In Provo

Zach and I (Jen) are in Provo with my mom and brother from today, Friday, until Tuesday night. One of my best friends is going through the temple (Mt. Timpanogos) for the first time on Saturday. I'm so excited for her! Anyways, hopefully I can see a good amount of you who are in the area.

Zach in Action

A lot of people around here have had colds lately so there's been a lot of coughing. Zach's been hearing it so much that he started fake coughing. It was pretty funny to hear my mom cough and then have Zach copy her with a few fake coughs. Here's what they sound like.

Zach loves stealing things from cupboards. He had a ton of fun with these cutting mat things.

We've been trying to teach Zach how to "give people five". He's made a bit of progress and for some reason thought it was so funny the night we took this video.

Two days ago Zach thought it was the funniest thing to carrying around blocks or balls and clap them together. His laugh is so contagious! I love that the simplest things can set him off. He'd been doing this for awhile before I got out the camera so it's toned down a bit from earlier.

Rainy Days

It's been raining like crazy for the last week or so. My brother Garrett and I decided to make the most of one of these downpours and play in it while Zach was sleeping. In later ones Garrett got much wetter. Zach even joined us outside for a little bit of one. I was surprised he didn't mind the cold water at all and just walked right out into it.

Dirt Cups

Derrick made these dirt cups tonight. They tasted really good. Since we didn't have any gummy worms Derrick used Sour Patch Kids. They ended up looking funny, though a bit morbid, with their heads sticking up out of the "dirt".

Random Zach Pics

Zach is looking more and more like a little boy. I blame it on the increasing amount of hair...and the walking.


I love how grouchy Zach looks in this picture. Don't worry, we ended up putting the little chicken thing away since it looked like it could be a choking hazard.


Here's Zach in his happy little toy corner. It's a combination of his toys, toys I grew up playing with, and even a few my dad played with (the trashed box full of wooden blocks in the corner). What a lucky kid.


Zach thinks my brother Garrett is so cool. He gets really excited when he sees him and sometimes follows him around. Garrett had a friend over the other day and I found Zach just standing at the office doors just watching them. He stood there for at least 10 minutes.


Zach barely ever crawls anymore. With walking all the time Zach has his hands free to get into more trouble. He loves grabbing things from one room and carrying them to other rooms. We find the weirdest things in the kitchen and living room. Here's Zach with the kitchen towel he stole.


Side notes for journaling purposes:

Zach managed to sneak past the barrier and up the stairs without any of us realizing. Luckily we found him before he caused too much damage to the rooms upstairs or fell down the stairs. We're still working on teaching him how to safely climb down.

Zach has gotten so much better at letting us know what he wants. One example is that when he wants to get down, he'll drop whatever he's holding and stare at it. He's thrown stuff over the gate and down the stairs, put stuff on my lap, and thrown stuff through my legs. It depends on where he wants to go.

Journey to the Center of the Earth vs Temple of Doom

Last night we watched the relatively recent "Journey to the Center of the Earth" movie (spoiler: it was kinda crappy) and the scene where they are in the mine carts reminded me so much of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom that we decided to watch that movie tonight.

We had a revelation: Brendan Fraser wants to be Indiana Jones.

I guess we should have guessed this from how much the main character in the Mummy resembles Indie, but for some reason we hadn't put it together until now. The Indiana Jones homages (dare I say rip-offs) are so blatant that I had to make a list. (I know how much bloggers like lists)

• Mine cart roller coaster scene (including broken track jump)
• Archaeologist -> Geologist
• University professor/adventurer type
• Main characters are: a man, a lady, and a kid
• Ridiculously big diamonds
• Rafts/Boats save them while falling from tremendous heights
• Eating of arthropods

There are probably more, but I should go to bed now.

P.S. After a little googling I found that Brendan Fraser and Harrison Ford are starring together in a medical drama (I'm scared)

Less than a month!

So it kinda blows my mind that Zach is now 11 months old. He'll be a year old in less than a month! Yikes!

One failed attempt at baby proofing. Zach likes to pull the mossy stuff up and try to eat it. He managed to get past these pillows without knocking any over. He looks pretty pleased.

Some other pictures just for fun:

Zach's first time riding in a baby swing. He liked it for a few seconds but it mostly scared him.

Already getting into the scriptures...

Colorado Updates

It's been awhile since we've posted anything on here so I thought I'd give a quick summary of the last month.

