Mother's Day

This mother's day was a lot of fun! Connor is at the stage where he is beginning to learn how to express his love, he was able to give me kisses and hugs.  We started the day out right by going to church.  It was so special to hear the primary kids sing (it feels like it has been forever since the last two yrs we were in a student married ward).  Connor was in desperate need of a nap so we left church early and put him to sleep.  It was nice because Adam and I also fit in a nap too.  My parents had invited over the Jones family so that we could see Adam's mom.  Both of my grandma's came over for dinner (and of course so did grandpa). The guys were in charge of making dinner, and they went all out.  Dad made a ton of food (BBQ chicken, pasta salad, spinach, Broccoli and cheese, etc) and the Jones brought lots of desserts (dad also made chocolate cheesecake) YUM! It was nice getting to spend the day visiting and eating good food with family.  After everyone left we walked over to my Grandma's for cake.  Aunt Sue bought cake for everyone, she also got me and my mom a hanging flower plant, which is really pretty!  I got a gift card, phase 10 masters and perfume from my in-laws.  Adam and i didn't exchange gifts since we are currently still looking for a job but he gave me the day off from changing Connor's diapers!

The day reminded me how lucky I am to be a mother and to be blessed with my little Connor and all the hardships, experiences and pure joy of motherhood.  I am grateful to have my wonderful mom, an awesome MIL and two great grandmas!

Easter 2011

This is a really late post about our Easter.  We spent the day with Adam's family.  They celebrate Easter on Sat night.  The night before Easter Adam and I hid candy filled eggs for his siblings and Connor to find.  We found some pretty good spots that they needed help finding them all. Connor had a lot of fun just shaking  his eggs together and listening to the sounds they made.  It was such a great surprise for him when he realized that they were filled with candy. His mom and dad then brought all the baskets down, Connor loved his and got a singing mickey mouse. On Easter morning we went to church, had a huge dinner and then spent the evening hanging around watching movies and playing games as a family.

Here are pictures from Adam's house:

We celebrated Easter a week late with my family.  It was actually really nice because I was able to spend the day with my older siblings.  Shawn and his family came over Sat night and we had dinner and desserts.  It was good to spend time with him.  The next day my sister Athena and her 3 kids came over for an Easter dinner. It was nice to get to have another Easter dinner with all the yummy foods.  It was neat because this was the first time that I was able to meet her 4 month old Declan. All of the kids had a ton of fun visiting together.  After they left we did an egg hunt in our living room and the kids came in one by one looking for there eggs. We hid the eggs with my dad.  Adam found a couple of good spots that stumped the older kids.  Connor got a ton of summer outfits :)

Here are the pics form Easter with my family:

Groupon

One of the things that we have discovered while we are in Ohio is Groupon.  This is such an amazing site that shows you deals and discounts for your local area! Here is an example of how awesome it is.. There is a mini golf place by my house and usually a game of mini golf is 6.50, each token for the batting cage is 1.00 (so 7.00 for 7 tokens) and to ride the goat carts it costs 4.50 per ride which all together equals 18.00.  Since we bought a deal on Groupon we got all of that for 10.00 so a date night would cost 20.00. Wrong, they give you random 10.00 off coupons just for using there site!! We paid 10.00 for the two of us to do all of the above!!

Needless to say, tonight is going to be a really fun date night for us and it is wonderful knowing we paid 1/4 of the price! Add that to free babysitting by my mom and free dinner thanks to a gift card from my MIL it equals an amazing night filled with amazing deals!! :)

still waiting..

We have been in Ohio for  a little over a month now and haven't had much luck finding a job.  It is such a hard time to look with the economy in such a crummy state. I know that there is not much Adam can do because he applies for every job that he can, in every state that he can, and whenever he can.  A lot of the jobs that we thought might have worked out didn't. The 4-5 jobs he applied to in Idaho all decided to hire internally (which sucked because he scored in the top 25) and then he flew out to Wy  two weeks after being here and they went with someone who had more experience.  Since then he has applied to jobs in West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and has even considered doing police work instead of probation or parole.  He applied to two jobs in Ohio for police but that process takes months. He has the police civil service test this coming week for one and the other in June, then he has the physical agility test at the end of June, then the interviewing and so on... If this is the route he is suppose to go he wouldn't start till Aug or Sept.  However, he did have a phone interview with Montana probation today and he'll find out tomo if they want him to fly out for an interview June 7th.  Hopefully if that is the case they will let him do a "Skype" interview because flights are like 600 and then when you add in the car and hotel it is a ton of money! Especially when we have no income.

Adam has also been trying to get a job to hold us over until he can start a "career" with his degree. He is trying to get ahold of the place he worked before we got married but the HR lady is a pain in the butt to get ahold of, she never answers the phone, doesn't return phone calls and the best part is we know she is sitting in her office! He had an interview to do security but that is going to take a lot of gas money and that isn't exactly cheap now and it isn't the best paying job.  A guy in his ward wants to meet up with him next Thurs to see about helping him get a job so we'll see how that works. 

