The Cefalo's

January is lame

2012-01-25T22:45:00.000-08:00

I just realized the month of January has almost gone and I haven't blogged. I guess that is probably due to the fact that January and February are the lamest months of the year. To me they are just gray long days where I am stuck inside. There are a few things to remember though.

First, Andy is a stubborn child. We spent 3 days trying to get Andy to take a bottle. Everyone would say to Jake and I that eventually he would get hungry enough to just take it. It worked with Nathan who also had a hard time. It took him about 8 hours but he got it. Well to those who believe it works for every baby. They were wrong. For 3 days I would feed Andy in the morning but after that feeding we would try with a bottle. He would scream once he started to get hungry and realize that I wasn't going to feed him. He would cry for about 3 hours and them finally go to sleep. Once awake he would be sweet and happy for a few minutes then he would remember he was hungry and it would start all over again. The first day we went 7 hour and finally I gave in. The next day I was better prepared but unfortunately so was Andy. He went 10 hours refusing to take a bottle. I was a mess. He was a mess. It was terrible. The last day I was sure he would give in. We went for about 7 hours and at that point I couldn't do it any longer. It was baby and mommy torture. So sadly he still won't take a bottle. Just so you know I love nursing. It is one of my favorite parts of being a new mom. I don't mind the commitment but after 5 months for the sake of the baby and also Jake I feel that he needs to take a bottle. It is very difficult for Jake when there comes a situation where I have to leave for a couple of hours and Jake is stuck with a baby that he cannot take care of. It doesn't happen very often but there are times when it does. I love Andy and I am hoping that maybe we can teach him to use a sippy cup. I have heard some people say they have had success with that. So onto that challenge. Hopefully Andy wont be as stubborn with it.

Second, I am fat. It cannot be denied. That is what happens when you spend 14 of 16 months pregnant ( I also started out 12 lbs bigger than I should have been because I never got rid of all Nate's baby weight) . So 2 weeks ago I stopped eating sugar and I got a gym pass. I will allow myself to make a treat on Sunday but that is it. I know I would go crazy if I cut everything out so I thought this would be ok. When preparing for this new plan I looked at our meals and I realized that overall our family eats pretty healthy. I needed to cut back on some of the carbs but for the most part I just needed a little portion control and I needed to quit snacking on sweets. They were the killer to my diet. So it began 2 weeks ago last Monday. In the first 9 days I lost 6 lbs ( I found I was eating a lot of fruit snacks and making treats for dessert a little to often). I have a goal to go to the gym 4-5 times a week for 45 minutes to an hour. That has gone pretty well for me. Unfortunately this past weekend I had a bridal fair and there was a cake booth right across from mine. They were super nice and gave me samples. I only ate 1 cupcake but that lead me to eating a few chocolates that I had in a bowl at my booth. Then came Sunday and I had promised to make brownies with Nate so there goes that day. Then came Tuesday and my visiting teacher brought over some super yummy cookies. I didn't eat them all but since I am mentioning them you can believe I didn't not eat them (Donna I don't know if you read this but they were really good and don't feel bad because Jake and Nate were happy to take care of them for me). So tomorrow I am going to be vigilant. No treats and I will probably skip our Sunday treat this week because I obviously don't deserve it. I am hoping to be down 15 lbs by the time we leave on our family trip to Disneyland in 5 weeks. That means I have 9 to go so I had better be super good. So if you are my friend know that I have little self control if something is in front of me. I am pretty good if I can avoid things but don't leave a cookie at my house. I just can't seem to say no. I know I can do this. It makes me excited to think of June because if I hit my goals I can be pre baby and possibly pre surgery before the wedding weight (I was at a good place when I first got engaged... stupid surgery 6 weeks before getting married). I actually really enjoy the gym so I look forward to it. So now you all know what my goals are so hopefully if you see me fall off the sweets wagon slap me upside the head really hard.

That is kind of all for January. Nate is as sweet as ever. He is a little wild and all boy. Just today he did a flip off of a couch and strained his neck and he also was trying to kung fu fight earlier and tripped and fell down the stairs into our family room. Thankfully he was ok both times but he sure keeps me on my feet. Jake is doing well and life is pretty darn good for us. We hope all is well with you.

A Very Merry Christmas to you

2011-12-29T10:46:00.000-08:00

Christmas has come and gone and we had a wonderful time. We spent this year in Utah with family. I have decided Christmas is much more fun when you have kids. Nathan made this season so special for us. We did a lot of activities as a family. Sadly I didn't document all of them. We went to Temple Square early in the month when we were in town for a day. Unfortunately I forgot to grab my back up battery and charger for my camera so there were not pictures of the evening. The highlights were Nathan saying over and over again "Christmas Lights!" very loudly. We also had a funny experience that brought back a lot of memories for me.

Twenty years ago my family was at Temple Square and my little brother had an accident...in the bathroom. We had been waiting in line for a long time and things just took to long for him. It was a funny family memory for us. Well I relived it with my little boy. Nathan was so into the lights that he gave us almost no warning that he needed to use the bathroom. Thankfully we were right next to the Joseph Smith Building. We ran inside and I took him into the bathroom. Unfortunately it took to long to get him unbundled from his winter clothes. It was funny because it was in the exact same bathroom that the accident with my brother occurred. All I could do was ring out his pants and underwear and wrap my coat round to so I could make a mad dash to our car. I called my brother that night to tell him he wasn't the only boy in the family that had an accident on Temple Square.

As the holidays drew near we prepared to go to Utah to spend time with our families. We decided that we would give Nathan some of his Christmas as home so we wouldn't have to ship it. We laid it out the morning we left for Utah. Nathan loves cooking with me and whenever we are around a kitchen set he is all over it. We decided it would be something that all of the kids would enjoy someday. Nathan's reaction was so cute.

Once we made it to Utah we spent time with my family. We had the traditional Ball family dinner. It was really fun to spend time with everyone.

One of my favorite traditions is to do the Nativity with the kids. They crack me up. Every year it is a crazy production. This year was no exception. Nathan was a shepherd and Andy was the baby Jesus.

Unfortunately we keep having the same situation with Nathan every Christmas. That evening after we went to bed he woke up screaming because his ear was hurting him. We tried for a couple of hours to get him to sleep but we had no success. Finally in the middle of the night we headed over to the emergency room. He had another bad ear infection. By the time we got out of the hospital It was 5:30 in the morning. None of us had slept. We were supposed to go up to Jakes parents later that day but we decided that we should just head up at that time because we knew once we went to sleep there was no promise we were going to wake up. Jake and I slept until mid morning but Andy was awake and family was coming over for the Cefalo family party. Nate ended up sleeping until Afternoon. When he was up he had a nasty fever and laid miserably on the couch. Finally around 7:00 he finally started to come out of the worst of it.

The rest of Chistmas Eve was spent with family opening presents and having fun together. Andy and his cousin Conner were super cute together.

Christmas morning came all to fast. Thankfully Nathan was doing a little better. His energy was low but he enjoyed opening his gifts from Santa.

It was a wonderful holiday season for us. Our families have been really blessed this year. We are so thankful for all the Lord gives us.

We love candy

2011-12-29T10:10:00.000-08:00

Preparing for the holidays was really fun around here. I had a wonderful helper while making treats and doing crafts. As you can see we made some hats to add to the christmas fun. Nate wore it for days. My problem now is finding a way to get rid of it before it causes a meltdown when it gets torn.

This was my first year where I tried to make candy. I started with Toffee and it was a total failure. I ruined 2 batches. It was tragic.

Nathan enjoyed sampling.

We had success with fudge and white chocolate peppermint popcorn.

It was really fun to make christmas treats this year. I am planning on doing it again next year. Hopefully I will be a little smarter. I made a bunch of treats to hand out to friends and neighbors but I didn't leave myself enough time to get them around to everyone. We ended up taking a bunch of stuff to Utah so it wouldn't spoil. Oh well.

Happy Birthday Jake

2011-12-20T23:57:00.000-08:00

So today was Jakes birthday. I am happy to say that the day turned out to be a success. There was a lot going on today with doctors appointments and other activities. The big event of the day came when our Christmas present was delivered. Happy early Christmas to us. We have been wanting a piano for a while and things fell into place last month and we found one that we felt was worth the cost. We are super excited because we both play (a little) and we are hoping to continue to improve out piano skills.

We also had friends over for some dinner. Jake and I love to make homemade pizzas with our trusty pizza maker. It was really fun and we loved how the pizzas turned out. We made 3 but I forgot to take a picture until the very end. This was the BBQ chicken :)

Lastly was the birthday cake. This is usually a fun thing with Nathan. He gets so excited to blow out the candles. Unfortunately (well kind of) for the past couple of weeks Nathan and Andy's bed time has fallen around 7-7:30. This was the time that we started into the cake. Andy started melting down and soon after Nathan followed. I didn't really get any good pictures because I was so focused on the kids. After the kids went down Jake and I got to spend some nice quite time together which doesn't seem to happen these days.

Overall it was a really nice family day together. Jake we love you and we are so thankful for all of the wonderful things you do for our family.

2011-12-20T23:33:00.000-08:00

I love Pintrest. I decided that I had to make at least 1 thing a week from it if I would allow myself to continue my addiction. It has been fun. I do a lot of crafts with Nathan but the food is what kills me. Not a good thing for a girl that needs to lose baby weight. I am giving myself until after Christmas to kick my backside into shape. That said this is what I made the other day. It was mighty tasty.

2011-12-20T23:29:00.000-08:00

I have wanted to take some pictures of Nathan and Andy for a while. I will admit that I love to take pictures outside but with the weather the way it is I made my bedroom work. I am not really a black and white person when it comes to pictures but I have been liking them lately. I thought these images turned out especially cute. Andy was totally not into taking pictures but Nathan was totally being a poser. I love my little guys ;)

Hi

2011-12-20T23:20:00.000-08:00

I'm Andy

Overall I am a pretty happy kid.

I love to dance with my brother...

and I love... Oh no...

Maybe she wont notice the smell.

Trouble

2011-12-08T11:19:00.000-08:00

I meant to write about this a while back. Life seems to get away from me though and when I finally remember it turns out to be long ago. I just can't not write about this story because it needs to be remembered.

Back when Andy was just about 3 weeks old we had a traumatic experience here. Since Andy was born mornings are really slow for me. It is a major challenge for me to get out of the house by 9:00 so when there isn't anything going on you might find me in my PJ's around 11:00 or 12:00. I know it is bad but I do make sure I am ready for the day by the time I serve lunch. Well it was getting to that later part of the morning and I had jumped into the shower after I got Andy down for a nap. After the shower I quickly ran down to the family roon check on him because he was fussing. While I was taking care of him Nathan called down to me letting me know he needed to use the bathroom. At the time he was potty trained but he liked a lot of help. I called up to him and told him to get on the potty and I would be up soon to help.

I continued to take care of Andy and spent a couple of minutes nursing him (remember I had just gotten out of the shower... this might be TMI but I was just in my towel). I hear Nathan and I call up to him asking if he needs my help. He lets me know that he is ok so I forgot about him. After a couple of minutes I hear the toilet flush and I hear water start running. It took me a few seconds to realize that Nathan cannot reach the sink to wash his hands. All of the sudden I realized that the sound of water running was really loud and was much more than would come from the sink. I put Andy down and ran upstairs as fast as I could.

To my dismay the toilet is overflowing and the whole floor was already full of water. I get down to turn off the water to the toilet and as I am doing this the fire alarms start going off in the house. I don't know why they are going off but I have toilet water all over everything and I am getting really upset. I kick Nathan out of the bathroom and then I start to try to figure out why the alarm is going off. I start to run down stairs and I look over into the family room and I see that water from the toilet has leaked into the floor under the sink and is now running through to the fire alarm in the family room ceiling leaking all over my floor right next to Andys car seat where I had set him. Nathan is crying Andy is screaming and I am in a panic trying to get dressed.

It took me a minute to realize that I need to get to the breaker box so I could stop the alarms. I finally get to the breaker box and for some reason I cannot get it open. This was the perfect time for my sister to call me. I am a mess because the water is still trickling through the ceiling and the cannot get the alarms off. She tells me nicely that everything will be ok and that I just need to calm down and take a second. She tells me to call Jake and that she will check back with me in a few minutes. I call Jake in tears and ask him what I am doing wrong and why can't I open the breaker box (I still wasn't calmed down). He pretty much told me the same thing that my sister did plus asked if I was ok and if he needed to come home. I finally got the alarms turned off. It was on the same breaker with the bathroom and hall light which made for an interesting clean up. I pretty much had an hour of crazy.

