Wow, it has been such a long time since I've blogged. It has been such a crazy month. Here's a little bit of what has been going on.... To start the month off, we had Jemma's wedding. It was nice and simple. We had Ray's grandparents come and stay for a few days. It was wonderful spending time with them. We don't get to see them very often. They were also very excited to meet Mady. She is their first great grandchild. Here's us with them.
Ray's grandma is Japanese. How she and Grandpa met is quite an amazing story. Maybe someday I'll write about it. We loved listening to their stories about their lives. Jemma married Jacob Young on June 4th, which also happens to be BOTH of their birthdays. Crazy huh? Well at least they won't be spending lots of money for each of their birthdays and their anniversary. It'll just all be combined together. So they got that going for them.
Ray and I (only cause I made him) stayed with Jemma and Jacob after to get pictures done at the Temple. Man it was long. Jemma and Jacob and especially their photographer got pretty annoyed with me. I kept adding my two cents in, saying they should shoot in front of this or trying getting them at this angle. Or how about you sit like this.....yeah. I should have just shut up. But hey, I get it from my mom. I thought my suggestions made for good pictures. At least from my view. And don't worry she wasn't a professional, that's why she got mad. Usually professional photographers are all too happy to try new things. At least the ones I've worked with. But if there's one thing I've learned its that art majors hate advice.
Jemma had her reception in the back of Ray's yard. It was very simple, but it turned out great I thought. Since Jemma is the only girl in the family with 3 brothers, its custom for the brother's to do a chivalry. For those of you who do not know what this is, it happens when the bride and groom are ready to leave for their "honeymoon" when they kidnap the bride, and leave a ransom note for the groom. Then they take the bride and desert her somewhere in her wedding dress and all. Well Ray and Ethan did do so....but Jemma started crying. So they turned around. I would have loved to see Jacob freak out when he found out he had to go find her. But it didn't work. But they were pretty mad about the car. Haha, except Jacob's friend made sure it was all nice stuff, so I don't understand what their problem was. I did, however, get away with some kinky sayings on the windows hehe. We did find a snake that I wanted to put in the car, I thought it would be hilarious, but of course I didn't. I'm not THAT mean.
Our next big adventure was moving. I'm so glad Justin was there to help out. And my mom , and two little sisters came down to help too. We got all moved out in two days and then cleaned the third. I am amazed at how much stuff we have. You never really know until you move. We did de-junk while we moved. I love our new apartment. Our bath tub is amazing. And its a little bit bigger too. For free rent, you can't get any better.
Our next big trip was to Idaho for Ray's reunion. It wasn't till the night before when I agreed to go. I was so worried about my homework and classes, I just didn't think I'd be able to do it. I'm glad I went though. It was fun to finally meet all his relatives. It was hard to focus with Mady and with the activities they had planned. But I thought I did a pretty good job, except for the stuff I didn't understand. My friend Ada helped me out the night we got back. But I still had to stay up until 3 in the morning to get all my stuff done the night before it was due. Unfortunately, we didn't many pictures except for these of Mady in the car on the way home.
I'm really surprised how good she did on the way up and back. Considering it was an 8 hour drive. We got her out a few times just to stretch, feed, and change her. Other than that she did really good.
We have been so blessed recently. Amongst the trials and hardships we've experienced recently, God has given us the means to get by. One of our greatest blessings was Ray getting hired at a rehab place in Cedar. We're not sure how many hours he'll be able to get, but I know that God will take care of us. And despite my many complainants about not wanting to live in Cedar anymore or stressing about school and having Ray gone 15 hours of the day, Ray, my mom, Justin, and Alicia and Leisl have been such a support and strength to me. Alicia and Leisl are always there to talk to or just to get my mind off of school or my so-called friends in cedar by telling me about whats happening in theirs. I can't wait till Alicia moves down by me. It will be nice to have a real friend down by me. I wish I could say Leisl will be coming too, but she will be going to Spain. I'm so happy for her even though I will miss her dearly. I will be writing her constantly though. Justin has been living with us a few days out of the week. It so nice to have him there just to help out or to talk to. I feel so unwanted and lonely; and all I have is my books and Mady when Ray's at work. I love when Justin comes. It lifts my spirits. My mom is such a support to me. I call her all the time just to talk when I'm feeling left out and overburdened. She always makes the time to listen to me. I love her dearly. I always know I can come home and get the help I need with school or just to get away from things or people in Cedar. But most of all, I am especially grateful for a wonderful, loving, and handsome husband. Ray does so much for me. He also put off his orientation until Monday just so he could come home with me for the weekend. He knows how hard it is for me to be away from him. God must love me more than I know to give me such an amazing husband and friend.
Well can you believe my little girl is 3 months old today!! Or well its after 12 so I should say yesterday. Its so surreal. She is such a blessing in our lives. I love watching Ray with her. We are learning so much from her. At times its overwhelming, especially being home alone and doing school. But sometimes when I'm reading and I look down at her, she's just watching me, listening to me. And when I look she smiles at me and gives me motivation to keep going. She's grown so much its hard to imagine that she was 10 times smaller than she is now.
At her two month appt. she weighed 10 lbs and was 23 in. tall. She's getting so big. She smiles all the time now, I love it. I'm just waiting for the day when she will starting laughing. She goes about 4 hours now between feedings, and its kinda getting better at sleeping throughout the day, which as really helped me out. Our neighbor Amanda let us borrow this carrier for her which she really enjoys. She usually falls asleep in it as well. This is what we do when she does...
Haha no I'm just kidding. But it did make for a great picture. She's really starting to enjoy toys. She will sometimes grab at them but doesn't know to open her fist, she just likes to touch them. When we lay her on her mat with the toys hanging above her, she kicks them with her feet. Its so cute. I love it. Here's a small clip of her doing it:
I wish I could say that she is sleeping better at night, but she's not. She's actually doing worse. Ever since we came back from Idaho, its like she's a newborn. She went about a month or so sleeping 6-7 hours. But now she bearly sleeps 4. So now our schedule goes something like this: Mady goes down for the night 11-12, wakes up about 4:00 a.m. I usually can get her back to sleep after 15-20min. But then at 6:00 a.m. she wakes back up. After calming her down and feeding her, she will go back to sleep (only sleeping next to me) for 2 more hours. Then we must wake up for good. At night I usually top her off with a bottle to see if she will sleep longer (it used to work before this 4 hour thing started). She is so funny, she actually will suck hard enough to where she can hold it in herself by her sucking.
I have found that she will sleep longer when I am holding her. She only sleeps for a half hour to an hour if I lay her down during the day. So that has been quite challenging. But no worries, I'm becoming really good at typing with one hand. Mady is such a wonderful blessing in our lives. We love her so dearly. I love bringing her home and watch my family dote on her. When my mom takes her out places, people always ask if Mady is her baby (seeing how many kids she's had already) its hilarious. Its nice to have some time with Ray too without her. Although I do worry about her while I'm away. Me and Ray went on a 4-wheeler ride since we've been home visiting. Its been such a long time it was nice. Ray has never been up to my favorite spot, but we were able to go up. Its this gorgeous lake up new canyon. There's a big rope swing that you can go on. A beaver dam...oh its so lovely. Me and Ray stripped down to our birthday suits, the water was too cold suprisingly. This is also the reason we don't have any pictures. Next time I'll get some....maybe ;). Its been such a nice break. Ray's going back on Monday for his orientation, but I'm going to stay. I'm not ready to leave. Not when I have fulltime babysitters and amazing friends here. Ray's coming back up Monday night/Tuesday morning, so it won't be too bad without him.
Here's what a great help my mom is. I love both of these girlies!
