let the adventure begin!

so this is probably the last post i'll be able to do for a while and the last one as a resident of utah!

the boys are pulling out on the 25th. 5 days and counting. we are borrowing a trailer from curtis' cousin and his grandpa will pull that down while curtis drives our truck and pulls our car behind it. his brother will also ride down with them to help us unload everything at our apartment. the kiddies and i are flying out on the 27th and curtis' mom is coming with us. this was not in our original plan but we were able to find tickets for $50 a person so we went for it! we figured after the cost of gas for the car, a hotel for at least one night and food, the price of the plane tickets was about the same and it wouldnt be nearly as miserable as driving 22 hours with a 2 year old and 2 month old. curtis was in dallas a couple weeks ago for work so he found us an apartment. it isnt the nicest thing on the block but it ended up being just what we need right now and we dont plan on staying there for long anyway. it had the cheapest rent and utilites are included which is huge because utlities are super expensive down there! we were also able to get a month to month rent worked out so that when we find a house we wont be stuck in a contract. the land ladies seem really nice and sent us a little card the week after curtis booked our apartment. there are several cops that live there and its supposed to be a quiet neighborhood so thats pretty cool. truthfully i am really excited!! we have heard a ton of great things about texas and we are so lucky to be moving somewhere people want to stay instead of trying to get out (like california :). we will have a temple close by and our church will only be about 15 minutes away. we will also be living near a lake so that is exciting for summer activities. on the down side, i'm scared to death. i have lived in cedar since i was 3. both curtis and i have family here and it will be a bummer not to go to all the get togethers. we will have to find babysitters now instead of calling my mom. since it's the mission field we have been warned that there is a good chance we will get some pretty serious callings which curtis and i are both dreading :) and worst of all we have to make new friends :( i dont want new friends. i love the ones i already have! ugh. i am certainly not looking forward to that part. heavenly father definitely knows how to get you out of your comfort zone. i'm gonna suck it up and try to enjoy myself!

so here's to the next chapter in our lives. new baby, new job, new state, new house. it's the right thing to do so i know everything will turn out exactly how it's supposed to! hopefully you hear from us soon!

goodbye utah, hello texas!

a name and blessing

sophie girl is almost 6 weeks old and we decided to give her a blessing before we move to texas. since it was a holiday weekend, many of our family members couldnt find subs for thier callings so we had a smaller than usual crowd. even though we missed those members, sometimes less isnt such a bad thing! less food to be prepared, less mess to clean up afterward!

sophie's dress ended up being super cute on her! it was a little big but nothing that a couple saftey pins couldnt fix! curtis gave her a great blessing. it was short and sweet and i could be wrong but i thought i heard a little emotion creep into his voice :) i love that we have the priesthood in our home and that our children have a dad who is worthy of giving them such wonderful blessings!

the story of sophie

ok. so lots of info, then pictures :)

after our nice little experience with mason almost being to big for me to deliver, we talked to the doctor and decided to induce at 39 weeks and 3 days. tuesday night, mason slept over at his grandma's house and at 4 am, curtis and i headed to the hospital hoping for the best. i was still only dilated to a 1 so around 4:30 i got my first dose of cytotec. 3 hours later i was supposed to receive my 2nd dose but since i had dilated to a 3 they decided to start the pitocin instead. after that the contractions started coming, nothing too painful, just enough to let me know something was happening. the nurses were saying that i could get my epidural soon and they would have to break my water. soon after they left the room, my water broke! it was just a little trickle and when the nurses looked they didnt really see anything so they decided to run a test to make sure it really was my water that broke. the test came back iffy. awesome. i was making myself look like i didnt know what i was talking about. one of the nurses decided to check me and the flood gates opened! my water had definitely broke and i was to a 4 which meant i could get an epidural. unfortunately the anesthesiologist was with a patient, and still had one more to do before me. 15 minute wait? i can do it. or so i thought :) my contractions started coming really hard and i regretted not getting pain killers through the iv. just when i thought i couldnt do it anymore, in he walked. what a relief! after i got my epidural, the nurse came back in to put in my catheter. she decided to check me while she was down there and i had dilated to a 7. yay! things were moving! we called my mom to let her know where we were to and told her it might be a good idea to start thinking about taking mason over to our friends house so she could come down to the hospital. not even a half hour later i told the nurse i was starting to feel pressure. she checked, and sure enough it was time! the doctor arrived and 5 pushes later, sophie was here!! my mom didnt even make it in time :) 8 hours in the delivery room was much better than the 16 it took with mason and 6 pounds was much easier than almost 8 pounds! she is beautiful! she looks more like me, mason looks more like his dad. she has blonde hair and super long toes and fingers. she is so perfect :)

now for pictures.

