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Monday, February 22, 2010

Birthday Pictures

So when Dainen woke up this morning, Ryan and I went to get him from his crib and we sang the Happy Birthday song as we did so. As soon as we started singing, Dainen got this huge, ear to ear grin on his face and started jumping up and down in his crib. We got him out and were still singing when he started clapping and saying, "Yay! Yay!" It was so cute and so fun to see him excited about his birthday. We're not sure he really understands what was going on today, but he was getting everyone's attention and people were singing to him all day long, so he wasn't complaining. :) It was a good day.

Here are some pictures from Dainen's birthday:

This first one is Dianen talking on the phone with his cousins, Kali and Maci. They were singing Happy Birthday, hence the big huge smile.

Brad and Mallory gave Dainen an M&M dispenser.

Dainen loves Grandpa Gardner, affectionately called "Papa".

Daddy helped him blow out his candles. They were shaped in a "2".

Grandma and Grandpa Juchau sent Dainen some balloons with a card.


Thank you everyone for making this such a great day for him! He had so much fun and is so excited to be two!! We love you all!

All grown up

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DAINEN! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DAINEN! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DAINEN! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DAINEN!
I can't believe my baby is two years old today!! He is getting so big! I love him so much and can't wait to see what this next year brings!

Happy birthday little man!

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Valentine's Day Weekend

For Valentine’s Day weekend, Ryan, his brother Jordan, his cousin David, Dainen, and I went to Albuquerque, New Mexico to visit Ryan’s family. We had a fun and… interesting time, filled with moments we aren’t likely to ever forget. ;)

Memory 1: Going to church with Ryan’s grandparents. We were looking forward to spending quality time with them one on one, and then we would go to their house afterwards. Good plan in theory, choppy in the execution. We got to the building, were about halfway through the first hour, the first speaker was up giving her talk, and I see Dainen sitting on Ryan’s lap puking his little guts out… all over Ryan, his phone, the pew, and the chapel floor. I grab him to take him to the bathroom and he proceeds to puke all over me. I won’t gross you out with more details, but needless to say, we didn’t stay long. We cleaned up the mess after everyone left the chapel and went back to Ryan’s cousin’s house. Happy Valentine’s Day to us!!

Memory 2: Having a relaxing dinner with the family at Dan and Lindsey’s house. It had been crazy and they wanted us to just relax and enjoy a good meal. Who knew we’d get a water show spectacular to go with it? After dinner we were all sitting around talking, watching the Olympics, when water started POURING from the recessed lights in their kitchen. Come to find out, pretty quickly I might add, the upstairs bathroom toilet had flooded and the water had drained into the floor vent that goes between the two stories and the only place it had to escape was through the lights. Alex, Dan and Lindsey’s oldest son, was ecstatic to have a waterfall in his kitchen and thought it was so cool! Lol. (As it turns out, it seems the damage wasn’t as bad as it looked and won’t be too bad to repair. YAY!)

Memory 3: Driving home, sitting behind the wheel, looking in the rearview mirror and seeing Dainen choking on a mouthful of peanuts. Dainen has this weird tendency to not swallow carrots and peanuts once he has chewed them. He always asks for them and wants to eat them, but he will not swallow them. Instead he usually ends up keeping them stored in his mouth for awhile and then spitting them out in my hand. Well, because I was driving and Ryan was in the passenger seat, we had no way of knowing that he was eating peanuts and not swallowing them. Ryan’s brother and cousin had no way of knowing about Dainen’s weird tendency, so he just got more and more peanuts. All it took was one cough and suddenly he was choking on peanuts. With one hand on the wheel, I reached my other hand back, shoved it in his mouth and scraped out all the peanuts I could, until Ryan realized what was going on and took over so I wouldn’t crash. (Wait until you’re a Mom, and then you’ll understand my priorities.) It took some coaxing, but they were finally able to get Dainen to spit out all the remaining peanuts and he was ok.

Despite all of these wonderful memories, we really did have a good time. Lol! :) Ryan and I got to spend a night out just the two of us, which doesn’t happen very often anymore. We got to spend a lot of time with family that we haven’t seen in a long time. We got to go to the aquarium, and Ryan got to snowboard with his cousins. It was a great trip and we had a lot of fun!!

(I tried to post pictures and videos, but for some reason, my computer is having a hard time doing it. So….pictures and videos to come. Sorry!)

Monday, February 8, 2010

Resolution

So I have to say I'm probably one of the worst bloggers on the net. And it makes me sad that I haven't chronicled any of our doings this past year. SO! With a renewed sense of... something, I have decided to give it another go. :)
This past year has been really great! We stayed home, here in Utah, for the summer. YAY no summer sales! Ryan took classes, shadowed doctors, and did research for one of his professors. He also took the MCAT, and did really well. We bought a new car, a Honda FIT, that we absolutely LOVE!! Ryan applied to Medical schools and D.O. schools (Doctor of Osteopathy), and we recently found out, after interviewing, that he was accepted to Touro University in Vallejo, CA. It is a DO school that also offers a dual degree program, so he can get a Masters in Public Health along with his Doctor of Osteopathy. He still has an interview scheduled with a school in Arizona, so we haven't made any final decisions, but we are really really excited about this school and the possibility of living so close to my family. Not to mention that it is just an awesome school with a great program!
Dainen is now almost TWO years old!! He loves to jump around the house, literally, and climb and jump off of things. It scares his mommy to death, but he has a lot of fun. His favorite game to play is tackling daddy. He runs as fast as he can across the living room and tackles Ryan at full force. He doesn't even slow down. He loves wrestling and playing with his daddy. He also loves movies, talking on the phone, and playing on the computer. He isn't quite talking in complete sentences, but he is trying. I understand about 90% of what he says, and the rest he makes up. We have a lot of fun playing together.
I am currently just a stay at home mom, and loving it. I have been working on a lot of projects around the house. Recovering the couch, making curtains for the kitchen (thank you Mallory for your sewing machine), decorating Dainen's room with vinyl lettering (thank you Lesley for your Cricut), rearranging the furniture in the living room, getting rid of old furniture and replacing it with new stuff, going through closets and getting rid of old clothes, organizing and cleaning... etc etc. Have you ever gone through a "nesting stage" when you weren't actually pregnant?? Weird. But it feels really good to be getting things in order.
So that's pretty much what has been going on with us lately. I'll update again soon.... I promise!! With pictures. :)