Moving To Grangeville

Well we are moving again.  Jay still has his same job, we are just moving to the bigger city nearby which is where Jay works out of.  We found a house that will work well for us.  It is close to downtown, the park and the pool.  Has a big garden area and fenced yard for the dogs.  Also we are excited b/c it has a wood stove to heat the house (free heat :)  We are super excited to get there, but now life just got real busy real fast.  We move at the end of the month so we have started packing up.  Jack is happy to be closer to kids his age since everyone on our street now is retired.  

Jay has been catching big steelhead and enjoying do so.  He went out on my friend's boat a couple weeks ago and had some fun and luck.  We had some nice sunny days that were spent on the river, but now we are back to yucky rain/snow.  Jay and Jack have started a new tradition of going out to a greasy spoon for breakfast every Saturday.  They have done it for a few weeks and really like spending the one on one together and I get to have a little solitude.   I am running in a 5K on Saturday.  This is very exciting for me b/c I haven't run a race in years and this was one of my New Year's goals.   My sister is doing it with me so we should have a lot fun.  I am going to start training for a 10K after this weekend.  Jack is just as spirited as ever.  He has been pushing through a few more teeth which has made the last week or two a little difficult for all of us (I say this through clenched teeth....just kidding:)  Not sleeping well Jack=whiny, crying, needy little boy.  I know it is just a phase and hopefully he will be feeling better soon.  Off to some packing.

XOXO

Emily

                                                                      Helping Mama Bake Bread

Good Bye Winter, Hello March!....that's my hope at least

As you can tell from the title, I am very happy to wave goodbye to February.  I have never had a good relationship with that month.  It always seems like it is a cold, windy, gray month and I am always very excited when March 1st comes b/c that means Spring is just around the corner (I hope).

We were blessed with 1 nice afternoon of warm sunny weather last week.  We took advantage of that and headed down to the river.  Jay fished and I walked around with Jack on my back then he got out to play in the water.  That lovely afternoon gave us a taste of what is to come.  

Jay had a couple friends come over to see him last weekend.  They are super fun/nice guys and we had a great time hanging out.  Jay got to have some guy time, they fished all weekend and had lots of laughs and fun.  

                                                              jay fishing in the background

Jack Jack is doing great.  I was reading to him the other night and he was drifting off into dreamland so I shut the light off and just rocked him for a second.  I quickly heard soft snores coming from his exhausted body.  I normally don't rock him to sleep anymore, but I do miss it at times.  I sat in the dark rocking him and looking at his little boy body (not baby) cuddled into me with his messy mop of curly hair and I was in heaven.   Because of all of his blossoming independence, I love moments like that.  He has started to like to kiss a lot.  He kisses his friends, the dogs, the cat, Jay, but not his momma!  I don't know why, but I have to say, I am slightly jealous :)  It is a really funny kiss b/c he walks up to a dog or cat smacking his lips, then with an open mouth, he leans down and "kisses" them, a little gross, but funny.   When he is doing something he isn't supposed to be doing he shakes his head and says "no no no" all while doing whatever the not allowed behavior is.  Yesterday we got a little dusting of snow so after our run we went sledding.  The cat jumped on the sled with Jack and sled all over the yard with him.  He loved it.  And it made for some cute pictures.  

Happy March 1st!!!

Emily

Happy Valentine's Day XOXO

  Jay has been fishing a lot.  We went to the river as a family a few weeks ago.  It was a fun preview to what this summer will be like.  Jack loves the water.  He thinks the sticks and rocks and sand and river are all very fun things to play with.  The river could entertain him for hours!  We had a nice Valentine's day.  I made beef wellington for supper and red velvet whoopie pies for dessert.  They were actually yellow velvet b/c I was out of red food coloring, but had plenty of yellow.  We just had dinner and listened to music with a glass of wine.  Jay brought me some gorgeous flowers.  He has always been good in the flower giving department (I love fresh flowers).  He is good and wonderful in so many ways and I love him very much.  I am very lucky to have the greatest husband in the world. 

                                                            Jack's Valentine to his daddy

                                                                 Love Him :)

I went to Las Vegas last weekend with 4 girlfriends who I have been close with for over 20 years.  We stayed at the beautiful Palazzo and had an amazing suite.  We had lots of fun girl time eating fancy dinners, gambling, champagne brunch, bars, and spa time.  I think my favorite part was the few hours I spent in the spa Saturday morning getting a massage and using all of their spa treatment rooms (steam, sauna, herbal steam room, rain forest showers, etc).  I love being pampered so this made for a very happy Emily.  Unfortunately Kooskia isn't known for it's day spas :) I am headed out of town again this weekend to go work in my old lab for a few days.  Jay had a lot of fun having "boy's weekend" last weekend and is looking forward to another one.  They stay in pajamas all day, wrestle, eat junk food, make lots of messes, you know, boy fun. 

