Recap of the last 3 months!

I seriously haven't opened my computer in probably 2+ months! Having a TV in our house has changed how we do electronics and shows around here. We've been cranking Downton Abbey on the TV and iPad, completely neglecting using the laptop at all! I'm not complaining though... The last three months have been busy and so, so good! I'll try to do a quick recap with pictures:

September: 

Living at the farm was going well! We were still waiting for Jake to receive more invites to interviews, so checking his email super often! Jake was still in training for work so he was mostly working at the farm. It was super nice to have him around since he's working more now and his shifts are super weird!

The best thing that happened that month was Brooke and Blakely coming for a visit!! They came just for a couple of days and we were able to go to the Jonas Brothers concern while Jake and Brent watched the girls! It was SO FUN!! I'm so glad we went, it was such a fun night hanging out with her. We had a fun couple of days hanging out with the girls at the farm - we only wish they could've stayed longer! Blakely and June were funny together, I wish they would've gotten along better but I guess that's what you can expect from two toddlers!

The same couple of days, Jessica was in town with Emma so we had three one year olds hanging out all at once! That was fun. The girls did chores, swam, ate, napped... It was a great couple of days!!

The weather started to cool down which was a relief. We did the zoo, Washington Park in downtown Cincinnati, and did a birthday scavenger hunt for the September birthdays in the family.

October: 

October was fun and finally welcomed more sweater weather!! We had a few SUPER cold days (including Halloween), but I feel like the rest of the month was pretty nice! It went by so fast.

The BEST thing that happened this month was . . . Jake getting into the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine!!!! We are sooo, soo excited!!! October 15th is the first day that medical schools are allowed to accept students all over the country. Jake had interviewed about 5 weeks before that and they said that that group of students should for sure hear back by October 15th. They said they were going to email, so he turned on notifications for his email and we started checking it right when we woke up! Haha it was the first question he asked me when he rolled over in the morning, "Can you check my email?"

We went through the day like normal, trying not to focus too much on the wait! We were doing flowers that day and Jake was doing his regular work on the farm. He had gone back to the house to change or something and he got a call from the Cincinnati area and he answered it and it was a guy named Gil. He basically said, "Congratulations!! You're in!!" And Jake immediately ran around the house and was freaking out, of course!! He talked with the guy and figured out that he is an M4 and that he graduated from BYU too! Jake immediately facetimed me when Gil hung up and he told me he got in and we couldn't believe it!! Tracey was there too so we were all SOO excited. He rode the motorcycle over and we were just hugging and laughing and making him tell us about the phone call! He still hadn't gotten an email or notification in his portal (and didn't until hours later), but it was so nice to know!! And then we ended up getting a physical letter in the mail a few weeks later. :) We went to Mazunte's to celebrate!! I'm seriously beyond proud of him, words could not even explain. He truly worked so hard for this!

We had two sets of fun visitors in the month of October! Our first set of visitors was Lisette and my Grandma! They flew in the first weekend of October and we did everything pumpkin patchy and chores! It was nice just to relax with them for a few days, have June play with Lisette, and we got a bunch of cute Halloween outfits from my grandma! The trip was super quick but it was fun - I'm glad we got to see them since Thanksgiving and Christmas are so far away from then and we still hadn't received any invites to Texas schools!

Our seconds set of visitors were my mom and Amanda!! I had asked them to come to help me finish June's room. I had started on it, but I was stuck and needed to do some work on it! My mom decorated her house so cute and nice so I knew she'd enjoy helping me do it! She ended up getting June sooo many good things for her room and for her closet. It was such a fun, quick trip and it was really nice for Amanda to be able to spend more time with June! I'm so glad they're able to just drive up really quickly and hang out with us for the weekend!

We did King's Island, hikes in the woods around the house, chopped and stacked wood, pumpkin patched it up. It was such a fun month. I love the month of October. It's no surprise I always tell people my dream is to have an October baby hahah. One day!!

*obviously in the middle of strapping her in ;) 

November:

November FLEW by!!! I can hardly believe tomorrow is December!! But I am reaaally excited about it. :)  

This month was fun for us - We got a calling in church to teach the 5-6 year olds, Aubrey and Nate visited for a couple hours, the weather got cold and we layered up for chores almost every week day, and then the holidays began with Thanksgiving! 