- Lots of cleaning and packing.
- Playing with Melissa and Nate as much as possible before we left.
- Move to my parents house in CO to start Derrick's internship with Dish Network. Derrick's brother Tyson helped a ton by driving another car so we could get all our stuff over.
- My brother Garrett's graduation from high school and seminary.
- My twin brother Jason and his wife Cassie's 2nd wedding reception.
- Getting Zach used to a new place. He had to sleep in a pack-n-play the first couple of nights and got so excited when he saw his bed set up in his room that he actually wanted to play in there for 20 minutes. (Usually he does his bed to avoid the crib unless he's exhausted). He's finally getting back to his normal sleep schedule.
- Baby proofing. We've had to get pretty creative with so many stairs.
- Game playing, movie watching, shopping, and taking Zach for walks and to parks.
- Derrick figuring out the best routes for making it to and from Denver in the best time.
- Zach walking. I talked more about this in an earlier post. It's crazy to see him walk across a room before falling over. I love how he raises his hands to keep his balance.

I think that's about it. Things aren't all that exciting around here but we're having fun :).

Glass Etching

For our Mothers' Day presents Derrick and I had fun doing some glass etching. We each did the serving dish for our mom. Here's how they turned out.



For instructions on how to do it we used this tutorial which we found on my cousin Jess's blog.

He's Walking!

Since we've moved to CO, Zach's been walking up a storm. He walks and crawls about evenly now. His favorite is holding onto something with one hand and walking around it. I got this video of him about a week ago.

Houston

Back in October we got some free Delta flight vouchers. We used them to visit Derrick's brother Jamon and his wife Jean last week. They showed us the sights and really spoiled us. We had such a fun time and it was great to get to know them better.

Day 1: Flew to Houston. Zach fell asleep during take off so that made things easier. Once there we took Zach on a walk to the park and mostly just hung out and played Wii.

Day 2: Drove to downtown Houston to see the Water Wall, the Galleria (a huge and very pricey mall. I think it's the 2nd biggest in America), and the Houston Zoo. For dinner we went to a great Chinese restaurant near Chinatown. We had Peking duck for the first time.

In front of the water wall. This thing was huge! It gave us vertigo when we'd look up at it from the base. The wall was falling down all 4 sides.

At the zoo we got to get really close to the lions. Only a piece of glass separated us from the lions. Zach was able to look where we were pointing but only seemed mildly interested in the animals in the cages. He seems to prefer animals he can chase and terrorize like Jamon and Jean's cat Georgina.

In the aquarium part they had this tube thing running through the tank that kids could crawl through. We tried to get Zach to crawl through it but it really freaked him out.

Jean's parents also live in Houston and were able to join us at the Chinese restaurant. They had a lot of fun with Zach.

Back at the house Zach got to have a bath in a giant tub. We filled it up a lot so we could see his reaction to the jets but sadly he barely noticed them. He did love all the extra wiggle room.

Day 3: Drove down to Galveston. There we took a boat ride, saw the aquarium and rainforest pyramids at Moody Gardens, and drove down to see the sea wall. Back in Houston we had a crawfish boil for dinner. We couldn't ever do much after dinner because Zach would crash by around 7:30p.m. every night because his nap schedule got all messed up.


On the boat. Since Zach refused to keep his hat on we had to rub sunscreen all over his head. It made him look like he had a comb over.

Fun times in the Aquarium Pyramid

Zach got his first taste of the ocean. He fought so hard to get in but once we stripped him and let him sit down he started crying and fought to climb back up me and out of the water. Oh well, maybe next time he'll like it better.

Jean and me at the sea wall. If you look closely at the pier behind us you can see a missing chuck. Bigger chunks were missing farther out.

Mmm...crawfish. Once you got past the point that you were eating things that looked like giant bugs, they were pretty good and tasted like shrimp.

Day 4: Derrick, Zach and I went to church in the morning. The afternoon was pretty mellow and then we had a BBQ for Jamon's birthday. This was Texas-style with massive amounts of beef and buffalo steaks and ribs. There were a ton of sides to go with it so we were completely stuffed. Jean's parents and a pair of Jamon and Jean's friends were also there.


Day 5: We drove to Brazos Bend State Park to have a picnic and see some alligators. The alligators were usually really hard to spot in the water. I'd forgotten to pack a spoon to go with Zach's lunch so I got to feed him using a straw (suck a bit into it and let him suck it out the bottom. Good thing he learned how to use a straw :) )


We did meet an alligator that decided to sun himself on the edge of our path. We tried to sneak past on the far side of the path but decided to head back the way we came once he lifted his head up and started hissing at us.

Day 6: We took Zach on a walk by the bayou and went to a BBQ place for lunch. (We had so much meat this trip). After that we headed back to the airport to fly home.

First Steps!

So I was "skype-ing" with my parents this afternoon and to my surprise Zach randomly took a few steps! He was so fascinated by the video and tried to get closer. He moved just one foot a couple of times and then he managed to move one then the other before losing his balance. He hasn't made any other attempts to walk today but I can't believe how close he is!

A Few of My Favorite Things...

Making messes - These pictures below show common occurrences. Usually the DVD mess happens several times a day.


