Christmas in California

Wow, so to recap for the last month....I finished my 3rd semester of nursing school with 2 A-s and 1 A (not too shabby!).  Brad flew to NC for his interview at Campbell University.  He kept gloating about how he was going to NC, in NC, or was in NC (yes I am still hearing about it).  Brad  LOVED it out there (no shock to me cause NC is a great state).  He tried some Carolina BBQ and has been craving it ever since.  He found a Guy Fieri Carolina BBQ sauce at a grocery store which is pretty close to the real stuff.  My family was never a big BBQ pork family so I never knew the difference between Carolina and Western style BBQ but apparently Carolina is a vinegar base sauce instead of a tomato base sauce like Western.  Brad is in love.  He really liked Campbell too, his interview went great, and we found out he is on the waiting list (so I guess not great, but good...we are crossing our fingers it works out!)

Brad flew straight from NC to Sacramento (flying to Sac was cheaper then flying to SLC).  Meanwhile my Dad flew from Sac to SLC, Tacy and I picked him up, and we all drove out to Sac (well Rocklin).  I brought Hunger Games to read (per my Dad's request) and got him hooked.  We had a nice week in California with my family.  We went to BJ's!  My absolute favorite restaurant/pizza/pzookies.  My mom told me that she loves when we visit because it means we are going to BJ's.  ha ha.  My best friend Shalise had an inpromtu visit to Rocklin (from Houston) so we got to meet up and her daughter Millie and Tacy got to have a fun play date at a park.  It was funny because Millie was not so good at sharing and Tacy is used to sharing everything with Grant...so it worked out but I laughed a lot.  Brad, Tacy, and I went to my parents ward Christmas party but only stayed for the dinner because Tacy was tired and I was meeting up with some of my friends for a girl's dessert night.  Dessert night was so much fun.  We went to this place called Rick's Dessert Diner in downtown Sac.  Lots of options and I got cheesecake haha.  But it was so fun to catch up with Katie and Tamie.  I love seeing my friends!  

Saturday we went to breakfast with my sister, Katie and her husband Mark.  I love breakfast food.  Katie and I got banana pancakes and Mark and Brad both got omelets.  Tacy had a little of everyone's.  Then Katie and I watched White Christmas while the boys escaped to do christmas shopping because they were bored.  It's a sister movie and both boys aren't big fans of old musicals.  Mark looked up the movie on IMDB and said "everyone in this movie is dead".  I think that pretty much summed up Mark's feelings. Ha ha.  Mark and Katie also gave Tacy a cute teddy bear from Build-a-Bear for christmas.  She has on a cute ballerina dress, bows, and her name is Snuggles.  Tacy takes the bows off all the time but she loves snuggles.  We also went over to Mark and Katie's apartment and watched Rudolph.  Mark won Tacy over by giving her colby jack cheese.  Tacy loved running after their cat "Boo" and saying "meow".  Boo was scared and spent most of the time hiding behind the couch.  Mark and Tacy also bonded over watching college basketball. Tacy loves Aunt Katie and Uncle Mark.

My mom made street tacos for dinner.  She and my Dad went to Mexico for 2 weeks and feel in love with street tacos so my mom has been trying different recipes to find one that is similar to the real deal.  They were yummy.  My mom also made tons of treats while we were there like white chocolate cranberry rice crispies, peppermint bark, and lemon white chocolate cookies.  We also ate a lot of local mandarins.  

My brother flew home for Christmas from school in LeGrande, Oregon.  It was fun getting to see him.  Sunday we had a big family breakfast (Dad's waffles = heaven) and dinner.  Then my parents had Brad, Tacy, and I open our gifts from them.  Basically is was Christmas part 1 for Tacy.  She loved it!  Ripping off wrapping paper and opening boxes was so much fun for her, plus my parents spoiled her rotten.  She got a grocery cart with a baby doll to put in it.  She got lots of clothes, a minnie mouse, a princess book, princess puzzle, and a large Sully stuffed animal.  Tacy loves her Sully.  She's never seen Monster's Inc. but she loves caring that huge Sully around (he's almost as tall as she is which makes it entertaining).