Our days are mostly spent doing chores in the morning with Tracey, June taking a nap in the early afternoon while I try to prepare dinner and clean, and then we spend the rest of the afternoon playing with cousins or just finding some fun things to do around the farm! Jake has been working about 2-3 times a week, so June and I have been spending a lot of time together. It's been good - she is an expert with farm chores. She is so brave getting the dogs' food together and then trying to go through the gate to give them each their half! This evening she was trying so hard to open the gate to give Pierre his food, even though he had been barking at Kate the goat because she was eating what Pierre already had! She didn't care about the barking and just decided she was going to go in and give him some more. Haha I love her so much, it's fun watching her be brave and try new things. I know she probably won't remember any of this, but I hope some pictures and videos will do her time here justice! She's learning and doing so much every day! 

Thanksgiving was more casual than I thought.  A lot of people showed up that weren't family, but it went really well even with June being surrounded by a bunch of people! I made green bean casserole which is currently my favorite Thanksgiving dish. We hung out by the fire while June jumped on the trampoline with her cousins, scootered around, and played on her car! I wonder if June will remember her dad playing pickle ball outside and her constantly pumping her scooter right into the court! 

It's been a fun start to the holiday season! This week I'm hoping to decorate for Christmas a little bit and go get our tree!! I know Jake's family gets a real one every year, so we'll probably get one from the same place they go ever year. I'm so excited for this season and I'm going to try to update more often for myself and for my 2 loyal followers. Haha

New year and new schedule!

January is practically over! I truly do feel like this last month has lasted about 60 days haha. It already feels like Jake has been in school for forever, but maybe that's just because we both have a lot on our plates right now! But in a good way. We are definitely staying busy and happy.

We started out the year in Cincinnati and came home a few days after school had started. We were definitely ready to get back into the swing of things and find a groove that fit our family. Jake has been working night shifts at the local behavioral hospital and is enjoying it! He has already come home with a lot of crazy stories. I am really proud of him because working full time night shifts has got to be one of the most exhausting things. On top of that, he's a full-time student, teaching anatomy, and doing research with a professor! It's been interesting trying to find a rhythm that works for us where we don't all three feel drained and we are finally getting there.

I have been working at Jake's aunt's business M-F from 8-12. It's been the perfect amount of hours and it's nice making some extra money on the side! Most of the time June comes with me and plays with Emma, her little cousin that is about the same age, or I have a family member watch her. Luckily I never work more than a few hours so I don't feel like I am spending too much time away from June.

It's been nice to work and have something else to do besides be a mom and wife. Although I truly feel like those roles are my "calling" in life, I'm not quite busy enough to not go crazy with that being the only thing on my plate. So having a part-time job and one class to finish online before I graduate, I am feeling like this is my sweet spot!

June is growing bigger and smarter every day. This is definitely the best age yet. She's still cuddly, loves being with me (maybe a little too much sometimes), but I also see her gaining some independence. She has been taking more solo steps lately and I can seriously see it in her eyes when she realizes she can do it and feels confident. She doesn't take more than 4 steps in a row usually, but she truly does get better and more confident every day! On top of that, she learned the word "DOG"! We have two my little pet shop dogs and she loves them. They are the most random toys but she holds them and will just crawl around the house with at least one of them in her hand. Anyway, for weeks I would tell her it was a dog. Or I would point our a dog if we saw one outside and I always point them out in her books telling her they say "woof woof". One day I was asking her if she could say dog and she just said it! Now every time she sees her little toy dog or any kind of animal (like the cat on the bag of cat food at Trader Joe's) she says "dog"!

One activity that Jake and I have been doing together lately is working on redoing the entire Seven Brothers Farm website! It's been a really fun late night activity for us to do together while June sleeps, although we have definitely learned that we would probably not work well together ALL DAY haha but we do good work as a team. It's been really fun to learn a new skill with WordPress and gets me excited about vamping up this blog one day (probably switching to WordPress one day!). We have seriously learned how to make a very simple pretty website. It has taken us HOURS AND HOURS hahaha but it's been super fun.