When questioning Nathan later I found out that he had put a roll of toilet paper down there. I had to keep the power off for a while to make sure everything was dried out. Looking back I laugh really hard. I know I am not the greatest under pressure and this proved it. Thankfully our ceiling survived and we found out that there is and opening under out sink that we need to take care of. So life goes on. Nathan learned not to put anything extra in the toilet and I learned that our fire alarms work.

Turkey day and little ones

2011-11-26T23:57:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving has come and gone and we at the Cefalo home have much to be thankful for.

First we have 2 of the cutest little boys (this is my blog so I can say that here). Nathan has been a sweetheart. He is getting so big and smart. It is breaking my heart because he is growing up so fast. I love to see him grow but I hate seeing my baby get bigger. For the past couple of months he was been doing preschool. It has been so good for him. I find that we are doing more and more projects on our own time because he loves activities and learning. I spend a lot of time reading him books and making crafts with him. Over the holiday we took a break from his classes but we decided to keep up the crafts to keep him busy. He is so proud of himself when he finishes them up. This was a painting we did with his hand prints to make a ship for Thanksgiving.

Andy is growing like crazy. He doesn't fit in anything. It is so fun. He is such a happy and sweet baby. I had a little mini photo session with him the other afternoon. Sadly I didn't get the best smiling pic of him because he likes to laugh at me but as soon as I put the camera up he gets this serious look like "what is that?". It was funny. I like what I got though.

Lastly was Thanksgiving dinner. We did our own dinner this year. We stayed in Elko because of Jake's work schedule. It was fun to make our own dinner and start our own traditions. Dinner turned out great but we were sad to not be with family. It made us all the more thankful for the many things they do for us.

We love you all and Happy late Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas :)

Halloween and Blessing Andy

2011-11-06T12:28:00.000-08:00

As I said in the last post the family headed to Utah for the holiday weekend. Jake had some time off and we needed to bless Andy so off to Utah we went.

Andy's blessing was very nice. We had lots of friends and family come. Jon and Tami had reserved the community center in their apartments for us. It was a nice middle ground for everyone to meet. Jake did a wonderful job. It was wonderful to see the priesthood in action. It was also so sweet to see all of the people that love our family.

We had many friend come but I didn't get a picture of everyone. I was busy talking... :) I had to post this one of my sweet friends though. They have seen me through everything and I heart them.

After the blessing we got ready for halloween. Halloween is now the favorite holiday around this household. Nathan loved every moment and every spooky thing we did. Jake and I definitely played into his obsession. One of the favorite activities was pumpkin carving. Nathan loved it but he hated the messy part. If anything it was fun to watch his expressions as Jake did the carving.

Andy also enjoyed the carving

I think it turned out pretty cool. Nathan wanted to spooky pumpkin and he chose this :)

After the pumpkins it was time to get dressed. For months Nate had been obsessed with Starwars so Jake and I though it would be fun to dress up. If you asked Nathan anytime in the last month what he wanted to be for halloween he would say " Masta Yoda". We really didn't have a choice in the matter. Andy even got in on it and dress up as a wookie. Sadly he didn't like how itchy his costume was so we only stayed dressed for about 2 minutes. It's ok though.

Nate using the force

Now it is time to gear up for Thanksgiving...and maybe a little Christmas...to take away some of the heartbreak of taking down the Halloween decoration. It's all for Nathan...

Halloween is near

2011-10-26T15:25:00.000-07:00

As the countdown to halloween enters its final days we have been getting Nathan excited. That doesn't really take much. We really only need to take a trip to the store and walk down the halloween idle. We have found that Nathan is crazy about all things halloween so the little things go a long way.

Early in the month we made a trip to the store as a family and bought a few decorations.

Sadly the train on it was broken within a day due to curious little boys but it is still cute.

Next was halloween cookies. We bought cookie cutters last year and Nathan has been asking to use them forever. They lived up to all of the hype. Nathan loved them.

The cookies started to crack and it was tragic.

Thankfully it tasted good so the sadness was short lived.

There was lots of yard work to be done. Grandma and Grandpa Cefalo came out and helped us get things ready. Nathan enjoyed being a helper to Jake and grandpa. The yard is now ready for winter but we will still have some major work to do since we have a ton of trees and they are currently losing their leafs.

Lastly we started doing a home preschool with some friends this month. Nathan has loved it. This week we did. H is for Halloween. We were in charge so we dressed up in our halloween costumes and after we did our projects we made cookies and wassail and took pictures.

Andy also took part in these activities as he snoozed in his swing. Sadly no pictures but I promise he is cute. We are heading to Utah this weekend to bless Andy. I am pretty sure we will have plenty of pictures to blog next week :)

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-22T11:29:00.001-07:00

Since we moved into our house last December we have been in a constant state of updates and fix ups. We finally finished our bedroom. Meaning we finally had the chance to paint it. I am thrilled. As I have said before the colors that were in this house were unreal. It is so nice to have things finished and feeling clean. I just have to show this before and after. It just makes me smile. Now onto decorating ;)

Life goes on

2011-10-07T15:14:00.000-07:00

So a year ago yesterday was the worst day of my life. It is crazy how 1 year can change so much. I have a personal journal that I keep and yesterday I was reading through it looking back at this past year. As I have said I am an emotional basket case when pregnant. It was kind of funny and sad to see where I was at during different points. All I can say now that time has gone by and life continues is that the Lord knows us and he loves us. A lot of hurt has gone away. I still feel the loss but as I get to look down on my sweet baby boy I know the Lords plan is perfect.

The boys

2011-09-21T21:37:00.000-07:00

I took these pictures of Nathan and Andrew. They make me so happy. I cannot believe they are my boys. Time is flying by for me so I thought I would give you a quick update with the pic's.

It is hard to believe but Andy is one month old. I can hardly believe it. He is already getting so big. In the past week he has all of the sudden developed a double chin and seems to be growing out of all of his newborn clothes. He is still waking me up every 2 hours which is a little crazy. Especially since Nathan has been having sleep problems lately. Between the two I am getting very little sleep on Jakes work nights. It is exhausting but so worth it.

We made a visit to the doctor last week for Nathan's 3 year appointment. He is currently 38 1/2 inches tall (that is 1 1/2 inches away from going on every ride at Disneyland) and weighs 34 pounds. He is completely healthy and about the 60% for his height. He may need his tonsils out if his sleep problems persist but we are hoping to avoid that for a little bit. He is growing up so fast it seems like yesterday that I he was my newborn.

This week we had the stomach flu hit (not cool with a newborn in the house) poor Nathan all of the sudden started getting sick on Monday afternoon. By the evening he was totally miserable and he was up most of the night. We had planned to camp out in the backyard that evening so it was terrible timing. Jake and Nathan were so excited to lay out in the tent and instead Jake sat up most of the night holding him through the worst of it. The next afternoon a fever hit and poor Nate said his ear was hurting. Thankfully we ended up getting into the doctor at the last minute. Turns out that Nathan had a terrible ear ache. Thankfully once he got on some medicine things made a turn for the better and he is doing much better today.

Though life is a little crazy but it is wonderful. All of these things are no fun to go through but it makes me love my kids and husband more and more. Jake and I would do anything for these boys.

Nathan is 3

2011-09-21T21:25:00.000-07:00

I am a little behind but I think I have a good excuse. Nathan turned three on August 29th. I cannot believe how fast time has gone. It is kind of crazy to me how time has gone and now I already have another newborn.

We had a nice day with him. Jake had the day off so we spent the whole day together. The only thing he wanted for his birthday was a "lightsaber cake". That left me with little to image while planning his birthday cake.

Nathan is full of personality. He is always trying to make me laugh. He likes to try and trick or tickle me all of the time. I cannot believe how smart he is. It is a little scary when he tells me about something that I didn't think he understood. He knows all of his colors and he can say is ABC's and count to twenty. He loves cooking, playing in his sand box, watering the plants, playing with lightsabers, and playing with his friends in the backyard. He has been such a good big brother these past few weeks. We are so thankful he is ours.

Andy Boy

2011-08-29T22:19:00.000-07:00

Time moves fast when you want life to slow down. It has already been a week and a half since Andrew was born. I can hardly believe it. So far he has been a wonderful baby. I keep thinking back to when I had Nathan and sadly I remember being really stressed and overwhelmed. I know I enjoyed Nate when he was first born but the second time around the baby block is a much more enjoyable experience for me. I was really nervous that I wouldn't know when I was going into labor since they induced me with Nathan. Thankfully Andy decided to be persistent so I wouldn't miss the signs.

It all started last Friday morning. I was pretty much done being pregnant in my mind. I had talked to my mom and my sister and I had told both of them how perfect it would be if I had the baby that day because it would give Jake maximum time off with his work. It was also good timing for my sister who would be coming out to help. I was pretty much praying that I could go into labor. Thankfully the Lord agreed with me and around 1:00 in the afternoon I started noticing contraction.

I didn't want to get my hopes up because as many of you know I am already an emotional basket case when I am pregnant. I didn't want to get into my head that things were going to happen to have it not be the case. As the afternoon went on I wasn't feeling well but I kept trying to get things done since it seemed to keep things going. By 4:00 I called Jake who was just getting ready to leave work. I told him I was thankful he was on his way home because I was having contractions. I decided that I should start timing them as he was on his way. They coming between 3 and 5 minutes during the whole time I was waiting for Jake. When he got home at about 5:50 I was waiting for him outside. I was a little emotional because I was pretty uncomfortable at this point and I was scared that we would go to the hospital and they would tell me that I wasn't in labor. We decided to eat dinner which my sweet visiting teacher had brought over for us. We called some friends and asked if we could drop Nathan off as we went up to the hospital.

We got to the hospital around 7:00. By 8:00 they said we were going to stay. I was only dilated to a 4 but thankfully I progressed during that first hour we were there. I was so happy at that point because I don't know what I would have done if they would have sent me home. The contractions were getting really uncomfortable at that point. They were sweet enough to let me get an epidural soon after. We called my sister at that point to let her know that we would be needing her to help take care of Nathan.

By midnight my sister was in Elko. Our friends said Nathan could stay at their place for the night so Mel came up to the hospital. We decided that Jake should go home for a few hours to get some sleep because he had been up since 3:00 am and he looked like he was going to pass out. Mel kept me company and we tried to get some rest. By the next morning I had kind of stalled. At 9:00 I was still only a 6. We were hoping to have a morning baby but Andy wanted to hold out. As it goes with labor the last part becomes a blur and it is hard to remember what happened when. All I know is that it seemed to never end. Finally around 2:00 I started to progress and after that things went fast. Finally after a full day of labor sweet Andrew Cole Cefalo made his appearance at 3:09. It was such a wonderful experience to hear him start to cry. I couldn't believe it. I just started bawling. After everything this past year had brought. All of the up's and down's we finally had our sweet baby. I spent a couple of hours resting and later that evening Melanie brought Nathan up to the hospital so he could meet his new brother. Nathan is in love with him. He has been so helpful and he is always asking if he can kiss him or help.

We are so thankful for this sweet baby and for all of the people who have helped us. We love you and we can't wait for you to meet our new little guy.

Would you like to get some pie?

2011-08-11T08:37:00.001-07:00

Four years ago today Jake and I were married in the Bountiful Temple. It all started with him asking me out for pie. I had to turn him down because I had something else going on. He then asked if I would be willing to go the next night. I said yes and the rest is history. Four years, four moves, two states, 23 months of crazy pregnant Kristy, Nathan, Avery, our little guy that will be here very soon, laughter, tears, thankfully more laughter. I wouldn't change any of it.

Jake you are my best friend. I still get twitterpated when I see you after a long day of work. Thank you for being an amazing father, a wonderful provider, and a worthy priesthood holder.

I'm thankful for...

2011-07-27T11:28:00.000-07:00

These last few weeks before the baby comes I am really trying to savor the time I have as a mother of one. Sometimes I look at Nathan and wonder if it is possible to love someone so much. I am excited for the baby but I am a little sad that I won't have the same amount of time with Nathan anymore. That being said I want to write down the experiences that I have while they are still fresh.

One of my favorite times of the day is during bed time. Jake and I say family prayers with Nate and then we give him a chance to say his own personal prayer. When we first started teaching him to pray we would say a very simple prayer having him repeat us. We kept the prayer short and said the same thing every night in hopes that he would learn to say things on his own. In the past few months he has been saying his own prayers pretty much sticking to the original script that we taught him. Well the other night he made his first attempt at saying whatever he wanted... "Dear Heavenly Father. Thank you for mom, thank you for dad and thank you for Disneyland." I pretty much lost it. Good thing Jake can keep a straight face. He helped Nathan finish the prayer while I giggled. It was so cute. Nate definitely wants to go to Disneyland and I am pretty sure that is something we will be doing in the near future ;)

Stupid Heart Burn

2011-06-30T21:59:00.000-07:00

I am a little bitter at the moment. I have put up with a lot of crap during this pregnancy but this is the last straw. One of the great pleasures of being pregnant is to allow yourself a little indulgence with less guilt justifying that you are eating for 2. I have put up with my inability to eat ice cream and I have gotten over the fact the Chinese food for some reason seems worse than death. Now to have something that I love and cherish so much taken from me is cruel and hateful. Chocolate why have you done this to me. Three sleepless nights due to heart burn has forced me to cast you into the impossible to eat column. I promise pregnancy gods I will get you back for this...

June has been busy

2011-06-23T09:27:00.000-07:00

I am pretty sure June has gone faster than any month in history. The month started with many home improvements. I talked about the painting a bit in the last post. It is now official. The molding is now in and the doors hung. Things are back together so now we are on to the decorating portion. We have had to set a budget for these things so it will probably be another month or two before everything is looking the way we would like. The most important room is the boy's room. That will be the first we get done. Hopefully within the month. I promise pictures will come soon.

The other HUGE project has been the yard. Jakes parents have been helping us plan it out and they spent several days helping us with flower beds and pruning. We took out the 2 pine trees in February but the biggest project was yet to come. The tree on the south side of the yard was nearly double the size of our house. It was only planted about 4 feet away from our foundation and with it's massive size we knew that we were asking for trouble. We also had another tree of the same variety in the back that was about the same size and it had roots that are trying to take over the back yard. So the decision was made that we needed to get these taken care of as soon as we could.

Giant tree the morning before the big cut down

They made quick work of it. It was down in about 3 1/2 hours

The one in the back was topped and trimmed to help stunt the growth. We really do like trees in our yard but these were really causing us problems. They were weak and we felt it was better safe than sorry. No worries though we still have 9 trees to keep us cool during these warm summer days.

Onto more entertaining news. Jakes work puts on great parties. Every summer they have a huge picnic. It is pretty much a carnival with free rides, games, and food. I have been put on bed rest due to contractions but we couldn't miss this. Jake took Nathan around to all of the booths where they did some painting and won some stuffed animals. He tried to get him to go down the slides and get in the bounce house but Nate wouldn't have it. We are thinking he will appreciate those a little more next year. Overall it was a really fun day as a family. I pretty much sat like a beached whale at a table the whole time but it was worth it.

Painting

Nathan LOVES hotdogs

He wouldn't eat the cotton candy (weird kid)

This is the closest I came of getting a picture of us together

The booty...Mr. Monkey and Pascal

After the cotton candy was gone he enjoyed using the stick as a horn

Fathers day. I was bad and I didn't take many pictures. There actually wasn't much to picture. I couldn't go and get him a gift because walking around the store causes me to have swollen ankles and contractions for several hours afterwards. But I did make a big dinner for Jake. What says I love you more than and Steak? It was good. Plus we had raspberry lemonade.

Lastly Nathan is trouble. We put him down at night at 8:00. In the past he has usually played around for about half an hour then he would fall asleep. Lately he has decided that it is fun to play in the dark and there are times when I am hearing him at 10:30. I now have to go and check on him because I never know where or what position I will find him in. One time a couple of weeks ago he was in his closet. Last night I went in and he had buried himself in his stuffed animals. I moved the pillow for the picture but you pretty much couldn't see him when you came in the room.

Well that is about it. I hope all of you are having a nice summer... finally.

Spring has sprung...kinda

2011-05-28T21:06:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things about our house is the yard. It is great for Nathan. Plus it has lots of nice trees in it. My favorite is the tree in the front yard. As you saw in the pic I posted last fall is was beautiful with it's red leaves. This last week it looked great with it's pretty white flowers so I decided to take a few pics.

On to other news this past weekend we had some family come out and help us with with some projects we have been wanting to get done. I don't have the before and afters but I thought I would show you the action shots. There is still work to do but I had to show you one that cracked me up. Notice how many different colors were on the doors. Not one room in the house was the same color. This past weekend we did a lot of work and now 4 rooms in the house are coordinated. As soon as we have things put back together I will post something more :)

Welcome to crazy land

2011-05-17T15:57:00.001-07:00

Alright...so this post isn't about Nathan. It is about the new baby...well...kinda. This pregnancy has definately had it's ups and downs. Thankfully more ups than downs. Of the 3 pregnancies I have had I will say in some ways it has been the easiest. The morning sickness was definitely bad but my other pregnancies have been worse. The thing I don't get about this pregnancy is the cravings.

With Nathan I had a few cravings. One was bagles and towards the end I couldn't get enough fruit. Especially melons. With Avery I was way to sick to even want to eat. This time around though it is crazy. I cannot tell you how strange and strong they have been.

It first started with donuts. I kept telling Jake for days that all I wanted was a donut. I even had a dream about it. Finally after about 4 days of constantly wanting a donut I turned to Jake and told him that there was no way he was going to bed before he went to the store and got me a donut. Sad thing is that he brought home a package of crumb donuts and I ate half of one and it was done. I haven't wanted one since. This has lead to many and I mean MANY other trips and outings just to appease me. It is unreal. I feel like a small child throwing a tantrum but it doesn't stop me from wanting more. So here is a list of the food baby likes :)

1 half of a donut

chocolate milk (this is one I had with Nathan)

pineapple (lots of it)

mandrin oranges (again lots of it)

Rice Chex

Frosties

Sour Patch Kids (Sadly lots and lots)

Life cereal

Mexican Food (if I could go out to eat every night I would)

Bread and Butter Pickles

Orange Rolls

Milk (this is odd because I don't usually like regular milk but I have been drinking a lot of it)

Green Beans

Cucumber Sandwiches (Emily Robbins you did this to me :))

White Bread (I never buy white bread???)

Sprite (this only lasted a month and I am glad it is over)

Cream Cheese and Jam sandwiches

Orange Juice

Weird thing is that I hate ice cream and chinese food which is just wrong because those are usually on the top of my favorites list.

Oh well. I have offically been pregnant for 1 year. Hears to gaining a million pounds, being on partial bedrest, and having several more months of pregnancy ahead. Pray for Jake ;)

Easter

2011-05-01T09:34:00.000-07:00

Easter came and went really fast for us this year. We had a lot of fun. We didn't go to Utah for the holiday so we spent time with friends.

First off was the library. The city library put on an easter event that was so much fun. I take Nathan to story time every week and I thought it would be fun to see what they put together for the holiday. When we pulled up I almost turned around and went home. The line was out the door and half way around the block. Unfortunately I had been bribing nathan all morning to be good because we were going to see the Easter Bunny. I think Nate sensed my desire to bolt because at that moment he started yelling Easter Bunny. So into the line we went.

After about a half hour of waiting a library employee came out and said if we didn't want to get and Easter basket we could cut ahead and go in. Several people including me decided that this was a good idea. I didn't care if Nate got and Easter basket. I just wanted him to see the bunny. So into the library we went. Well obviously that was a bad idea because people started to get angry because they felt like people were cutting infront of them. So pretty much we lost our place in line to see the easter bunny. I was pretty frustrated at this point but decided that since we were already in the library we should go around to the stations and play the games since the lines were pretty short for all of those. Nate on the other hand was upset because we hadn't seen a bunny yet. Realizing I might get stuck in line again for probably another hour I went to evil mom plan B. That would be to go into the childrens section and find anything that closely resembles a bunny and pass it off to Nathan. Thankfully it worked. ;)

I feel kind of bad but I am pretty sure I would have felt worse standing in line for another hour.

Once the bunny was taken care of Nate gladly went around and played the games. It was a hit and he was very happy with the library Easter party.

On Saturday our wonderful neighbors the Brodricks put on a huge easter egg hunt for the kids in the neighborhood. Sadly I didn't bring my camera but holy cow! There was so much candy and so many eggs it was crazy. Nathan filled his whole easter basket in just a couple of minutes. It was so much fun and we really enjoyed getting to know our neighbors better.

After all of the crazy of Friday and Saturday, Sunday was a very nice break. Church was wonderful. I always look forward to the speakers and the musical numbers. The spirit was strong. It was so nice to put things in focus once again and remember what this time of year is really about.

We decided to have the Easter bunny come after church. This is the family easter basket. There was pleanty of treats for all of us and thankfully now this season of candy is gone. I did not do me any good.

Later in the afternoon we invited a family from our ward over for dinner. It was fun to chat and have the kids run around enjoying the day.

The favorite gift was the bubble maker. Thankfully we had a couple of warm days before more snow hit. I took Nate out and he really enjoyed running around and popping the bubbles. I am pretty sure this will be a regular afternoon activity once the warm weather is here to stay.

I love the holiday seasons because they bring you closer to family and friends. This time of year is special. Like christmas it is really based on our Savior. It can be easy to get caught up in the festivities (especially now that Nathan is really starting to understand what is happening). The partys and Easter Bunnies are good but the reason why we are really here and why we have all of these wonderful things is because our Heavenly Father loves us. He sent his son to die for us so we could gain all that he has. To me the time spent with family and friends is part of the learning process. We celebrate the holidays together because we love eachother. We get a glimpse of what our Father wants us to have. By following our Savior we can always be with one another.

We send our late Happy Easter wishes to all of you. We love you and we hope you know that the Savior loves you too.

Jake, Kristy, Nathan, and Baby

It's a...

2011-04-19T17:26:00.000-07:00

Recent Happenings

2011-04-14T09:47:00.000-07:00

I have been at home a lot. One of the ways that I have been filling my time is by taking pictures of Nate. So here is picture overload. I think Nathan is cute and he has such a personality. I love catching his different faces. He is definately a character and I love the memories behind these pictures.

The first images are on and evening when Jake and I made cookies and ice cream. There is no meal eaten without a mess :)

The pics above are a when I went down into the kitchen and I caught Nate while he was getting into some rolls we had bought to make some sandwiches.

Below is an afternoon activity. Shaving cream painting. He loved it.

Above is the clean up of the shaving cream painting

Below is my birthday. I am pretty sure Nathan was more excited about the candles than the cake

Last is this morning. I was making some banana bread to use of some old bananas. The recipie calls for apple sauce. I went upstairs to the restroom for a minute and when I came down this is how I found him.

Nate bring us so much joy. He certainly keeps my hands full. We love him so much.

I'm so ready for spring

2011-03-29T14:08:00.000-07:00

I have spent the last half hour organizing some picture folders and I found a shot that I have to post here. It made me laugh. First, doesn't Nathan have the greatest look on his face? Second, doesn't it look so nice and warm? Yup...I need spring. So break out the sunscreen and lets have a pool party or bbq. I am pretty sure this has been the longest winter ever. Seriously! Spring needs to get here in a quick hurry because I need me some sun.

It has been a little crazy around here the past few weeks. That is probably adding to my longing for warmer days. I want to move forward with this year. The month started pretty well with Jakes family making a quick trip out to Elko. They came to help us with a few yard projects. Our yard needed some major cleaning and pruning so Jakes parents and Jon & Tami came out to help. In just one morning all of the trees were pruned (meaning 9 in the backyard and 3 in front) and we took down 2 yucky pine trees that were making a mess. We now have a giant wood pile in our side yard that needs to be taken to the dump. Anyone have a truck they want to lend us for an afternoon? :) We were very thankful for their help and we are excited for the coming summer so we can make our yard a place we enjoy together as a family.

Pretty much the rest of the month I spent in Utah. I ended up needing to have surgery to help me carry the baby. I have been on bedrest but I am now up and around being very cautious. This surgery should help me carry the baby to 36 weeks. As long as I am careful and don't have any other complications I should be able to stay in Elko I will just need to take it easy.

That was pretty much the whole month for us.

