Koen is one!

So I know his birthday was two weeks ago, but I still need to write about it. I cannot believe that my baby boy has turned one! On November 2, 2010 I went to visit the doctor because of the pain. I expected them to tell me that it was nothing and that I should go home. Instead, I found out that I was pretty much in labor. So, Nick and
I went to the hospital and a few hours later, we had a little baby boy. When he was born, he was 6 lbs 9 oz, 2
0.5 inches long with the darkest hair. He was little and wrinkly, and he was mine. Now, here we are a year later, he is 17.1 pounds and 29 inches long. He is still a little guy, but oh how he has changed in that year. Here is what he can do now: He pulls himself up on EVERYTHING. He drinks whole milk now. He can stand up on his own for a few seconds. Yesterday, he took some steps, but I think it was a fluke. He has his 2 bottom teeth, with 4 coming in on top. He knows what he wants and he will let you know if you are not giving it to him. He likes fishsticks (yuck!). Even if
we have just fed him, when we start eating, there he is, demanding that you share your food with him. He likes most food, especially if it is something that Nick or I is eating. If he is done eating, he will put it in his mouth, chew, then pull it out and throw it.

For his actual birthday, we had our neighbors over and had a little party for Koen. Mostly, he got practical stuff, a coat, jacket, cups, plates, forks...We got him

some toys too. Mike and Camille got him a spiderman ball pit. He loves it.

We tried to give him a cupcake, but it didn't work out so well.

I think that is everything that is going on with Koen for now. Oh.

We gave him a haircut today! First one! It makes him look like a big boy, I don't know how I feel about that.

Nick and I are still in school. I am graduating in about 5 weeks!! It's so crazy because I don't feel like I should be done. Nick will be done in April. He is trying to figure out what he wants to go to school for after he graduates. He is still leaning towards dental school though. I am so excited to be taking a year off. Hopefully he can find a job with his degree. Crazy thing though, we don't have a clue where we will be in 6 months. Kind of scary.

So. That is what is going on with us right now. Here is a last minute thought. Sort of. This is what Koen started out looking like and what he looks like now.

Goings on

So here is what is going on in our lives right now:

• School just started, it is my LAST one and Nick's second to last one so we are finally towards the end of our stay in Rexburg!!
• Koen has had a fever the last few days so I finally took him to the doctor today and found out that he is getting not just two, but FOUR teeth in right now. And to top that all off, he has a sinus infection. The last few days have been really hard on all of us, but this is the most snuggly he's been in a long time, so we have sort of enjoyed it.
• Nick quit his job (not ideal but with his school schedule, he honestly couldn't work).
• I still work at Subway (also not ideal).
• I am trying to convince Nick to attempt to get a job using his degree in the year that he will be taking off of school.
• We are looking at moving to Boise.
• Koen is all over the place now and moves everywhere super fast.
• Koen is about ten and a half months old now.
• I am not excited for this semester because I hardly get to see my husband EVER.

So really that's about it. Our lives aren't too exciting right now so that's why I hardly ever update. Sorry everyone. Not an exciting blog. Well, I guess I could write about what we've done recently because I guess we've done some stuff.

So we went to Utah about two weeks ago because mom and dad came out to visit (finally). It was way fun. Crowded, but fun. Then we went to visit Nick's family because they were down there because Kellie just had her baby. Koen has a friend now!! Anyways, they blessed him that Sunday and then pretty much left straight for AZ, so we helped them clean and pack up and whatnot. While the men were moving a couch up the stairs, they got stuck, something happened, the couch leg went through the glass part of the door, and glass shards dropped into my father in law's arm and he had to go to the hospital and get stitches. According to him however, it was nothing and he just wanted a band aid put on it. But Kellie and Robin made him go, good thing too because he needed another shot. So basically that is all that happened down in Utah, and some other stuff but since it's mainly family that reads this you all know what happened there because you were all there.

Also, mom, Nick opened those pickles and he says they are delicious. He says thank you and he is very happy about his pickles. I, on the other hand, do not like pickle breath. That's okay though, it's not as bad as store bought pickles.

Videos!