I forget how crazy my parent's street can get during christmas.  The neighborhood is pretty famous for setting up lights and disney/WB displays for christmas.  Trying to get in and out of the house at night is a nightmare between all the cars and people walking.  But it was fun to get to walk the street with my Dad one night.  Brad, Tacy, and I did it during the day.  

Monday my mom, Brad, Tacy, Steven (my bro), and I went to the Sacramento zoo.  It was so fun.  Tacy loved seeing all the animals, especially the big cats.  She kept saying "Meow" to all of them.  So cute.  My Dad's work party was Monday night so we all went to dinner at Claim Jumper.  I haven't been there since homecoming my senior year.  The food was good but Tacy was so tired.  She clung to me almost the whole dinner (which made eating hard).  One of the sweet lady's kept trying to win her over but Tacy would not succumb.  It was nice to meet everyone who works with my Dad though, even if Tacy was fussy the whole dinner.

Tuesday we packed up, did a little shopping, and drove home.  We had a great time in California.  I'm so glad we were able to go.  

6 years!

I can't believe Brad and I have been married for 6 years this Sunday!  That's so crazy!  I was just thinking about what has happened to us the past 6 years.  Kinda funny, I guess, how life does not go the way we thought it would.  As much as you can plan, life sure does have a mind of it's own sometimes.

Things we planned on happening:
Both of us graduating from BYU with bachelor's degrees
Nursing School
Having a baby
Moving out of Provo

Things We Didn't Plan on:
Moving in with the in-laws
Having 3 years between my bachelor's degree and starting nursing school
Still living with the in-laws
Waiting on grad schools...hoping to eventually be done with school and begin real careers

Things We (at least I) Hope for in the next 4 years:
E: Finish Nursing school, Pass RN-NCLEX
B: Get into Grad school and finish 2 years later
B: Pass PA boards
E: Get BSN maybe become a CDE by this time
Move out of the in-laws
Get a bigger car
Have another baby (more likely closer to the end of 4 years)

I have lots of hopes and dreams (like a house, backyard, etc) but I'm hoping we are at least all done with school by our 10 year anniversary.

While life may not have gone how we had planned/hoped, I'm glad that Brad has been at my side the whole time.  We keep learning more about each other and are continuing to improve our frugality.

I was thinking about how I have changed since Brad.  I am a very stubborn person, who is picky, procrastinates, and can be very cynical especially of myself.  Brad has always sought to change some of this.
Here is my list so far:

I used to only eat mild cheddar or colby jack cheese, now I have tried all sorts and know that I love muenster and gouda.  I still am not a fan of lots of melted cheese, but I love fresh cheese (just none of the old nasty stuff like blue and brie).

I now eat nuts.  Before Brad I could eat peanuts.  Now I know I like almonds,cashews, and pistachios, pecans are ok, and walnuts are alright.  I even like caramel praline ice cream!

I have tried crab, lobster, crawdads, and some sushi.  I still don't love seafood, I still think fish are disgusting to eat and that sushi makes me want to vomit...but I have tried it.  I can eat crab or lobster.

I have tried elk and deer.  I have a hard time eating either without lots of A1, but I can eat them.  I'm still a hamburger person though...

I think my procrastination is a little better, nursing school and being a mom has made me have to try and stay ahead.

I have been to mexico twice and on 4 cruises.

I'm not as sarcastic and speak with hardly any spanish (Brad is not really sarcastic like my family and they don't speak spanglish).  I still have to think hard about some words (like leche and lo siento) but at least when I talk with my family I can through in spanglish.

I love Brad.  He is my best friend.  He is a great husband.  He supports my chocolate, ice cream, reeses addiction while also trying to control it a little.  Brad is also a great dad.

Time Flies...