So...we have a little news :)

2011-03-11T08:34:00.000-08:00

I thought we would let people know that we are expecting again. Obviously we are a little nervous this time around. Mostly we are just thankful and excited. So far this pregnancy has been a lot easier than my last two. I haven't been sick very much. Mostly I hate food but I can deal with that.

There are extra precautions being taken in hopes of preventing a repeat of our last experience. I have made a trip to Utah for some extra tests and I will probably be spending a good portion of my pregnancy making these kind of trips. It will all be worth it.

I'm not going to lie. I am a bit of a crazy b....well lets just say I am not very pleasant when I am pregnant. This time around has been no different... unfortunately. I may be a little better since I am not constantly living next to the toilet but still I have a constant glare on my face. From May 2010 to Sept 2011 I will have been pregnant all but 7 weeks. Jake deserves a medal of honor for putting up with me and all of my craziness. To all of our friends, if you see him give him a little pat on the back. He deserves it:)

At this point Nate just doesn't get the baby thing. Thankfully we have a little time to let him know that I will not always be pregnant and the baby wont always be in my tummy.

I am 15 weeks today. Baby is due Sept 2. That would be 4 days after Nates birthday. I am hoping we don't have a double birthday. We will see how things go.

Terrible 2's

2011-02-15T13:32:00.000-08:00

I am one of those people that thinks their kid is perfect. Overall Nathan is pretty awesome. He is good in church. We get him to eat almost everything (sometimes there is a little barganing involved..."you can have some chocolate if you eat your peas") He is very good at playing the clean up game. Plus he is a great snuggler. Overall I am happy.

All of the sudden I have been feeling the winds of change. Lately he has been testing me. Hitting is the biggest issue right now. He is good around other people but for me it is a constant battle. That plus extra fussyness due to an earache that has lasted for over a month and I am one frazzled mom.

Thankfully he is cute and he takes naps. I have found no matter how upset I am at him. After I send him to bed after a fussy morning I am always excited for him to wake up.

I took these pictures the other day. He was taking a longer nap than needed so I decided to wake him up. He was so cute I decided to take a few pictures along the way.

He loves his animals...and buzz :)

He always kisses his bear for a few minutes. It helps him decided if he is going to be happy or crabby.

Decision made...he will be naught ;)

This was one of those naught moments. When does dumping the last of the cereal eating all of the marshmellows and smashing the rest into dust become cute?...haven't decided.

On another note. For v day we kept it simple at the Cefalo home. I decided I missed Trio and I took matters into my own hands. Jake and I go to Trio as often as living 4 hours away will allow (once maybe twice a year). Our favorite thing in the whole world is the Rosemary Flat Bread...oh my! This way my attempt at it. It turned out amazingly close to the real thing. The 2 things that were a little off was 1) the didn't have ANY red peppers at the store yesterday...seriously! 2) The sundried tomatoes were a little dried out. I think the costco jars of sundried tomatoes would have added that extra pazazz. Otherwise it was fabulous and Jake thought I was amazing:)

Nathan did too but I am pretty sure it is because of the chocolate covered strawberries :)

Now onto March. I am done with winter.

Paints are back

2011-01-28T09:55:00.000-08:00

One of Nathan's favortie activities from this last summer was finger painting. If you remember we spent a lot of time out on our old deck covered in colors. This week has been a little slow and I wanted to change things up for Nate so I decided to pull out our old friend. Nathan loved it :)

The best part of this activity was it helped accomplish 3 things at once.

1. Entertain Nathan

2. Get him to bath

3. Clean the shower

January happenings

2011-01-26T13:18:00.000-08:00

Hello all. Long time no blog. January has been a pretty humdrum month for us in the Cefalo home. It started off with a very boring New Years. Jake had to work both day's so we pretty much went to bed early on New Years Eve and I spent the day alone. I did make a fun meal and we did a small celebration around 8:30 before we went to bed but it was really not that eventful.

Nathan has been a real good helper. He is learning so much right now. One of my favorite things to do with him over the past month is cook. He gets so excited to help. Especially if he knows it is a treat. I took a few pictures of him last week as he "helped" me make some brownies.

As you can see from the pictures above Nate got a hair cut. Its was long overdue. I have to admit I love his hair long. I get sad every time we cut it. He looks cute either way but I still get a little sad when I see pictures of him with his long hair.

Such a poser

Ta da! Hey good lookin.

As for the rest of the month we have been working of a few projects. Slowly but surely we are getting the house together. We decided that we wouldn't start on any house projects until after we closed. That means even though we have lived here for almost 2 months we have only started projects in the last 3 weeks.

Jake did a wonderful job painting the ceiling.

My sister Melanie came with her kids for a couple of days and she helped with the painting. I am pretty happy with how the room looks now. It feels much cleaner and brighter.

There is still a lot of work to do. We will be painting the molding and door white and we need to replace all of the ivory electrical plates. That should be done later this week. Right now the room is looking pretty bare but we have some grand plans.

I want to find some pillow covers similar to these. Probably a little more yellow.

I don't really know how things are coming together but I really like this pillow as well. We will see.
I love these chairs and I am hoping I can get a couple for a little more seating.

Jake and I are also determined to get one of these as soon as we can possibly afford it.

We will have to see what happens. There are a lot of wants but we need to make sure we can afford so for now I am pretty happy with how things are. Next we will move onto Nathan's and our room. During the summer we hope to tackle the kitchen.

We are so thankful that we were lucky enough to get this house. There is a lot of work we will need to do to make it our own but we are enjoying the adventure right now.

Your such a fat head

2011-01-04T14:55:00.000-08:00

This....

A good laugh. :)

Being mother of the year, and playing cars and animals with Nate. I ended up putting the container to the animals on my head. Following my wonderful example Nathan took it from my head and placed it on his. At first it stayed on the top of his head. Nathan has always had a big head. After a second I tried to take it back from him. Because of this action Nathan pulled down on it to keep me from taking it back. All of the sudden there was a small popping sound and next thing I knew I had a screaming child with a bucket stuck on his head.

I tried for several minutes to get it off. All of that time Nathan was squirming and screaming and crying. As several attempts failed I started to panic. The plastic was hard and wasn't bending much. Nathan was pulling so hard on it himself that I could see it was starting to leave marks of his forehead.

I decided to call Jake because I didn't know what else to do. I was worried I was going to have to take him to the emergency room or something. As I was on the phone with Jake (kind of freaking out at this point) Just as Jake was telling me to try and bend it or cut if off (duh!!...) I picked up Nathan and tried to calm him down. Nathan calmed down enough to let me try one more time pressing the sides and pulling it over his head. Thankfully it worked. He has a nice red mark on his head but that is all of the damage done. It was nothing that a cup of milk and some fruit snacks couldn't fix.

The only thing I regret is that I don't have a video of this happening. I am pretty sure we would win big on America's Funniest Home Videos.

Merry Christmas Everybody!

2010-12-31T12:47:00.000-08:00

So the holidays have almost come and gone and now it is time for the warm fuzzy memories. 2010 was a big year for our family. Graduation, moving out of state, having and losing a baby, buying our first house, and many many other good and not so good memories. We have been very blessed this year and my heart is full.

The last few weeks of 2010 have been some of the most eventful with the purchase of our home. It made for a stressful but wonderful Christmas break. Jake had 10 day's off so we were able to go and visit family. Unfortunately/Fortunately we needed to close on the house so we had to come home a little sooner than we would have liked. We had to cut out some Utah activities we wanted to do. Coming home early meant that we had a nice long week at home before Jake went back to work. So in the end it was actually very nice.

We ended up celebrating Christmas at our home on the 23rd before we left to Utah. Nathan got a lot of fun things. He loves his new bike and we spoiled him with puzzles and books. I was actually pretty amazed because Nate could put some of the simpler puzzles together without help. Jake got a mixed birthday/christmas gift with 2 season of How I Met Your Mother. It is one of our favorite TV show and it seems to be turning into a holiday tradition to spend some our lazy days watching our favorite episodes. Jake got me just what I asked for. He got me a copy of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. He also took me shopping on Christmas Eve for a new bedroom set. It was very fun :)

Our first Christmas Tree!

Nate's Booty

We drove to Utah on the afternoon of the 23rd to my parents house. That evening the family gathered together and we had our family party. Mom as usual made a wonderful meal and the house was decked out.

Dad in his super cool old shirt. Only to be worn on Christmas.

One of my favorite holiday traditions is my mom playing the piano while we all sing Christmas songs.

The next favorite tradition is the grandkids dressing up and acting out the christmas story...Nate was a shepherd this year.

Don't they look like they are into it?

As you can see they love doing this.

David especially :)

Nate had a hard time keeping his costume on. Thankfully it didn't stop him from trying to open gifts early.

Aunt Karen made some super yummy treats that all enjoyed.

Nate especially liked them. Notice how he wouldn't eat it with his hands so he could keep them clean...I swear he has OCD.

The next morning we went out with Courtney to do a family photo session. She is going to start working with me for my photography business. I think she did a good job. This is one of my favorites.

Shortly after we headed up to Jake's parents home. One thing that I love is that on the ride up to Bountiful Nathan decided that he wanted to start calling us by our full names. We were trying to teach him to say grandma Cefalo. We then told him he was Nathan Cefalo. He staredt to say both of them. Then he stared to say Jake Cefalo and Kristy Cefalo. It is now a problem. Cute...but a problem :)

We spend a wonderful evening with Jakes family. His parents prepared a wonderful meal. There was also a very nice program that all of the kids got to participate in. It involved opening presents so Nate loved it.

Like I said Nate loves opening gifts.

I have to say that I think Alex is so stinking cute.

So that was Christmas for us. It is a wonderful time of the year. Not only is it a time for family but it is a time to remember our Savior.

Choo Choo

2010-11-12T11:32:00.000-08:00

So over the past month or two Nathan has become obsessed with trains. He saw a episode of Thomas the Train at his cousins and ever since he loves telling everyone about trains.

As Jake and I have been planning our first Christmas in our new house we have been getting more and more excited about getting a tree. We decided the best way to compliment that tree would be with a train.

Today we went and picked one up and we were to excited to wait until we move in. Just this once we thought we would take it out for a test drive.

Nathan LOVED it :)

Now we just need to keep him from touching it so he doesn't knock it off the track :)

We got a house ;)

2010-11-07T13:35:00.000-08:00

(I took this yesterday morning. I think it looks cute with the red tree)

So Jake and I are feeling really blessed right now. As most of you know we have been looking for a house for the past several months. We have had a lot of ups and downs. Here in Elko houses seem to run 30 to 50,000 more than they do in Salt Lake. Add that to very little inventory and it makes one of the biggest financial decisions in your life really hard. We have put down 3 offers in the fast few months and none of them worked out. To say it has been a roller coaster is an understatement. As of last week we were really discouraged. Well this week the Lord lead us to the right place.

On Monday night I called our friends the Mortinsons and asked if they wanted to come over for dinner. Lyndsie told me that they were actually having some friends from their old ward over that evening. She then asked if we wanted to join them for dessert. I at first told her that we didn't want to barge in on their evening but she insisted so we ended up at their house. This is where we meet the Muelstiens (spelling is probably incorrect :)) The were a super nice couple and we had a wonderful time. As the evening went on the conversation turned to our ongoing house hunt. After we told the Muelstiens our situation they told us that they knew of a house that would be coming up for sale in the next little bit. They said a couple in their ward was moving to be closer to their children and they had already bought a house. As far as they knew their house wasn't up for sale yet. We told them we were interested to see what they were asking so they said they would find out for us. As the end of the night we headed home and hoped we would hear from them in the next week or so.

Well the next afternoon I got a message from Lindsey Muelstien (there are 2 Lindsey's in the story). She said her husband has gone by to see their neighbor and had talked to him. She told me the price and it was a lot and I mean a lot less than the houses we were currently looking at. I then wondered what the house might be like because a lot of the houses in our price range need major work. I ended up calling and getting the phone number of the Kukinhimers from Lindsey.

Joseph and Dawn Kukinhimer are a sweet couple and I knew it from the minute that Dawn answered her phone that we were dealing with angles. When I finally got ahold of Dawn that evening I asked if we could come over sometime this week to see the house. She told me that they were currently packing up but if we didn't mind the mess we could come over right then. Excited but nervous we went over. When we got to the house we really couldn't believe it. It was a house that was comparable if not better than the ones we had put offers on. Walking through Jake and I both though that the Muelstien's may have heard the wrong price. Well after we had gone through the house we talked with Joseph and he told us the price we had heard was right. They to had found it difficult to find an affordable house when they came to Elko and they felt that they wanted to give someone a break. He told us they were retired and had already purchased a house. They said they already have what they need in life so why not help someone out.

