The Borrowman's

Life goes on

2012-02-09T00:32:00.000-07:00

I realized I handn't updated our blog in awhile so figured may I should do so. I guess I haven't updated it because there isn't much going on. We've settle back into our post-holiday schedule and life. Monty had a birthday and turned a big 3-1. We just had a little family party and then had some friends over for ice cream cake.

Don't mind the runny writing

That's the only real exciting thing going on lately. Mia is still growing like a weed and growing more and more into her sassy pants personality. She definitely knows what she wants and is willing to do about anything to get it. She's loves making messes, climbing on things, eating, shoes, books, and just going a million miles an hour.

For Christmas Nana made her a pillowcase. Aunt Trina and I were clowning around the other day and decided to put her in it. She had a blast running around.

Mia does great feeding herself with finger food but we're still working on using utensils.

One of her favorite messes to make is the pots and pans. She pulls them all out and then tries to stand on them.

She's definitely enjoys having a chair that's just her size.

Like I said, just boring regular life at our house right now but it's kind of the theory no news is good news.

The story of Violet

2012-01-12T03:04:00.001-07:00

This is Violet.

Mia got Violet for her first Christmas. Violet knows Mia's name, favorite food, favorite color, favorite animal, and much more. Violet has traveled to Salt Lake, Idaho, Colorado, even Hawaii with Mia. Everywhere Mia goes so does Violet. For about 10 months Violet sang Mia to sleep every night and it wasn't uncommon if Mia woke up in the middle of the night for her to play with violet and they'd have their own little conversations in her bed (It's true I've heard it in the middle of the night). Around October Violet's batteries died. It took me a couple weeks to replace them but sadly the batteries lasted less than 2 weeks. A week or so later I replaced them again and the same thing happened. I came to the conclusion it was Violet and not the batteries (they were from 2 different packages and 2 different brands). I had determined Mia's friend would now just have to be a silent stuffed animal. However Violet still went everywhere Mia did.

When we went to Idaho for Christmas of course Violet came along. On the morning of the 26th we woke to a sad sight. Mia had thrown up in the middle of the night and as you can see Violet was one of the targets.

It wasn't that much and it was already dry because Mia sadly slept in her own vomit (I promise I'm not a bad mom she just didn't let us know there was a problem). That morning Mia clearly didn't feel good and was carrying Violet around with her. As gross as I thought it was I didn't have the heart to take her dog away to clean it. I figured I'd clean it up at nap time. Like I said it was all dry. Mia climbed up on Monty's lap with Violet and started grabbing at her paws. Clearly she was trying to get her friend to talk to her. It was kind of sad to watch but I was also impressed that she remembered the days when Violet talked since it'd been a couple months. She started to grow frustrated and then grabbed Monty's hand, put it on Violet's paw, squeezed again and then looked at Monty with the look of "Daddy help me." That was all it took. Monty looked at me and immediately said, "We need a new Violet." After she was spoiled for Christmas we head out the day after Christmas to get her a new dog. Sadly, we couldn't find one in Pocatello. We checked 3 different stores and they were all sold out. However, the first thing we did when we got home the next day was go to Walmart and get a new Violet.

In the past year Violet apparently got a little bit of a makeover. It took a few days for Mia to take a liking to the new Violet but eventually all the singing and fun times took over and she realized she had her old friend back.

The old Violet quietly slipped away never to be seen again and Mia once again has a friend to sing her to sleep and talk to in the middle of the night.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-02T01:49:00.000-07:00

Christmas

2012-01-01T23:54:00.000-07:00

For Christmas this year we went to Idaho for 5 days. I was a nice and relaxing get away and we had lots of fun spending time with family. We had a wonderful Christmas and Mia was definitely spoiled. We kind of knew that was going to happen since she really didn't have many age appropriate toys. She's definitely loving all the new toys and books.

So Mia is totally obsessed with shoes. She tries to put on all shoes she sees and loves walking around in shoes that are 12 sizes too big. Growing up instead of stockings our family had boots. My parents still have them and Mia recognized them as shoes. She kept playing with them and trying to put them on so finally we stuck her in two of them. Needless to say she couldn't walk but she thought it was pretty cool.