Well life keeps trucking along for us.  School keeps me busy, Brad keeps doing surveys to save up for amazon gifts and is plucking along at work every day, I work 2-3 nights a week so I'm still sleep deprived most of the time, and Tacy is still growing, laughing, and being a crazy kid who keeps us on our toes.

Brad's birthday was November 2nd.  His parents agreed to watch Tacy that night so we could go out to a movie and dinner.  Brad was going to go duck hunting with one of our brother-in-laws that morning too.  However, I unfortunately had to make up a clinical the morning of his birthday cause Tacy and I had been sick the Sunday/Monday before and I missed my regular one.  Brad was a champ though and told me it was fine because he would rather make sure I got everything done I needed to for school.

just walking around outside enjoying Fall

So after me waking up at 3:30am and being at the hospital until 3pm, I came home to start some birthday funness.  Tacy and I had already bought Brad a blackberry pie the day before.  Brad had decided to see Ender's Game.  Brad's birthday is sadly not during a time when the big movies come out (Thor came out 5 days later, and Hunger Games 2 weeks later).  My birthday is at the start of big movie season so there is always something good.  Not that Ender's Game was a bad movie, just not the first movie Brad and I would have loved to see at the theatres (this is only the second movie we have seen at the movie's since Tacy was born).  Oh well, so we went out to Red Lobster where Brad ate his weight in crab legs.  Then we went to Ender's Game.  The movie was good, not my favorite.  I did have fun recognizing all the different actors though (I am good at recognizing faces and remembering what other things actors have been in, which can annoy Brad sometimes when I get so caught up on trying to remember where I have seen that person - thank goodness for IMDB).

Brad said he enjoyed the night out and that was what was important.  We love Tacy but it is always nice for us to be able to go out without her.  Tacy turned 15 months this month.  She now weighs 21.2 pounds.  Her length is debatable because she screamed her head off anytime someone tried to put her on the doctor's table (PTSD from shots) so she didn't lie still very well to get measured.  Most of her examination was done with me holding her.  She has never been so scared before, most doctor visits are great until she gets her shot.  I hope by 18 months she is over it cause that was not too fun.  But anyways, she is growing, is healthy, and now has had her flu shot.

Tacy LOVES to play with leaves

New Tacyisms:

"nana" = food/water   I always used the word when I give her a banana, and I thought she had learned it because one day she ripped off a banana and brought it to me saying "nana" but she says "nana" when she points to any food or her sippy cup

Tacy loves to pull out her clothes from her dresser and brings huge handlefulls of them to us.  Sometimes she is good at putting them back too

Tacy loves books.  When we get her out of her crib the first thing she does is point to her books.

Tacy can reach the counter tops.  So now we have to make sure nothing is on an edge or she can get it.

Tacy has entered a lovely picky faze, she will eat bananas, yogurt, cheese, re-fried/black beans, toast sometimes, teddy grahams, and sometimes quesadillas.  It has become a fun game of trying to give her something and seeing if she will eat it.  She has gotten good at sticking her tongue out to prevent food from getting in her mouth while allowing her to taste it.

Tacy is horrible with first steps.  She used to be good about getting on her tummy and sliding down stairs.  Now she always tries to walk off the first step.  Makes stairs really fun.  She also gets excited and stands up while climbing stairs and can forget she is on the stairs and try to dance/sit whatever which is no good.  Needless to say Tacy is not allowed to climb up/down without mommy or daddy.

Tacy loves to dance.  Brad will put music videos on the tv and Tacy will get right up to the tv to watch them and dance.  She really loves Ok Go, especially their dog music video.

watching an Ok GO music video

Tacy is great at giving big hugs to family (except mom and dad sometimes).  When aunts are over visiting, Tacy will go right up to them and give them big hugs.  It's very cute.  Brad and I only get those kind of hugs rarely.  Brad was laughing cause Tacy and I visited him at work and Tacy was being very shy around all his co-workers and just kept snuggling up to Daddy.  Brad said that was the most snuggles he had gotten in a long time.