Jake and I were floored. We shook hands with Joseph that night saying we would get papers drawn up and ready. They were taking their first truck load the next day to their new house so he said we could meet up on Saturday evening after they got home and get the ball rolling. The rest of the week Jake and I were worried that they may want to change their minds or that we had dreamed it. Finally last night we were able to go over and sign the papers.

All I can say is that the Kukinhimer's are the kindest people in the world. Jake and I have felt so blessed. We are so excited to move our family into this home for the next few years. I only hope that someday Jake and I can be in a position to do something as kind and the Kukinhimer's did for us. I guess I need to remember that the Lord knows what is supposed to happen. I will keep you all updated with pics as we get settled in. :)

Halloween

2010-11-03T14:34:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to post a pic of Nathan in his costume. Sadly I don't have any other pictures. Jake had to take Nathan trick-or-treating alone because I had a photo session. I think he was super cute. Jake said it only took him one time saying trick-or-treat before he figured out what was going on. He then went around and after people would give him his candy he would say "kank kou". I have raised such a polite little boy :)

I love fall

2010-10-23T10:49:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite things about fall are the treats. When Jake and I first got married we spent a lot of time watching food network and planning what traditions we would like to work into our family. One of my favorite treats is Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins :). Last year Nate enjoyed them but that was about all. Now he is just starting to enjoy watching and trying to help me cook. The other night we made out first batch of muffins for the season..

I think this is something we will keep up for a long time :)

Halloween = Happiness :)

2010-10-20T17:44:00.000-07:00

I was finally able to come home after a 2 week stay in Utah. To say I was excited is an understatement. Usually I spend most of October Decorating my home and making baked goods that I wouldn't usually make during the warm summer months. Due to my long absence I was surprised to come home to an apartment decorated with pumpkins, orange lights and spiderwebs. Thank you Jake :)

Avery Grace

2010-10-07T17:01:00.000-07:00

We decided this would be the best way to tell everyone we had our baby. Avery Grace Cefalo was born Wednesday Oct 6th. She was stillborn. The first thing we want to do is thank family, friends, and all of the healthcare providers that helped us during this difficult time.

There were several events that lead up to her birth. Feel free to skip the next part if you don't want to hear about this experence. I am willing to tell what happend I just don't prefer to have to repeat it over and over.

Monday evening into Tuesday morning I notice some light bleeding. Most people wouldn't be concerned but this was very unusual for me. I called my doctor and he had me come into his office to ease my worries. The doctor gave me an ultrasound where I saw the baby moving . She was completely healthy. During the ultrasound the doctor noticed that the baby's feet were sticking through my cervix. Also there was a small pouch of fluid that was slowly moving out of my uterus through my cervix. My doctor proceded to tell me that we needed to go to Utah to get care for this. In many situations the doctor can put the patient on a bed tilted back and use gravity to help things moved back into the uterus. Once everything is in place they then put a stitch in your cervix and with bedrest and proper care you can have a full term baby. Being a small town physician my doctor felt that it would be best to have this procedure done by doctors that deal with high risk situations. Within an hour Jake, Nathan and I were on the road to Utah. I had to keep myself laying flat with my bottom elevated. Not going to lie...it was the longest drive of my life. We dropped off Nathan with Jakes parents and we were met at the University of Utah emergency room drive up with a gurney. Within minutes I was in a room on a bed tilted back with several doctors monitoring the situation. The doctors were wonderful and they were very honest with us. Unfortunately during the car ride I had continued to dialate and by the time we reached the hospital I was at a 6. By this point it was no longer possible to save the baby. The doctors prepared Jake and I for what was to come. I was going to deliever the baby and sadly she would be born alive. Due to her extreme prematurity the baby would not survive very long outside of the womb. Tuesday night was a very emotional night for Jake and I. We decided on a name. With the baby being born alive we prepared to give her a name and a blessing. Wednesday morning the doctors gave me some medication to help things move along a little faster. Jake and I spent the morning preparing for the baby. By mid morning I was in a lot more pain than expected. I had planned on not having a epidural but with the increase in pain I decided that I would want to be comfortable so I would have energy once the baby was here. This turned out to be a HUGE blessing. Shortly after 11:00 a.m. my water broke. When my water broke the placenta separeted and I started to hemmorage. Within 2 minutes I lost 2 1/2 liters of blood and I was in an operating room. The only way to save me was to get the baby out.

The hospital staff was wonderful. As Jake and I have looked back at the events of the last 2 days we have felt the Lords hand in so many situations. Had I not come to Utah for care, had I not had the epidural at the exact time I did. Because of the swiftness of the birth, the baby was not born alive. Though I wanted the experience of holding my live baby I have to admit I don't know if I could have handled it. The Lord knows us and we have felt his comforting spirit though these past few days. We had the chance to see Avery for a few wonderful minutes. She was born perfect. I will always keep the image of her body in my arms a sweet memory.

As of right now we are doing fine. We have both shed many tears but not all of them have been of sorrow. We get to come home to a sweet little boy who we love with all of our hearts. Once again thanks to everyone who has supported us during this experience. We love you.

Kristy, Jake, and Nathan

Nate is 2 and other stuff

2010-09-22T15:02:00.000-07:00

Alright this post is a month late but I don't care. Last month we went to Salt Lake to celebrate our anniversary and Nathan's 2nd birthday. Here is a quick recap by way of pictures.

Have to start with this one. Isn't he stinking cute. Shortly before Nathan's family birthday party we took some family pictures. Nate is so stinking cute in this one. I already have it printed and framed :)

Next are the many wonderful moments of the fabulous fire engine being destroyed. Sadly I had planned on a fire engine themed party with cute decorations and fun pictures. Unfortunately the wind had other ideas. We couldn't set up anything without it being blown away. It was a miracle we were able to light the candles for the first WORD of the Happy Birthday Song. Oh well. I don't think the kids cared. There was plenty of candy and food to keep everyone happy:)

If you are looking for any pics of Jake and I during our anniversary getaway well. There are not any :) I was pretty sick during most of it and we ended up spending most of our time just being

lazy. It was really nice to spend a couple of days together without a little boy to keep us on our feet. It was much needed.

Pretty much that is everything that has happend this past month that you would want to see. Sadly every other week of this past month I have been super sick. My mom and my sister both made trips out to Nevada to help me out for a few days. I have to say no matter how much I hate being pregnant I am thankful that I can be. I know that this little person is going to be worth all of the bad days.

I will finish up with a few funny pictures of Nate. Just so you know I am not trying to win an award with the quality of these images. I was just cleaning my camera and had it out and Nate kept making faces at me. It was dark and he wiggles a lot.

One last shout out to my little sister Courtney. She is getting home from her mission in Spain. I am so proud of her. I know that my mission is something that I cherish. The experiences and lessons I learned have been such a blessing in my life. I am thankful that Courtney had this chance to serve the Lord. I cannot wait to see her and hear all of her boring mission stories. Love you sis.

Hello World

2010-08-03T13:04:00.000-07:00

Hello. My name is Baby Cefalo at least that is what my parents call me. I am the soon to be brother/sister of Nathan. My family seems to be pretty cool.

Right now I am snug and comfortable in my mommas tummy. I am a little nervous about meeting them. They seem to like to blame me for all of their problems. Kristy likes to complain a lot and say that I make her sick. I think she is just trying to get out of a little house work :o) She seems to like to tell Jake (my dad) what to do a lot. He thinks she is crabby and calls her a crazy pregnant lady... once again I am being blamed. Other than that they seem pretty cool. From what I can hear they are really excited for me to come.

Nate is a stud. When my parents ask him where the baby is he will come up to mom's tummy and give it a kiss. He then proceeds to tap on it over and over again and call me baby. I think we are going to get along great.

I don't have much to say right now. I need to sit back and relax so I can prepare for these crazy people. I will make my big entrance some time in Early March. Can't wait to meet all of you.

Baby

Paints and Pools

2010-07-11T20:05:00.000-07:00

This past week we have had a lot of fun with Nate. Last week while I was at the store I found some finger paints. I decided that we should let Nathan have a go at it. For family home evening we pulled them out and stripped him down. As you can see Nathan wasn't the only one having fun.

These next 2 pics are for grandpa Ball ;)

A couple of days later we invited Nathans friend Franklin over. The finger panted together and then we pulled out the pool to help with the clean up :)

Look where we moved...

2010-07-06T23:21:00.000-07:00

So I have saved this post for a little bit. Jake and I have been very lucky since we moved to Elko. We have made a few good friends and had the chance to go out and discover a few places. About a week after we moved to Elko some friends that we made invited us to go to the biker rally that is a big yearly event here in town. My favorite part of the invite was their disclaimer that they only go to this for people watching. I think you might understand why.

This really isn't even half of it. I took so many pictures that night. I will have to do another post. I just thought you might enjoy some of what we saw :)

Long time no see

2010-06-28T21:33:00.000-07:00

Well we are almost through our first month in the land of Elko. We have had some ups and downs. Thankfully mostly ups. I have several posts to show you but I will start with my favorite thing that has happened in Elko so far.

Nathan is obsessed with trucks and tractors. His favorite thing in the world right now is to read his truck book and make the noises that we have taught him. In the last month or two while we are driving we will hear him get all excited if we drive by a bus or a fire engine.

Right outside our front window is a grassy field. It is used for soccer practice for a lot of kids that live around here. We are really lucky because we have nothing obstructing our view of the desert. Last Friday right outside our front window Jake and I saw a fire engine pull in. We were worried there was a brush fire near by. Thankfully they were just doing exercises. We watched out the front window and kept saying how we wished Nathan was awake. Well 30 minutes later they were still out there and they were shooting water 50 feet into the air. They were also letting neighborhood kids run through it. At this point I was telling Jake to go and wake up Nathan. What follows was so fun.

Jake and Nate running through

Nate angry that his shirt is wet...

He is still angry about his shirt...

Happy that we lost the shirt...

Fisting it with the fireman

Playing with the water hose...

The highlight was sitting in the truck and getting stickers

On a final note. I love the sunsets out here. These were taken on my back porch.

I think we have got it pretty good here :)

Happy Graduation !!!!!

2010-05-13T11:58:00.000-07:00

We are finally ready to pack up and leave. Jake graduated last week. I am super proud of him. Now we just need to pack and move...uhgg:P

What has been going on?

2010-04-26T08:31:00.000-07:00

The family blog has been neglected the past few weeks. I usually try to write twice a month but things have kept us busy. We started the month off with my Easter and my birthday. Easter went so fast. We spent the morning at my parents and then went over to Jakes parents for dinner that afternoon. It was a really nice day with the family. Nathan was a hit in his super cute suit we got for him. Pictures will come soon. I have just been waiting for the good weather. As for my birthday it was small and simple. One of my exciting birthday presents was that I was featured on the Utah Bride Blog for my photography. I am sure that most people that follow this blog follow the other but...here it is just in case :)My parents had everyone over for cake and ice cream the day before and then Jake took me out a couple of times. I got a flip video camera for my birthday. I have used it a ton but I am sorry to say that I don't really know how to upload them to the blog so you might not being seeing many of my cool home videos. :) That was also a great week because Chan got baptized. Everyone was super excited for her.

After my birthday we got the news we have been waiting on for the past several months. We finally know where we are headed. Elko is the land we will call home for the next several years. We are excited and a little scared. We don't really have much time to find a place to live so we are hoping and praying that things will come together smoothly. Our tentative moving date is June 1st. It might change a little but we know we have to be there before June 14th. Jake will be working for Barrick Gold. He worked for them last summer. Our life will change quite a bit once we go out there. Jake and I a used to be around family and friends on pretty much a daily basis. Now we will be at least 3 1/2 hours away. We will also have to change out night owl ways. Jake will have to be on the bus at 4:00 am to drive an hour and a half to his mine. They will be long work days but that means we will always have 3 day weekends :) That will make it easier to come back for visits.

Right now we are just trying to make it through the last week of the semester. Last week Jake had his awards banquet for his department. I was very proud of him. He received the Oblad silver medal from his professors. This was really a great honor. We are just excited for this next friday. He will present his senior project to his professors and then he is done.