Books - Zach loves pulling out his books. He stares intently at the different pages and carefully turns them. It's so funny to watch.


His "sof-ie" (burp cloths turned blankies) - Zach carries this thing everywhere. He holds it to calm down when upset, we put it over his eyes when he sleeps in public places, and he's recently started shoving it in his mouth to leave his hands free while playing.

* He doesn't usually have flower sheets. The 2 regular ones were dirty

* This is from the first time he saw me use this vacuum. He held onto the back and walked around the whole apartment with me. He only tackled the vacuum once.

Climbing - Zach tries to climb everything. One time he even managed to climb from my sister's lap onto the kitchen table before we could stop him.



Baby Signing Time - These DVDs are a life saver. For some reason Zach gets so absorbed when watching them.
Bath time - When Zach hears the water going he fights tooth and nail to get into the tub. Sometimes we're hard pressed to get all his clothes off. He has managed to climb head first into the tub twice now though both times the tub was dry. Zach now cries every time we take him out of his bath.

Playing outside - Zach loves playing outside. If he's getting fussy during the day I can just take him out on our porch or to the middle of the quad and he's happy.

Animals - Zach chases them down laughing the entire time. In Houston he wouldn't leave Jamon and Jean's cat alone. Cats are usually frightened by his enthusiasm but the big dog he kept chasing would just walk away annoyed.

10 Months

It's crazy to think that our little boy is 10 months and a week old. He is so much fun and has us laughing everyday. One good word to describe Zach is enthusiastic. When he decides to go for something, he does so as fast as he can grunting and/or laughing all the way. His smiles and laughs are so contagious and his enthusiasm leads to some pretty funny moments. It's great how the littlest things he does are so entertaining to us. We love you Zach!



For journaling/documenting purposes, here are some detailed descriptions of Zach's current level of development:

Sleeping - Zach is finally sleeping through the night. After a week of being up with him for hours I pulled out the tough love and made him cry it out during the first week of April. With only a night or two of lots of crying he learned pretty quick to go back to sleep. Zach seems like he's starting to transition to taking one nap a day. Sometimes he'll do 2 but other days he'll refuse to take his 2nd nap and ends up crashing around 7 p.m. The record is 6:15 p.m.

Standing/Cruising - Over the month of April Zach has gotten really fast at walking around furniture. He can reach almost every item on the couch and anything left near the edges of the kitchen table. He's also braver about trying to stand without support. He can stand for at least a minute without holding onto anything. He usually sits down because he gets bored of being in one place. Two weeks ago Zach learned how to go from sitting to standing without using anything to pull himself up.

Eating - About 2 weeks ago Zach learned the "exciting" talent of spitting. Now I have to watch very carefully or all the food I just put in his mouth will be decorating the floor or his bib. We introduced Zach to Rice Chex and now poor Cheerios just can't compete. Another favorite is banana-blueberry puree. He'll eat anything from spinach to brussel sprouts if I mix a little banana blueberry into it. Water is the only thing he'll drink from his sippy cup and he loves apple juice if it's mixed in with his cereal.

Language - Zach still has his really deep voice. He's very vocal with the yells and grunts but we're mostly hearing vowel sounds. He's been having fun with the "b", "d", and "s" sounds. Zach does say the word "hi" sometimes but we're not sure if he really knows what it means. When he's upset I do hear a lot of "mamamama".

Social - Zach absolutely loves being the center of attention. He has started getting more clingly with me but is still pretty good about going to other adults. He loves seeing other little kids and stares at them or crawls up to investigate. He's so enthusiastic in his interactions that he often scares the kids that are smaller than him.

Playing - Ever since Zach got more mobile he's been much better at entertaining himself. It's so fun to watch him play with his toys and whatever else he finds because he is always so intense. He gets really focused and has to look at what he's holding from every angle, tasting as he goes. Zach's playing mostly sticks to exploring, playing with toys, and looking at books. I would love any suggestions on games and other play ideas.

Anniversary!

As has already been mentioned, Jen is pretty much the coolest ever and treats me very well. To celebrate our two short years of bliss, we nabbed a babysitter for Zach for a couple of hours and went out on the town. (and by out on the town I mean picnic and a 5:30 movie- that's about as wild as Provo gets these days) Here's a love pic from our stop at Coldstone's at the end:

Anniversary!

2 years baby, it's been great.  I don't know if you've noticed this, but Jen is like the coolest ever.

Anyways, I'm at work right now so I can't write much.  Check back later for pics and more goodnes.

Timing

Because of my new church calling, I was in charge of our ward's "stuff swap" last Tuesday. After all the dropping off and picking up people did I got to pack up and figure out how to get all the left over stuff to DI. This was made more difficult by the fact that our car isn't working at the moment. That night Derrick helped me pack up the stuff to store. On Thursday I managed to find a guy from the ward who very nicely helped me move the stuff to his truck and then he drove the load to DI. On Friday a truck thing like this was parked in our parking lot.