Tacy loves water, she loves to make messes (like dumping bags upside down), and she loves to try and put her clothes on.  It's cute watching her put her onsies over her head (so they all go behind her neck like a scarf).  She knows that socks and shoes go on her feet and will try to put them on.  She is better at leaving necklaces on now.  Now if we could just get her to like headbands again...

Halloween - kitty cat and nerdy mom

Milestones

I'm a numbers person so I always remember dates.  Tuesday, 10/15, my grandmother turned 99!  That is so amazing.  I love my grandma and have good memories with her eating grilled cheese sandwiches, green beans, hot chocolate and playing card games.  We got Tacy's middle name partly from my Grandma Cramer.  However, I know that as neat as it is that she is 99, she would much rather be with my grandpa.

The other big milestone of this week is that today marks 10 years since I was diagnosed with diabetes.  I didn't even realize it until I was driving home from school today (that's how long it took me to remember that today is 10/17).  Part of me is amazed that it has really been that long and the other part of me is still sad.  Diabetes changed my life, no doubt about it.  Before I was diagnosed I wanted to be a teacher and teach math, specifically algebra.  I was a skinny little kid who could eat anything and never gain a pound, which was frustrating to me because I wanted to be able to donate blood and was tired of people thinking I was anorexic or bulimic.  I remember that the week before I was diagnosed I had bought a brand new pair of jeans that were size 3.  I ate a lot of food and drank a lot of water.  My mom started to become concerned and took me to the doctors.

That was a traumatic doctor appointment for me because they ran every imaginable test on me (including a pap smear).  The last thing they did was check my blood sugar.  I was 593 (normal is 80-120).  I remember that I had eaten a poptart and drank a lemonade before going to the doctors and tried to tell the nurse that that was why I was probably so high.  The nurse told my mom and I that I most likely had diabetes.  My mom looked like she was in shock.  I was actually a little relieved because I was worried I had a tumor or something (some people thought my stomach looked distended).  We were then told that I needed to go to the hospital for testing to see if I really was diabetic.  I was upset about this because I had a student council slumber party that night (it was a Friday).  We went home and got a few things and my mom called some men over to give me a blessing.  Then we stopped by Carl's Jr because I was starving.  We got to the hospital and I was told immediately that I couldn't eat anything until my blood sugar dropped (my blood sugar was now 619).  I thought that was the worst news ever!  I was told I would be there all night and that a doctor would talk to me in the morning about diabetes.  I had to call my friend Ashley to let her know I would be at the slumber party.  My mom left to go home and I had a night with little sleep in the Special Care Unit (step down from ICU) as I got poked every 1-2 hours for new blood tests.  Morning finally came and my blood sugar was under 200 so I got to eat.  The nurse explained how many carbs I could have so I ordered as many non carb food items I could because I was starving.  I believe I had cheerios, sausage, eggs, toast, and bacon.  My dad was so surprised to walk in and see me eating eggs (I wasn't a big egg person).

The endocrinologist came and talked to me about diabetes and the first thing he told me was that there was no surgery that could fix me.  I don't remember all he told me specifically but I remember asking him if I could still eat and he laughed and told me that I could eat what I wanted but that I just had to take insulin for it now.  I was relieved.  Then I spent a boring weekend in the hospital being taught, watching videos, etc.  I was finally discharged Monday and was so happy to be outside again.  My dad took the whole family out to dinner and I was so happy until I realized that I had no idea how many carbs were in everything and did not have insulin with me.  I had a panic attack.  I think I went back to school on Wednesday after I saw the endocrinologist again and he gave me a novolog pen that was easy to carry and use at school.

In 2.5 weeks I gained 25 pounds.  I couldn't fit into those new jeans anymore.  Not easy to handle when you are 16.  Now I can laugh at it all but I will always remember how hard it all was.  It still is hard sometimes now.  Diabetes never makes life easy or cheap.  Diabetes is what made me want to become a nurse.  Diabetes helps me to be more empathic to patients I work with.  I love being a nurse now and being able to help people and look forward to the day when I am a certified diabetic educator and can help teach other diabetics and get them through the hard times.