So I already put these on facebook, but here they are again!! Also, this semester is almost over and that means it is my last semester ever of taking music classes!!! HALLELUJAH!! Just kidding, I really like my music classes and I'm kind of sad. It's also the middle of finals here, and one of my classes is kicking my butt. That's okay though because I only have it two more times. I can do it! Nick has a lot of tests this week sadly. But then it is the seven week break and I get him all to myself! I am so excited!! It's been like a year since he hasn't had to stress about things. Although I think he is going to start studying for the DAT. Also, I recently discovered that Nick won't be starting dental school until the year after next, so he will be taking a year off. This is perfectly fine by me. I'm actually really excited. We recently decided that for a graduation/honeymoon thing, we are going to take a week long vacation next May. Just the two of us. I love my baby boy, but I sometimes miss the times when it was just Nick and I. Don't get me wrong, I love my baby boy and I'm not looking forward to being away from him for a few days, but I am in much need of a vacation. Also, I have discovered this amazing thing called kindle for my PC. This is a bad thing right now because I need to be focusing on school, but there are all of these free books that I can download. Such a bad thing because I would definitely rather read than do school work. Oh yeah, for those of you who don't know, I recently decided to change my major. The semester before I was supposed to be done with everything, haha. But it works out so much better this way. I don't have to student teach and I don't have to do a senior recital. These weren't going to really be possible anyway because next semester Nick is going to be in school until at least 5 four days out of the week so there would be no way for me to practice my music. But I am so excited. I get to graduate in December and be done and stay home and actually be a wife and mother. I am so looking forward to this. Anyways. So...let's see...these videos of Koen are a few days old now, so he actually is army crawling a lot more and all over the place now. Also, he claps way better now too. I can't believe he is eight and a half months old now. I don't know where the time has gone....

It's been a while I guess...

So I didn't realize exactly how long it had been since I had last written on here. I don't think a whole lot has changed with Nick and I. We are still working and still in school and I cannot wait for the day for it to all be over. For me that will be next April. Nick will be done next April too, but then hopefully it will be off to dental school after that. If not, then he's going to get his Masters in Mechanical Engineering. So either way, he still has a while before he is completely done with school. Things have changed a lot with Koen though. He's about 7 and a half months old now and it's crazy how fast those 7 months have come and gone. He sits up now completely on his own, but he still falls over every now and then. He isn't crawling yet, but he is starting to try and move around on the ground. He is trying really hard to push himself up but he gets really frustrated when he can't do it. He can eat all sorts of foods now, like meat...which smells like dog food. He eats crackers, yogurt bites, and little puff things, and he makes a mess with all of them. Now I'm trying to let him learn how to feed himself these little finger foods. Crackers are not a problem because they are so big, but once they get so small that all that is left is hidden in his hand he loses interest and drops them. He likes his juice too. I used to water it down, but I don't anymore because I want him to gain more weight. At the last doctor's appointment, he was in the 77 percentile for height, but only in the 1st for weight. The doctor wasn't worried though so I'm not. He was a little under 14 pounds last time, and that was about a month ago so hopefully he's heavier now. Let's see if there is anything else about Koen...Not that I can think of right now. Last weekend Koen and I got to go down to Utah with Kristin and Kimball to visit Caitlyn and her family. It was so fun!! It was crazy to see how much her girls had changed and grown, but it's been a long time since I've seen them so I guess that is to be expected. It was a nice get away because I got to just relax all weekend. Nick stayed home and went golfing with our neighbor and played video games all weekend. I think he really needed that alone time though since he's been so stressed out with school this semester. While we were down in Utah I got to see Nick's sister Kellie and her husband. It was awesome because it had been a while since I'd seen them. There was something else I was going to write about but I just completely spaced on it. I hate when that happens. So now I guess I'll put a few pictures up and hope that I remember what it was that I was thinking about. So, I don't remember. But I am also distracted by the food network. I blame my husband for this. But I love him. Oh yes, I think I was going to talk about Kristin! Haha! Well, sort of. I was just thinking about next semester and I don't know what I'm going to do. Kristin and Jacob are leaving us soon to move to Utah (I think). So now I have to figure out what to do for the next two semesters. The end!

Koen and Joci playing together! Because they're all at that stage now!!

Sisters!

On the car ride home from Utah. He was such a good boy!

Koen sitting up all on his own!

So when we were in Utah, Koen didn't have a bed to sleep in so we put him in a hamper! It was a little bit cramped for him because he was too long for it, but it worked out.

Nick and Koen playtime

My new favorite video of my men :)

Disappointed

So while Koen is sleeping on my lap, I will take this time to update our blog. Yay! So this week, all of a sudden I noticed that some of the things I watch are disappointing. I don't know if this is because I have a son now, or if I would have noticed these things anyway. The first thing was when I was watching Glee (for those of you who care, no I don't like where the story has gone, I honestly just watch it for the music). This latest episode was called Blame it on the Alcohol. For some reason this title didn't click in my head as to what the episode would be about. Duh. Underage drinking. Now, I know underage drinking is very common, having grown up with the family and fritnds that I have, just because I'm in Rexburg doesn't mean I live in a bubble. Anyway back to this show. So the principal asks the glee club to sing a song about the dangers of alcohol. Rachel, realizing she's never taken a drink decides she can't do this until she knows what it's like. So she has a party with all of the glee club. They get super drunk, most of them because there has to be a DD, and have a blast. The only downside they show to all of them being drunk is that they all come to school with a hang over. Then the teacher has a really bad day I guess, so he and the football coach go out and get drunk, where the coach tells the teacher, hey you can't prevent it, all you can do is warn them. Yeah I know this is true, but you don't tell teenagers and young kids who watch this show that. Isn't this supposed to be a family show? At least I think that's how it started out. Anyway. So on the day of the assembly, one of the girls says she's nervous about singing (Tick Tock by Ke$ha, seriously?) so rachel pulls out a concoction of all the left over alcohol from her party and they all drink. So they perform drunk and halfway through they all start puking. This grosses everyone out, the principal thinks it's all part of the show, and they don't get punished. I don't usually write about tv shows and such because I just don't feel the need to, but this just seriously bothered me. I feel like this show was telling kids, hey it's ok if you come to school drunk, but just don't let anyone really know that you are. I don't know, maybe I misinterpreted the whole episode, but I was highly disappointed with it. Then the other day Nick and I decided to watch the new Karate Kid movie with Will Smith's kid in it. PG rating. This may not be big deal to some people, but it shocked me. There was swearing in this movie. Not by the adults, but by a 12 year old. Have the swearing requirements in PG movies changed? I would like to be able to put on a KIDS movie and not have to worry about hearing that. That's why I like them. Also, I don't want to have to preview every children's movie that I get for Koen. I should be able to trust the rating right? It's really sad to me that society is letting things like that be ok for young children to hear. I'm not okay with that.

So that's why I'm' disappointed right now. In other news, Koen is almost 4 months old! Three more days and he will be. It's so crazy to me that this much time has already gone by. He hasn't really started doing any new things since the last time I posted, but he is a lot happier now. And he's more content to just lay on the ground and play with his moose or talk to himself. He still isn't sleeping the whole night through yet sadly. For some reason, he's all of a sudden waking up more than he used to. I don't know why, but it sucks for me because it means I'm getting a lot less sleep. But it's okay because I have an awesome husband. This morning, Koen woke up super early, and I fed him, but he didn't go back to sleep like normal. I didn't want to get up because we went to bed pretty late last night so I still wanted to sleep. Nick took Koen out into the living room without me asking him to, and let me get another hour and a half of undisturbed sleep. Oh how I love him! When I came out, Nick was in the kitchen doing homework, and Koen was laying on a blanket in the living room happily talking to himself. Until I came and sat down next to him to get something done. He realized he was hungry. So I fed him again and now he is asleep on my lap. And let me just say, he is like a little furnace.

Sorry, no new pictures right now, I haven't uploaded them yet and I'm too lazy to move Koen and go grab my camera. So later!

Three Months!

My baby boy is 3 months old today! Here's what he's doing now:

• laughing
• holding his head up much better
• chewing on his hands
• drooling
• blowing spit bubbles
• talking to the tv
• talking to anyone who looks at him
• loves his bath now!
• starting to grip things like his keys and his tag blanket
• only waking up twice a night
• going to sleep by 10:30 most nights

Also, on Monday he rolled over. Twice! I'm pretty sure it was an accident though. Here's what happened. I was over at Kristin's doing laundry and I laid him on his tummy. I turned around to get something out of the diaper bag and turned back around and he was on his back! I was really confused and for a minute I thought I put him on his back, then I thought about it and realized, no, he was on his tummy. So I flipped him back over and told Kristin what

happened, and he did it again! It was crazy! He hasn't done it again, so I think it was probably a fluke, but I like to think my baby is advanced.

Another thing, Koen sure knows what he wants. He knows how he wants to be held, and if you don't hold him right he screams. Right now his favorite position is sitting up or standing. He LOVES to use his legs. And to drool all over everything. Right now

his favorite thing is to sit in the corner of the couch and eat his hand.