That's about it on an update for us. We're trying to budget better and make more homemade meals this year so we can both be a little healthier. Jake started crossfit for the month with his brother Aaron. I've been doing at least 20 minutes of yoga daily. It's been great and I'm hoping we both keep it up with a little bit of a "healthier" life style (I still love my daily coke from McDonald's. I will probably never give that up lol)

More Halloween photos

Because obviously more pictures of June in her Halloween costume! I've been trying to get my "nice camera" out more regularly because the pictures really are so much better, but it's hard to lug that thing around. But it's definitely one of my goals - and I want to be better at printing them and putting them into some kind of album. One of my favorite things to do is look through old photos albums - physical, turn the page kind of thing.

Other things we have been up to lately are staying up way too late playing Splendor on the iPad haha. Our cousins showed us the game a few weeks ago and we have been addicted ever since. You can get it for $5 on the app store so we are loving it.

June has been eating more and more solids which is so fun to watch. She has gotten significantly better at chewing in the past couple weeks, and I've gotten more confident with actually letting her eat anything besides applesauce and yogurt. She hardly gags anymore which is so helpful for my sanity. When she does gag, she's generally able to work it out. I am so proud of her!

Jake had a job interview this morning and it sounded like it went really well! It was at a behavioral hospital nearby and we are really hoping he gets it! He sounded so excited about it when he walked out of the interview. I know he would do great and learn so many things! The only thing that would stink is the night shifts . . . I would just have to cuddle June extra hard while he was gone!

June is a dada QUEEN. She says dada all. day. long. It's so cute. I'm not sure she knows that Jake is her dad. It kind of seems like she just interprets dada to mean any happy or fun thing. Whenever she's happy she's just saying dadadada the whole time. It's so, so cute. But when she's sad or tired she still says Mama. I can't believe she'll be 8 months in one week. Time really does go by so fast!

I did yoga and went on a "run" for the first time in a while this morning (like a few months). I truly am already feeling it in my legs, which tells you how much I've done since getting cleared to workout lol. I'm trying to be just a little bit better and a little bit healthier, and hoping to make some real improvements by the time we want to have our next baby. I'm on a mission to help my body deliver my next baby naturally and I think working out will really help that come to pass. Haha we'll see; I'm going to be my own experiment.

Other than that, life is good. I'm trying to journal regularly, cook more often, snuggle June & not get so frustrated that she doesn't sleep. We are really on the tail end of school finishing (kind of), so we are trying to stay positive and happy as we finish our last assignments, papers, and tests. I'm so glad it's almost over and I'm going to be able to just hang out with June full time next semester (besides the one class I'm taking online).

We are all really looking forward to next year, but I'm also okay with this next 6-8 months to go by slowly. I'm not quite ready for June to turn 1 and to move out of our little house into the next chapter of our life. We both are trying to be better about enjoying the present and things we are doing right now.

Recent happenings

This week has been full of crazy surprises! June officially started crawling and is exploring more each day around the house. Tonight she wandered into the kitchen as we were making dinner and started putting her little arm around my ankle. With her new found mobility, she's also started to show how much of a mama's girl she is. She'll crawl to me wherever I am and whine the whole way over until I pick her up. And tonight, for the first time, she said MAMA! At first I thought, no, that's not what she said. But then she did it over and over again! I'm not sure she knows what it means, but I can't stop playing back the videos I have of her saying it. So far, it's only been when she's whining, but I'll take it!

We took these photos this past weekend when we were "location scouting" for our next family photos, haha. This is a little campground up Squaw Peak. The weather is quickly turning fall appropriate and we are loving it. For some reason it's so fun to dress babies in leggings and long sleeves. I'm just not ready for the snow - I'm hoping it goes easy on us again this year!

School is going well, but it's also stressful at times trying to get things done. Usually I have to wait until she's asleep at night or scramble to get things finished during naps, and I'm already ready for that to be over and be 100% mom, but I'm excited that I'll be graduating and finishing college. There is a light at the end of the tunnel!

