctor said that something I ate must have irritated his little tummy...what the?

At 1 am, Brice got home from his hunting trip early - sorry Brice - I got home from the hospital and we all went to bed. I am so glad that everything is ok with our sweet baby boy. I love him to pieces.

So Behind

I am so behind on my blog and therefore overwhelmed. I am just going to go at random. Here are a few pictures of our last few days in Utah. It took me a little while to get emotionally stable enough to look through these and post it.

Brice played softball with some of his best friends pretty much every season we were in Utah. These are a couple of pictures from his last game.

Bowen

Brice

Ruggles

Here they are...dont judge that watching these 4 (we are missing Stanford in this picture) say good bye was one of the hardest good byes to witness.

Claire, Creed and James. I wish that these three would have been able to grow up together. They are so cute

The best picture of all three collectively

The moms. These girls were my best friends freshman year, and I still consider them my best friends to this day. I miss them :(

Here we are with our kiddos. Not sure about Claires face...she's insane

Brice and Rugs.

Nu Skin vs Noni

Nu Skin won...duh

Seriously?

Well, it's official. We are settled in Colorado and what do I decide to do? Im going back to school. I want to be a nurse. Ive always wanted to be a nurse, but felt that BYU's program was too competitive and I didnt want to be turned away so I did a different major - which I loved. When I had kids, I thought I would never be able to do it, and while I love love love my kids, if I thought about being a nurse too much, it made me a little bit sad. Now that we are here, my mother in law and sister in laws agreed to help me out while I go get my degree. It is so amazing how things work out. Im in awe of my life and where it was one month ago and where it is now. I feel so blessed to be able to be a mom, be a student, and be a wife. I am so grateful to Brice's family. I know my kids are so loved when they go to their house. It is so comforting. And, with the way my classes worked out, its only for a couple hours each day. I love it! So here's to Nurse Fallon in May of 2014!
In other news. Claire is officially potty trained. Thanks to Doug and Bethany for the advice on the 3 day plan. The first day was very discouraging, but it was uphill from there :)

Yep - those do look like granny panties...dont care...I dont have to buy diapers anymore!

And I had to throw a picture of Noah up. He is the sweetest. He will be three months tomorrow? I cant believe how fast time goes.

Family

Saying good bye to our friends and our home in Utah and moving to Colorado was seriously one of the hardest things I have ever done (who knew?)

Now that we are settled in a new home and a new place, I realize that as long as I have my family by my side, I will always be happy. 

I love these 3 so much!

Thanks Annie for the pictures. We love them...and will be back in Utah even if it is just for you to take more pictures. I refuse to find a new photographer :)

Life is a funny thing sometimes

Where to begin. As most everyone knows, Brice graduated from BYU this past April and had been job hunting since even before that. At the end of April, we got a call from Page High School in Page, Arizona (3 miles from Lake Powell). We packed up Claire, Brice and a very pregnant me, and went down for the interview. The next day we were offered the job. At first we were very excited, but as it go closer, I started to feel more and more uneasy. We would be moving to Page with not one friend or family member within 5-6 hours of the entire town.
A couple of weeks after Noah was born, Brice got a call from his old high school basketball coach in Colorado. They had an opening at the high school out here. I always said I wouldnt live near his hometown. I love his family. It has nothing to do with them, but it is very small, and VERY windy. However, once we started thinking about it, there were way more positives to us moving to Colorado so Brice jumped in the car and interviewed in Colorado. On his way home, he got a phone call saying that they had given the job to someone else. We were actually very sad about it. We were very grateful that we had the job in Page still, but had started to get very excited about moving to Colorado. He looked around a little more in the Colorado area but was unsuccessful. So, we just began moving forward with plans to move to Page. We were able to find a house but were going to move in without seeing it. Luckily, the landlord wasnt requiring a deposit until we got there so if we hated it, we wouldnt be married to it.
We had all of our family out in Utah for Noah's blessing and also to help us pack. Monday morning, our truck was loaded, we were finishing the last minute cleaning and were planning on leaving for Page on Tuesday morning. Well wouldnt you know...the Lord works in mysterious ways my friends.
Brice got a phone call Monday morning at about 10 saying that the Colorado job was open again and was ours if we wanted it. We both sat on the bed and laughed. At that point, thats all that we could do.
After much praying and thinking and talking (we had about an hour to make up our minds) we decided to move to Colorado. We feel that there is a reason that we hadnt given any money to the Page landlord and that Brice was going to hand in a signed contract when we got there...he hadnt mailed it. So, we called Page (they were very unhappy...kind of rude), let them know we werent coming and headed out to Colorado on Tuesday morning. We are currently living with my inlaws. All of my stuff is in a storage unit. Brice, me and our two kids are sleeping in one room and living out of a suitcase and we are having a heck of a time trying to find a place to live. But we feel like we made the right decision. We felt really bad about letting Page down, but we have to do what's best for our family and so here we are. After the crazy emotional good byes, I am excited about this new chapter of our lives. I am sad to be gone from Utah. I'd been there 7 years and made the best friends I could ask for. But that is the beauty of technology. I am able to keep in touch with all of them. And one of my good friends is getting married in September so I will be going back to Utah for that. I hope I have a home by then....wish us luck :)