Other Koen related things:

• 11.6 lbs
• 24 inches
• eyes are still greyish with no sign of brown (there is nothing wrong with brown, I just fear all my kids will have brown eyes because of Nick)
• all of a sudden when he sticks his hand in his mouth it looks like he's trying to pick his nose because one finger always goes up there

Naked baby!! Sort of haha

Another new favorite thing

Koen in his new favorite place

Koen has a new toy to help him with tummy time and he loves it!

Koen fell asleep like this on my lap one time and I just thought it was cute

Koen's First Captured Laugh

Here is our first recorded video of Koen laughing! He is really cute and funny to watch. He started laughing for us just a few days ago. Please enjoy. Also included in the post are recent pictures of what he looks like and can do. Basically has full control of his head now and he enjoys sitting up.






He is just chilling on the couch with me know while I watch TV.

Recently he learned how to hold his whole head up while doing tummy time. He enjoys laying on his stomach to relieve all the gas in his big belly.

Koen at christmas in Ohio. Very happy boy since he got awesome pajamas.

So I'm doing this on Nick's computer so there won't be any pictures from the holidays on this post. Just to warn everyone. Anyway. On to important things. Haha right. So the holidays came and went. They were AWESOME! First it started off with us driving to Utah to fly to Illinois, and we left on a Friday night because supposedly it was not supposed to snow. LIE. We get about halfway there and then it starts snowing so much that we can't see the road. So we follow a semi truck. Then we pull off in Tremonten and call Nick's aunt who lives in Ogden to see if we could stay there for the night. So we did. Then we headed down to Provo the next day to spend time with Nick's sister and her husband. Then we flew out on Sunday. Stayed in Chicago for a few days. It was lots of fun! Then we went to Ohio. Sadly I didn't get to see many of my friends but I got to spend A LOT of time with my family. I'm sad that we didn't get to do gingerbread houses this year. I was looking forward to seeing Dad and Nick working together on one. Let's see...all the grandkids got matching jammies but sadly we didn't get a picture of all of them. Also everyone else got matching jammies from mom. It was AWESOME! We really didn't do anything...the women went and saw Tangled with Chaela. Suprisingly it was really funny. I would like to have it when it comes out. Right now I can't really remember anything else. But it was fun just spending time with the family. It's nice to be back in Idaho though with just Nick, Koen, and I. Speaking of my baby, he is two and a half months now. So here is what is going on with him:

Two Months:

• Smiling all the time
• Getting a lot better at holding his head up, but not quite to where he can do it on his own
• LOVES tummy time
• Recognizes mom and dad's faces
• Starting to laugh (although I haven't heard him. He only did it for Kristin)
• Laughs in his sleep
• Finally sleeping in the pack'n'play instead of his carseat
• He is 23.5 inches long (one place told us this was the 61 percentile for height and another told us 75 percentile)
• He is now 10 lbs 3.5 ounces
• Getting too long for 3 month clothes but not nearly wide enough for them
• His hair is starting to grow back in his bald spots
• Loves to talk when he's happy. He takes after me haha

So that is my baby for now. He's pretty much awesome. I'll post pictures soon.

So this is turning into a really long post. But I wanted to write about my goal for the next few months. So starting on Monday I plan on starting Insanity. I don't want to lose weight I just want to get back in shape. Also, I want to start eating healthier. Not cut back on calories, just change what I'm eating. I should probably cut back on how much tv I'm watching, but I probably won't because I am out of books to read. Also, I want to start cooking more. I think Nick would appreciate that. So those are my goals for now.

And last part. I promise. We are both back in school this semester but it isn't nearly as stressful as last semester. Nick is only taking 12 credits, and I only have 6. This means we get to see each other more often! I'm really excited about most of my classes this semester. I'm getting ready for my senior recital. This means that the end of my college career is finally in sight. I'll be graduating in July!!! Also, I'm in this class called band practicum. I get to go to the middle school a few times a week and work with the students there and learn how to teach. I like this because it's going to help me get over my fear of student teaching. Also, I'm back at work now. I just had my first day back. It wasn't too bad. The only thing I don't like is that I am away from Koen for a long time now. I feel bad because Kristin has to watch him. Along with her own son. Not that Koen is a bad baby, he's just in that stage where he always wants to be held so she is always holding him.

So that's all for now I guess. And now I'm going to end this novel! Yay! Pictures soon!