We're excited for fall because that means homemade apple juice AND homemade grape juice!!! Plus soup galore, pumpkin pie, and my Grandma's chex mix! As sad as I am to say bye to this amazing summer we had, I'm excited to experience June's first fall. Almost everything is better with a baby on your hip.

RECENT HAPPENINGS

Life lately consists of living and breathing June.

It's great and I love it but naturally there are times when I go pretty crazy and think, "That's it. I'm only having one baby." And then I remember how much I love pregnancy, or I see June smile, and then I think, "Okay, I can do this at least one more time." 

We wake up and Jake's usually already gone. It seems like June's new wake time is 7:30. Ever since we went to Ohio and she hit the 4 month sleep regression, her sleeping patterns have been WACK. She is going to sleep earlier than usual (like 8:30 ish), but she's waking up at 6 am ready to go. I usually let her play in her crib for like 20-30 minutes and then I try to get het back to sleep, but she pretty much only sleeps another 30 minutes or so. BUT I REFUSE to have a baby that wakes at 6 am! No thank you!! We will keep working on it...

We go on a walk in the morning before the sun gets too hot. She's liking her stroller now so I put my headphones in and listen to podcasts. Usually I listen to The Birth Hour but I've also been listening to Babes and Babies podcast and Birth Kweens! All things baby and birth, of course.

I've been trying to run a little bit, but that'll be a loooong process . . . I didn't even run before I got pregnant so...

Then I usually put her down for a nap and try to get some cleaning done. I've been watching trash reality TV, AKA the Kardashians, but I'm obsessed and it's an easy-to-watch show as I'm washing the dishes or folding laundry. Then we make lunch and wait for Jake to come eat with us which is always nice.

My goal for every day is to get out of the house once, even if it's just to the grocery store. It feels like June does better when she's not so bored - Of course she thrives when she gets good naps in, but I feel like she also doesn't like hanging out inside all day and likes to visit new places and see people, so we always try to go somewhere at least once a day. We've been pretty successful so far! 

I'm trying to soak up this last month before we start school and the semester from hell begins. I don't know how I'm going to do it, I just know that somehow I am going to do it . . . With help from the village around me, I'm sure. I'm grateful so many people are so willing to watch her when I need help. It'll be an adjustment for the both of us, but luckily I only have to be on campus max 3 hours a day and I don't have class on Fridays. We can do this, June! 

WEEKEND HAPPENINGS - THE RODEO

This weekend was so fun! Friday night we went to the Strawberry Days Rodeo! We went last year and it was a BLAST, so we were super excited to go this year and bring June! Amazingly, she stayed awake for the WHOLE THING. She probably slept for like 5 minutes. There were just so many noises and people clapping and yelling and men being bucked off broncos and bulls... I'm sure she was too excited to sleep.

The Strawberry Days rodeo is extra exciting because all the men are competing for serious money. How they perform at this rodeo helps them move up in the rankings and perform at higher level rodeos (I think), so they're giving it their ALL. It's all so entertaining - especially the bull riding. Although it is kind of scary... One guy, who had just gotten off the injured reserved list, got his hand stuck in the tape and was being bucked around by the bull until they could get him out. I don't even understand how that still happens but it was terrible to watch!

And the strawberries and cream... Y U M. It's seriously delicious!! It's worth going to the rodeo just for the strawberries and cream... Oh and the people watching.

On Saturday, we (and by we I mean Jake) helped the Mauldin's start demolition on their house! They are moving along with their renovation project and I'm super excited for them. Jake was excited to knock down some walls and do some serious damage... and they did. They worked for about 4 or 5 hours and June slept the whole time in the carrier with me. It was awesome, they got a TON of work done. That night we just relaxed and watched 27 Dresses. Haha, I love my husband.

Sunday we went to church and then in the evening we met some of Jake's aunts and uncles and their kids at a park up in Provo Canyon. It was SO nice out. We passed the volleyball, ate some tacos, and enjoyed the weather. It's always nice to catch up with cousins we don't see that often! In one of the pictures above, June is with one of her little cousins and they are SO cute together! Emma was trying to latch onto her arm and it was so freaking cute haha. I love babies, but I especially love babies when they're together! They are only a week apart, so it's fun seeing the differences in them.

