Happy 20th Birthday Melissa!

You are such an amazing sister, sister-in-law, and aunt! We're so happy you and Nate live close to us so we can see you so often. We love you!

Small Acts of Service

I just wanted to use the blog to tell a quick story about how when we do kind things for people, no matter how small, they can really mean a lot. Last week I babysat two little girls for a few hours. Our apartment is short on toys for little girls so we decided to go to the little playground in the middle of our quad. With Zach sleeping in the car seat, I carried him with one arm, a one year old in the other, and the three year old walked. (Still not sure what I was thinking :))

We played there for over an hour but things started harder since both Zach (who'd woken up) and the one year old started demanding to be held. The three year old didn't want to stop playing so I was stuck. I had a few prayers throughout this process to figure out what to do since I don't have 3 arms.

A friend from the ward who'd been out on a walk with her 10 month old daughter. She offered to hold Zach for awhile and then later helped get him back into his car seat. With the three year old still refusing to go back inside, I asked this friend to watch her while I carried Zach and the one year old back to my third floor apartment. While I was trying to figure out how to get the two settled enough to run downstairs for the three year old, she and my friend, who was carrying her daughter, showed up at the door.

These simple acts of kindness may not seem like much but they were such a big help at the time. Even now, a week later, I'm still filled with gratitude to this friend who showed up at the right time to be an answer to prayer. I'm also grateful to Heavenly Father for being aware of our needs and answering prayers.

Adventures of First Class Flying

I decided that our trip home from the Boston/New Hampshire trip over conference weekend deserved its own post. Let's just start out by saying that it was an incredibly long day - We got to wake up at 4:55 a.m. eastern time (2:55 a.m. our time) and arrived at the SLC airport around 7:00 p.m. (mountain time)

Our flight from Boston to Atlanta was pretty uneventful. While we were waiting for our connection to Denver we were informed over the intercom that the airline had overbooked the flight and that they would appreciate it if any people with flexible travel plans could volunteer to be changed to a different flight.

Derrick decided to talk to one of the airline people and volunteer to give up our seats if they could get us a direct flight to SLC. This would be ideal for us because in Denver we would have had a 2 hour layover, had to switch planes (so go to baggage claim, recheck everything in, and go through security again; all with a 3 month old). Doesn't that all sound exciting?

The airline found us a flight that left about 4 hours later but arrived in SLC just 30 minutes later than we otherwise would have. Sitting in the airport for hours with an infant is much nicer than in the cramped space of a plane. While we were waiting to get our new tickets Derrick and I were joking about how cool it'd be if we somehow ended up in first class for the flight. We were shocked to find out that that was the case! The airline gave us a great deal for switching and helping them out of a tight spot. Just for switching and delaying our arrival by 30 minutes, we received first class seats, a flight without anymore layovers (avoiding the craziness in Denver), and two $400 travel vouchers to use at some other time!

While hanging out at the Atlanta airport we got to listen to General Conference talks from Saturday using Derrick's iPod (he'd downloaded them the night before).

(Zach likes to shoot is pacifier onto the floor, especially at dirty places like the airport. We get to hold it in or expect to wash it a lot.)

We also got to get creative to find ways to entertain ourselves and Zach:

(Not quite sure what was going on here :) )

And now for the joys of first class flying (a first for all 3 of us)

- You get to board first and you are given drinks as often as you wish throughout the flight.

- More roomy. We had wider seats with only 2 people per section.


- While everyone else was being served their choice of peanuts, pretzels, or cookies, we were served this:


- A few more random things: The glasses were glass rather than plastic, our own personal TVs popped out of our armrests, the headphones were complimentary, and we even received hot towels to "freshen up" before eating. I didn't know people really did the hot towel thing.

Even with all the comforts of our flight, flying with an infant is hard work. Especially flying with an infant who's been traveling all day and completely exhausted. During the times we could walk about I had to walk the aisles with Zach who'd also pooped through almost every extra piece of clothing we'd brought for him. It was pretty funny to watch him on the floor after we'd gotten to my grandparents house. He just laid there and kicked like crazy for at least 10 minutes. I guess he was tired of being cooped up all day too.

Congratulations to any of you (if any) who made it to the end of this extremely long post. Thanks again Grandma and Grandpa Jones for picking us up from the airport and letting us use your house as a place to meet up with the Davises!

Quick Re-cap of Boston and NH Weekend

During the first weekend in October, we flew with Derrick's parents and brother Tyson to Boston for his sister Meesa's wedding. Thanks again Mom and Dad Bowen for your generosity which made it possible for us to go!

