Things I've learned from TV

After four years of being without television Tommy and I decided to get with technology.  Like a bulimic put in front of a buffet, I started binging on t.v.  So here is what I've learned:

1.  A woman really can fight crime in heels (Dog the Bounty Hunter)
2.  If your mom didn't approve of your marriage before you got married and you needed to go on National Television to sort out your issues, DON'T move in with her later on in your marriage, because you're just going to end up back on t.v.  But did you really have to watch that on t.v. to figure that one out? (Monster-in-laws)
3. Yogurt is the secret ingredient to any great dish (Chopped)
4. Apparently life is supposed to go relationship, dog, house with stainless steel appliances, wood floors everywhere, granite counter tops, in the middle of the city, and a great view all for a budget of $200,000, marriage, vacation home and then maybe kids (House Hunters) Boy did we get it wrong!
5. I need more people in my life to get married  (4 Weddings)
6. I don't like sob stories (Any reality t.v. show)
7. I want all my children to be in dance because it's so entertaining but I don't want any of them in dance because there are a lot of floosies (So you think you can dance)
8. If you're on a show that's telling you that you have no sense of style, I think it's safe to assume the professionals know better than you (What not to wear)
9. I'm glad I'm not planning a wedding (Say yes to the Dress and Say yes to the Bridesmaids Dress)
10.We may laugh at them now but we will be the exact same way when our children are in sports programs (Dance Moms)
11.  I watched one episode of Bachelorette because I wanted to see why people loved it so much and I was a bachelor/bachelorette virgin.  I wish that were still true.  Half the show is her making out with the different guys.  Yeah, cause that's real
12.  Companies are not out to take every last cent from the little guy (Undercover Boss) Kind of already knew that but it's nice to see evidence that supports your hypothesis
13. I love the USA with its wide open spaces and have no desire to live in Europe with its costly price tags and rinky dink living spaces (House Hunters International)
14.  But I will visit anytime! (House Hunters International)
15.  There's actually a show out there called "I have no business raising children" (I didn't know I was pregnant) I got through half a story (which is about 1/4 of an episode) and had to turn it off.  Those people make me so mad.  Having actually been pregnant myself, you've got to have no brain to not at least suspect that.  Let's accept that all symptoms magically aren't there.  What do they think when they feel the baby MOVING inside of them?????
16.  And lastly, I secretly love drama...(Dance Moms, bachelorette, teen mom 2, say yes to the dress, monster-in-laws, hgtv design star, etc etc)

Photo Shoot Part One

 A few new things about Zach:

• He sings
• He laughs all the time now
• He's ticklish under his armpits
• He loves my hair
• He's almost sitting up by himself
• He's graduated to baths
• He rolled over today from his back to his belly!  He's a little late bloomer on that front so it was really exciting.  I'm so glad Tommy and I were there to see it!
• Oh, and now he's eating!!  We started a week ago.  He now eats the rice cereal, sweet potatoes, pears, and apples.
• Oh and now his diapers reek.  It's really bad.  And I have how long until he's potty trained...?

Oh well but now Zach is SO cute.  I never thought he could get any cuter but every day he gets cuter.  It's so fun to watch him grow up and learn new things each and every day.  We love him so much.  I love that even after he's in bed, I can't wait for Zach to get up again. 

So with Tommy working and me not really, I get to spend a lot of time with Zach.  So sometimes you have to get creative. Today's activity was a photo shoot.  It was cut short because Zach was tired so there will probably be another one soon.  We have a crappy digital camera and I'm no photographer so don't expect much. Enjoy.

MY FAVORITE!