The Royal Couple

So, I totally jumped on the Royal bandwagon. I just love them. I love the image that they portray. I love that they are genuinely in love. I love that they dont care that traditionally the Royal Couple doesnt do this and the Royal Couple must do that. And I love that they are both beautiful. Ya, Kate Middleton is a little bit too skinny, or a lot to skinny, but if I had to live up to Princess Diana and the Queen, I wouldnt eat either. When we were in Canada, we happened to be there the same time the Royal Couple was in town. They had two events that the public were allowed to attend and if you wanted to do it, then you had to stand in line on Wednesday morning to get wristbands. I thought it would be fun to see them, but there was no way I was going to stand in line with 2 small kids days in advance. We drove by Tuesday night and there were already people in line so we said forget it. The next morning, we were watching the news and getting ready to go to the zoo and the news report said that they still had a bunch of wristbands left. We decided to try it. Why not? When are we ever going to have an opportunity like that again? So we went. There was no line. We walked right up, got our wristbands and walked out. We even ended up with two extras that I tried to convince my friend Shelley to fly up to use, but had no luck:( So we sold them and made $100. Scrappy I tell ya!

Anyway, Thursday night, you had to be in line between 430 and 615.  We got there at 6 (long story involving trains, walking the wrong way, carrying a double stroller and two kids down 3 flights of stairs) I was ready to just go home! But, we ended up being 3 rows of people back and when the Royal Couple arrived, it was truly magical. I may or may not have teared up a little bit. I just thought it was so cool. We tried to explain to Claire that we were going to see the princess, but since she didnt look like Cinderella or Belle in a big fancy dress, it was hard for her to understand. Oh well. Im so glad we went. It was totally worth it even just for the experience and to say that we did.

They showed up in a motor brigade on 12 Ave in Calgary. This carriage was sitting there waiting to carry them in. What I would have given to be that driver!!

Here is Princess Kate getting into the carriage.

Followed by her dashing husband Prince William. I LOVED that they were wearing white Stetson cowboy hats. The traditional hat of Calgary. They were given to them as gifts at the airport when they arrived.

And here is the happy couple driving in. They drove about 200 yards and then there was a presentation where Prince William participated in chuckwagon racing which I thought was so cool. They said that the Royal Couple has never participated in events in the cities, only observed. But Will and Kate broke all tradition and participated in a TON of things while they were in Canada. I dont know them personally but they have a glow about them and I really feel like I know them as weird and as cheesy as that may seem. I loved it. Everything about it. The next day we were driving on Memorial Tr in Calgary and all the traffic in the opposite direction stopped. People were out of their cars taking pictures. It was the Royal Couple's brigade taking them to the airport. So cool. I am proud to say that Canada still has some allegiance to the Queen and to England. It makes me feel closer to the Royal Couple. :)

Family

My family is pretty spread out right now. My dad is in Arizona, we are in Utah and every one else is in Canada so its pretty rare that we are together. The only person we were missing in Canada was Brice. I was super sad, but we decided to take a couple of pictures. These are a couple of the best ones. I wish wish wish that Brice could have been there. We missed him so much!!