Christmas Eve Mia got to open one present.

It was new jammies! Mia also enjoyed playing with the toys Grandma had saved from when I was growing up.

After Santa came

Mia coming out Christmas morning. Notice the change of clothes...she soaked through her diaper and her new jammies were all wet so she didn't get to open presents in them.

Checking it out.

She was pretty excited and kept smiling, squealing, and even giving hugs.

Her very own flashlight for camping. (She actually got too flashlights and the one from Nana and Grandpa is much cooler cuz she can turn it on herself and it growls).

Our little family Christmas morning. Monty makes the rest of us look like slackers.

Mia got a phone and she knew just what to do with it.

Mia liked ripping paper but didn't quite get the whole concept of presents yet.

Told you this girl was spoiled.

Santa and the Christmas Village

2011-12-31T03:48:00.000-07:00

This year I took Mia to see Santa Clause. Because I'm too cheap to buy pictures my mom took some for us.

Mia sat on his lap and stayed nice and calm.

Santa sang her Jingle Bells and then gave her a coloring book.

Mia and I met Monty in Salt Lake one day after work and we went to see the lights at Temple Square again this year. Sadly I forgot the camera. The following week we got all bundled up again and went to the Christmas Village in Ogden. I took the camera but only remembered to take a couple pictures.

Mia was all bundled up and stayed toasty warm. She didn't complain once and just enjoyed being outside and seeing all the lights.

My mom was in town so she went with us. We tried to stay warm with hot chocolate but I was wishing I was in a bundle like Mia.

One happy frozen family.

Chairs vs Toys

2011-12-08T04:00:00.000-07:00

Mia has decided that instead of toys she wants to play with the kitchen chairs. She pushes them around the kitchen and will seriously spend an hour climbing all of the legs of them, over, under through. Initially I would try to stop her and she fell on her face a couple times but it didn't stop her. I finally gave up and let her just have at it and she's gotten pretty good. I tried to get a video but every time she'd see I had the camera out she would stop climbing around and pose for the camera so I had to settle for a bunch of still pictures, but it gives you the idea.

I sure hope Santa brings her some fun toys to play with so we can have our chairs back.

Thanksgiving (A little late)

2011-12-03T02:10:00.000-07:00

For Thanksgiving this year we went and spent a few days with Monty's family. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and it was nice to spend time with family. Mia loved her spending time with her cousins, aunts, uncles, nana, and grandpa, but most of all she loved her Thanksgiving pie. We gave her her own little piece of chocolate pie in a bowl and let her have the spoon. I figured it'd be good practice eating with a spoon since it was something she really liked.

She eventually gave up on the spoon and just licked her bowl clean. I have now idea where she got that from.

For Christmas last year the grandkids got a big blow up ball that you can roll around in. Mia being the youngest never got to play with it...until now.

We put her in it and I thought it would scare her once they started rolling her.

Nope she loved it, even when she was tumbling head over heels she didn't mind.

Somewhere along the line she's also learned it's cool to drink from the milk carton. (Monty!?!)

We had a wonderful time and we are so thankful to be a family and for this adorable little girl.

Snow Day

2011-11-06T00:22:00.000-06:00

Last night and today we got our first snowfall of the year. While I was sleeping trying to recover from a night of work and get ready for another one, Monty took Mia out to play in the snow for the first time.

All bundled up and ready to go

At first she wasn't quite sure what to think of it.

Then she got in and started playing.

However, once the snow soaked through her gloves and pants she was DONE!

Luckily she's still cute when she's mad

Happy Halloween

2011-11-02T22:39:00.002-06:00

So this year Mia had 2 Halloween costumes. For our ward Trunk or Treat she was Boo from Monsters Inc. It was perfect seeing as she really does look like Boo (thus her nick name). She walked around from car to car holding daddy's hand and her little pink pumpkin. She didn't like it when we took her pumpkin away and was trying to eat the candy through the wrappers. I let her have a couple smarties, a bite of kit kat, and part of a sucker but that was about the extent of her sugar for the weekend.

