I've Been Bitten!

Help all you experienced moms out there! I don't know what to do! This past week my adorable nursling has turned into a biter. Lately almost every time I nurse him he eats for awhile and then stops, clamps his gums down (which luckily do not have teeth in them yet) and pulls! Ouch! It hurts and I don't know how to get him to stop. I didn't think I'd have to worry about this till he got teeth. The hardest part is that he thinks it is really funny and when ever I howl he just smiles at me and goes "ha" (imagine a very breathy short laugh). HELP!!!!!!!!!

Tiny Tonka Truck

Jon and I saw this Semi-Truck on the freeway a few days ago. He wasn't carrying anything but he had this strapped onto his flatbed. It really made us laugh hard!

Hilary's Graduation

Sorry that I haven't posted for awhile but I've been in Idaho with my family. For Memorial Day we went up to our cabin to eat WAY too much junk food and to play some INTENSE ( and I really do mean INTENSE) games of Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride and Rook. I think we scared my brother's fiance is a little bit with our crazy competitiveness about board games! Jon went back to SLC after Memorial Day but I stuck around a couple of days to see my little sister's graduation from High School. I can't believe how grown up she is! I am WAY proud of her-- she is an AMAZING woman and is so smart, strong, kind and basically drop dead beautiful! I am really excited for her to go to BYU next year. She'll be living in the same dorm that I was-- yeah Taylor Hall!



Asher handled the graduation really well. He was totally obsessed with trying to eat the program, it kept us all really entertained. Then by some miracle he happened to fall sound asleep amidst wild cheering, cow bells, fog horns and the band playing "Pomp and Circumstance". Sometimes I really envy him.



Funny note: After the graduation the little nursling needed a diaper change so I started to head towards the girls bathroom so I could use the diaper changing table. About half way there I remembered that there wasn't a changing table and was a little upset-- I HATE it when bathrooms don't have changing tables. I was just about to complain when it donned on me that I was in a HIGH SCHOOL and that it would be rather sad and embarrassing if the girl's bathroom did have a baby changing table!

This Family Is Gowing Up

In the last couple of days the Heathon family has done quite a bit of growing up....

Jon:



This handsome man is now an OFFICIAL graduate student at Utah State University in Environmental Engineering! I am SO proud of him, and am really excited to be moving to Logan.

Heather:

This beautiful lady OFFICIALLY has a "mom" hair cut! After spending a month untangling little baby hands out of her long hair, and getting tired of finding clumps of it lying around, she now realizes why moms cut their hair short. She realizes that long hair is prettier-- but sometimes sacrifices must be made!

Asher:



This enchanting nursling can OFFICIALLY drink out of a sippy cup and sit up by himself. He isn't terrific at either one yet-- he gets more water down the front of him than in his mouth, and his sitting up often ends up tipping over or forwards. As one of my friends described it on her blog-- it is a "tripod" position. It amazes me at how strong he is and how fast he learns. It seems like one day he can't do something and the next day he can do it!



This picture has nothing to do with the post, but I thought it was funny. He was totally relaxing in his stroller the other day and put his foot up there all by himself!

Lessons I've Learned the Hard Way this Week

A few weeks ago I planted a garden, with peas, spinach, lettuce, carrots and broccoli, and they were doing SO good. In fact, the spinach probably would have been ready to eat next week. Would have.... except that a few days ago I noticed that there were swarms of ants building cities in between my lettuce and broccoli. They had eaten holes in almost all of the lettuce leaves and were swarming all over the broccoli plants. I looked on-line about how to get rid of them and one lady suggested that you spray a mixture of vegetable oil and dish soap on the leaves, to kill the aphids and get rid of the ants. Another suggested to sprinkle baking powder and corn meal on the ground and that would keep the ants away. Excited to be rid of the city of ant on my beautiful lettuce I went out and sprayed ALL the plants (except the carrots and the peas) with the vegetable oil and dish soap stuff and sprinkled baking powder and corn meal all over.

The next morning I went out and I found a MESS! My lettuce had turned brown and all but shriveled up, the leaves on the broccoli had turned yellow and crispy and the spinach had weird white blots all over it! And there were still about a THOUSAND ants happily building away! AGGG! I wanted to cry. My garden was just about ruined, and I'd worked so hard on it!Either there must have been something else hazardous in the bottle I sprayed with, or the people on-line gave me REALLY bad advice.