Well that wraps up what is happening with the Cefalo's

March is almost over

2010-03-31T14:28:00.000-07:00

Well. I am happy to say that March has come and as of tomorrow it will be gone. I will admit. I have never wanted to move on from a month so much in my life. Things around the Cefalo home have been a little crazy but we are surviving.

The month started off crappy with my mom being sick and in the hospital. Unfortunately the news did not improve. She ended up having major surgery and being diagnosed with a terrible disease. I will spare you the details but thankfully in the end for right now she is doing ok. One happy thing that did happen this month was we got together for her birthday. Melanie and I got together the day before and got a cake and bought a couple of gifts for her. It was really nice. She was a little disappointed since the grandkids could not come over. Due to her weak immune system health adults were the only people invited. We made the best of it. I took a few pictures that night to send to Courtney.

As the month progressed Jake had spring break. It started out a nice and lazy week. We spend one morning up at Jakes parents house. Jake and Jon helped their dad dig a GIANT hole in the back yard. He is working on a plumbing project. That afternoon Jake ended up getting a call from Barrack Gold in NV. They wanted us to come out and they wanted to talk to Jake. Jake has had 3 interviews with them in the past 2 months. So the next day we dropped off Nathan with grandma and grandpa Cefalo and we headed to NV. Jake had a great interview with the company. We are hoping to hear back from them in the next week or two. He has also interviewed with another company in Phoenix that we are waiting to hear from. In the next couple of weeks we should have an idea of where we are heading.

The trip to NV was nice for me. I will say that it was the longest I have ever been away from Nathan. I missed him a ton but I loved sleeping in and getting a full nights sleep. 2 things that I haven't experienced since he was born. While I was waiting for Jake I was working on my new website. I am a little bitter because it should be up and working as we speak but...it is not. I am hoping that things will be ready sometime tomorrow. Check it out when you can. I am pretty happy with it.

Nathan had a difficult month. With all of the craziness he saw a lot of babysitters. I would like to thank everyone who I have called and asked favors. I really don't think we would have make it thought this month with you. Thanks. I was told by everyone that Nate was wonderful. I hope that is true. He had to deal with a couple of tragedies himself. First I will no longer give Nathan a bottle during the night. Some of you might think why I haven't done this before. Well...we have tried several times and each time we dealt with a screaming (and I mean screaming) baby for hours and hours during the night. We tried all of christmas break and it always ended at about 4:00 when we were both so emotionally and physically tired I would give in. Well this month I did it. Thanks to Jake being supportive and not killing him or letting me kill him:) we finally made it through. I will let him go down with one bottle but that is all. I am now working on getting him fully onto a sippy cup. Only time will tell. Also Nathan had a sad experience with his beloved bear. He has been inseparable from it for as long as I can remember. I know he is only a year and a half but he attached quickly. During the transition going from bottle to no bottle Nate would chew on this bears nose. Sadly the nose became loose and I worried that at some point it would fall off and choke him. So one day while he was down for his nap I cut off the nose and sewed a nose made of thread onto it so he couldn't bite it off. When I went in after his nap I gave him the bear. At first the look of joy on Nathan's face made me happy because he was accepting the bear back. Unfortunately he hadn't noticed the nose yet. When he realized that something was wrong a look of panic came to his eyes and he handed it to me with a look saying "fix it". It broke my heart. He would not accept his bear back after that. Every so often he looks at it and smiles and then he remembers and doesn't give it a second thought. So in one month we got rid of the bottle and the bear. My baby is growing up.

Well that some of what is happening here. There are a couple of other things that are of note but I will save that for a future post. I love you all and I am thankful for the blessing you are in our life. I am also thankful for our Savior. Easter is coming and I have him on my mind this time of year. We are all facing difficult times. Some more so than others. I am not going to lie and say everything is all roses around here. There are a few things that Jake and I are needing extra comfort for. He makes it better for us all. I know he has made it better for me.

2010-03-03T22:11:00.000-08:00

So this has been a difficult month for my mom. It started with pneumonia, and has ended with her breaking her leg and having major surgery. I just wanted to list off a few of the things that I love about her.

10 She has a beautiful singing voice

9 She taught me about art

8 Cobble Creek (family joke)

7 She has a story for everything

6 She is the most loving grandma in the world

5 She has a wicked sense of humor

4 She looks amazing at 39 years old ;)

3 Poofy

2 She has more pillows than anyone I know

1 She always has chocolate kisses in her purse

Mom I love you and I can't wait for you to get better so you can come and give Nathan kisses. He misses you.

Kristy

2010-02-01T22:06:00.001-08:00

Sad day. Nathan has had a rough couple of weeks. Last week he was down with the stomach flu. Today he had his 18 month appointment. He was so good. But he hasn't been feeling well. He was constipated. He had an ear infection, sinus infection, plus he had to get 5 shots. I felt so bad. Talk about bad mom of the week. Give all of your babies kisses. They are so sweet and it is terrible to see them sick.

Dad and baby time...

2010-01-24T12:20:00.000-08:00

Nathan and Jake enjoyed a little snow storm the other day. Nathan loves playing out in the now for 2 minutes at a time. Then he gets cold and likes to go in. My boy's are so cute.

Hot Dog

2010-01-13T14:03:00.000-08:00

This is Nathan's favorite thing in the world right now. Every time this comes on her screams and starts to dance around. He is so funny.

Alright so I don't know how to post a youtube video on here. So here is the link ;(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wePMYM4av6Q

Merry Christmas

2009-12-29T23:05:00.000-08:00

Christmas Cefalo style. We spent pretty much the whole week running around. On the 23rd we visited my parents for my family christmas party. Here are a few pics of the night

One of my favorite things in the world is my moms nativity. I remember as a little girl setting up all of the pieces and imagining myself there.

Brad bugging mom shortly before dinner:)

Dad cutting the amazing ham

Grandma Ball even came for the evening

My mom always goes over the top with the decorations

I tried to get a pic of all my nieces and nephews for my sister Courtney. I wasn't as successful as I thought :P

My family celebrated Jakes birthday that night. As you can see it was a clothing optional event for Nathan. Earlier in the week we celebrated Jakes birthday with his family. They all came over for a Turkey dinner at our house. Sadly I don't have pictures of that night. Bad me.

I can honestly say i don't remember a christmas when my family didn't have extra visitors over for our holiday dinner. I love it. It was also nice to get to talk with Monty's "friend" that is a girl and Josh who I haven't seen since before I was married.

Monty went the extra mile wrapping our gifts...I will say that he did an awesome job with choosing a good gift. Thanks again T-guy.

Nathan really liked the clothing optional policy of the evening.

My favorite part of christmas eve is singing along to the piano as my mom plays christmas songs. Nathan wanted to help.

The Amazing nativity put on the the kids. Nathan was King Herrod that night. He wouldn't participate with the play.

On christmas eve we went over to Jakes parents house. We had a wonderful time with the family. Sadly Nathan wan't feeling well. I didn't get any pics of the evening. We ended up heading home early due to his illness. We ended up making a late night trip to walgreens to get some infant drops. He had a terrible fever that just wouldn't go away.

This is the way our living room looked christmas morning. Sadly I don't have any other pictures due to the fact that it wasn't that pleasant. Nate was still sick. We missed brunch so Nathan could sleep off the fever. We finally got out of the house a little before noon. He was still feeling bad but Courtney was calling from Spain so we wanted to get to my parents.

Christmas night we made a quick trip up to the Gibson family christmas party. Jakes aunt and uncle invite it into their lovely home for a wonderful christmas party every year. We couldn't miss it. We didn't stay long though. Jake at that point wasn't feeling well so we headed home. I have to post the pics I took that evening. His aunt Meredith does such a lovely job decorating her home. She has several christmas trees around the house. Also they pretty much make the most amazing food ever. That is also topped off by yummy cakes from Backers Bakery. If you haven't been there you must.

The Cefalo's dominated the kitchen table with good conversation. I love family parties;)

Yummy food....mmm.

So overall christmas was a little off this year. By the time we got home christmas night I had 2 sick boys. Thankfully we had the chance to enjoy some highlights. Tis the season of family and love. It is a time to remember what this is all about. Heavenly father loved us so much he sent his son. That is what really matters. He has given me the chance to feel just a particle of his love by giving me the wonderful life that I have. I have spent several wonderful days with my boys. I have loved the snow that has kept up cooped up together these past couple of days. For the most part everyone is better and we are just enjoying this wonderful time of year. Merry Christmas!

Lights

2009-12-13T22:57:00.000-08:00

With the christmas season in full swing we have started decorating. Sadly in our tiny apartment we don't have room for tree. I am trying to make up for it with christmas lights.

The other night as I was pulling them out Nathan fell in love with them. As my dad would say "there is nothing sweeter than a little boy with christmas in his eyes". Here are a few pics.

It took us a day or so to get the lights up. I needed some help from Jake and Jon. These ones melt my heart.

Nathan and I

2009-12-13T22:41:00.000-08:00

So I have come to realize that Nathan looks a lot like me. I have always thought that he looked like Jake but having gone through some baby pictures of myself I think there is a resemblance.

Nathan and is naughty little smirk

Me and my crazy smirk

I just hope he doesn't need the glasses :o)

Healthy Challenge

2009-12-04T10:40:00.001-08:00

Every other Thursday I am in charge of a photo group for my ward. Mostly it has been just a few girls every week. They all come over to my house after 8:00 we talk photography and plan a few fun photo outings. That is pretty much it.

Yesterday we had a late start and it took time for people to get here. This allowed for some fun chat time...which is usually happens anyway :) Well my friend Angie was saying how she wanted to try and stay healthy and maybe even lose weight through the holiday season. So we threw around ideas for a while about what we might do. We are all mommies and all probably need to shed a few extra pounds.

We had a hard time deciding what to do nothing really seemed appropriate with the holidays. Because if we went to extreme we would give in during the feast fest we call Christmas. Also we wanted a little incentive but all of us are students so we don't have much to offer. It was after a while of talking that I remembered something my sister Courtney did last year. It was the Healthy Challenge. It is not determined on how much weight you lose. It is just a point system of making healthy choices in you daily life. Courtney had sent me a copy in my email so I looked it up. We all thought it was reasonable and decided that we would try and do this through the holiday season and report after the holidays on Jan 7th.

The real challenge is a 12 week challenge where there is a money prize. Everyone donates some money to participate and the person who has the most points at the end of the 12 weeks wins. There might be a couple of winners but if you get a big enough group there is still incentive. As I said my friends and I are just doing it until Jan 7th. We made the decision for us that whoever looses has to be our subject for our photo group during a photo session. We seem to run short of volunteers. We would like to Start it again after the holidays with a big group. If you want to participate let me know. We want to start it on the 8th of January. Just so you know what you are in for these are the rules. They really aren't unreasonable and I think this is better than any weight loss plan. This is just trying to live a healthier life.

Here is the 'official' set of rules for the challenge.

There are a total of 8 points possible for each day and a total of 56 for the week.

Here are the points:

1 point for getting 7 hours of sleep. This does not have to be consecutive. If you don't get seven during the night you can take a nap during the day to make your total of seven hours.

1 point for drinking 64. oz. of water each day. 32 oz. need to be plain water but the other 32 can have Crystal lite or some other additive.

1 point for no carbonation each day. Nothing carbonated.

1 point for exercising 30 minutes a day. This does not have to be consecutive, just a total of 30 min. Sundays are a free day for exercise so you get the point regardless.

1 point for not eating any sweets. No candy, cookies, cake etc.

1 point for not making any un-healthy food choices each day. No fries, chips, crackers etc. Whole grain crackers and baked chips are okay.

1 point for not eating after 8:30 every night. If you get home and have not had dinner and it is 8:20, go ahead and eat dinner, just don't eat anything after that.

1 point for eating 5 serving of fruits and or veggies every day. 8oz. of fruit juice counts as a serving. 1 piece of fruit or about 1/2 cup of veggies equals a serving. 2 cups of leafy greens like lettuce equal one serving. v-8 actually counts as 2 servings!!! That is an easy way to get them!!!! You will notice that you do feel better if you actually eat fresh fruit and veggies but dried are okay.

Note: Each week we each get three 'flex' points. These can be usedto make up for a point if you lost one or to treat yourself tosomething yummy. If you use one of these points during the day you can violate that rule throughout the day. You can not carry these points over from week to weekso use them or lose them!!!!