If only she could say Kitty

Sunday for church she wore her pumpkin dress that her Nana got her.

Nana even grew the pumpkin for her

Then on Monday we took her trick or treating to Nana's, a few other family members in West Jordan, and to just a couple houses in our neighborhood. Let's be honest it's not like I'm going to let her eat the candy and Monty and I really don't need it. That won't stop us from enjoying it though! Last year shortly after Mia was born her aunts bought her this Utah State cheerleader outfit. It was a little small and didn't cover her diaper in the back but that's OK. We just threw some white tights on under it to keep her little legs warm.

GO AGGIES!

Family Pics

2011-10-20T06:12:00.000-06:00

One of the nurses that I work with is a photographer. She only works one day a week and spends most of her time doing pictures. For nurses week she donated a photo session and I won it. I was so excited. A few days after Mia's first birthday we headed up to Heber for our photo session. It was a long way to go and Mia was definitely done by teh time we were finished but it was worth it. The pictures turned out great. The problem now is that I like so many that's it's hard to decide which ones to get printed.

Check out that toothy smile

I think this is one of my favorites

In a lot of the family pictures we were just goofing around and seeing what we could do to get Mia smiling

I really wish Mia was smiling in this picture but it's her typical little pout instead

Mia loves playing with her Daddy!

There weren't very many good ones of Mia and I because like I said she was DONE by the end.

Cuddling in the field trying to make her happy.

Look what I can do!

2011-10-15T08:58:00.000-06:00

I can stand all by myself

I can scoot on my bus all by myself

I can climb on my bus all by myself

And now I can walk all by myself!
(sorry ya have to tilt your head, couldn't figure out how to flip it)

Mia is 1!

2011-09-22T00:30:00.001-06:00

I can't believe Mia is already a year old. It has gone way too fast. To think she has gone from this...

To this...

She's no longer a baby. She is a spunky crazy little girl now and we have so much fun.

This year Mia got two birthday parties. Her birthday was on Thursday but Monty had school, I had Relief Society stuff so we didn't tell Mia it was her birthday and we just celebrated it late. She didn't seem to mind. Friday night Mia's birth mom, grandma, and 2 aunts came over and we had pizza and cake. Most of the pictures from that night have her birth family in them and since I want to keep their privacy, there weren't very many that I could post on the blog but there were a few where we chopped heads off by accident.

Mia's 1st birthday cake.

All ready for cake. We tried to get her to blow out her candle but she didn't get the idea.

Trying to get her to eat some cake. She played in it a little bit and then...

She decided she didn't like cake. She screamed like she was being tortured.

Happy now that she's free from the high chair and cake. She couldn't let us clean her up first so I ended up covered in cake too.

After a quick bath Mia opened presents. She got some adorable clothes from her aunts and a fun book from her grandma.

Her birth mom gave her a super soft bear and a fun toy that she's almost worn the battery out on already. She won't stack the rings on but she loves to pull them off.

On Saturday we had a big barbecue with mine and Monty's family. We had 18 people at our house so we were very grateful for the beautiful weather so we could all eat outside. The balloons were Mia's favorite part of the day. We had to put them in the house during dinner so she'd eat something.

Everyone hanging out.

For Saturday Mia had her own little cupcake in addition to her birthday cake.

Different day, different cake

Same results.

When she finally got her hands into the cupcake everyone cheered and she started crying. I was beginning to think she didn't like cake but after the attention was off her she loved stealing bites of cake from everyone else. After cake she opened presents. She was spoiled. She got dresses, Jammie's, an RSL (Real Salt Lake, the MLS team) outfit, books, a Sully doll (from Monsters inc.), a pig that snorts, bounces, and sings, a butterfly towel, hair bows, and a school bus she can push and ride on.

She needed lots of help opening presents, hasn't quite figured that out yet either.

The pig was her favorite.

Her bus has really got her walking more. She has lots of fun pushing it.