For a quick Tacy update: She is 14 months old as of 10/8, she walks around everywhere and has 5 teeth now.  She is a busy kid who makes me laugh all the time even when she is throwing tantrums.

Fall

I love Fall!  It is my favorite season, with spring being a close second.  I remember in kindergarten our teachers asked all of us kids to draw a picture of our favorite season.  Then we told everyone why and the pictures were hung up on the wall.  A good 75% of the pictures were of summer and 25% were of winter because kids said they loved to swim in the summer or they liked playing in the snow (funny because north carolina never got that much snow).  I was the only one who drew a picture of fall because I said I loved jumping in the big piles of leaves.  Living in NC we had a LOT of trees and my dad would rake up all the leaves in the yard and let us kids jump in the piles.  I loved it.  Plus all the leaves turn gorgeous colors.  I also love the crisp Fall air, apples, and getting to wear jeans and sweatshirts again.  I just love Fall.  I put up my fall decorations in the end of August because I was so ready for fall and so done with summer.

Tacy loves climbing these stairs because of the banister

Plus this year, Tacy is finally big enough to actually be able to pick out her own pumpkin and go trick-or-treating.  Halloween is so much more fun with a baby.  

watching Daddy's softball game

Tacy's third tooth finally cut through on Monday so now she has one top tooth.  Hopefully the rest of them start to come in soon.  We no longer cut up bananas for her but instead just let her bite the banana.  Keeps her happy because she doesn't have to wait and less dirty dishes.  We just have to rotate the banana around since it is just her two bottom teeth biting off the banana right now.  

cuddling with Daddy cause her teeth hurt

Tacy is also walking better.  She still prefers to crawl but she does try and walk more.  She will stand up and take a few steps.  Sometimes she will take a lot of steps and walk across half the room.  I'm working on getting a good walking video.

We bought an entertainment center at Ikea last week.  We went looking for doors to put on our bookshelf and got doors plus this center.  It has lots of boxes to put stuff in and so now we are much more organized looking and were able to get rid of one of our little bookshelves.  Now we actually have room for additional movies/books.  Thank goodness IKEA has such affordable furniture.  

Tacy loves pushing our IKEA boxes through the store

I really hate working nights.  Random I know, but it's so hard especially the days when Brad works all day and gets home with only 15-30 minutes before I have to leave.  I like actually spending time with my family and it's hard not getting as much of that.  Saturday I actually had the whole day off (no night shift) and it was so nice to play with Brad and Tacy.  Hopefully one of the Saturdays we can go up and drive the Alpine loop and see all the fall colors and the beautiful aspens.  One day I will be done with school, Brad will be done with school and we can be working decent hours and be able to spend some time together.  One day.  Not for a while if Brad gets into grad school next year (which we really hope he does).  Oh well, we take the time we can as a family and make it work.

Oh School

Well, i'm two and half weeks into school.  Already I have no motivation to read my text books.  When you are supposed to read 5 chapters of small print from a large boring text book before your class it's really hard to find the motivation/focus to do so.  Luckily I'm not the only one in my class who isn't reading.  We did have a math test (dosage calculations) that we have to pass 100% and only have 4 times to do it.  I passed it the first time.  Luckily I enjoy math.  From what I heard from the re-take today there was one question that stumped almost everyone.  My first big test is thursday.  I'm a little nervous because it is the first test so I'm not sure what to expect.  I do know that the 6 different instructors for Weber State (for the 6 different campuses) are all pooling together questions for the test.  So we will see how this goes.  With the minimal teaching we get I'm a little concerned.

talking to herself in the bathroom mirror

Other than school, Tacy is now 13 months old!  Crazy how time flies.  Some new things about Tacy:

She LOVES books!  Tacy loves to read books and she loves to give them to me to read.  It's so fun listening to her read to herself and fun that she is not trying to rip books apart anymore.