Bye Bye Manhattan

Things We will miss about Manhattan:

1. Kansas State University
2. Our friends
3. Our ward
4. Tommy's family
5. Being two minutes away from Dillons for nightly snack runs
6. being so close to so many memories like Cico hill - where Tommy proposed to Chelsea or Mercy Hospital - where Zach was born
7. being able to run up to Milford when we didn't feel like cooking to get some good home cooking from Tommy's mom
8. Our fireplace
9. Running the hills (Tommy's not mine)
10. It really became our home

Things we won't miss:

1. Kansas summers
2. Kansas winds
3. our stinkin apartment with windows that didn't work, a constantly dripping sink, a broken ac unit on the third floor with sun hitting it all day long equaling crazy energy bills, a bathroom split into two parts of the house, and carpets that were at least 35 years old and incredibly disgusting
4. K-State game traffic
5. the lack of shopping options
6. Being at least two hours away from anything, including airports and temples
7. Omaha
8. Body First
9. Bird poop on our car
10. crazy work and school schedule

Things we're excited about Michigan:

1.  Our new place with TWO bathrooms and THREE bedrooms and a GARAGE 
2. our GARAGE!! Seriously a necessity and a blessing with a baby
3.  We splurged and got dish tv.  Neither of us have had it in 4 years.  we love love love it!  I can't believe how much I love having something on in the background while I'm working on something
4. Having a piano, Chelsea may learn to play fluently yet!
5. the weather here
6. being closer to Chelsea's family/Chicago
7. getting time to spend with the Wrights (we feel cheated they're leaving us so soon...)
8. Our awesome neighborhood
9. the ward
10. Have a new place to explore and learn and grow from and for Zach to grow up in. 

Graduation and a new place to live

This is just a picture post mostly.  The first round of pictures is from graduation.  After that, there are pictures of our little town home.  We don't have sd cards for our new phones so we can't take pictures and send them to family who have been begging for a picture or two. So it's back to old fashioned take a picture with a camera and send it out on email and post on a blog.  

 I apologize for the huge mess but come on, we just moved in :)

So here is the front door, entry way, stairs:

 The stairs going up:

 Hallway in the upstairs:

Zach's room.  We've already re-arranged this room to look like a room and not a storage room

The catch all office room:

 Part of our bathroom.  It's so big in comparison but NO space to set stuff on sink.  Why don't people think that's important? I've been watching way too much HGTV lately and no one thinks counter space is important.  Also, if you look in the mirror, you can see a wall paper border.  It could be worse or it could also be gone!

 Our Bedroom.  We were in the middle of rearranging stuff when I took this:

 the other part of our bedroom.  I'm happy that our furniture matches at least.

Now we move back downstairs  to the bathroom and laundry room:

 Here's the Living Room.  It's mostly set up

 Dining room/piano room.  I HAVE A PIANO!:

 Our kitchen.  Notice how many small cabinets there truly are? 6. And they're high up so guess who got a step ladder?

  Notice how there is only ONE drawer.  Where may I ask am I supposed to put the silverware?  Also, we hate lazy susans but we are now lucky enough to have TWO.  And also, more wallpaper.  But I'm sooo happy we have LIGHT wood and the kitchen was CLEAN when we moved in. 

Here's counter space and the view of the living area from the kitchen:

And the living room.  I know I know, why is the tv in front of a door? Well if you can come up with a better set up so there is a couch and a tv in this space that isn't blocking that door I would LOVE to get some ideas

So there you have it.  I 85% love our place.  It grows on me more each day.  Obviously there are things I wish were different but unless I were to hand pick every detail in a house that we custom built I doubt I'd be satisfied with everything.  In fact, even then I think I'd still find something I'd change.  At the end of the day, we have a dishwasher, washer/dryer, 3 bedrooms, and an ATTACHED GARAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!! for very inexpensive.  I doubt we could find anything better.  I also am sorry there are no pictures of Zach but I found my camera after he went to sleep.   I'll post more later.  It's late and it's time for bed!

Nauvoo

 

Here's a really funny video!  Before Zach was born Tommy would swing the overalls around.  So now that he's here, we can't not try it out!