So here are the lessons I've learned the hard way this week:
1) if you are going to spray something on your plants, test it out on a small part first before you spray the entire garden
2) don't use bottles that you don't know what they had inside of them before
3) ants have a right to live too, and sometimes it might just be better to live with them than try to live without them

Drew and Brittany Sitting in a Tree...

My baby brother is going to get married! On Friday he asked Miss Brittany Marie Tippets of Idaho Falls, Idaho to marry him and she said YES! I am really excited for both of them and am really proud that they have decided to make such a big commitment. I'm proud that Drew asked her so romantically-- a girl always needs a good engagement story to tell! So here it is: Drew took her on a picnic to watch the sunset and made her a nice leather bound book of all the e-mails they had sent each other (which since they've had a long distance relationship is quite a lot) and then read her a poem. I was really impressed with the poem (Drew read it to me later) and I think that he should turn it into a song for her. Anyway, they are thinking of getting married around the 15th of August! Congrats you two! I love you both.

PS. Look how little Asher looks in this picture! I forget how small he was.

Bouncy Lip Sucker

Asher has discovered his bottom lip and LOVES to suck on it. It is so funny to watch, he looks like an old grandpa who lost his dentures. Here is a video I got of him doing it. I apologize first for how bouncy this is, he was in his jumperoo, and also that I forgot that video cameras don't work like normal cameras and that you can't turn them sideways! Oops.

And if you haven't got enough of him yet, here is another video in which he talks, or to be more accurate... squeals

PS. Just to update you-- we didn't counteroffer on that house in Logan. They seller was kind of a pain to work with and didn't go down in the price at all, he actually raised the price! Can you believe it, and with a hot pink toilet at that! We aren't too sad though, we are sure that there is another place that God wants us to be. We will just have to wait and see.

My First Doula Job

I attended by first birth as a doula (a professional birth coach) yesterday. One of my best friends from High School had a beautiful baby boy! Her brother called me yesterday morning at about 8:30AM and some what flustered told me that she had gone into labor early (again) but that this time they couldn't stop it and the baby was coming! I was totally unprepared, the baby wasn't suppose to come for another month. Anyway, in a whirlwind I got dressed, threw my hair up (later I would realize I forgot my make-up and that my hair looked strange, but oh well...), packed Asher up to go to my mother-in-laws, called the neighbor to re-schedule babysitting, called Jon to tell him I was going (and to get some moral support) and drove to Logan faster than I thought was humanely possible!

She did SO wonderful. Her sister and I were there to support her because her husband was in Houston, Texas. Needless to say he jumped on the first available flight and the nurses felt certain he would get there in time. But the baby decided to go fast! When I got there at 10:30 AM she was dilated to a 2 and was just getting into the jacuzzi tub at the hospital. In an hour and a half she went from a 2 to a 6! She did a GREAT job of breathing and relaxing through the contractions, but decided she wanted an epidural because she was SO exhausted (she'd been up since 4AM). After the epidural she went from a 6 to 10 centimeters in two hours. At about 2 PM she was ready to push and little Odin was born at 2:59 PM! Right when Odin was born her husband was getting on to his transfer flight in Las Vegas. He turned his phone onto speaker phone so the whole plane could hear his new baby boy. There were lots of cheers and the stewardess even gave him a bottle of champagne:). He finally got there at about 6:30PM, and he looked like he'd had a hard day too.

It was an AMAZING experience and I am so honored that she let me support her during birth! She was so capable and strong! It was the first time I've seen a baby being born, because I have to admit that during my own birth I was much to focused and preoccupied with getting him out rather than watching. It was everything I thought it would be and more. There is nothing so beautiful in this world than seeing a new human being take his first breath and snuggle into his mother's arms. It makes you realize what a miracle life is and what a privilege it is to create, nurture, and bear God's children. Women have the MOST amazing bodies!

Another Week of Firsts

First First: JALEEN GOT HER MISSION CALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Wednesday night we all went up to the Farrell's to watch JaLeen open her mission call (I was surprised how fast it came!). We all took turns guessing where she was going to go, and Grandma Bay totally got it right! She is going to the SOUTH AFRICA, JOHANNESBURG MISSION, English speaking (but we have heard that usually they have to learn some African dialects once they are in the field). She leaves the first week of September and flies right to the South African Missionary Training Center. We are so excited for her. I know that calls are truely inspired of God and that she is going where the Lord needs her to be. I am so proud of you JaLeen! You will do great!

