baby chet & baby holden.

talk about deja vu!


holden is officially 34 weeks old today and it is his 4th day in the NICU.
i feel like my life is one gigantic deja vu from when chet was in the NICU.

i often feel like this is so much more then i can handle.

 but i try to remember that this trial will pass - like they all do - and soon enough

holden will be home where i can kiss his fuzzy head when ever my heart desires.

considering how early holden was, things are actually going really well. and that makes us happy.
we have been working on mastering breathing for these first few days. holden gets stronger every day.
next task is to convince him that eating through his mouth is better then through a tube.
we have a ways to go for sure, but it seems like holden is a tough kid.
one thing for sure.. this boy is a doll. we already love him to bits.

he definitely has a nerdy smile,

but i still think chet is the most handsome little boy i've ever laid my eyes on :)

we took chet to see madagascar 3 the other week.

the madagascar movies are chet's favorite. hands down.

he calls them the 'lion mooey'.

he hasn't mastered the letter V yet. and i am so happy that he hasn't!

i love that he calls movies 'mooeys'!

chet was thrilled to be watching his favorite madagascar characters on the big screen.

he had an adorable grin on the whole time. 

chet is so much like matt in that sense.

i often catch matt smiling at the TV when he doesn't know i'm watching too!

when my mom came down to visit, she spoiled chet with some new swimming supplies.

(i think she was tired of hearing about her grandson swimming in buckets!)

chet is one happy little fellow now.

 it isn't easy hauling all the supplies and water down from our apartment, but chet is worth it.

i just can't wait for the day when we have a yard to leave our pool set up in. and a hose to fill it with.

then we will be living the dream!

you know you live in a small town when...

your husband spends saturday morning at an elders quorum activity learning to kill, pluck, and skin a chicken.

[chicken feet on a chicken]

[chicken feet not on a chicken]

those poor chickens...

since i am on the topic of poultry, i would like to share my new found knowledge about roosters.

in my 26 years of life, i have been under the impression that a rooster crowed when the sun came up.

to wake up the farmer. duh!

that's what happens in all the movies, right?

well turns out the movies all lie.

roosters actually crow constantly.

they crow all ALL day. and they crow ALL stinkin' night.

we lived in earshot of a rooster in pleasant grove and there were many nights where i thought about hunting down

our rooster neighbor and doing very mean things to it.

but, lucky for him, i refrained. and we both survived being neighbors.

but never again!

matt didn't really get to milk father's day for all it was worth this year. the poor guy was so sick.

so rather then getting spoiled, he got quarantined to our bedroom!

i just couldn't stand the thought of chet catching what ever matt had.

i haven't had to deal with a puking kid yet, and am willing to do anything i have to do to postpone that awful experience as long as i can.

i used a lethal amount of lysol on sunday!

on monday night we hiked the richfield R.

and when i say "hiked" i mean we walked up a dusty path for 10 minutes. i did it in flip flops.

so, don't worry, i wasn't putting myself at risk of going into labor with this"hike".

i definitely exert more energy hauling chet and our stroller up and down 3 flights of stairs 18 times a day.

(for some reason chet has decided he prefers to get carried these days. it makes me so sad!)

the R looks a lot better from far away..

this area is known for it's off road activities. there are hundreds of miles of trails around richfield.

it would be fun to rent a 4-wheeler before we leave richfield.

or... someone who owns one could come visit us! hint hint.

chet had his first swim lesson on monday too. we go mon-wed-fri for the next 2 weeks.

it was too cute. we had fun.

the teacher is entertaining. she explained to all the parents that we shouldn't take it personally if our kid doesn't pass the class.

and all i was thinking was, 'how do you fail?!'

i guess i will just keep my fingers crossed that chet is satisfactory at his kicking and bubble blowing.

he will be heartbroken if he doesn't get his swimming lesson certificate.

not.

well, i certainly had my doubts about richfield. but, now that we are here, i love it!

this town is adorable.