We got to stay Wednesday night at my parents' house in Louisville and then got up very early to fly to Atlanta and then to Boston. Zach did pretty well on the plane but was exhausted by the end because he couldn't fall asleep. He didn't enjoy missing his nap times.

Andrew and Meesa were sealed Friday, Oct. 3rd. Jamon, Jean, and Tyson watched Zach while we were in the ceremony. Some of Andrew's nieces and nephews surprised them with some streamer shooters when they walked out of the temple.



Here's the whole Bowen family together (except for Ryan):



It was pretty cold and windy so we had to get creative with a blanket :)



At the luncheon/reception in New Hampshire there was a ring ceremony, lunch (obviously), and a cotillion. During the cotillion we learned the Virgina Reel. Derrick and I are at the top of the line and Jamon and Jean are in the middle.



Zach hung out with Grandma Bowen to watch while we were dancing. He looked pretty comfy.



Derrick got to fulfill his little brother duty and help decorate the car:



On Saturday everyone (except Andrew and Meesa) hiked up Mt. Major. Zach slept most of the time. He just woke up on the steep parts where we were climbing up rocks. At the top was a beautiful view of Lake Winnipesaukee.

3 Months Old - (Oct. 1st)

For some reason I like to post pictures of Zach looking shocked when I document his month marks. I did that for the last 2 months and thought I'd continue the tradition. This post is more for journalistic purposes so it will probably be boring :).

- Zach smiles a lot now, especially after he "eats breakfast" in the morning. We've only heard him giggle a few times (once last night and this morning in particular) but look forward an increase this month.

- Zach has been "talking" a lot. He's got a really deep voice for a baby and he loves to hear himself make all kinds of cooing sounds. Most of his talking is accompanied by huge toothless grins.

- We go through several outfits a day and have used about half a bottle of Oxy Clean spray due to the explosive nature of Zach's poop. It often shoots straight up and out the back. If anyone has any advice on how to prevent the poop from leaving the diaper we welcome the advice.

- Zach can hold his head up so much better. He loves to change between sitting and standing on our laps while we hold his fingers. He has a ways to go before he can balance on his own.

- As evidenced by the double chin in the picture Zach loves to eat. After several weeks of working at it we've stretched the eating times from every 2 hours to every 3. This has made it possible for him to only wake me up just twice a night even with an earlier bedtime. We haven't had him weighed for a month now but using our inaccurate form of measuring (weighing Derrick with baby and subtracting weight of Derrick without baby on our cheap scale), Zach is about 16 pounds now.

- Until about 2 weeks ago Zach refused to go to bed until 1 a.m. every night. As an answer to prayers, we discovered that he'll let us put him to bed between 9 and 10. If we miss this window we've got a somewhat grouchy baby until 1.

- Zach loves to kick. His favorite toy is his Kick and Play. He'll also just kick like crazy if we set him on a blanket on his back. It's really funny to watch.

Here's a video for the grandmas. It was taken a month ago but gives the general idea...and I'm obviously a dork when it comes to commentary:).

- On a final note, Zach started to figure out this last week that toys exist and will hold and examine them. The play possibilities are expanding!

Making a Baby-Sized Tie

Have any of you noticed that there's really not much color variety as far as baby boy clothes go? Derrick's sister Meesa got married on Oct. 3 and had reds and oranges (fall colors) as her color scheme.

After some failed shopping attempts to find something for Zach that went with the colors, we decided to go with the white button up shirt from Grandma Bowen and make a tie that went with the color scheme.

Derrick and I went to DI and looked for a tie that was in the right colors. I expected to just find a man's tie and then invent some way to change it to fit Zach. We were really excited to find a little boy's clip on tie in the perfect colors. So $3 and a few hours later, here's the result:


In order to make the tie closer to Zach's size I cut about half of it off. I experimented on shortening the skinnier part first so the back of the wider part looks better.


Here we are showing off our wedding clothes (Zach had just barely woken up). He was a pretty big hit with his tie :). Notice the bagginess of his pants and his rolled up sleeves. We had to go with clothes a few sizes too big to escape the baby blues.

12 Weeks and rolling

Zach has been so much fun to watch and play with lately. His face is very expressive, he makes all kinds of noises, and he is starting to get a bit more mobile. Zach can now roll from his stomach to his back! (Baby steps right?) This video takes place yesterday, a couple minutes after he rolled for the first time. (Sorry about the VERY high pitched voice in the background :) )

Zach also kicks a lot while on his stomach and make some forward progress until his arm gets caught underneath him. We'll see how long it takes for him to figure out arm and leg coordination.