Tacy loves onions.  Seriously.  My father-in-law has a huge garden and he brought in a bucket of onions from it and put it on the kitchen floor.  Well Tacy was fascinated with this bucket.  She tried lifting it by it's handle, then she discovered the onions inside.  First she would just pull them out and start to peel them.  Then she took a bite out of one.  Pretty funny.  But yesterday, we went to Outback and got a free blooming onion.  When Tacy had quickly eaten all the bread, we gave her some of my french fries (which she LOVED, more then McDonald's fries) and then we tried some of the blooming onion.  She loved it.  She even ate pieces of the onions from Brad and my salads.  No funny faces she just kept reaching for more.

biting the onion from the bucket

We are still working on teaching her to say "Please".  Sometimes she manages to say something close to please.  We are working on other words too, like bird, bear, etc.  Brad and I were talking about her talking last night and realized part of her trouble with saying words is that she only has 2 bottom teeth.  We tried talking without touching our teeth and it does not work so well with many words.  But she does talk a lot and makes a lot of different sounds and noises so i'm sure she will get there.

Tacy loves playing the keyboard piano and will push it along the ground while playing it or will pick it up and then drop it somewhere else.

Tacy doesn't like to sit normal in carts

Tacy is taking steps now!  She took two steps in church last sunday to get to a 20 month-old holding a bag a pretzels.  Shocked both Brad and I.  She will only take a max of 3 steps before falling to her knees, but she is getting there.  She is getting more confident and trying to step more now then a week ago when we really had to bribe her to try and walk.  She does still love to smile at me, shake her head, and get down and crawl.

Tacy may not say "no" but she does love to shake her head.  Smart kid.  I shake my head when I tell her "no".

Tacy will now give me my phone when I have the screen off to turn it on.  She always wants it so I will turn the screen off and hand it to her.  She just hands it back and smiles and will only take it back when I turn the screen on.  She does know how to awake the tablet screen.  And she still has a ridiculous nak for getting to the internet.  And she can scroll through stuff really well.  She has fingers made for touch screens I swear.

Her hair is getting longer.  I put some of her hair in a pony tail for church and it looked so cute.  Unfortunately Tacy moves a lot and from crawling under and over people and under benches, her pony tail quickly came out.  Oh well.  She does not like having hats on her head, so putting pony tails in is a little tricky.  She also does not love to wear shoes, which is probably my fault because I love being barefoot and have let her be barefoot practically all summer.  Now that she is learning to walk I'm trying to enforce shoes to go outside and she will just sit down.  We are working on it.  Stubborn girl.

Brad is still plugging along at work and being a great Dad.  Fall softball started up and Tacy and I were able to go to his game last week.  It was fun to watch him and Tacy loved clapping with everyone and was pretty good at watching her Daddy bat each time.  I love Fall and am loving the cooler weather and sunflowers.  All my fall decorations have been up for 2 weeks now.  I keep wanting more decorations, but with Tacy it is hard to have enough places high enough up to hold stuff.

Climber

on top of the box in the bathroom making a cheese face at Daddy

Tacy loves to climb. 

climbing up the stairs using the banister while singing

I'm not sure I have mentioned that enough on this blog.  

climbing up Daddy's chair

She loves to climb up stairs, now she can climb down them the right way too (so exciting).  She loves the love sac we have downstairs and has so much fun trying to climb up the hard side (the side that is steeper then the lower side).  When she climbs up the hard/steep side and gets up and over she laughs and giggles so hard.  She loves to climb up and onto boxes.  She is getting close to being able to climb up onto the couch. 

dancing on top of a box of diapers

Basically we have to keep a close eye on her because with her fast crawling she is up/down the stairs pretty fast or on top of a box.  Thank goodness she is pretty good about climbing down the right way with everything now.

watching tv on the ottoman