When she rides on it she just kind of rocks back and forth. She hasn't figured out how to make it go forward. She thinks it's fun to ride it down the driveway though.

Off she goes with her balloons trailing behind.

I swear before I know it she's going to be off and running and leaving us all behind. Happy Birthday Boo! We love you!

Cousin Khloe

2011-09-08T02:21:00.002-06:00

Over the weekend we went up to Logan and got to meet my brother's new baby Khloe. My brother Steve and his wife Nicky live in Cheyenne, WY but just recently moved there and don't really know anyone so they blessed Khloe in Nicky's uncle's ward in Logan. It worked out well for us because it was close enough we were able to go. Khloe is so cute and it was so fun to see Steve and Nicky. We hadn't seen them since we all went to Hawaii in February.

Mia enjoyed meeting her new friend and really did pretty good with her.

Isn't my brother Shawn a great photographer. So we didn't really let the 1 year old (almost) hold the 2 month old alone. I was holding Khloe and keeping Mia from crawling off but somehow Shawn made me disappear.

The Cobbley family. It's our first family picture with grand kids and the first time we've all been together since Hawaii. We had a couple of family pic attempts in Hawaii but nothing really turned out.

Mia enjoyed the freedom of just crawling around in the backyard. It was the end of the day, she was tired, but luckily since we were outside she stayed semi-happy.

She's getting so big. I kind of wish she was smiling in this picture but I love the little pout. It's definitely Mia through and through.

Colorado Trip

2011-09-01T04:55:00.000-06:00

So last week we took a trip to Colorado. We did a lot of hiking and just enjoyed getting away and spending some time as a family. We stayed in a great condo in Pagosa Springs. It was like home away from home. It had a couple little flights of stairs which gave Mia some good practice at climbing stairs. She does pretty good as long as there is something at the top that she wants, otherwise she tries to stop and sit down part way up. It also had a bath tub bigger than any tub I've ever seen.

Anyway, we had a great time and saw some amazing things.

We got there Saturday night and spent Sunday just relaxing, taking naps and being lazy. On Monday we went hiking at Chimney Rock. It is a site of ancient Indian ruins. The people who lived there lived before the wheel, had no tools, and didn't use "beasts of burden". It's believed that Chimney Rock was a sight of great importance where they could watch the moon and sun rise between the stone pillars.

Mia was a great little hiker as long as we were moving. When we stopped for any length of time she wasn't a big fan.

One of the Kiva's at Chimney Rock. Kiva's are ceremonial sites.

The remains of the Great House that was at the top of the hill.

Us with Chimney Rock in the background

On Tuesday we went to Mesa Verde and hiked the cliff dwellings that are there. The cliff dwellings were amazing. It's hard to imagine people living there. The even more amazing part is that they would climb down the cliff fronts to get to the dwellings, they didn't enter them from below. They used hard stones to carve out hand and foot holds in the face of the cliff.
We started the day with a guided tour through the cliff dwelling Cliff Palace. Because it was a guided tour it meant lots of stopping. Mia was getting restless so I pulled the camera out and was telling her to say cheese. She loves the camera so she cheered up until we were able to get moving again.

Cliff Palace

The alcove in the cliffs are natural and the Indians just built into the alcove. In some places the dwellings go back as far as 83 feet into the cliff.

After Cliff Palace we hiked to Spruce Tree House.

All the black on the ceiling is from fires. It means that this part of the cliff dwelling was a part where they lived. Lots of the areas were used for storage.

After Spruce Tree House we hiked down through the canyon to see the Petroglyphs that are carved into the cliff side.

Mia and I taking a break and reading the booklet that tells what the possible translation is.

So everyone who knows me knows that I'm not exactly the most buff person in the world...OK...I'm a wimp. But I am very proud to say that I carried Mia on the hike through Tree House, the Petroglyphs, and back out the canyon. It was 3 miles over much less than level terrain. This spot wasn't even the steepest. There was one point I had to climb up a rock. I had Monty hold Mia's weight so I could reach up with only one foot on the rock. It was kinda crazy.