i had to post this picture. the look on my face is pretty funny :) it looks almost like terror...like "oh my gosh. what did i get myself into?!"

ok so this shows a little skin but its one of my favorites6 pounds 8 ounces 19 inches long

already a daddy's girl. she recognized his voice right away!

mason absolutely loves his sister! he calls her sweetie and cutie and cant stay away from her! sometimes he is a little too much help :)

sophie and her grandma colleen

aunt camille

welcome to our family sophie girl!

the real world

curtis just graduated from southern utah university with his bachelors degree in business management...WAHOO!!! the past 3 years have been so hard and its nice to know it is finally over! no more curtis working 13 hour shifts at night, getting 2 hours of sleep, off to school, then right back to work again. the days of only seeing each other for 10 minutes have definitely paid off! for all of you going through this right now, hang in there!! i promise its worth it :)

the school of business ceremony was short and sweet...exactly what every graduation should be! it made me so proud of curtis! he worked so hard and i just couldnt help but get teary eyed every time i looked at him :) after the ceremony we relieved my sister of babysitting duty and had a bbq with family and friends at our house. curtis and i both have our degrees now it was a great way to end this chapter of our lives!

curtis and his grandpa and grandma barnumwith curtis' parentsand curtis' grandma and grandpa sullivanmason and his new cousin jaxtonwith a degree like this, we knew we would eventually end up moving away from cedar but the idea of leaving hasnt gotten any easier over the years. at first we thought after he got his bachelors, we would stay and he could get his masters degree. that was before life handed us a job offer.

the company curtis currently works for is closing the plant here in cedar on june 3oth, and opening a bigger one in texas. curtis was told he had a job, they just didnt know if he would be put in at one of the other exsisting plants, or become an employee at the new plant in dallas. at first we thought it would be virginia or texas, but plans soon changed (again) and our options were either california or texas. the first week of may curtis went to the plant in california. he really loves the people who work down there and had a good experience job shadowing and learning as much as he could in 2 days. the next week he was off to texas. we were told that after texas we would have a week to make a decision but curtis called me from dallas and said he had to make a choice asap. WHAT! not fair at all! over the past few weeks of going over it, we both felt like texas was where we need to be. we would have loved to move to california but now that we have a family to add to the mix, texas was the better choice. with that in mind curtis went ahead and signed the offer. he will be getting great pay, a huge signing bonus, and a great opportunity to continue to move up in the company and thanks to texas' economy, we will actually be able to afford to live there! (sorry cali...your just too expensive!!). we feel really great about moving there, the only downside is its a 20 hour drive from cedar :(

it looks as though we will be moving in july which seems like no time at all. i havent even been down there to see the area yet! dang baby ;) hopefully she will get here soon and i can get down there to start looking for somewhere to live. we have been doing a ton of research, talked to some real estate agents, talked to the bishop in that area and curtis has spent about 6 hours driving around looking at neighborhoods...deciding where to live in a huge metropolitan area is hard! never in my wildest dreams did i think about living in a big area so far away from family! its going to be tough, so, so tough, but i know this is the right thing and as long as i have my curtis i can do it...i hope so anyway :) and dont be surprised if over the next year you see an amazingly crazy and distressed side of me! :)

anyway, that is the latest update. as usual i will keep you posted...the next thing i probably blog about will be baby girl so keep your eyes open for the new addition!

official terrible 2 year old

as of april 13th, i officially have a 2 year old. wow. time really does fly.