 

This weekend we went up to Nauvoo.  This year marks Tommy's parents 40th anniversary (That's so amazing!).  Tommy's dad arranged for his kids to come up to Nauvoo and surprise his wife...how sweet is that?  I once again forgot the camera and so most of the pictures look like we just hung out at home.  I don't have any pictures of anyone!  So I would love some if you have any!

Okay so we were scheduled to leave Friday morning at 7.  Thursday night comes and I can't sleep.  I was so anxious about the trip because GPS said it was a 7 hour trip so I planned for it to be a 9 hour trip with a baby.  That's a very long time in a car seat!  So 1:00 am comes along and I'm still not asleep.  I probably fell asleep in the next half hour but at 3:30 Zach woke up to eat.  Then Tommy took him to put in his crib around 4.  At 5:00 am Tommy comes into the room and says, "Chelsea, I need you to take Zach.  I've been trying for the last hour to get him back to bed and he just won't sleep."  Awesome. Just plain awesome.  I try for about 45 minutes and we decided to just give up.  So we start getting ready and decide to leave a little earlier.   This was Zach at 6:15 am:

HAPPY AS CAN BE!

So we pick up Tommy's brother Matt, pick up some doughnuts ($8 for 8 doughnuts!  Curse you Manhattan for not having a dunkin doughnuts...what kind of town allows 4 doughnut shops to go out of business?!) and Zach is looking tired.  So I tried to get a picture of him and at the last moment his eyes shot right open at the sound of my camera clicking (on my phone? come on blackberry...get rid of that feature.  It keeps me from taking all kinds of funny pictures because ppl would hear the picture sound)  But anyways here's the picture:

SO FUNNY!

 Well, I forgot to calculate how off GPS is with timing because it doesn't calculate you driving any faster than 60 mph.  Also, Zach is an amazing travel buddy.  He didn't sleep much :( but was super happy!  At one time I got him to sleep and with the car seat covered with a blanket, I started to fall asleep.  Then I hear, "ohh, ohh, ohh..."  from under the blanket. My baby had woken up.  AHH!!! But here's some fun video of him he was so happy!

We made it to Nauvoo two hours earlier than expected! We went to the hotel to see if Tommy's parents were there and yep we saw their car right outside.  But we didn't know if they might be walking around anywhere so we went to a park and hung out (we found out later they spent the whole afternoon at the temple!) But that's okay Zach was so funny.  Tommy, Zach and I went for a walk and Matt sat and played his guitar.  Here's a video of Zach talking.  He did this all weekend long!

Well we certainly surprised Tommy's mom.  She was so happy and so touched by the whole thing.  I was so impressed things went off without a hitch!  We may have gotten lost on the way to the restaurant but luckily Tommy's parents were 5 minutes late so we squeaked on in before they got there.  The next day Tommy and I got to go to the temple because I had never done a session before there.  They always say there's a special spirit about Nauvoo.  There truly was something special about that session for me.  The spirit was just so easy to feel. 

Afterwards we went on a horse carriage ride.  Then Tommy, Misty, Mark, and I went a grabbed something to eat.  We caught up with everyone in old Nauvoo but it was super hot and Zach hadn't slept much so I decided to go back to the hotel.  Plus, I've seen the sights a LOT in my life.  I did stop at the Lucy Mac Smith house because I had read her book and just wanted to pop in.  It was neat because her house was an original that had survived the years. 

That night we went to dinner.  Zach was being a little fussy, nothing bad but he just wanted to be held I think.  Well we wanted to eat.  So in the process of trying to find ways to entertain our little boy Tommy put a burp cloth on Zach's head.  After that he was a happy little camper.  What a funny little guy!

ALL SMILES!

Here are just a few pictures at the temple that we took.  My favorite is the one of Zach touching the temple.  I know it's a corny thing to do but it turned out great!

 

 So Zach really enjoyed one of his toys.  The camera is always moving because he stopped performing when he caught me recording

HERE'S US HEADED HOME

ZACH WANTED TO DRIVE

And of course I can't help but post a shout out to my little niece and nephew.  I love getting photos of them

BRADSTER!