Half way there.

VICTORY!!

Mia was such a good little traveler. On the way home about 6 hours into our trip was the first time she threw a fit in her car seat. Not bad for an 11 month old and an 8 1/2 hour trip there and back with several 2-3 hour trips in between.

Wednesday was rainy and stormy so we hung out and didn't do a whole lot but we went and played at the pool for a while.

Mia and her Daddy playing in the water. Mia loves the water. She was kicking around and splashing. If only we could figure out how to get her to keep her face out of the water and stop drinking it.

Thursday we had our friends Dennis, Marianne, and Jackson come join us. It was fun to have some friends to play with. Thursday was also still a little rainy but we didn't let it stop us. We covered Mia with a t-shirt to keep the drizzle off and hiked off to a waterfall.

I can't remember the name of this waterfall because there were 3 different ones that we were going to hike to that day. This is the only one we made it to. To make a long story short, in our quest to find another waterfall that was supposed to be pretty spectacular we ended up going on an hour and 45 min drive, nearly ran out of gas, and saw a momma bear and her two cubs. Needless to say we didn't make it to the hike but after all the fun and excitement of trying to get there, there were 2 little kids who were done with the day and ready for some food.

Mia didn't even make it through the first waterfall without taking a little nap.

On Friday we went to the old mining town of Silverton. It was pretty cool. We went on a tour of an old gold mine, went to an old gold mill, and visited the old jail and museum.

Hanging out in the mine. It was kinda drippy so they gave us rain coats.

Mia only had to wear her helmet on the way in and out of the mine. The train ride in and out is where you are most likely to have something fall on your head.

An old car that they used to move the rocks out of the mine once they blasted them.

Touring the gold mill. It's amazing the whole process that they go through to the the minerals out of the ore once it comes out of the mine. This mill has been closed since 1991 but it used to process gold, silver, iron, copper, and zinc.

The old 4 block jail cell.

I think Mia was a happier prisoner than Monty.

Mia had fun playing with the ball and chain. I think she would have taken it with her if she could have picked it up off the ground.

We also saw a wild west gun show. They have a show down in the middle of town 3 nights a week during the summer. I thought it was interesting that only the main road through town was paved. The rest was just gravel roads.

This was just a cool arch we saw on the way home.

After a week vacation it was very hard to come home and get back to reality. If only we were independently wealthy and could just spend our days traveling. Maybe someday....At least I can dream.

Crazy girl

2011-08-24T12:01:00.000-06:00

Mia is growing so fast and is all over the place now. We got her a walker and she absolutely LOVES it. She literally runs all over the kitchen in it now. When I'm trying to make dinner she runs at my feet. I've learned to wear socks and shoes when I'm working in the kitchen cuz it hurts when she runs over your feet in that thing. I swear she does it intentionally too.

She's also crawling all over the place now. She gets around the house pretty quick. She pulls herself up on all the furniture, door frames, walls, pretty much anything she can put her hands on and will walk along holding on. A couple of times I've gotten her to stand on her own for 15-20 seconds. Once she realizes she's standing alone she always sits down though. I think she could stand longer if I could just keep her distracted longer.

Gotta love that face.

We're also at the stage where she's trying to feed herself. Needless to say most days its a diaster. She really enjoyer her spaghetti and luckily I was smart enough to take her shirt off before she started eating.

Even when we're feeding her she fights us for the spoon or hits the spoon or does something else so her food ends up everywhere but in her mouth.

She's a crazy goofy girl but I guess that's why we love her so much.

Water Baby

2011-07-21T02:11:00.003-06:00

So last week Mia FINALLY started crawling. Just before we went to Idaho last weekend she started moving just a little bit on her hands and knees and within about a week she was all over the place. She is constantly on the go now. She is growing like a weed and so much fun. She now finds all kinds of things to chew on. We are rapidly learning where and house needs further baby-proofing.

We went and picked up a pizza one night and they gave her a balloon. She absolutely loved it.