We also get three 'free' days throughout the challenge. On the freedays you do not have to do any of the things to earn points but you getthe eight anyway. These days come in very handy so try to bestrategic. You may also need them if you get sick.

Facebook

2009-12-02T11:23:00.000-08:00

Alright so I may as well explain about Facebook. For those that know me well you know that I have an additive personality. When I love something I really love it. Facebook has been really fun and I pretty much check it all of the time. It has also been a useful resource for my business. I have just felt that it is something that I don't need. I have been thinking about this for a long time and it was hard to do. So I decided to make it quick and painless.

I have plenty for things to keep me busy. Such as my sweet baby, my fantastic husband, and a business. I found that facebook pretty much took me away from those things. I found myself checking my friends status and surfing through pictures while my husband sat alone watching TV on the couch.

I am not saying that I wont ever join again. I love catch up with people and seeing what is happening in peoples lives. Please try to keep in touch. Feel free to comment and give me your updates though your blogs. I already ready many of them. I might be going from one evil to another but my thought it is better than having 2. I enjoy blog surfing but I don't seem to do it as much.

On a funny note. This is how I found Nathan during his nap yesterday. Notice the bear legs underneath him. I laughed so stinking hard.

Happy Halloween...and cute babies.

2009-11-01T20:55:00.000-08:00

Alright, alright. I am the worst blogger in the world. Lame me. This last month was really busy for me so I didn't even try to blog. I am finally digging out and getting a little better. So... now for the pictures.

This is Nathan's Autumn photo session. He was super cute but I didn't get many pictures. He has figured out that I want him to sit still while I take his picture and he has decided he would rather tick me off by running away as fast as possible. :)

This is Nathan while carving pumpkins. He was being naughty that night and wouldn't go to bed. He watched me carve this pumpkin. When we put a light in it he squealed. The only way we could get him to go to bed that night was by putting the pumpkin with the light in his room.

On Halloween day we went up to this is the place. They had face painting and a petting zoo. The also had train rides and pony rides. These are a few pics from that afternoon. When we went to get our faces painted he got scared. I had them put something on me in hopes that he would let them do it to him. He just smeared mine and then got mad when they tried to touch him.

Nathan loved this goat. He was so excited for all of the animals. He would go up to them and pet them but after a second he would start to pull their hair. It was a fun adventure.

This was by far the funniest moment. This was Nathan's reaction to the horses. He loved them. Sadly he was a little to small for the pony ride. Next year...I promise.

This was him pointing at the pigs:)

We went on a train ride but by that point he was getting pretty tired.

This is shortly before the breakdown on the train ride. I think the kids screaming as we went through the tunnel was the deal breaker ;)

In the evening we went to the Trunk or Treat with Jakes sister Joanna. Nathan had a little elephant costume that was super cute. Unfortunately he would not allow us to keep the hat on. Here are the many attempts of us trying to keep his hat on. Plus a few extra cute pics.

This is Nathan's first sucker. To say he liked it was and understatement. Note this is one of the only pictures with his hat on that he isn't reaching to tear it off.

Nathan was super tired by the end of the day. We made a short stop up to grandma and grandpa Cefalo's before we headed home. This was my last pic of the night. Nathan and Jake were using the candy bowl to hide. I really like the moon in the sky in the background. Plus my boy's look cute.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Good Times

2009-09-27T23:29:00.000-07:00

So I have started several posts and never finished them. I decided I need to update or it will never happen.

First off... the rolling of the balls...no I am not talking about my family. I am talking about Miners Days in Park City. They have the rolling of the balls on Labor Day weekend. We headed up in that direction with Jon and Tami for a little outing. It was kind of lame but it was a reason to get out of the house. We went up and wandered around Main St. then we watched the rolling :) After we headed over the the outlet stores and looked mostly at baby clothing stores. It was fun and we got a few cute pics.

Next, Nathan has been learning to feed himself. He struggles a little but he is so cute. He tries so hard to use the spoon I give him. After a while he will get frustrated and then just use his hands. You know he is done when he starts rubbing his food in his hair and on his belly. Needless to say he is taking more than 1 bath a day lately.

Nathan is also showing his independence by playing alone in his bedroom lately. It is a little weird because I have grown so used to him wanting my attention at all times. Now all of the sudden I will get busy with something and after a couple of minutes I realize things are really quiet. The other day I walked back to his room and I found him like this. I had been storing that walker in the closet the last couple of weeks because Nathan has been walking like crazy. When I went back he had pulled it out and was trying to play in it. Even though it wasn't fully expanded. It was so funny. He was so proud of himself.

The last thing I will show is Nathan being the rock star that he is. For our anniversary I got Jake Rockband. It was been really fun but Nathan has decided that he should be the drummer. He is so cute!

Since the summer ended Jake has been home and we have truly enjoyed our time as a family. Nathan is growing so fast. Like I said he is walking and talking up a storm. I can't believe how fast time is going by. I love my boy's. We are truly enjoying life together.

Go Ute's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Long summer, Anniversary, and Birthday :)

2009-08-24T09:10:00.000-07:00

It has been a month and I have so much to tell you all :) So...The last few weeks have pretty much been a blur to me. I have had little time to do any blogging because I have been busy with family and my business.

The first weekend in Aug was busy. I had a wedding to do that weekend so I didn't get to spend much time with Nathan. Lucky for Nathan his super cool aunt and uncle took care of him. Tami and Jon were so helpful to me this summer. I am so thankful for them. Sadly he ended up getting sick and spent a couple of rough nights with an upset stomach. This was due to the fact that he cut his first teeth! He is now proficient at biting me:)

The next weekend came upon us with a vengeance because it was so busy. First off Jake came home late on Thursday night. We were super excited because it would be his last short weekend trip. Next Jon and Tami made the big move to their new apartment. They are expecting a baby here in another couple of months and they needed a little more room. We had a fun day helping them out and spending time with the family. The next day Jake and I headed to Burley Idaho to do another wedding. Jake was sweet because he didn't have to come but he wanted to spend some time with me and give me some extra help. It was needed. I was super tired by the end of the night and I can't imagine what I would have done if I would have been required to drive home at the end of the night.

The next week was pretty much a blur. Jake went back to finish his final 3 days of his internship. I had baby pictures, engagments, and 2 weddings that week. I spend Monday and Tuesday running all around the valley taking pictures and meeting people for business related things. Jake FINALLY CAME HOME FOR GOOD on Wednesday night! This was just in time for a 3 day stint of weddings. I was so exhausted by Saturday that I sadly got sick. Thankfully I have fully recovered but it was a miserable couple of days. Jake was my hero. He took care of me and Nathan all weekend.

During that week Jake and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary. Unfortunately we were not together because her was still in Elko. We have decided that we will have a night out together in a month or two to make up for it:)

After all of the craziness we spent a week of recovery and preparation for school. I have done stuff for work and I have picture sessions almost every week. Thankfully wedding season is over for me and I am now down to 1 a month. The money is nice but the stress was high. It is going to a good cause though. We are hoping to buy a house next year. This summer has surely set us on a good course:)

Last week we spent some time up at the cabin with some of our friends. It was really nice. It was our last summer getaway. We had a BBQ and played games late into the night. It was fun to do this since our summer was so caught up with both of our jobs. I can't believe I am saying this but I am happy school has started again. It means we are all together.

Alright so I started writing this post early last week and unfortunately I didn't get the chance to finish it up so this is super long. I am almost done though. The big event of this week was Nathan's 1st birthday. We had a wonderful party and We had a great time. We had a BBQ and I make cakes and cupcakes for everyone. Most all of our families were here. Sadly my mom has been sick and in the hospital so she could not be here for it. I am posting some pictures for her so she can see how the day went. Nathan...we love you. We are so happy you have come into our life. You are the sweetest little monster in the world:)

These are just a few fun pictures we have taken this past month. Nathan has started walking and talking. It has truely been a blessed few weeks.

Go Ute's

Some of July :)

2009-07-26T22:42:00.000-07:00

So a ton of thing have been going on but I haven't been able to post anything. Between family, business and laziness I just haven't spent time blogging. So here are a few from the last couple of weeks.

First...July 4th...sadly I don't have much. We did new family pictures that day. I used the one of Jake and Nathan on the last post. That was the biggest thing that day. We spent the afternoon and early evening with the Cefalo family. Unfortunately Nathan wasn't feeling well and had an ear ache. As we were getting ready for fireworks he vomited all over me. So that made the decision to go home pretty easy. Thankfully he had been feeling much better and he recovered after a round of antibiotics.

The next week was a busy week for Nathan and I. Jake headed back to Elko for his internship but thankfully the week flew because I was working and we had 2 family reunions to attend. On Saturday morning we headed up to Logan with my mom and dad and Monty. We went to the Andrus family reunion. I was excited for this because I hadn't seen much of my extened family on that side for several year. I realized while I was there that the last reunion I attended was before my mission. It was funny because some of my second cousins didn't even know that I had been married. Here are a few pics of the day

Games

The Grandparents

Great uncle Alan

T-Guy

Me and the monster :)

The best part of the Andrus family reunion is the food...it was AMAZING!

In the afternoon we left Logan and headed to South Jordan. Grandma Ball turned 90 this month. The Ball family had a HUGE birthday party for her. I had the chance to get a pic of grandma and the whole fam damnly :)

Cute grandma Ball

The whole Ball clan.

The next weekend we had the chance to spend time with the whole Cefalo family. We headed up to Smith and Moorehouse and spent the night camping with the family. This was Nathans first time camping. I am happy to say he did very well. Jake and I were very proud of him. We spent some of our day down in Kamas at the city pool. It was wonderful. Nathan loves swimming. He enjoyed it so much that Jake even took him down the slide.

This is the slide they went on. He is a brave little boy:)

We have had several other adventures that I will try to talk about. It is now after 1:00 in the morning and I need to go to sleep. The last thing I will do for you all is post some of my favorite pic I have taken of Nathan lately. I usually go out a couple of times a week and take pics of him...I know...but at least his life will be well documented.

P.S. Sorry about the different pic sizes. Some were already uploaded to photobucket and others were not. I didn't want to spend the time uploading pics :) Love you all.

My Boy's

2009-07-07T22:09:00.000-07:00

So as many of you know I am kind of living the single mom life right now. Jake has been making a huge sacrifice and he has been working out of state for the summer. This has not been easy on any of us. We are making it through but I am not going to say I have liked a single moment of it. I think it is easy to forget how important family is. When you see each other every day you kind of go through the motions. When you are apart you realize what the other does for you. It is dramatic how different life is each day.

The biggest difference this summer has made to our family has been Nathan. He realizes very quickly when his dad leaves. There have been a few difficult fussy and clingy insecure weeks. Usually our mornings begin with Nathan waking up around 6:30 or so wanting to eat. Being a late night person I drag myself into his room and bring him into our bed. There he nurses for a few minutes and then we snuggle in for another hour or so until he wakes up for good. That is when he starts to move around to get our attention. He will jump onto my stomach and make his way over to Jake. There he will begin to slap Jake's face. Some mornings I will take Nathan out and we will play in the living room until dad wakes up. Other mornings dad has been taking him out so I can get a few more minutes. Usually this ends when Nathan gets fuzzy and wants one of us. Then we bring him back onto the bed and wake the other one up. This usually turns into a game where one comes running in with a squealing baby trying to scare the other. The saddest thing in the world is the morning after Jake leaves. Nathan wakes up and notices that his dad isn't in bed with us. He usually looks out the bedroom door expecting Jake to crawl in and attack. When he realizes this isn't going to happen he starts to play with me. But every so often I see him looking over towards the door hoping to see Jake.

Bed time has changed too. This can also be attributed to him teething right now (yes he cut his first tooth this past week:)) He had gotten so good with our nighttime schedule that I would just lay him down in his crib and give him a Binky. He would roll onto his side and call it a night. Now he just fights it. I have had several nights where I am sitting in the living room with an unhappy baby at 10:30. The other night he was so tired but he wouldn't go to bed. I finally put him in his room to cry it out. About 10 minutes later he stopped crying and I went in to check on him. He was asleep but it was the saddest thing in the world. He had fallen asleep sitting up. He was slouched over partially leaning on the side of the crib. He was totally asleep. I moved him onto his back and he didn't even make a peep. This happened again tonight but he had leaned all the way forward with his head leaning forward. I can't believe he sleeps like that. As soon as Jake gets home things seem to get a little easier. He goes down pretty well. I think this kind of stuff will continue as long as all of this change is happening.