SHOPPING FOR HER BIRTHDAY PRESENTS (SHE'S ALMOST ONE!!)

Happy Four Months! And Easter and Utah trip

So I'm finding I'm getting behind on blogging.  So much has happened since the last time I blogged.  First Easter:

So we had a great Easter weekend.  Stake conference was the same weekend.  We had a general authority come and speak, Elder Robins and he brought us a great message and I was grateful for the message and renewed testimony of our savior.  We went to Tommy's parents house for Easter.  Zach got some toys but I forgot to get a basket so...no basket but still, the toys are what's important.  But did I take a picture? No of course not.  But here are some photos from the day.

Uncle Matt with Zach

Zach and Grandma May

Family Photo

Happy Easter From Delainie!

 Now the story behind this cake is that at first it was supposed to look like an easter egg that had cracked.  But then it looked like pacman so I added an eye.  Than we decided to try and make it a bunny.  The result is as follows - an evil easter bunny.

On the 17th (a little over a week ago) Zach turned 4 months old!  I can't believe it.  It seems like he was just born.  He went to the doctor and got more shots (yay....).  But he pulled through well.  He didn't cry until the second shot which made it easier because he wasn't crying while they're trying to give him yet another shot.  As you can see he is 25.5 inches long (73%) and 13 lbs (20%)  So he has a body comparable to Gumby.  A very cute gumby!

 That night as we were packing, Zach started laughing when I made a weird noise.  I caught him on video but I apologize for the funny noises I make.  It's worth seeing Zach laugh though.  I can't wait for him to laugh all the time like this!

 

The next day we jetted off to Utah for Tommy's brother Mark and my brother Joe's graduations from BYU.   Zach pretty much slept for 75% of our travel time which was awesome!! I always feel guilty not meeting people or chit chatting with them at airports because you always here about people having great missionary discussions at the airport for some reason.  Well while we were waiting for our flight, I ended up talking to this really nice lady.  I was all proud of myself for being friendly and thought, "maybe we'll get around to talking about the church"  Well, she actually is a member already.  In fact, she goes to Tommy's parents' ward and we know a lot of the same people.  But it was really fun anyways getting to know someone new.  I'm terrible at that kind of stuff and since we're moving soon it was great practice.  

Zach waking up from one of many naps

Daddy and son going for a stroll around the airport

 I was so frustrated when we got to Utah because I realized I forgot my camera.  So we have no evidence of even seeing Mark and Joe.  We don't have any photos of them from their graduation or anything!! I was doing so well in Arizona too.  But we had a great time.  I never want to have our families live near each other and us have to share our vacation time with them ever again.  I felt like I hardly saw anyone including Tommy because we spent a lot of time split to give both families equal time.  We love our families and our brothers so much and it was hard not being there 100% for anyone.  But we still had so much fun!  We got to stay with my cousins the Cooks which was a blast! The kids are growing up so fast and they are so much fun! They all loved Zach and it was so nice to have them meet him.

Thursday Tommy got to spend some good time visiting with Mark.  They got to work out together and then we got to visit with my other cousin Sarah.  She has 4 boys that are great and it's fun to see what a house full of boys are like.  Wesley really liked Tommy which isn't surprising because Tommy is so funny with kids. Then we got to go see Tommy's family in Salt Lake where they got to meet Zach.  Mark made a really good lasagna dish but I spent most of my time trying to get Zach to go to sleep so I felt like we hardly got to hang out which was sad.  But we were thrilled to be with family none the less.  Oh well, other opportunities will come soon!  ;)

Friday was graduation.  I went to my brothers and Tommy went to his brothers that way Zach didn't have to sit through 4 hours of ceremonies.  Joe's ceremony went on forever...it took 45 minutes before they finally started reading names.  The Dean talked a lot... to give you a frame of reference, it only took 15 minutes before they were reading names for Mark's ceremony.  SO I spent the whole time texting Joe sarcastic comments and Zach did what he does best, he slept. 

Saturday we went to the new mall in SLC called City creek.  While we were there, Clinton from What not to wear was there! and we got to see him.  Pretty awesome.  Mark and Misty joined us but everyone ended up splitting up.  The Mays (Tommy, Mark and Misty) went one way, my mom and I went girls shopping and Joe, my dad and Zach went suit shopping.  Tommy and I came away with some pretty good clothes. One bonus to living in Manhattan is there no where to shop so I at least save us some money that way.  But when we go out of town we always try and go to a mall to update our wardrobes just a touch.

So here are the few photos I collected while I was there. 

Boston and Zach hanging out

Nana, Zach, and Me at Graduation

Zach and Coach.

I love this photo of Z.  It seems so poetic

I love this picture because I have one of Delainie doing the same thing

See!

 

 Friday Night Tommy and I got to go on an impromptu date.  We ended up in a toy store!

Zach's face when uncle Joe started reading him a story

Zach started warming up to Joe's story

Zach does not like cold water....

Uncle Joe and Zach!

Matching colors.  Not an accident...

Well we made it back from Utah and Zach has already changed so much in the one week since then.  He loves being on his tummy.  He went from only hanging out for about a minute before he started fussing to about 5 minutes.  It helps to have a mirror for him to look at himself with.  Does he get that from his aunt Shellie?  

Zach is also learning to roll. I put him on his belly one time and he rolled to his back.  However he really could care less for the most part about rolling.  But we're working on it.  He has been discovering his feet this week as well which is helping him to roll, even if it is involuntary!  

We've also been working on his standing.  At first, we would stand him up and he would try and sit right away.  Now he's pretty solid.  Most babies wobble a lot but he just stands sturdy.  I'm thinking he got his dad's legs. 

We have been working on cutting down Zach's pacifier time to only naps and bedtime.  I feel like it was becoming a crutch for Tommy and me more than it was for Zach.  It was a bit frustrating but I learned how to understand Zach and what he needs more so I don't feel bad about limiting it.  He is also finally growing out of his swaddle.  He was fighting us too much on it and is no longer waking himself up with his arms.  So we felt like we could unswaddle him.  I'm glad to be done with it because I was never any good at getting a good swaddle anyways.

So we have been wanting to get Zach one of those toys he can stand in so he can strengthen his legs.  We got a huge blessing and were able to go to this huge baby garage sale where people all over town donate or sell their used baby stuff.  The biggest blessing is that a friend of ours was kind enough to give us access to the pre-sale the night before which is only for the sellers and volunteers.  But I found that there are 3 presales that day.  So basically, if you don't get to the presale, you're wasting your time. We were not only able to get him the standing thing but My dad asked us to pick a gift out for Zach as well.  We were able to get him three toys that normally would have cost us between $25-50 each and got them plus a baby gate plus a pair of shoes (normally $10-15) for $44!! I'm not ashamed to say I bought this stuff second hand because they were all practically new! Plus, they're plastic and easily washed and disinfected.  Thank you Stacey!

Enjoy the photos!

Mirror Mirror, on the wall...

it took him all week but he can now grab both feet at once!

A great close up

We can't forget Brady! Such a cutie!  Shellie said in her text, "He has all these toys and all he wants to look at is the fan"

Bye bye swaddle!

Possibly my new favorite photo...

Thanks Coach!

His new standing toy!

Lastly,  I am done working at Medical Search Associates.  I'm pretty sad to say good bye to the people I work with.  I learned so much at that job not only about recruiting but about myself.  Due to a series of events and some spiritual promptings, we felt like it was time for a change in careers.  I feel completely at peace with the whole decision which I think is the biggest indicator that we made the right decision.

Okay, one more last thing, we started packing!! We just finished patching up holes and painting over everything.  We feel like we started a little early but with all that's going on I'd rather be the tortoise than the hare.