Today I took Mia swimming for the first time. We went with my mom, aunt, and a bunch of my cousins to their grandma's pool. For the first 45 min Mia just kind of hung out taking it all in. After that she started splashing and kicking and really enjoying herself. We kept her in some kind of floaty most of the time and she just loved it.

Swimming with Grandma. Even though she looks unhappy she really wasn't.

We just went back and forth across the pool with her.

The biggest problem was keeping her face out of the water. She loved putting her face in the water and kept trying to drink it.

Just relaxing

I think we truly have a water baby on our hands. Hopefully we'll get to go again this summer.

Happy 4th of July!

2011-07-07T00:51:00.000-06:00

Summer Fun

2011-06-23T02:40:00.000-06:00

So last week Mia and I ventured out for some summer fun with Friends. On Monday we went to lunch and then to the park with Marianne and Jackson. Mia had lots of fun on the slide and swings.

Poor girl got worn out and fell asleep on the swing

Then on Tuesday we went to the neighbors and played in the sprinkler and then with buckets of water. Mia was very brave and was walking around in the sprinkler for a little while but I think she had more fun dumping buckets of water on herself.

You can't see the sprinkler but it was a cute one that flipped water in all different directions.

Enjoying the bucket with her rubber ducks.

Mia and her friend Claire. Claire can always make Mia smile even when she's being a grump.One day while we were sitting outside last week Mia decided that my water was better than hers so she wanted my up. The funny thing was my cup was about as big as her head. She did pretty good drinking out of it (with some help of course) and then managed to dump out the ice water on herself. I don't know if she was more shocked because she'd drenched herself or because it was cold. It was really too bad we didn't get a picture of that because her face was priceless.

Growing Growing Growing

2011-06-04T01:55:00.003-06:00

Then...And now...This is the last picture we have of Mia in her car seat. On Monday we swapped out her carrier for her new car seat. She's just growing too fast and got too heavy for her carrier and is now in a big girl car seat (don't have any pictures of that yet). Tuesday she had a doctor's appointment because I really thought she had an ear infection (grumpy grumpy girl lately) and she weighs 20lbs 6 oz. No wonder my arms are ready to fall off after carrying her around. So it turns out she doesn't have an ear infection it's just the 5 teeth that she is cutting and her pulling on her ears is just a coincidence. That's right 5. The 4 middle teeth on top have all finally broken through and the bottom one to the left of her two middle teeth. I'm hoping they all stay through and don't bob up and down anymore. I'm definitely ready for a break in the teething. One thing that seems to help is Popsicles. We have shared a few in recent days. I suck most of the flavor out and then give her the pieces of ice. She LOVES it. Then she enjoys chewing on the wrapper once the Popsicle is gone. We've been spending more time outside since we have had a few nice days and Mia loves it. She is definitely an outside kind of girl. If we could spend all day every day outside I think she would be in seventh heaven. She has also learned that when she's standing and holding onto ours hands that she can walk. I spend a good deal of time hunched over now so she can walk holding onto my hands. She definitely doesn't have the balance or stability to even begin to pull herself up or walk on her own but I'm sure it will come. She's rolling all over the place now but has no interest in crawling. I'm almost positive she'll walk before she crawls.

We've also got things growing in the back yard now. We replaced our dead peach tree and planted a pear tree this spring too. They both seem to be doing pretty good.

I've got the garden planted too. There are tomato and pepper plants and then peas, radishes, and green beans. Hopefully we'll have a delicious crop this summer.

Not much else going on right now. Staying plenty busy with Little Miss Mia.

Happy Easter

2011-05-12T00:48:00.000-06:00

So I know it's a little late but I have to blog about Mia's first Easter. She was really rather impartial to most of it but did really enjoy her Easter basket. I think she enjoyed the basket more than she did what was in it.
Mia sat ever so patiently while we colored eggs.Her egg ended up cracking but it said Miss MiaEaster morning. The Easter bunny brought her some new food, a tooth brush, toys, a bunny, and rubber bands for her hair.I have to say I was pretty impressed with myself putting pig tails in a baby for the first time. It's definitely not an easy task but I managed to get them pretty even.
We have started calling her Boo. Monty's family pointed out that she looks like Boo from Monsters Inc with her hair in pig tails and she really does. With just a pony tail it looks like a whale spout. Haven't gotten any of those on camera yet thoughMia's starting to stand really well and loves to stand. Notice her shirt...the other thing she's constantly doing now is drooling. She still only has 2 teeth but I swear there has to be a few more coming.