Summer is what Jake and I are living for right now. I'm not really looking forward to the fall semester because of all the credits I'll be taking with June as my little class buddy, so we're soaking up our "free" time right now!

Stressful days but happy babies

June was so happy and good today, which I am so grateful for because today was such a stressful day for me and Jake. Trying to figure out time, money, and scheduling is so much more difficult when you throw a baby into the mix. Of course we knew that it would be like this when we decided we wanted a baby, but now that we're actually dealing with all of it, life is crazy!

Luckily we make a good team and problems are solved pretty quickly with us. But it looks like my time at my job that I've had for two years is ending this summer, and Jake's time will be 100% dedicated to the MCAT. I'm looking forward to going a little bit crazy being a full time stay at home mom with June, and then trying to play student and mom when we both start school this fall.

Having a baby when you and your husband are both students is tricky - his grades are more important than mine (sorry, it's true) so I want to make sure he can do all the studying he needs to be successful in his classes. I'm really hoping these next 6 months fly by and that June stays a happy, sweet baby who likes to snuggle her mom and sleep in class ;)

PS. This jumper is sized 6 months... Nooooooooooooooo. My baby is growing up! Today I collected a whole trash bag full of the clothes she's already grown out of and it makes me so sad. She's still so tiny to me, but I know she's SO much bigger than she was before. Time is weird - I wanted it to speed up and get me out of the newborn stage, but I also want it to slow down!

Swimming with Monica and Ammon

I have been trying to get together with Monica and Celeste for a few weeks now, and we all finally made it happen! Ammon's parents are headed on a mission so Monica and Ammon are able to live at their house which means SWIMMING! Monica and I set a date for all of us to go swimming together and it was so fun to see June and Celeste interact with each other and be all cute in swimsuits. I can't wait until June can move around a little more and start to play with us like Celeste!

Monica and I get along really well because we agree on pretty much everything regarding parenting and birth. Usually we only see each other at big family functions when we're trying to converse with each other AND everyone else so it was nice to spend some one on one time together hahaha. It was also fun for Ammon and Jake to get to know each other a little better.

June fell asleep as I stood in the shade of the umbrella. She hasn't fallen asleep without nursing with me in a few weeks so it was really sweet to just rock back and forth with her and then get to sit down and cuddle her on the pool chair. She slept for about an hour while Celeste watched a show, Monica and I chatted in the sun, and Jake and Ammon did some tricks into the pool.

We all eventually got hungry and decided to go to Cubby's for lunch. Every time I go there, it's mainly for the fries so I got chicken poblano soup and then two types of fries. I should probably branch out and get a sandwich or burger from there, but the fries are too good to pass up! Especially with the fry sauce. We sat outside for probably another hour and a half. Celeste had her parents take her to the bathroom 4 times which was hilarious, while June had a dirty diaper and we changed her right there on the table.

Saturdays are nice when we all get to spend the day together. I know one day soon, Saturdays will be filled with just me and June while Jake studies so I'm really soaking it up!

In the evening, we went to Babies R Us to check if they had anything really good on sale (they didn't except sunscreen and Honest diapers). Then we picked up a to go order of skillet queso and flatbread pizza from Chili's and watched Miracle together while June was an angel baby and went right to sleep.

I love our life together!

Chunky arms and tank tops :)

The best time of the day is when June is waking up, eats, and then is ready to play! She stays happy for about an hour and then she's ready to take another nap but the hour that she's awake is the best! We generally fill that time by changing her diaper, getting dressed, then going in the living room to play. She'll lay on her mat for a while and stare at the toys, and lately she's started to push them around which is super cute to watch. She doesn't quite giggle yet, but she makes some squeaky noises and babbles and smiles a TON. 

Today she looked especially cute! We went over to the Mauldins where Jake was finishing building some stuff for his research project and Peyton came out to hang with her - took her on the swing, got a ride on the lawn mower (haha). It was so cute! And then I could tell she was getting kind of done with it and I put her in the wrap and she instantly fell asleep. She's the sweetest!!! And the cutest!!