Second First: WE PUT AN OFFER IN ON A HOUSE!

For all of you who don't know, we are planning on moving to Logan, Utah this Fall so Jon can do a Masters in Environmental Engineering. We've been looking at houses for a few months and went down this weekend to see the one we liked for the second time. We felt really good about it and put an offer in on Friday night. It is an older house, built 1916, right by the mouth of Logan Canyon. It is really close to Utah State and it has a big yard where we can have a garden and chickens (yippee!). It does need quite a bit of updating. Actually right now it is downright HIDEOUS! It has tacky, cheap motel-ish shag and flowered carpet, peppermint green cupboards (which Randall would probably like:) and a purple bathtub and sink and a toilet that is half purple and half hot pink! We are hoping to get it for a low enough price that we will have the money to fix it up a bit! Here is a picture of the bathroom and the kitchen! UGG!

We should hear back sometime today if the seller accepts the offer or if he counters. We will keep you posted.

Third First: ASHER ROLLED OVER FROM HIS BACK TO HIS TUMMY!

To qualify for the First Time Home Buyer programs in Logan we had to take and ALL day home buyer class on Saturday. It was SO long! But right in the middle of one of the presentations I looked down at Asher, who was lying on the floor, and he was ROLLING OVER from his back to his tummy. It was the first time, and needless to say Jon and I didn't pay much attention to the speaker. He has been trying to do it quite a bit since then and sometimes he gets it and other times he doesn't.

History Repeats Itself

1870- Black men get the right to vote. Granted not many did because they feared for their lives, but they got the right to vote with very little effort on their part.

1920- FIFTY years later! Women earn the right to vote, after a long and hard struggle.

It seems that this year in the Democratic primary election history is repeating itself.

My unofficial official prediction is that Obama will win the primary (which after the results of the Indiana and North Carolina primaries yesterday is looking much more likely) not because he is the "best" candidate for president, but because the US will elect a black man as president first before they will ever elect a woman to be president.

It kind of ruffles my feathers and fluffs my muffins that the presidential race is more of a competition between race and gender, than it is over policies and issues.

I have to admit that if Clinton drops out I will be sad, not because I necessarily want her to be president, but because it means that we might just have to wait fifty more years till some qualified and hard working woman gets her chance. While I don't agree with all of Hillary Clinton's policies, I do respect her fighting spirit. I hope she fights it out to the end because I think the US needs a woman president. It probably will not be Hillary Clinton, but somewhere there is a little 10 year-old girl who fifty years from now might finish what she began.

It is ALIVE......dun dun dun!

Jon's creation MOVED ... by its own free will and choice...for the first time 0n Saturday! We bought this 1996 VW Golf from a friend who was in a car accident back in October. She didn't have a car insurance and needed money to settle the case, so we bought the wrecked car from her. The motor wasn't hurt, just the back door and quarterpanel. For the last few months Jon has been going up to Bountiful to his parents house to work on it. He had to replace the whole backside of the car-- and it looks fabulous now! It just needs paint and it will be as good as new.

Here are some pictures of it before

Some of him working on it

( I like what Jaleen put as a caption for this picture of Facebook- " The story of his life... the story of our garage". I think is family was a little less worried about him this time around than when he was working on the Mustang in High School because now he has a wife and a baby and would actually come in to eat!)

Here is a video of it finally taking off for the first time


All I can say is Woah Baby I am so proud of his work and am SO grateful to have a husband who knows how to fix cars!

Jell-O Yum Yum Yum

Okay, so I got WAY too excited about this! On Tuesday night we had the sister missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints over to our house for dinner. They are really nice, one from Dallas and the other from Washington. For dessert I made Jell-O Jigglers, which I hadn't made since I was 10 years old, and we cut them out with cookie cutters! I discovered two things, 1) That we need more cookie cutters (all we had were Valentines Day ones) and 2) that it does my heart and soul good to act like a little kid sometimes! It really is the small happy things that make life rich and rewarding!