A couple pictures of Mia a few days after her blessing day. I was bright and didn't have the camera on that day so since Monty had to wear a suit to school one night I took advantage of it. My two favorite people.

AMAZING Weekend!

2011-04-21T00:44:00.005-06:00

Two weeks ago, on Saturday, April 9, Mia became an eternal part of our family. She was sealed to us in the Bountiful Temple. It was a wonderful day and we had so much family there supporting us. We also had Mia's birth mom and birth grandparents there as well. It was so nice to be surrounded by so much love and support on such a special day. We were hoping to get some great pictures outside but as you can see from our background, we came out of the sealing and it was a blizzard so we had to settle for pictures in the atrium instead.Our first picture as an eternal family.

Us with Monty's parents. All of Monty's siblings were there as well but our camera died before we got pictures with them so I'll have to get those pictures from someone else.

Us and my parents (Monty is showing Mia her bracelet she got from her cousins.

We also got some pictures with Mia and her birth mom and grandparents but I decided not to put those on the web for privacy reasons but it was nice to see them again and have them there supporting us.

The following day on Sunday we blessed Mia. She is officially Mia Kay Borrowman. Well I guess she already was but it was nice to finally be able to bless her. You have to wait until the adoption is finalized. Mia's birth mom, parents, 3 of birth mom's sisters, and a niece attended her blessing and then came over to the house afterwards to meet more of Mia's family. Our house was a little crazy. After everyone left we counted up how many were there and we had 45 people in our house. We enjoyed fruit crepes and a yummy breakfast casserole. Mia even decided to give a small group of people who were there later a treat. She FINALLY ROLLED OVER! For the first time at 6 1/2 months she managed to roll from her belly to her back. But of course she hasn't done it since that Sunday. I try and get her to roll and she just plays for a few minutes and then gets mad. Sadly I don't have any pictures from Sunday. I'm going to blame it on the weather and the fact that all 45 people were in the house because it was cold and snowy outside and that put my stress level at an all time high for the weekend. However, thanks to wonderful family help it all went off without a hitch. Tomorrow I'm putting Mia back in her dress to get some pictures of just her and some pictures of her with Monty in his suit.

OK so I know this has nothing to do with our wonderful weekend but I just have to laugh at this picture of Mia just chilling in her tub. She loves bath time and doesn't even complain if I get water in her eyes while washing here hair. One of these days I'm going to have to take her to Aunt Trina's so we can try swimming in her pool. One final note. On my way to work tonight Monty text me to tell me that Mia rolled over. This time back to belly for the very first time. I guess she just doesn't want to show off for me and needs a better audience.

It's Official!!

2011-03-30T00:17:00.003-06:00

On Monday March 28 Mia became an official part of our family. We went to court and finalized our adoption. Everything went very well and considering the judge took awhile Mia was really pretty good in court. We can now order her birth certificate so she exists on paper now and we finally have legal custody of our little girl. We are so excited to have everything done and feel so blessed to have Mia as a part of our little family. The picture we have is a little blurry but hey we had to have a picture to commemorate the moment.

Look what I can do

2011-03-19T00:30:00.003-06:00

On Tuesday Mia was 6 months old. I can't believe how fast it has gone by. She's getting so big!

While we were taking pictures she decided that she was a big girl and could sit all by herself. It kinda surprised me seeing as she still hasn't rolled over. I guess she's just not in a hurry to go anywhere.

She's getting more and more playful and is just a hoot. She did this to herself one day. She is always chewing on burp cloths so they always end up in her face.

Sunday we tried green beans for the first time. She wasn't quite a fan and still isn't. She spits them out two or three times and I just keep spooning them back in. Eventually they go down.