Jack is happy as ever.  He lifts his shirt up and says "belly" while pointing to his belly then he lifts your shirt up and says the same.  Hopefully he doesn't surprise me and do it in public.  He has added an adorable wolf howl to his list of animal sounds.  I have also trained him that when I say "what's a jack jack say?"  he says "mama mama".  Sick I know:)  He is obsessed with reading.  He brings book after book after book to me and sits on my lap for me to read to him.  I swear we read 50 books a day.  He has been doing lots of finger painting lately.  He has also been enjoying playing with his sensory table a lot.  Climbing has also topped his hobby list lately, he has a couple play/climbing structures that we push together and like an obstacle course, he races from one end to the other.  Fun fun times at the Hedrick house.  

XOXOXO-Em

                                                        playing at sensory table

Every 2 Weeks Baby!!!

                                                               That was a smile... I think

I am floored that I have kept up my resolution to Blog every 2 weeks for 1 whole month!  I think having my resolutions posted on the fridge keeps me in check.  Jay celebrated his 34th b-day this weekend.  We had a good day relaxing and I made all the bday food he requested, ham biscuits for breakfast, meatloaf and homemade mac and cheese for dinner, followed by lemon chess pie.  He got some new fishing stuff which he tried out on Sunday.  He also was "off" Jack duty, meaning he didn't have to change any diapers.  He missed out on some good ones. 

                              He is wearing a Purdue sweatsuit that I got my  cousin Blake when he was a baby.

                                             snow storm in Missoula, there is a car somewhere under there

I am getting very stoked for February 10th.  I am heading to Las Vegas, baby and husband free, to meet 4 awesome friends that I have known for 20ish years.  We are staying at the Palazzo (new tower connected to the Venetian) and we are planning on having a weekend filled to the brim with FUN.  I took Jack to Missoula a few weeks ago.  I did a few experiments in the lab I used to work in.  My sister watched Jack all week while I worked.  It was great being back in the lab and doing science again.  The stuff I did was a success which is even better.  Kiley learned that watching a toddler for 5 days is a great form of birth control.  She had a lot of fun with him, but was amazed at how busy of a job watching him is.  We also got a GIANT snow storm while we were there, like 2 feet of snow over 2 days.  It was crazy.  We eventually made it home to Jay, just a few days later than planned. 

                                                Idaho Highway on the drive home

Jack has been a little sassy this past week.  He yells at you if you do something to him that he doesn't like (wipe his face off, take something from him).   One thing driving me bananas is that he started dipping his hand into the dog's bowl of water and sipping the water.  It is SO gross.  We have started leaving the water out of his reach while he is awake.  You can ask him what basically any animal says and he will make the sounds (don't even have to show a picture of the animal).  The snorting like a pig and gobbling like a turkey are 2 of my favorites.  When we had snow we did lots of sledding.  It was so much fun for me and brought me back to my childhood to jump on the back of his sled with him and fly down the hill.  He is getting pretty big, wearing size 18 month clothes and he just went up to size 5 diapers.  He is starting to like carrying around fuzzy blankets.  He also has been helping me feed the dogs.  He scoops their food out and dumps      it     into their bowls and is VERY proud of himself.  We are basically down to 1 nap a day for 2-2.5 hours.   He still loves making messes everywhere he goes.  Today we read many books, played with stickers, drew with crayons, and now I think he is waking up from his nap so we will head outside to take a walk and play.  He keeps me very busy and oh my is he precious!

                                                        LOVES reading!

                                                     

                 Head to toe camo-He his thinking about joining an Idaho Militia group :)

XOXO-Emily

Happy 15 Months Mr. Jack

So one of my resolutions this year is to blog twice a month.  This is not because there will be anything insanely neat going on in our lives every 2 weeks, but because this is now my "baby book" for Jack and any future kids.  I was very good about filling out his real baby book during his first year on earth, but now the only pages left in the book are for 2 years, 3, 4 and so on. What about 15 months?  16 months?  17.5 months?  He does so many interesting, cute, new things that I need to record and want to remember.  This is why I am wanting to blog every other week, so I can have all the silly adorable things that go on in our life recorded for me and Jay to someday look back at and reminisce (not that y'all will think any of it is halfway as awesome as we do!).  This year I put my resolutions on paper and they now live on the fridge for me to look at every day.  This seems to be working for me.  I have started doing Yoga most days of the week and I am officially obsessed.  I do not feel normal and good until it is done.  I feel a lot happier and peaceful about life since starting Yoga.  Another thing I have started doing is baking homemade wheat bread.  We go through a lot of bread in our house, Jay eats like 6-8 pieces a day and Jack eats a lot of it too.  I figured it would be healthier and cheaper if I started making it.  The guys love it, it is really good bread, and I find that I really enjoy making it for them. 