mason had his well check on the 14th and we are pleased to announce that he is now at the 4 percentile for his weight instead of -5!! wahoo!! as for height and head circumfrance he is still hanging out right in the middle of the pack. he meets all the develop requirements and has cleared both of the autism screenings. our boy is pretty close to perfect :)

as for his party, we kept things small and simple this year. me being about 8 months prego and getting curtis' graduation party ready for may 7th, i just wasnt feeling up anything fancy. curtis' parents ended up not being able to make it and most of my family couldn't come so we had a whopping total of 6 total people...it was good though! we had cake and ice cream then opened presents. we got mason one big present (his bike which he has been asking for for months now) then a few little ones. he also got some presents from both sets of granparents and a few from his aunt carolyn and uncle kyle so he got more than enough! given the fact that we will be moving within the next little while, the less toys, the better!

here is mason with his candy cake. yeah, he has a lame mom.
at least it tasted good!
present time!
he really has been wanting a bike for a while. we didn't get one for christmas since he wouldnt have been able to ride it for another 4 months anyway. he likes it....at least i think he does anyway :)

happy birthday to my sweet, loving, funny, brave, and terrible 2 year old!

busy, busy

it has been a while since i last blogged. apparently i have nothing interesting to say during the winter months. with spring trying to make itself present, it seems our activity list continues to grow. here is a little peek at what has been going on lately.

for our 4 year anniversary, which was march 9th, i gave curtis some tickets to a jazz game. yes, i know they are definitely not on a winning streak right now, but we had been talking about going and since i had no other ideas of what to get him, he got the honor of going to watch the jazz blow the game. we left mason at my mom's house for the night, got to visit my grandparents and our friends, ate a delish dinner at rodizio grill, and enjoyed sleeping in past 7:00. not a bad anniversary date if you ask me!

this past weekend we headed up north again. several of my family members were going to my grandparents for a couple days so we also decided to go. we spent friday night catching up with my family then on saturday we went over to our friends house and had a slumber party. we ate pizza, hung out, sent the kids to bed then watched movies late into the night (i think me and noelle made it to 1...that is late for me). we had so much fun and are so grateful to kurt and noelle for opening up their home to us! we are going to miss our friends SO MUCH when we move!

as for baby, everything is good as usual. we had our 30 week ultrasound a couple weeks ago but it was a little disappointing. nothing is wrong, but this girl is determined not to let us get even the smallest peek at her until she arrives. at mason's 30 week we got such a good picture we knew he was going to look just like curtis. because of the way she was sitting, all we got at this 30 week is a profile picture. oh well. we did see her sucking her thumb and sticking out her tongue which was pretty cute :) she gets the hiccups at least once a day (usually 2 or 3 times) and loves to kick me in the sensitive spots. luckily i havent had the heartburn i did with mason at this point in the pregnancy. as does every pregnant woman, i feel huge. it looks like i have a basketball shoved under my shirt and i waddle like an old woman. i miss my favorite pair of skinny jeans. ugh. i'm just ready for it to be over! 8 (almost 7) weeks left of pregnancy and 13 days left of work. i can do it.

in the next 2 months we have easter, all 3 of our birthdays (soon to be 4!), curtis graduating, baby's arrival and hopefully not too much more! plenty to blog about...maybe i will be able to keep up :)

and the verdict is.....a girl!!

curtis and i have always wanted 2 or 3 boys, then a girl. guess we don't always get what we want :)

the ultrasound tech found the baby's legs right away but our girl was determined not to let anyone have a peek! she kept her legs squished together tight so we decided to do some exploring then come back. the tech did all the usual stuff...checked the heart, measured baby's head, showed us the kidneys and tummy and got some cute pictures of little baby feet. finally the legs spread and boom! there was our girl! :) just to make sure, the tech did another angle and even though we couldn't tell what the heck she was looking at, her remark was "it definitely looks like a girl." i loaded some pictures and i'll try my best to explain what they are. we didn't get a ton of good ones because that baby would not sit still! the tech would go to take a picture and the baby would have already changed positions. i couldn't believe how much she was moving around already!

so this is the top of the baby's head and her feet. she was basically folded in half which the tech found pretty ammusing!

here is her cute litte foot...i count 5 toes :)

and here is the winner! definitely don't see anything there like we did with mason's ultrasound.

so i apologize if none of this makes sense or if it's all over the place....i just thought i would hurry and get this up while it was fresh in my mind. next week is our doctor's appointment so hopefully he doesn't have any bad news to share with us!