The Connecticut Shooting

What a sad and tragic event. My heart hurts for all of those parents, grandparents, and family members of those lost. As a mom now I can't even imagine what those parents are going to. You shouldn't have to worry about sending your kids off to school (particularly 6 year olds) and wondering whether or not they will come home safe to you. My only hope is that they can find strength to move forward with their lives and carry on the memory of them. They will need all of the love and support that they can get.

 It is very hard for me to hear these awful things that happen in the news. Often times I don't like to read the news in detail because of this. It just makes me very depressed. Ever since I had Marcus I really am affected by all of the sadness in the world. It's not that I don't want to hear it because I don't care, or want to ignore that it is happening, it's just so much to take in. Cole knows that I feel this way and given the news about this horrible shooting over the past few days, he came to me to show me a wonderful article and said "since I know how much you would love to hear about all the happy stories right now". This photo array is beautiful, uplifting, emotional, and the better side of humanity that I like to remind myself still exists in this world.


http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/moments-that-restored-our-faith-in-humanity-this-y

Happy Thanksgiving

We have so much to be thankful for this year. Of course the very first and most important thing being our sweet baby boy Marcus. We are so blessed to have such a happy little boy in our lives. He has changed our lives for the better and we can't imagine what we would do without him.

This year we are more aware and gracious for our gainful employment. After Cole being unemployed for four months of the year, we realize how fortunate we are for my job at Saint Alphonsus. I realize how infinitely blessed I am to not only have a job, but one that I genuinely LOVE. Not only do I love what I do, but I also love the people I work with, and what my hospital stands for. As for Cole, he is thankful to have a new job and one that he really likes. It has been a while since he has had a job that he really enjoys going to and after having an interim job for a few months that he really disliked he is very grateful for the job opportunity he received.

Then there are the usual things to be thankful for. Our family of course - this year I would say the things that we focus on related to family would be my sweet Grandma Casey. She is slowly growing older each year and has been in and out of the hospital recently This reminds me of how short my time with her is, and we cherish every moment that we get to spend with her. I love being able to take Marcus over to see her and watch her eyes light up. The other person in our lives would be Cole's brother Grae. After being out of town at school for the past few years, we are so happy to have him back in Boise. Cole loves that his brother can be here to interact with Marcus and to have another buddy to have guy time with. Lastly I am thankful for my siblings Chris and Megan and the joy that they have had this year. As of now they are both in relationships and seem really happy. This brings me joy and is something that I am thankful for. As for everyone, all we really want is happiness for our family and we get peace in seeing this.

As for Thanksgiving, it was fairly uneventful. There was no family in town and we didn't go anywhere so we went over to my parents for dinner on Wednesday night to celebrate. It was nice to get together and I was finally able to meet Megan's boyfriend. The company was great and the food was delicious. Marcus LOVED both of his Thanksgiving dinners and wanted more. On Friday we celebrated with Cole's family. Since their family is a little smaller we opted to host them at our house. So I made a huge feast and somehow managed to do so with a baby at the house. I did have a little assistance from Cole's mom for a few hours. I baked marionberry pie, sweet potato pie, turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, jello, bread, and stuffing. Grae had is girlfriend come over for dinner as well. The highlight of the meal was watching Marcus sneak a lick of leftover marionberry pie off of my plate after dinner. He stuck his hand on the plate, ran his fingers across it and then stuck them in his mouth. He then proceeded to repeat and gave me a huge grin with his fingers in his mouth as I asked him what he was doing. What a cutie! Not even a year and already sneaking around for the good stuff!

I basically had an epic fail in the photo taking department as I only took one picture. I like to think that the quality of this one picture makes up for the fact that I only took one. It is a picture of Marcus and Grandma, and they both look absolutely perfect in the photo. It is one I will always cherish.

From Marcus' Blog: Adventures in Food

Your Dad and I have both discussed that one of our favorite things about being a parent right now is feeding you new foods. You have gnawed on pickles, had mashed potatoes, lentil soup, drank water out of mason jars, and much more. Here are some of your recent adventures in food that I love.

