Wesley's Blessing Day

Wesley was blessed on super bowl Sunday!! With June, we decided to have a blessing at home (at the farm) because it's more close-knit and less nerve-wracking for me. It's hard trying to figure out a good time when the baby is going to be sleeping and then do it . . . but at home, we can do it whenever the baby is ready! With both babies so far, it's worked out perfectly! Wesley slept so well during it. Personally, babies not crying helps me feel the spirit a little bit more ha.

Since I'm writing this way after the fact, I thought I'd share a sweet story about Wesley and Pops. Pops was holding baby boy in church on the same Sunday, fast Sunday, and after he gave Wesley back to me, he went up to the stand to bear his testimony. I don't remember exactly what he said but it was to the effect of Wesley is really blessed to have so many people who love him, especially men that have continued to follow the gospel as they have gotten older. If he's ever in need of guidance or encouragement, he has so many amazing men to look up to. It's hard to imagine Wesley, or any of my children, ever straying away from the gospel or our family. It made me think, what can I do better to help my children want to stay with me and do good things?

Everyone came to the farm at a great time and we were able to do the blessing in a really smooth way. I had Megan take some pictures of our family beforehand and then during the blessing, Wesley slept while being rocked. I'm sure it felt like heaven. Jake gave a really sweet, genuine blessing. It's always so crazy to me how eloquent he can be in such a small amount of time. I feel like I need to prepare even for a prayer, but he can just go out there and put tears in everyone's eyes!

We really are so lucky to have an amazing family and such wonderful children. Adding Wesley to our family has rocked my world in so many ways, I'm glad that I have help everywhere I look to get me through the tricky times. We love our Wesley more than words can say - so happy he chose us!

Here are some pictures, completely unedited, from Wesley's special day!

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

Trip to Toledo!

Yesterday we left Cincinnati on our way to Toledo!! It’s a little over three hour long trip to northeast Ohio. We decided it would probably be best to leave June in Cincinnati while we went on this quick trip, especially because we would be in a place where not many others (if any of the others) brought / had children.

This is Jake’s first interview! We were SOO excited when he got the email that he was invited to come and when we chose which date we wanted to come, we chose the first date available. That was a few weeks ago and we’ve been preparing a bunch of things since. Jake’s been practicing routine questions, ethics questions, and actor / patient questions. Toledo does a series called multiple mini interviews rather than your typical, expected one-on-one or three-on-one interview, so he was preparing for all different scenarios. On top of that, we did some other little things like make sure he had a clean haircut, clean beard, dry cleaned suit, a new white shirt that fit him well (he probably hasn’t gotten a new white shirt in three years...), and he even shined his shoes!! Haha all of these are a little bit of an investment but they will last us through the whole interview process!

We stayed in a hotel right by the university and went to a little meet and greet last night. Most of the people that were in this group were seniors in college right now, so we felt a little older but in a good way. In that group, there were no other applicants that had children or were LDS! There are 20 total km each interview group and they interview until March, so I’m sure there will be families similar to ours that will come. The meet and greet went well, we all got to ask the ambassadors some questions about the school so it was really nice to learn about it some more. It does seem like a really awesome school! The only thing that’s hard is to compare to BYU that was soooo family friendly, where this place is not as family friendly. But that’s what we get coming from an amazing church and family-oriented university!

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to sit in on the presentation about the university or go on the tour, hence how I have the time to write this blog post. I should probably talk to someone about how spouses should be allowed to do those things, especially since I have a big say in whether or not we will attend here. But right now i’m just going to keep my head down and pray that everything is going well in there. . . He’s literally in the interview session as I type this!!

We are liking this school so far and it would most likely be a great choice for our family, but I’m excited to see where else he gets invited to interview at! And next time, I will be bringing our Junie to explore with us! ,

June's 1st Birthday!

We celebrated June's first birthday at the Mauldin's house!! It was complete with my favorite Magelby's chocolate cake (June having her VERY OWN to smash, of course), family, and friends! It was so fun to see her be celebrated and get a few gifts from people that love her. And she loved the cake! I'm pretty sure that cake helped urge my labor along with her so it's only right that she have it on her first birthday!

June is 16 months old as I'm writing this, and the last few months of her learning and growth have been such a blur. It's amazing watching her every day, learning something new or being willing to try something new. It's going to be even more of a blur these next few months, I'm sure, so I need to be better about writing things down now that we're in Ohio! She's so much fun to watch and her personality has TRULY made an appearance.

One funny thing she does, that I'm hoping doesn't carry along for too long, is when someone comes up to her that she doesn't like that much, she'll just do a huge screech. It gets squeakier by the day, seriously! So high pitched!

She also will pretend to share with you or someone else and right before (or after) it touches your lips, she takes it back and puts it right back in her mouth! Haha she is so sneaky and doesn't want to share! She knows what she wants and she's not afraid to show it.

She learned how to climb the ladder on the little kids' play ground in the backyard on literally her first try. I don't even have to help her, I just stand behind her in case she falls! She also tries to ride a scooter and the tricycle, hasn't succeeded yet but she will still try! She jumps in the water, goes off the diving board (occasionally), and goes down the slide. I seriously am so proud of all the things she accomplishes and attempts!

Here are some pictures from her first birthday: