Not Above a Little Bribery

 I still have a LOT to get done before the end of the semester:

5 Care Plans

2 Finals

2-4 Mock NCLEX Tests

1 NCLEX-PN examination

(And that is only the school stuff... In the next week I have 5 bells performances, one church choir performance, AND a Sunday School lesson!!)

So at the grocery store last night, I bought three bags of these:

The Dove chocolate "Promises". 

The creamiest, richest, most wonderfully delicious chocolate EVER.

The ones with the cute inspirational sayings in them.

Anyways. I bought three bags. And I'm going to use them to  bribe  motivate myself to be productive. 

For every section of a care plan that I write, I get a piece of chocolate.

For every 20 minutes studying, I get a piece of chocolate.

For every online quiz I take, I get a piece of chocolate.

You see how it goes. 

I'm very excited about this system. I know its not healthy and DEFINITELY won't help me lose any of the baby weight. But.... It's finals week. Which means you do what you've gotta do to make it through!

Handbells

This fall, I auditioned for the Utah Valley Handbell Choir. We started rehearsing in August and are in the currently in the middle of our Christmas performances.

It has been so much fun to be performing and involved in music again! Other than ward choir, the last time I've performed was with the BYU Folk Dancers in 2008. 

**Video to be inserted here once the video uploader is working**

They asked me to accompany the bells on the flute for a number. Which I was quite excited about! I didn't get to rehearse the flute part as much as I'm used to, but by this point in the season it is going pretty well. Jake recorded this at our concert last night, but the camera ran out of memory before the song was over. 

A New Look at the Holidays

The Thanksgiving/Christmas Holiday season is all about being grateful for you blessings. You get to spend time with people you love, share gifts, etc, etc, etc. I've always known this and tried to remember this and incorporate it into the festivities. 

But this year was different.

November was one of the most trying months I remember. I totaled our car (in an accident that was in no way my fault), we had to buy a new one (definitely NOT in the budget for two college students with a baby), I lost my job (and was notified about it via text message), two kids I went to high school with were killed in an accident, Tim and I have both been sick, and there are some on-going personal struggles we've been dealing with for a while that just tend to wear on you.

I was getting pretty bogged down by all of it.

A few of the girls at school knew I'd been having a rough time and gave me this book with a little "Hang in there" note from them.

I haven't read all the way through it, but in the second chapter there's a story that made me pause and think about some things. The author was preparing a talk and wanted to look up "Hope" in the Bible Dictionary.

"What do you think I discovered? It wasn't there! Hope is not in the Bible Dictionary. I was amazed! Just to make sure it wasn't only my Bible Dictionary, I asked a friend 'would you please check your Bible and see if hope is in the Bible Dictionary?' It wasn't in hers either. I had to work a little to find stories and verses about hope around which I could construct my talk. Perhaps this little experience is indicative of our lives. We have to look for hope! We have to create it!"

I had been having difficulty recognizing the blessings in my life. This was the first holiday season where I actually felt like it was a stretch to find things to be thankful for. 

I'm not yet grateful for the trials we've been dealing with, but it has been good for me to look harder at my life to see the good. It has made the holidays a little more meaningful, even if sometimes it still seems like the rest of my life is falling apart. :-)

So thank you Devyn, Emily, and Sidne. For the long chat in the abandoned jail house, and all your support and encouragement. Thank you Jake's grandparents for loaning us money for the new car. Thank you Tim for giving me things to smile about every day. Thank you family for loving us. And thanks to Heavenly Father for being patient with me as I get the perspective I need in life. 

Here's to the end of the semester and *hopefully* starting over in January!

Now it's December

 In case you weren't aware, it is December. My last post was on May 2nd. My goodness! So it's about time this blog got moving again. (Thanks, Devyn for reminding me.) 

There is a lot of updating to do. It may or may not happen. But here's a few new facts about this little guy:

Tim is now about nine and a half months old. How did that happen?

He has two teeth (pictured above). We're not in any big rush for him to sprout more. 

He crawls all over the place, pulls himself to a stand on anything he can reach, and walks around on the furniture.

Still a long, skinny kid. Although his legs are starting to beef up thanks to his constant exploring.

He eats all sorts of food now, and won't be shy about mooching off of your plate.

He has a brown blanket and a turtle that he always sleeps with, and loves to snuggle.