I am not writing this for any pity. I recognize we a so blessed. We are so luck to be working and supporting our family. In a year we hope that we will be setteling into a new home in a new town. We have so much to look forward to. I just want you all to know how thankful I am for all of your support. I want Jake to know that I love him so much. I can't wait until he is home for good. I want Nathan to know that even on the worst days I can't imagine my life without him. All of the things I have ever wanted in life have been given to me. I want to thank the Lord for all of these wonderful blessings. Even for the lessons being learned at this time. I know we are stronger for doing this. I know there are others with much bigger problems. I am thankful for my simple and truly happy life. I love my boy's.

My Baby

2009-06-28T13:34:00.000-07:00

Nathan is now 10 months old. I could never have imagined what this part of my life would bring me. Between dirty diapers, late nights, tantrums and crocodile tears I never would have thought I would be so happy. Little guy I want you to know that I love you so much. Even on your worst days life is better than it was before you were her.

Hearts,

Mom

Humburrgarrr

2009-06-21T14:33:00.000-07:00

So this past Thursday I was really excited for Jake to come home for the weekend. I wanted to do something fun and special for him but I couldn't figure out what to do. Well as many of you know I am a total blog stalker and I spend way to much time on the internet. This usually prevents me from getting anything accomplished but the other day it helped with my dilemma.

My brother-in-law Jon came down to visit (he lives upstairs) and we were just chatting. That is when I went on to Bakerella. As soon as we saw her most recent project we just had to try it. I had actually see it before but Jon got so excited when he saw this that he said he would help me bake these little tasty treats for Jake. That way I could greet him with something fun when he got home:) So Here you are. The cutest hamburgers you have ever seen. They were actually super easy to make. I strongly recommend you try it.

Naughty Nathan

2009-06-09T15:13:00.000-07:00

Someone learned how to scoot around this week. He also learned how to ope the drawer
This the the " oh crap I got caught" look
This is the "I am so damn cute I can get away with it" look :)
This is the stinker still laughing
This is just a cute one that I had to post because he has that little skunk smile that is up to trouble.

So if you couldn't tell Nathan is into a lot of mischief lately. He doesn't crawl but he scoots around on his cute little but and gets into all sorts of trouble. I am afraid of what my future holds with this child. I love you Nathan :)

Family Hike...kinda

2009-06-09T12:08:00.000-07:00

Worst picture ever. If Nathan were not so cute this would not be here :)

So, Jake and I like to go and find new places for me to take pictures. One thing we do to find new places is look at all of the pictures on google earth. It is great because we have found a few really cool places. A couple of weeks back on a lazy Sunday afternoon I found this little gem. It is super close to my apartment and it is amazing. I have already used it in my photo blog. So we will have to keep looking for new ones.

These are a few pics of the location. It was a nice little walk and we took some fun family pictures. These are with the point and shoot so don't judge :)

Jake and Jon

2009-06-09T12:02:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks back my brother and his wife had some extra tickets to a Real game. I had been really busy and Jake had been playing mister mom a lot so I decided he needed a boys night. He and his little brother Jon went out and had a wonderful time. Jon had never been to a game. Jake was happy to take him. Here a few pics of the night :)

Our family summer

2009-05-26T22:35:00.000-07:00

Ok so right now I should be editing or going to bed but I can't seem to get there. Jake is now gone for the summer. He will return on busy weekends but other than that he wants to work hard for us and get lots and lots of overtime. This give me little or not desire to go to bed. I miss him and I am pathetic and find the bed very lonely. Nathan isn't a very good replacement. Cute but I am afraid to snuggle with him at night.

Nathan has had a difficult time adjusting. We have been very lucky when it comes to family time. During the school year Jake doesn't work much. This is due to summer internships and scholarships which we are so thankful for. Because Jake doesn't work much we are lucky to have him at home a lot of the time. This morning Nathan woke and (he was on our bed) he started looking around. He had this look in his eyes like "where is dad" He kept looking out the bedroom door thinking Jake was going to come in and scare him (this is something that happens a lot with them). It was kind of sad when he wasn't there.

Jake started just today (it is not midnight yet) in the pit. He spent all of last week in mandatory safety training. It sounds like they are having him survey during the first week or two. Hopefully he gets assigned a cool project as the summer goes along. This will be his last internship before we start looking for jobs next fall. Jake really likes this company the biggest draw back is he has to be on a bus as 4:00 in the morning :P Hopefully he gets a better nightly schedule.

I am busy with my work right now. I have been very blessed and I have been working regularly. I am currently operating at my max. I only have 3 slot for weddings the rest of the summer. Woo Hoo! I never would have thought that I would be working this much. I just hope it keeps up. If any of you know people who need pictures send them my way. If you have a friend book a wedding I will give you a 50.00 referral fee :O I am that cool. (you get the check after the event;) ) It has sure been an adventure taking care of Nathan without Jake. I have really appreciated all of Jake's help this past year. I am really missing him right now. I love the baby but it is nice to pass him off for a little while when you have had a day full of poopy diapers and tears. I am sure it will get easier or I will get crazier and not notice the wackyness of my life.

This picture of Nathan is from today as we were out in the stroller. His hair is getting so dark. I love it.

Ice cream

2009-05-20T22:04:00.000-07:00

Look at those longing eyes!

This is his first bite :)

Nathan had his first ice cream cone this week.We went to a end of the school year bash this week. They had all sorts of fun things. I can't wait for next year when Nathan is a little older. He will enjoy it so much more. They had a petting zoo, rock wall, blow up bouncer, popcorn, pizza, and ice cream. As we walked around he just sat all wide eyed. He had this look on his face like "what is going on here?".

As we walked around we got all of our free treats. I shared my pizza with him. He loves trying anything that I eat. At first when we got the ice cream we weren't going to give him any. But the longing look in his eyes won us over. We gave in and I gave him a taste. At first he just opened his mouth and put it over the entire cone. He just sat there like " am I doin this right". When he took his mouth off he left a little treat of left over pizza. We kept on trying and after a little bit he got the idea.

Once he got a good taste he went a little crazy. They were really small cones. He finished mine in just a minute. Then he turned on Jake. It was so cute. Thankfully I had my camera. I took some of the cutest shots. It was so funny that we got another one and took it up to Jon and Tami's so they could see the cuteness. He was super sweet. Literally:)

Puffs

2009-04-19T21:26:00.000-07:00

I really don't have much to report this week. Last Sunday was my birthday/Easter. We spent the day at my parents and had a wonderful dinner with the family. I spent the entire day wanting to take a picture of Nathan with our Easter baskets but my point and shoot was dead and my work camera had client pictures. Finally at the end of the day when he was is a terrible mood I got a shot. It was blurry and didn't turn out. Unfortunately Nathan was angry and needed to get to bed. So sadly we don't have anything fun to show him someday for his first Easter. The only thing that makes me feel better is my older sister. She told me that the first several years of my niece's life they totally forgot Easter and ended up celebrating it a week late.

One thing that was fun this week is Nathans new favorite snack. I am sure you have seen those little puffs for baby's. They dissolve quickly so they don't choke on them. I finally remembered to pick some up on our shopping trip this week. I gave some to Nathan the other day and he initially thought them to be a toy and tossed them on the ground. I put a couple in his mouth and he pretty much though they were the best things ever. Now he has really taken to them. It was really nice today at church because we just kept stuffing them in his mouth whenever he would get fussy. This is one of the first Sundays that I have made it most of the way through Sacrament meeting. They are heaven sent. I can't wait for him to start eating big kid food. It will be so nice. So the hero of the day was the cereal puffs.

Swing

2009-04-07T10:14:00.000-07:00

Last week week we took Nathan out and to the playground for is first ride on the swing. I think this will be a summer favorite. He laughed and giggled for about 15 minutes. When we took him out he started to cry. Since then I have taken him out several times and he has continued to enjoy it.

I have learned that he loves being outside. I have spent the last few weeks walking every morning with a friend. We spend about an hour walking and talking. Nathan is usually perfectly happy during this time. Half of the time it puts him right to sleep. On the days we don't get out for a walk he tends to be extra fussy so I have made it a point to get him out of the house every day. It has been really fun.

Here are a few pictures of his first time on the Swing.

Hiking

2009-03-23T08:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay in writing again. My goal is to blog at least once a week. We have had several fun adventures in the past couple of weeks. The first being our little hike.

With the warm weather Jake and I have decided to get out of the house and enjoy the sun. A couple of weeks back we decided to go on a hike along the Bonneville shore line. It was the greatest day to get out. We took Nathan and Jon and Tami also came along. For about an hour we hiked around enjoying the views of the valley. In the end we started back because Nathan was so tired he could barley support his head. For the last half mile Jake and I traded off holding him because he fell asleep. He was so cute. Here are a few pics of the day :)

Cake

2009-03-09T10:42:00.000-07:00

Becoming a mom has done many great things for me. Unfortunately it has been a nightmare for my waist line. I will admit to everyone that I gained 45 lbs while I was pregnant. After I had Nathan I lost about 13 right off the bat. Then I lost about 2 lbs a week until I had lost about 25 lbs. Sadly those days of weight loss have passed and I am now a chubby mom.

I cannot say I have tried as hard as I can to lose the weight. I work out about 30 minutes 4 or 5 times a week. Usually it is walking with friends. Sometimes I will do sit ups...that kind of stuff. In the past I have been lucky enough to afford a trainer and it was great. I would work with them 2 times a week and then I would do my usual walking.

All of this being said my weight has always stayed within the same range give or take 5 to 10 lbs. Why? Well...I love to cook. I am going on a diet this week with my husband Jake. We have decided to do this together in hope that we can inspire one another. Unfortunately I have a sweet tooth and the pictures that follow are what I call inspiring. Just so you know. IT WAS DAMN GOOD.

Sitting Up

2009-03-05T21:20:00.000-08:00

One of the most difficult thing to get used to as a new mom is your lack of freedom. Having a baby is kind of like choosing to become a slave. Now don't think I don't love being a slave. I am just saying I don't have very much time for myself anymore. Between feeding, changing, and caring for a new born there are only a few VERY limited hours a day that I can get anything done. Daily naps are my favorite time of day...next to bed time. That sounds mean but I think any mom would agree with that.

During the past few days Nathan has been taking super short naps. As most of you know I have started a business. The only time I get to work on anything are during those naps or after he has gone to bed. This is also the easiest time to get any house work done. His lack of napping has made things super difficult. But with his maturing and loss of desire to take nice long naps every 2 hours for 11/2 (I know I was really lucky) He has also started to sit up. It is the greatest thing in the world. He has so much more independence. I love it. He is still very needy but now I can put him down for a few minutes and he will play with his toys.

Congrats on sitting up little one!

Da

2009-02-23T21:33:00.000-08:00

There is nothing in the world more exciting for a parent to hear, than a first semblance of a word from their child. In the past couple of days my baby boy has started to say over and over "da". I know that currently this means nothing. It is something that I have repeated to him in hope that it might at some point turn into a first word. The payoff is surely sweet.

Each night in preparation for my baby to go to bed my husband and I have started what we call "Naked Time" (don't worry it doesn't mean we are naked). This time is just between Jake (my husband) and Nathan (my baby). Nathan gets stripped down to is diaper and is placed on a blanket on the family room floor. Usually Jake blows raspberries on Nathans tummy or he snuggles up next to him and lets Nathan play with his face. All I can say is that it is the cutest thing you can ever see. Jake spends most of his day at school and this time with Nathan is his chance to have some one on one. I take no part in this because it is their time and it is really special. If Nathan was fussy before Naked Time, it stops and becomes squeals and giggles. It is truly the best most enjoyable part of his day.

Tonight as I was trying to get some work done on some photos that need some editing. I hear my baby start to get fussy. It is typical at this time of night for him. It is a sign that he is ready for his nighttime routine. So I as Jake to have Naked Time with Nathan. Within just a couple of minutes I hear the giggles and laughs. Then Nathan starts to say those wonderful "words" ...DA...da...da...da..da..da..dada...da...da. I hear Jake start to laugh and talk back as Nathan continues to jibber. They are having so much fun I stop my work and join them.

Truly the best thing in the world is a dad and his boy. When I went into the living room there sat my boys. Jake had the proudest look in his eyes. I love my life as a mom!