On another note, we moved Zach from the bassinet in our room to the crib in his room last Friday. We're still trying to convince him that he likes the crib.

The Secrets of BYU

I mentioned a little earlier that we're doing a blog for one of my classes, though apparently only Brad cared/commented. (Yeah Brad) So now we have our blog up and running. We're trying to make it fun and interesting, so you should take a look.
The idea behind the blog is to showcase the "Secrets of BYU." We're all going to post the things that we've found that we don't think many people know about on campus, and we'll also accept Secret submissions from anyone who feels themselves "in-the know."
As we get going we'll probably cover some semi-controversial topics like NCMO and the best places to nap on campus, and put up some polls and things.

So it will be fun, and you all should definitely check it out:
BYU Secrets

We'll Miss You Grandpa

My grandpa (mom's dad) passed away this evening. His health had been failing rapidly and we've known it could happen at any time since June. While we've had time to prepare for this, it doesn't change the fact that we'll miss such a wonderful man.

My Grandpa Eddington has always been so loving, humble, and an amazing spiritual giant. He worked at the post office most of his life and is the father of 11 kids. The Gospel and his family were his life. Even at the end those are the things he talked the most about.

I have a lot of fun memories of my grandpa:
- He was so happy to see us when we'd visit and his face would light up.
- He always made sure to bring out the tin with cookies in it and pass it around a few times.
- When I was little we'd always try to run past him without getting caught but he'd always grab us and tickle us.
- He teased his granddaughters when we were younger by calling us his boys.
- Grandpa loved the hymns and Primary songs. He'd love to have the family gather around him to sing the songs or accompany on various instruments.
- He gave me my Patriarchal blessing and many other blessings since I've been away from my dad at school.

I love my Grandpa so much and am so glad that I families are forever so I'll get to see him again. I'm glad that he got to meet Zach a few times. Here's a picture from one of those visits:

July 2008

Haircut

Hair on Sunday morning (if it looks like I just rolled out of bed that's probably because I did...Zach wasn't quite really up yet):


Hair on Wednesday evening:

Zach's First Trip to GJ

This last weekend Derrick, Zach, and I were in Grand Junction, CO so Derrick's brother Tyson could meet Zach. Here's the quick run down:

Friday: Arrived in Grand Junction after driving for 3 1/2 hours and taking at least half an hour break to feed and change Zach. This was his first trip out of Utah and he did pretty well until we were half an hour from GJ. We mostly just hung out and saw the bedrooms that have been remodeled since we were last there.

Saturday: After sleeping in, Zach and I went shopping at Kohl's with Mom Bowen while Derrick worked on applying for next year's summer internships (early deadline). Mom Bowen was very generous and bought some really cute winter clothes for Zach and shirts for both of us for Meesa and Andrew's wedding this October (Meesa is Derrick's older sister). Thanks again for everything!

Later we went to the At&t store for way too long and all got new phones. Until this weekend I'd been on my family's plan but am now on the Bowen family plan. Derrick's been having way to much fun with his new iPhone 3G. I just got a regular phone because they're a lot cheaper but at least it's got florescent green on it and it slides open and shut. (Both are pictured below) The rest of the day was taken up playing with our new phones and of course with Zach.

Zach also had his first bath in a sink. Usually we use a baby bath tub. Zach looks pretty bewildered by the whole experience.

Sunday: Early in the morning Christa brought Ryan, our 15-month-old nephew, over. The cousins have now met. Zach wanted to sleep the whole time and Ryan mostly wanted to poke Zach when he wasn't ignoring him. I see a good friendship in the making :). Later, Mom and Dad Bowen had the chance to show Zach off at church. After a quick lunch we headed back to Provo.

Here's a picture of the cousins with Tyson and me:

Successful "Surgical Procedure"

Thanks to all of you who expressed concern for Zach. He had the little surgical procedure at 10:30 am Friday morning (9/5). Including the time it took to numb the area, the whole thing took 5 minutes tops. Zach was as mad about the numbing process - two long Q-tip things with gross tasting stuff were held under his tongue for 20 seconds - as with the cutting process.

We went to a really nice ENT named Dr. Gibbs. (His name reminded me of Pirates of the Caribbean). They had me hold Zach on my lap and hold him so he was facing away from me. This thankfully spared me from having to see the graphic details. It still broke me heart to hear him start crying harder when the cutting happened but that part took maybe 10 seconds.