A few weeks ago Restaurant Week occurred in Boise. This is when the upper scale restaurants offer a prix fixe (fixed price) menu that consists of a 2 or 3 course meal. It is a great opportunity to try fine gourmet food for a reasonable price. We decided to go to Red Feather Lounge this year - and we took you with us! This was pretty awesome because people looked at us like "really, they are bringing a baby in here" when we arrived. However you were a complete angel (like we knew you would be) and sat in a booster seat in the booth with us while we ate. You go to eat with us. In fact, now that you are exploring table food you get quite upset if we don't offer you our food... more to come on this in a bit. So, dinner consisted of baked potato soup which you LOVED, sourdough bread, salmon, steak with squash (which you also ate) and a berry cobbler and cheesecake for dessert. You devoured the soup and squash and by the time we got to the hockey game after dinner you had entered a food coma. We laughed as you sat in my lap at the game with your hands on your belly just like an old man does after eating and you literally twiddled your thumbs until you fell asleep.

Fast forward to last night... you have had sweets before but never like this. Whole Foods opened in Boise this week and your Dad and I were VERY excited to go since we have had a love affair with this since we visited places like Vegas and went. We ended up getting many delicious foods, but the highlight was a huckleberry chantilly cake. Last night we ate it and gave you a few bites. We have never seen you so excited to have food. You were literally lunging at your Dad to give you bites of this cake as you babbled and grinned with every bite. It was very adorable. You just might be a foodie like your Mom and Dad. We have given you so many different types of food and to date there hasn't been one that you wouldn't eat. Oh, and I might have just found your first birthday cake if I can recreate it.

Then today I was eating a cookie. As I was eating it you looked at me longingly saying "are you going to share with me?" in your eyes. However this wasn't a cookie that I could safely share with you, so I finished it. As I put the last bite in my mouth you dropped your head and started to cry, very upset that I didn't share. I immediately cheered you up with a banana that we shared.

I'm sure there will be many more food experiences, and we look forward to them!

Boise State Football

Cole and I went to a home BSU game this weekend with Grae and his girlfriend and Joe. We had such a blast. Despite it being cold, we stayed warm and made many new friends. Before the game we tailgated with Grae's co-workers at their tailgating spot. Tailgating wouldn't be complete without craziness, shots, food, and portapotties! 

Then during the game we managed to seat ourselves in the North End Zorne right behind some of the Idaho Steelhead's wives. We quickly made friends with these French-Canadian girls and they took us back to their tailgating tent where the Steelhead's players were hanging out. Cole was in heaven as he got to meet a bunch of the players (many who were Dallas Stars players) and drink beers with them. I somehow even managed to revert back to my early 20s and shotgunned a beer with the player's wives. They were amazingly nice people and we were told we will get free Steelhead's tickets during the season. This remains to be seen, but regardless it was a great night! 

As for the game... well we did lose which was unfortunate. So there goes another year of potential BCS dreams (if we even had a shot). Marcus had a great time with his Nana and Grandpopper and Cole and I had a great night out just the two of us. Next year before it gets too cold, we plan on taking Marcus to his first game. There were babies there this time, we just felt since it started at 8:30 that it was a little too late for him to be out.

Happy Halloween!!

We had such a great Halloween this year. Even though it didn't involve candy or trick or treating, it was still wonderful. Marcus dressed up as two different things. Once as a monkey on Halloween night, and then when we went to a house party over the weekend he dressed as Yoda. Cole really wanted to go as a family theme so we went as Star Wars. I was Princess Leia, Cole was Han Solo, and Marcus was a sweet little Yoda. We went over to Matt and Tina's Halloween party and he was the hit of the party.

What Halloween would be complete without a pumpkin? We also let Marcus pull the guts out of a pumpkin. He quite enjoyed this, including chewing on a piece of pumpkin since he was teething.

From Marcus' Blog: A Few More Pictures From 8 Months

From Marcus' Blog: Another Visit from Your Nana P and GG

We so lucky to have your Nana Pari and Great Grandma Linda come to visit us towards the middle of October. It was just a wonderful visit. They drove down on a Thursday and then left Monday morning. We had a pretty eventful weekend!

Since they didn't get in until late on Thursday, we didn't do anything on Thursday. In fact you were asleep when they got in, but your Nana was so excited to see you that we went into your room so that she could watch your sweet face as you slept.

I took Friday off of work and we were able to spend time at home with your Nana and Great Grandma. Aunt Megan came over to visit as well. Nana, you and I went grocery shopping in the morning then we spent the day just catching up and watching you be the center of attention. Nana helped out while I made lasagna for our dinner. Dad, you and I had pictures in the afternoon so we took off for a while. (Pictures should be coming in the mail soon and I am so excited!) After pictures we all headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Miklos' house for dinner. The whole family was there including Uncle Chris and Aunt Megan.