*On a positive note I did get some cute shoes, jeans, and a shirt for Zach out of the deal :). Gotta love free clothes.

A Rough Week

Last week was pretty rough for Zach. He had the worst diaper rash. While we were letting him air out a bit we got this fun picture.


Sometimes though he was upset enough that he just wanted to cuddle and watch Baby Signing Time. The towel here was for my protection :).


Thankfully the worst of the rash is over and he's back to the occasional redness that comes with diaper wearing.

Straws Are Exciting Things

Derrick and I got Jamba Juice today and while we were drinking it thought it'd be fun to see if Zach could figure out how to use a straw. This was his first time with a straw and he was pretty funny about the cold smoothie inside.

Life in the Rabbit Hutch

For those of you who don't know, our apartment complex is sometimes called the rabbit hutch because so many people living here have babies. We joined the party and had Zach while living here. Well one result of all the pregnancy and babies is tons of baby showers. In just the last 4 weeks we've had 6 baby showers. The month before there were 2 other showers. With so many showers I ended up appliquéing lots of onesies. Also, with my sister being pregnant I made one for her too.

The first 2 are pictured in this previous post.

The rest are below. As you can see there are a few duplicates. The only ones I didn't create the template for are the elephants.




Side note: The golf onesie was designed for a baby whose dad LOVES golf. Apparently it's hard to find golf-related baby things.

Catch Up Post

I've gotten behind on blogging so this is a loooong catch up post. I need to get better at blogging about things as they happen.

Park City: At the end of March my parents and brother Garrett spent a few days in Provo and then a week at a condo in Park City for Garrett's spring break. We were able to join them for a few days and nights. Derrick commuted back and forth so he could keep going to class and work. We watched movies, played games, ate tons of snacks, and Zach got lots of attention from Grandma and Grandpa Jones. The downsides were that Zach had a hard time sleeping in his pack-n-play so nights were really long and my mom and Garrett got pretty sick for part of the time. Melissa, Nate, Jason, Cassie, and some of the extended Jones family also joined the fun.

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Grand Junction: For the last weekend in March we drove down to visit Derrick's family in Grand Junction, CO. We went for the family birthday party for our nephew Ryan. He turned 2 on April 1st. Zach and Ryan are able to interact better each time we go. They played together a little bit and Zach was in heaven with all the trash from Ryan opening his presents.
Zach doesn't seem to sleep well away from his crib so we were up again for hours during the nights. Thankfully Mom/Grandma Bowen was kind enough to take the morning shift so could get some sleep. Zach loved having so much room to crawl around and explore. He had his first taste of stairs and kept climbing up them. We had to watch him very carefully since he doesn't know how to go safely back down.

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Conference Weekend: We had a lot of fun conference weekend with my mom and Derrick's parents in town. We surprised my mom in on Thursday night when she arrived at my grandparents' house in Sandy. Zach learned how to cruise along the side of the fireplace. Ever since he's been cruising along our furniture and even standing alone for several seconds at a time. Couches are no longer safe territory from baby.
We had a crepe party with my mom, Melissa, and Nate during the Saturday morning session. Between sessions the girls all went to Plato's closet where I got to pick out some birthday clothes. It was amazing to find 3 pairs of pants (that actually fit me) for a total of $47! Mostly it's places like Gap and the Buckle that actually sell pants long enough. After picking up some Wendy's we all met back up at our apartment. Zach really enjoyed the parts of conference when the choir sang. He'd stop what he was doing and come watch. He especially loved the choir and congregation songs and would get really excited and laugh.
Saturday night and Sunday afternoon were spent with Derrick parents at his grandparents house. Zach and I hung out with Mom/Grandma Bowen while Derrick went to the Priesthood session with the men in his family. After the guys got back we had a mini birthday party for me. Sunday night we went up to Sandy to be with my mom and some of my dad's side of the family.
I really love General Conference. The talks were amazing and full of so much faith and hope in these crazy times. During President Monson's talk I was explaining to Zach that President Monson is God's prophet on the earth today. While doing this I felt the Holy Ghost strongly confirming that what I was telling Zach was true.

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23: I turned 23 last Thursday. Derrick did a lot to make it a good day. He work off so he could spend more time with Zach and me. He had 2 dozen roses delivered to our apartment and made me dinner. Later that night Melissa, Nate, Jason (my twin), and Cassie all came over to hang out and eat strawberry shortcake. After they left we watched "Bolt". Most of my clothes no longer fit because I lost a lot of weight from nursing and getting sick so most of my presents were ... clothes! It was a pretty low-key birthday but I enjoyed it.