we are definitely going to enjoy spending our summer here :)

my mom came down for the big move. she is too good to us.

her drive just keeps getting longer and longer every time we move. it is now16 hours!

she must love us..

we didn't know what apartment we would be in when we headed down but i had a terrible feeling that, of the 3 floors in the complex, our apartment would be somewhere on the 3rd floor... just because it would make the move that much more interesting.

and i was right!

so, after retrieving our apartment key from under a flower pot where our realtor had hid it (our first taste of small town life!), my mom, matt, and pregnant me moved all our belongings up 3 flights of stairs...

in +90 degree weather.

it was pretty entertaining.


chet was a peach the whole time.

he felt so special when we let him watch a movie in the back of the u-haul as we loaded:
(we couldn't believe he sat in there. it was sooo hot!)

he fell alseep just in time for the unload in richfield: 

and he doesn't seem to be the slightest bit phased by another big change in his little life.

i guess that is what happens when you move your kid around as often as we do. poor guy.

matt and i were counting the amount of times we have moved since we got married 4.5 years ago - NINE!

9 moves.

and we already know we have 2 more moves in the next 8 months.

awesome, huh? not.

hopefully after that we will get to settle down for a bit.

we are definitely sick of packing and unpacking. and seeing our things get a little bit more worn every time we pull them out of a box.

(good thing basically everything we own is from IKEA.. it makes it much less painful!)

but, we are really enjoying getting to move around and explore new places.

i mean, who would have EVER thought we would end up in small town southern utah?!

surely not us.

but we are happy to be here.

we have done lots of exploring around the town.

it turns out that our apartment (although it may be awfully close to the highway) is in a great location. chet and i can walk to all sorts of great things during the days.

we have met lots of super nice people already.

one set of neighbors invited us to play settlers of catan last night. terribly confusing game... really nice people.

they have a little girl, cora, that chet plays so well with.

our ward is super old. it's hilarious.

we were sitting at the back of the chapel on sunday and the majority of the heads in front of us were white and fluffy.

our ward directory is full of names like thelma, doris, and rusty.

we like it. it will be a refreshing change from a student ward from a few months. it's nice to listen to old people insights.

there are lots of great programs in town for families:

-- chet and i have been taking advantage of the free lunch program at the parks. we get to meet new friends and eat free lunch. pretty good deal, huh?

-- we are signed up for mom and tot swimming lessons starting on monday. i'm kinda tired of getting my belly into a bathing suit, but i'm excited for chet.

-- and we joined the summer movie club at the theater. [12 movies for $10 - so cheap!] every tuesday morning we get to have a movie date. i'm not a huge fan of the silly kid movies that they show (smurfs, chipmunks, etc.) but chet feels special. and he holds my hand in the scary parts, so that makes it worth sitting through!


matt's internship is going really well.

from what i gather, the people he works with are really nice, he gets out on site a lot, and he is learning tons of new things.
i definitely think coming down here was a good move for us.
matt drove us out to his worksite last night. it is in a really pretty area.

i can't forget to mention that the weather here is perfect.

if there is one thing i would love for my future, it is that i get to be a mom in a sunny place - chet and i love spending our days together outside.

even if the sunny weather means we have to encounter giant, scary bugs from time to time! as long as they don't touch me, or mosey on into my home, i can handle it.

i plan on trying to capture richfield in some pictures one day. but i haven't done that yet.
for now, you can just enjoy our attempt at a family photo. (i am 31 weeks pregnant here).

and this is a nice squinty picture of chet and grandma.

(you can also see the big ol' bruise my mom got carrying our box spring! what a trooper.)

this was our last pool day in pleasant grove.

we sure will miss that pool... especially me!

our time in pleasant grove flew by way too fast.

we would be more then happy to get the chance to live in the area again some day.

there is so much to do around there.

plus, we met some really nice people.

we had this one set of neighbors that was so good to us. it was such a treat to meet them.

the only part we won't miss is the traffic and the horrible drivers!

goodbye pleasant grove!

here just a few pictures at the park.