On Saturday we took Nana to the farmer's market downtown. We spent time looking at the crafts and buying fruit to make you baby food. Afterwards we came home and Aunt Megan came over then we headed to the craft store. After a long visit at the craft store you passed out in the car as we drove home. We visited for a while longer and then headed out to dinner just you, Nana, and I at TGIFridays. It was wonderful for Nana and I to be able to catch up and visit. After we got home it was fairly late and you went to bed then I went out with Dad for the evening while Nana watched you.

Sunday was spent at home again. We watched football on Sunday, red the paper, and visited. Aunt Megan came over for pizza at dinnertime. Unfortunately Uncle Chris was sick so he didn't get a chance to come over.

Monday morning was back to the normal grind. Fortunately we were able to take Nana to your daycare when I dropped you off. So she got to see your school and she was very impressed. After we dropped you off I drove her home and we said our tear filled goodbyes before I headed off to work. It was a wonderful visit and we are hoping she will be able to come down again for your first birthday!

Your Nana got you the cute puppy dog hat in the pictures!

From Marcus' Blog: Swimming Lessons

For the first four weeks of October I put you into baby swimming lessons at the West YMCA. It was rewarding, fun, challenging, and tiring and I would do it all over again. I had my friend Lindsay join us for the lessons and she also included her sister in law and niece. It was great because it was just the three of us plus one other mom that joined halfway through the lessons.

The challenging parts were the fact that the lessons were at 6:30 which is right during your nap time in the evening (next time I will try to get you in at a different time). In addition you were usually starving once we got done, even if you had eaten a snack beforehand. On top of this you had a double ear infection one week and that complicated things further. Aside from these struggles I’m glad we did it and I will continue to take you. My goal is to try and go twice a year until you hit three and take actual swimming lessons that aren’t ‘mommy and me’ lessons.

Now the fun part… we played games like ‘Wheels on the Bus’ and the ‘Hokey Pokey.’ We practiced back floating, getting in and out of the pool, chasing after balls to get into the ‘superman’ position, and blowing bubbles/sticking your face in the water. You are a water baby for the most part. You  were happy at most of the lessons except for when you were sick and the instructor loved you and was constantly trying to coax smiles out of your handsome face. 

You Practing Your Backfloating Skills on Mommy

Superman Floating

More Teething Than Practicing Your Swimming Skills

Practicing Crawling Out of the Pool

Watching Daddy While Singing 'Humpty Dumpty'

My Swimming Graduate!

The Happenings of the Weekend

We go through ebbs and flows with our weekends and how busy they are. This weekend was pretty busy. We got to do lots of things and we had fun.

Friday night we went out to dinner with Cole's brother Grae at the Ram. Nothing terribly fancy but it was fun and it is always good to get Marcus out in a restaurant to eat. I like to believe that if we continuously take him out and get him acclimated to eating in public and having to wait while eating that he will be better behaved and used to it when he gets older. We shall see if my theory works down the road!

Saturday we went to Lexie's (Cole's friend Tony's daughter) birthday party. She turned five and so it was off to PoJo's. Cole and I haven't been there in forever so it was pretty fun. We tried the photo booth with Marcus and it was an epic fail. The pictures didn't print the first time so they gave us a refund and we tried again. The second time Marcus' head was cut off in all of them even though we had his pictures in the "square" that was supposed to be the frame.

We took Marcus on some of the quarter rides for little kids that shake back and forth. I had low expectations and didn't think he would really care for it or realize what was going on. However he absolutely loved it. Pics below are from the PoJos experience.

After PoJos we headed over to the Tap House to watch the BSU game with Joe and Coco. Marcus was an absolute trooper and stayed for the whole game. We were out from 9:30 am and didn't get home until about 5. What an awesome little boy!

Sunday was football day! We had a lot of organizing and cleaning up to do since Jake and Jessica moved out and my Mom and Grandma are coming to visit. So we spent the morning cleaning and playing with Marcus before heading to Grae's for the football party. Pic below of Cole and Marcus playing together Sunday morning.

The football watch party was fun too. Cole and I played each other this week in fantasy football and I won. Actually all the couples played this week and all of the girls won. ;o) The only downside to the evening was that Marcus starting getting pretty fussy and I had a feeling he had an ear infection. I took him to the doctor today and sure enough he does. Poor little man. Antibiotics are in him though and we are on the mend!