He loves to play peek-a-boo and say "LA LA LA LA LA" while sticking his tongue out as far as he can.

Upside down? Awesome.

We spent Thanksgiving with his Gramma and Grampa Herrington, and in another week and a half or so will be trekking out to see the McGrandparents in Nebraska. They're excited to see him.

Wouldn't you be? 

Is Spring Finally Here?

It was a beautiful warm day today. It made me hope that spring might have finally arrived!

Unfortunately, with spring comes finals week. I took my first one today and I feel really good about it! Too bad it was my easiest one! I still have pharmacology and Med Surg to take on Wednesday.

We decided to take a family walk up to the temple tonight to enjoy the weather. We packed Tim up in the baby carrier with a little sunhat (Okay... not so little. It is far too big for his head...) and took off. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time sitting there, watching the fountains, and looking out over the valley.

And Tim is excited that he is big enough to face forward in the baby carrier now. Take a look!

Picnic!

On Thursday, we had BEAUTIFUL weather. Tim and I went down to BYU to meet Jake when he got off of work. We brought leftovers and had a tasty picnic!

Tim's Faces

 That Tim makes some cute faces. 

I sure do love him!

Easter 2011 (Also known as Tim's First Easter!)

 Last weekend was Tim's first Easter!!

I wanted to take him to see the Easter Bunny. But the only Easter Bunny we could find in Provo was a lame not exactly "Easter" bunny at the Build-A-Bear. So this was the best we could do:

Tim was asleep, so I don't think he cared too much. 

The Easter Bunny brought Tim this turtle. It is a stuffed animal/pillow that is stuffed with a blanket you can unfold! And it is super soft. And I think Tim likes it!

Grammy sent Tim a little suit for Easter. 

He doesn't much appreciate dressing up though. We will have to train him to tolerate it before the wedding next month.

We changed him into this outfit. We figured the chick was "Easter-y".

Easter dinner!! Roast asparagus, citrus glazed salmon, sweet rolls, raspberry Jell-O with fresh raspberries and whipped cream, Martinelli's, and cheesecake for dessert!

TWO MONTHS OLD!

Tim had his two month appointment on Thursday!

He is 24.3 inches long (86th percentile) and weighs 10 pounds 13 ounces (21st percentile)! Basically, he's a long skinny dude. Although they are starting to worry about that. Because on the chart of his weight adjusted for his height... he's below the first percentile! So... we're supposed to work on that.

He can smile now, and I LOVE his smiles. He can't quite laugh, but you can tell he's working on it. 

He LOVES kicking! He will sit in his little bouncy chair and kick kick kick! He's also working on sitting up.

When he turns 3 months, we'll be in Minnesota. Fun times ahead!

Tim's First Sunday at Church!

Last Sunday (April 10th), Tim got to go to church for the first time!!

And get all dressed up!

He wasn't very excited about the tie... We wound up taking it off before we went to church.

He was SUPER good. He was quiet and slept all through church! We took advantage of his drowsiness, put the tie back on and snapped some more photos when we got home.

What a cutie pants!!

Also, Tim was recently featured on his babysitter's blog which can be viewed HERE!!

Beautiful Weather

We have had beautiful weather here! It was 70 degrees on Tuesday (when I don't have any classes). So, Tim and I decided to walk down to BYU campus and play outside while we waited for Jake to finish for the day. Tim had a blast!!

First Family Outing

Last night, we went on our first family outing!

We've had BEAUTIFUL weather the last few days. When Jake got back home from taking a test, we decided to walk down to the BYU Creamery for dinner.

Tim rode along in the Baby Bjorn.

Their guacamole bacon burgers are SUPER yummy!

Tim stayed snugged in quite contentedly the whole time!

I would classify this as a success!

Also, this is the first picture of the three of us all together... We need a better family shot sometime...

Tim's First Smile

Tim has recently started smiling. A few nights ago, we caught it on camera!

Here are some other gems from the same night:

One Month!

On March 20th, Tim was officially one month old!!

At his last pediatrician appointment, he was 23 inches long and weighed 8 lb 13 oz.

Forgot this one...

I forgot this one in the big montage of the next post, but it would've been IMPOSSIBLE to get it in order. This is from Tim's first appointment at the pediatrician when he was 3 days old.