 

Jack got his first bloody nose the other day.  I heard a "THWACK" in the hallway (tile floors) and long pause then a giant scream.  I ran in and he was face down, he tripped and his nose broke his fall.  Poor little baby.  I cuddle and distracted him and got the bleeding stopped pretty quickly.  I am sure it is the 1st of many bloody noses he will see.  My little fellow turns 15 months tomorrow.  I can not believe it.  He has added BaaBaa to his words when he sees a sheep, he says "up" to go upstairs or to open his toy box.  He says a word that sounds a little like Giraffe when he sees a giraffe.  "Hut" is Huck and he says "Mar Mar" for Marshall.  He likes to point and touch me and say mama and touches Jay and says dada.  Then we say Jack Jack and point to him.  He says Jack when he sees a picture of himself, it sounds more like "Dack".  We will ask him where "Jack's chair is?" and he runs over and jumps on his chair.  Jay thinks it is funny/cute to try and get him to say hard words like elephant and Thompson.  We have had such sunny, nice weather and have been spending hours outside every day.  We got a snow dusting    last week, so we have been sledding a lot in the yard and Jack loves it, even if some of the ride is on grass.  Jack and I went and had tea and snacks at a neighbor's house with all the retired woman that live on our street.  It was very fun and they got a big kick out Jack.  He was into EVERYTHING, but they didn't mind.  We got together with a friend last week and her 2 boys and went to the park in Grangeville.  It was fun and Jack really enjoyed playing with the other kids.

Jay went to Eugene, Oregon for a few days this week for a logging conference for work.  It was a 10 hour drive, but very pretty.  He said Eugene was a great town and it is only 1.5 hours from coast.  He learned a lot at the conference too.  Jay is taking Jack to a retirement party for one of his coworkers this afternoon.  I think I am going to stay here to have a little alone time, because I am rarely alone.  I made my wonderful mother in law's famous Mac and Cheese for Jay to take to the party,  I bet he will claim he made it :)  

XOXO

                                                                                                       Christmas Morning

                                 

Blog Blitz

I am playing major blog catch up now that the holiday season is over so here goes.

Travels

We traveled in November a lot.  Jack and I went back to Indiana to visit my family at the beginning of the month.  We had such a great time.  My parents took over all things Jack (which is fine for me to have a break :)  My Gaga and the Smith family (my aunt, uncle and cousins) came over for a visit which was so nice for them to travel over to see us.  Cousins Maddy and Blake are so good at playing with Jack and taking care of him.  I am trying to convince their mother to let them drop out of school and come nanny for me.  I don't think she is going to allow that unfortunately.  The trip was lovely and we all loved spending time together.  The airplane rides on the way there were good.  Jack was a delight.  On the way home, not so much, not totally his fault though.  He is very active now so he though it was pretty funny to touch the men sitting next to us.  At one point he sneezed right on our neighbor's hand.  I felt awful. Then we had plane problems which lead us to miss our flight in Salt Lake so we were going to have to either spend 9 hours in the Salt Lake airport and drive 2 hours home very late or stay the night in Salt Lake.  9 hours caring for Jack by myself in an airport sounded like a nightmare so I eventually chose the 2nd option, hotel.  The hotel was gross.  They brought a crib in the room that looked like something you would torture someone with, metal rickety and it had a reddish brown mystery goo all over it (I am thinking blood or poo from the last lucky baby to sleep in it).  Needless to say, Jack didn't sleep in it.  He "slept" and I say "slept" very very loosely with me.  It was a very long night/2 days for both of us, but we eventually made it home.  Thank God.   We have gone back to Missoula a couple times which have been great trips.  I love going back there to visit so much.

For Thanksgiving we traveled as a family (makes air travel with a 1 year old way more tolerable with a spouse) to North Carolina.  Jack was very well behaved on all the flights.  We stayed in a beautiful house on the beach in the Outer Banks.  Watching the sunrise out of the ocean every morning was pretty special, along with the dolphins jumping right in front of our house.  We hot tubbed, relaxed, played, and enjoyed spending time with Jay's awesome family.  Grandaddy and Grandma took Jack from us a few nights so we got to have a much appreciated break, this allowed us to hang out with all the cousins.  It was a holiday full of wonderful food and wonderful people!