Luckily the lingual frenulum (illustrated below):
is just a tiny piece of tissue that doesn't have much if anything as far as nerves and blood vessels go. It only bled a tiny bit and by the time I got a chance to look under Zach's tongue it didn't look like anything had been cut. The area may have been just a little red for a day. We also didn't need to do anything special to take care of the area.

Good news on the eating front. Zach was able to latch on right after the surgery even better than before. Apparently we were really lucky that he could latch on at all to begin with since most tongue-tied babies aren't successful with it. Zach loves to eat and has always been a natural at it. Now that he can latch on better we don't hear quite as many funny grunting sounds while he's eating.

Zach recovered pretty quickly and stopped crying after a few minutes. He slept for awhile after we got home. I'm glad we got it taken care of when we did since it's a bigger procedure once you're older. I'm also so glad Zach did and is doing as well as he is. It was nice there was so little to worry about after all. (Sorry no exciting pictures from the process).

Life can be hard for a 2 month old

Zach had his 2 month check-up on Sept. 2 (Labor Day was the exact 2 month mark). He has grown so much in the last few weeks. This is seen in the chubby cheeks and numerous rolls.

The measurements are as follows:

At 2 weeks:
Weight - 7.9 lbs (28%)
Height - 20.5 in (45%)
Head Circ. - 15 in (71%)

At 2 months:
Weight - 13.6 lbs (89%)
Height - 23.5 in (72%)
Head Circ. - 16.7 in (96%)

Obviously Zach loves his food. We've started this week working on extending the feedings from every 2 hours to every 3 hours.

Now for the hard parts:

#1 - Surgical Procedure. The pediatrician noticed that Zach is tongue-tied. The piece of tissue (lingual frenulum) that attaches the tongue to the bottom of the mouth extends all the way to the tip of his tongue. We'd never noticed before that Zach can't stick his tongue out past his gum line. This would cause speech problems later so it needs to be cut. Jason, my twin, had the same surgical procedure down years ago. Sadly for Zach this unpleasant experience will be happening tomorrow morning (Friday). I'm freaking out at the idea of needing to be there without Derrick (he has a class he can't miss at the time). I know I'll have a hard time with the blood and Zach being understandably upset. Hopefully it won't have too much effect on Zach's ability to latch on while he's healing and getting used to a floppy tongue. It sounds like it's a simple procedure so hopefully I'm worried about nothing.

#2 - Immunizations. Yesterday I took Zach to get his immuniztions. He received a total of 3 shots in his thighs. I gave him Tylenal beforehand and he did pretty good. He cried right while receiving them and fell asleep in my arms within a couple of minutes. The nurse thought his cry was really cute because he's got a deep voice for a baby. I could sympathize with Zach getting his shots since I also had to get a Tetanus booster yesterday because of a lovely ankle injury I got when I gracefully fell off a sidewalk curb on Sunday.

Here we are showing off our bandaids. Zach's bandaids are red and blue and can be seen at the edge of his shorts.


It's been hard on me seeing Zach go through these painful processes even though they are for his own good. It's gotten me thinking about how it is for Heavenly Father when we have to go through hard things. Zach doesn't understand yet why it's good for him to get poked (or have his little procedure tomorrow) and we often don't understand why we have to go through hard things. It's gotta be hard on the Lord to watch us as we cry in pain for Him to end hard times but He does all things for our own good. Being a parent is tough at times!

Hiking the Rock Canyon Trail

So we recently went on a few hikes on the Rock Canyon trail. The first time it was just the 3 of us and for the 2nd time Melissa and Nate joined us. We kept leaving too close to dark to make a while lot of progress but we had a lot of fun anyways. Zach as yet to stay awake for very long while being carried in the backpack. I guess the rocking motion is just too much for him.

At the beginning of the hike. Zach looks pretty unsure about this.

Our at a family picture attempt a few minutes later in the dark and wind.

Derrick with the lovely rock scenery.The trail wasn't named Rock Canyon for nothing.

Derrick really likes to take artistic pictures with his camera. This made the walk back take awhile longer. This is a picture of trees at the end of a beautiful sunset.

Two Months Old!

It's crazy that 2 months have already gone by since Zach joined us. He's such a fun little boy and it's so much fun watching as he learns new things. He's learned how to smile (I started taking the above picture when he was smiling but this expression was in response to the flash), he makes a lot of new cooing sounds (makes the one-sided conversations a bit more exciting), and he can now hold and shake a rattle if we put it in his hand. We're still working on getting him to sleep longer at night. Right now he'll sleep for 3-5 hours before the first feeding and then 2-3 hours every time after that.