The first few weeks that we have lived with family was fun.  We were able to hang out with everyone and visit.  Now that we don't know how long it is going to last it is getting old.  How long can you keep your sanity while living out of one suitcase?? It is driving me nuts not having all of my stuff with me (everything but two suitcases are in storage at my grandma's)! It is also a huge adjustment going from living on your own with just our little family to living back at his house or my house.  But I am truly grateful that we have a place that we are able to live and that our families are so willing to have us stay with them it really is a huge blessing. Without it we would be so screwed.

Basically I know that we need to just be patient and that the Lord will take care of us if we are doing everything we can can to get a job.  Trust me though it is easier said than done.

Cleaning!

This week has been intense with all the packing and cleaning! Thankfully Connor is a great helper! He loved putting things into the boxes. We were packing up all of our clothes and shoes in our bedroom and he ran to the living room and brought back his wipes to put in the box :) It was cute because I guess he wanted to make sure we remembered his things too!

We are very grateful for my sisters and their willingness to watch Connor for us to clean. Yesterday we were able to knock out all the major appliances in the kitchen! Connor had a blast playing with Jess and Ash! They got the cutest pic of him playing and laughing so hard he almost fell over! It will be sad not having them live so close! We took then out to dinner last night as a small way to show how grateful they are to always babysit for us :)

This is just a picture of our very messy apartment. It is driving me crazy but tomorrow we will be able to load up the truck and then do the last minute (light, compared to the kitchen) cleaning left!

 found some yummy crackers to snack on while we were packing (and made a lovely mess)

 Sleeping in his pack and play since the crib was taken apart..

Conference Weekend

This conference I was so excited because my parents were able to get us tickets to go to the Sunday afternoon session! It was the first time that I would go and was so to speak my last chance at going since we are leaving the west.  Adam had to work in the morning on Sat so we headed down to Utah early that morning. Connor was a perfect angel the entire time! He had lots of fun playing with Ash and Jess in the car.  Every time they would start to fall asleep he would wake them up by hitting them with a stuffed animal, trying to push them off his car seat, tickling them, or his favorite thing to do to Jess was throw all the food he didn't want on her lap.  Towards the end of the drive he was playing peek-a-boo with me using his blanket to hid from me (I was in the front).  We stayed the weekend with Adam's cousins that live in West Jordan.  They got a new puppy, a German Shepard, that is HUGE.  Connor was pretty scared at first and every time the dog would bark he would cry and run for some one to hold him.  Then he took a few lessons from Karleia and every time the dog came by him Connor would growl at it and it would back away scared.  It was pretty hard to listen to the 2nd session on Sat because Connor was getting into everything, but at least we have technology to listen to it later :)

It was a slow moving afternoon and the boys were playing video games which isn't exactly interesting to watch so my sisters and I took Connor to the park to play.  He had a blast! He loved going down the slide and digging in the mulch.  Usually he is very fussy and whinny around Karleia but she was his BFF that day.  He thought she was hilarious and would crack up laughing so hard he would fall over while playing with her. It was cute and I got a great picture of the 2 of them (something that we don't have many of since he is temperamental).  It got could pretty early so we headed back in. Connor went down for a nap and us girls headed to do some shopping.  I wasn't very impressed with TJ Max or Old Navy.  We went to dinner at Texas Road House and my food was amazing! I had the best mushrooms on my sandwich. It was nice because Connor loves hanging out with Rusty (Adam's cousin) that he sat on his lap through dinner and had a blast picking food off his plate and helping himself.  We discovered that Connor loves salad and pickles. He actually ate the entire pickle!

Sunday morning Adam and I were up at 7 thanks to our little munchkin.  He was playful and every time Adam tried to go back to  sleep Connor would climb on him.  He went into the family room where the girls were sleeping and took Jess's phone. It was pretty funny watching her look for it when she finally woke up. We listened to the morning session because the satellite wasn't working since we woke up to a huge snow storm in April! We left pretty quickly after the first session to head to SLC.  The traffic wasn't that bad at all and we had plenty of time to get to the Conference Center.  We had AMAZING seats! We were right in the middle on the plaza level (which is the first floor) and we were only 4 rows back from the restricted area! It was a great experience to listen to the session and to be in the same room of our great church leaders. The Spirit was so strong, and I was so uplifted and touched by the talks.  I love Conference and the blessing it is to hear the Latter day Prophet of the world and his Apostles lead and guide me to better my life, my family, strengthen my testimony and grow closer to my Savior and Heavenly Father.

We went back to West Jordan and had a family dinner. It was nice that we were able to leave Connor with them and that he had fun playing.  We took a few pictures and hit the road for the long drive back to Rexburg.  Connor was fussy a little on the way home. We had to pull off so that I could switch Ash seats about 2 hours into the trip. It just melts my heart to know that he just wanted to sit by his mommy and that after a few mins of sitting in the back he went from crying hysterically to laughing.  The last 40 mins was rough and he did finally fall asleep 10 mins from home. Ha, go figure.