Christmas

December was filled with holiday joy in the Hedrick household.  I love love love Christmas and having a child makes it that much more special.  We started by cutting down our Christmas tree and getting it decorated.  There is nothing better to me than listening to Christmas music, having a few Winter Ales and decorating the Christmas tree with my awesome family.  We had a lot of fun, all December long.  My family came out for Christmas and we loved having them.  It was a weekend of Christmas music, bon fires, food, and hanging out.  We really had a great Christmas.  Jack enjoyed opening all the presents and playing with his new toys and the wrapping paper and bows of course.  He also really liked Christmas cookies.  He would yell at you if you were eating one and he didn't have one.  I feel like having a child is allowing me to relive all the Christmas fantasies I believed in and loved when I was young.

                                             Jay teaching Jack about chainsaws

 Jack Update

Jack is quite the little fellow.  He is walking everywhere.  Around the 14 month mark he just took off and hasn't stopped since.  He is saying mama, dada, apple, banana, hot, oof off (dog barking), open mouthed cat like hiss/growl when he sees a picture of a lion, mooooooo when he sees a cow, and a few other things.  He chats constantly.  He is 24 pounds.  His new food that he loves is peanut butter oatmeal.  He is pretty much a vegetarian (by his choice) so I was glad to find out he likes peanut butter.  He likes pancakes, especially ones with chocolate chips and bananas in them, fruit, yogurt, bread, applesauce, and milk.  He is basically off the bottle now.  I am having a hard time giving up the morning bottle b/c that is my favorite time of the day when we sit in the dark after he wakes up and he drink his warm milk and I drink my coffee.   It is called warm snuggle and I love it.  He doesn't sit still very well with out a bottle so I know this special time is coming to an end.  Jack loves to "read", he flips through books a lot through out the day.  He loves romping outside and playing in the mud and rocks.  He can do this for hours and gets very mad at me when I take him inside.  He has started the fun toddler stage.  He yells and throw little fits if you take something from him that he likes.  He is a tornado and makes messes all day long.  We do lots of art work, he is quite the Picasso.  I am so happy I get to spend this precious time with him, watching him grown before my eyes.  It is incredible how much love I have for this child.  Jay and I are so blessed by having him in our lives, and each other of course.  Jay's job is still going well.  Learning so much.  His weekends are spent playing with Jack, last weekend they went sledding, built forts, and made a puppet show stage so Jay could perform a puppet show for him :)  Best dad ever. 

                                                        Finger painting/eating finger paint

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year, Cheers to 2012!

Emily

                                                          pretty winter sunset

BOOOOOOO!!!!

Happy Halloween!  We have had a busy few weeks.  My friend Anne and her daughter Dotty came over for a visit a few weeks ago.  Dotty and Jack love each other, they are a month different in age and went to the same school in Missoula, so they spent a lot of time playing together.  We miss them a lot.  We had fun doing some crafts with the babies and we went to some hot springs about an hour from the house.  You have to hike in about 1.5 miles and there are some beautiful hot springs in the middle of nowhere.  The babies loved it, kind of like a big hot bathtub outside.

Jack hit a big milestone on October 15th, he turned 1!   He was sick with a pretty high fever so he didn't enjoy the day too much, but he did like opening presents and eating cake.  He is now waving, at everybody, including dogs, horses, everybody.  He points at everything.  He took his 1st 2 steps the day before his birthday, but since then he mostly monkeys around on all fours.  He shakes his head "no" which is actually pretty cute.  We spend our days together taking lots of walks and wagon rides, feeding the horses behind our house apples, baking, playing, crafting, reading, and exploring.  Our days are very full.  He loves feeding the dogs his food and taking things out of cabinets. 

Last weekend Jack and I went to Missoula for a few days.  It was wonderful to be back, I miss it dearly.  We stayed at Kiley's and had a fabulous time.  Some of his teachers from his old school came over for dinner one night, along with some friends.  He got his year old pictures taken and had his year old doctor appointment.  It is very hard for me to believe a year has passed since he came into out lives.  I know it is cliche sounding, but my gosh his first year went by quickly (too quickly for me).  Jack was a monkey for Halloween (celebrated in Missoula).  In my opinion he was a pretty darn cute monkey. 

Jay is really enjoying his job.  It was a good change for him.  He has been fishing a couple times too.  His favorite hobby at the moment is playing with Jack.

Hope everyone has a SPOOKTACULAR Halloween! (I know I am not funny:)

Emily