Here are a few pictures taken in the last week or two:

If you could blog about anything ...

That's sort of an ironic question to me because technically you could blog about anything. I guess that is exactly the point. For my marketing class as a semester group project we are to create a blog and see how many readers we can get. Personally, I read the blogs that have the content I am interested in, have quippy writing styles, and don't bother me with a whole bunch of extra crap.

I imagine other people feel similarly, but I could always use an informal research poll.
What sort of a blog would you be interested in reading? What attracts you to a blog? What are your blog pet peeves?

I now open the discussion to your rantings.

Tennis anyone?

Recently Derrick and I have started playing tennis together. So far we've only played once just the two of us and once with Melissa and Nate (and we won :) ). We have a lot of fun playing and hope to get more playing in before it gets too cold. Though we both played in high school we haven't played much since and as a result our skills are pretty rusty. While we play Zach gets to hang out in his "space pod". The beauty of it is that he's protected from stray balls.

Free Fruit and Fun Friends

Recently a friend in the ward showed me where some fruit trees are located around our housing complex. These fruit trees were apparently planted for the students to enjoy and we've been taking advantage of that recently. Our favorite are the apricot trees located by our church building. Derrick, Zach, and I walk over and Derrick climbs up the tree with a bag and goes to work. While holding Zach I catch the ones that fall and help catch the bag when Derrick needs to climb back done. Our favorite thing to do with the apricots is to make them in smoothies. We made up the recipe one night and we love it!

In case anyone is wondering, to make them we combine: fresh apricots, a serving-size container of strawberry yogurt, a scoop of strawberry ice cream, a few tablespoons of sugar, a tray of ice, a little milk until desired consistency, and a little bit of vanilla. Flavors and amounts can vary hence the very non-specific recipe.

On Sunday, Aug 10 (I've been meaning to post this for awhile) we had a game night with our neighbors the Slacks and with the Ross family. We made a batch of our apricot smoothie for it. The pictures show the apricots we picked and then Derrick drinking the smoothie with Ken and Kelsey Ross. (Not the most exciting pictures but that's the most we were motivated to take.)

The apricots with worms got rejected to the left bowl...the joys of free organic fruit

For the game night we had fun playing Boggle (my favorite game lately) and Acquire. Sadly the Slacks moved out the following Friday to go to grad school in Texas. We miss them already! Hopefully our new neighbors will be fun too...

The Slacks' baby Hyrum is only 1 year older than Zach and is huge compared to him. It's crazy how much kids can grow in a year.

Finished Project

So I started making crib bumpers for Zach's crib back in June or maybe even as far back as May. I meant to use the 2 weeks between my last day of work and Zach's due date to finish them but Zach decided to start coming on my last day of work :). No complaints there but the bumpers were put on the back burner for awhile. I think I was working on finishing the bumper with the 4 fish on it while I was going into labor (before I realized what the pains meant).

It's been quite a project because Derrick and I wanted to design them ourselves. We had fun looking at the different fabrics at JoAnn's for ones that felt beachy/tropically. Derrick then used a drawing program on the computer to design them. I created the patterns, cut, and sewed everything together. Derrick did cut out the shapes of the turtles, starfish, and regular fish. The pieces weren't designed to go in any particular order so we can rearrange them whenever we feel like it. I was really glad Derrick got into the project with me.

Here's Derrick's design that I used to create the patterns:

He's very creative!

And now for the finished product!

Gotta love the industrial strength carpet as the backdrop :)

Birthday Celebrations

Since this blog is kind of like our family journal I figured I'd finish posting on Derrick's birthday. Usually I'll wake up Derrick once during the night to change Zach's diaper (since he can't help with the feeding) but I decided to let him sleep the whole night before his birthday. After one of the nighttime feedings I stayed up and made a bunch of signs saying random happy birthday messages and put them up throughout the apartment. I wrapped his presents and had them waiting on the table. Because our decoration supplies are low at the moment and I wanted to put up streamers I had to get creative. The resulting streamers consisted of yarn and toilet paper (this can be seen in the picture).


Most of the day was pretty regular with Derrick at work for most of it. I did make strawberry shortcake from scratch using a Jones family special recipe :) (it's so yummy and Derrick requested it) and we went to dinner at a sushi restaurant. The sushi was really good but I wasn't too impressed with the entrees. Zach did alright for the first part of eating at the restaurant but made eating with chopsticks difficult later when he decided he had to be held. Maybe we'll get a babysitter next time we go out to dinner. Melissa and Nate came over to enjoy strawberry shortcake with us and watch the movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou".


Melissa and me watching this movie was another birthday request. We both tried watching it years ago and got so bored and/or confused that we never finished it. I'd tried three times so it'd struck out in my book. Derrick's been trying to get me to watch since we were just dating. I finally caved in the spirit of birthday-ness or whatever. Nate and Derrick both loved it and Melissa and I thought parts were funny but were never sold on it. Oh well. Now I can at least catch the movie quotes when Derrick uses them "She darn R-U-N-N O-F-T!"

On another note with b-day money from our generous parents Derrick is finally back to wearing contacts (the shower drain ate one of his hard lenses months ago), was able to pay for the eye exam, got a new battery for his laptop, and will probably put the last of it to a new iPhone it looks like he'll be getting. Yea for birthday! I love you Derrick!

24

I just wanted to wish Derrick a Happy 24th Birthday! He's such an amazing husband, father and person in general. He's my best friend and life is so great since I get to spend everyday with him.


He's got the looks and the personality, is very considerate of me and always willing to help out with Zach. Zach loves it when Derrick holds him and plays with him (it's very limited at this point since he's only 6 weeks old) and he just stares up at Derrick (when he's awake).


I could go on but I just want to say thank you for being so wonderful and I hope you are having an amazing birthday! I love you!

(All our recent pictures of Derrick are him and Zach. Can't imagine why...:) )

Blessing Day

This last Sunday, the 3rd, was Zach's baby blessing. After watching so many blessings while growing up in the Church it was unreal to be the mom watching the circle of Priesthood holders gather around her husband and baby. Family from all sides (we have 4 now) traveled to come. Thank you for supporting us at this special time in our lives! It's wonderful to see that Zach has so many people that are there for him.

I love watching Derrick exercise his Priesthood to bless others, especially his little family. Zach is a very special little boy and it was wonderful to get a glimpse at the type of person he can become. Heavenly Father has a plan for Zach and I hope that Derrick and I can do our part to help him reach his potential.

After the blessing we had an amazing potluck luncheon in the joint backyard of Derrick's grandparents and aunt and uncle. The food was great and it was a lot of fun to visit with family; a lot of whom we don't see very often. We were too busy visiting to take many pictures but we did take some 4 generation pictures after eating:

Derrick's parents, maternal grandparents, and us

My parents, us, my paternal grandparents

EscrowTech

About two weeks ago, a company named EscrowTech International, Inc emailed Derrick and offered him a freelance job. They knew he was qualified because they have his resume from when he was job hunting earlier in the summer. He was scheduled to interview with them before he got his current job (he canceled the interview).

The company's unexciting logo

The EscrowTech people want Derrick and his partner to create a web login system that ties into their existing databases. This project should take from 1 to 3 months to complete. Derrick officially started working on it yesterday. (If any of you are curious what kind of company this is, look up "source code escrow" on Wikipedia.)

This is an amazing opportunity. It gives Derrick additional free lance experience (he did some at the beginning of the summer) and the pay is quite a bit more per hour than either of his other jobs.

It's amazing how much the Lord blesses you when you seek to know what He would have you do and then act on it no matter how scary it is. It was a scary thought to start a family 2 years before Derrick graduates. I know having Zachary be part of our family now is the way things should be. I love being Zach's mom and I am so grateful that Heavenly Father is opening doors so we can have all we need (and a little extra). I'm also grateful that Derrick is willing to work so hard to provide for his family. Thank you!

One Month Old!

Swim Fun

My younger brother Garrett has been in town since Zach was born on July 1st. We decided to go swimming last Friday so he could have a chance to get out of the apartment. Hanging out all day with a new mom and her baby was probably getting old for a 17 year old boy.

I got some free swim passes to the Helaman Halls pool and Derrick got off work a little early. We decided that since we were going swimming Zach should dress the part (even though he slept in his car seat the whole time). In case anyone was worried, we kept a close eye on him the whole time. Here are a few pictures to document Zach's first trip to the pool.

This is Zach's gangster pose. Notice the low-riding with the pants to show off a little diaper.

At the pool with Dad. The white shirt he's wearing was actually Derrick's when he was little.

At the pool with mom. That's Uncle Garrett in the background.