Beach babe with teeth

2011-03-03T01:29:00.000-07:00

So we had the wonderful opportunity to spend last week in Hawaii with my family. Everything about it was amazing. We had beautiful weather. It was in the low 80s every day. Mia was so good for the flights and was a trooper about being carted all over the place and having her schedule turned completely upside down. To top it all off, she got her first tooth in Hawaii. On President's Day we went to a Luau and they gave Mia a lei. She decided she was going to eat it so I stuck my fingers in her mouth trying to get the flowers out and she bit me. We had no idea she was teething. 2 days later it finally came through all the way and now her other bottom

tooth is starting to come in.

We really had a great time. We were there for Whale Days so we got to go to the whale parade. We went snorkeling, hiking, boating, kayaking, zip lining, went to a luau, and did all kinds of shopping and laying on the beach. My mom was so nice and watched Mia while Monty and I went kayaking, zip lining, and out to dinner one night. It was so hard to come back home to the cold weather and snow.

My brother Shawn is a great photographer and took about 1300 pictures of the trip. I haven't gotten his pictures yet so here are just a few that we took.

This is Mia at the airport while we were waiting for our luggage. She got a new stroller just for the occasion (our other one was just too big to take). She absolutely loved being outside and threw a fit on more than one occasion when it was time to go in. We were too cheap to pay the $30 each way it would have cost us to take Mia's pack-n-play and we discovered she fit very nicely in Monty's suitcase so we just turned that into her bed once we got there. I even took her sheet and puppy so it would feel a little more like home.It was really just too funny to see her sleeping in the suitcase but she didn't ever seem to mind.
We had a gorgeous view of the ocean from our condo and spent most mornings and evenings sitting on the balcony. Most days we could see the whales out jumping and blowing their spouts.
Enjoying the sun on our first day.

Our first full day we went to the whale parade and then spent the afternoon at the beach. Mia slept through most of it. Glad we decided to rent an umbrella for her. It was only $10 for the week and it made it really nice at the beach and I didn't have to slather her with sunscreen quite as much.

Nicky (my sis in-law), mom, and me in the ocean. This water was a little colder than the beach by our condo.

Monty coming in from snorkeling

The family hanging out on the beach.

Me and Mia

We went hiking at Iao State Park. It's a nice little hike that wasn't too bad. There was all kinds of tropical vegetation and a nice river with pools to cool off in. It wasn't cold we're just using a blanket to keep the sun off Mia.

Mia all ready for the beach on the day she got to go in the water. She didn't like sitting on the beach and letting the waves come up to get her but she liked being out in the ocean.

Heading out in the water. (at the warmer beach) Mia and Monty ready for fun in the sun.

Just hanging on the beach with dad.

Monty eating at the luau. Doesn't he just look so excited?

Mia very excited at the luau (with grandpa in the background...why aren't the guys excited to be there?)

We saw these glasses when we were going through some of the little shops and thought they were just too funny. She was a little crabby at times so I guess they are fitting.

When we went out on the boat Mia slept almost the whole time. I think she liked the motion of the boat.

Monty and I getting ready to head out snorkeling. We just took turns heading out since we had Mia with us. We saw tons and fish and a couple turtles. The day before when we went kayaking we saw tons of turtles. They were very friendly and kept coming close. I even touched one. I don't have any pictures from kayaking. Have to wait and get those from Shawn since he had the water proof camera.

Back from snorkeling.

One of our gorgeous Hawaiian sunsets.

Mia in her little Hawaiian outfit grandma got her with her lei from the luau. Shawn took a really good picture of the 3 of us with our leis at the luau but I'll have to wait for that pic too.

While the rest of us went zip lining Mia hung out with grandma. She just chilled on the trunk of the car for a bit enjoying the sun.

The zip lining crew. Monty, Shawn, Me, Dad, Nicky, and Steve.Monty coming down a zip lineIt was so much fun. The course was a series of 5 zip lines, each one longer and faster than the last. By the time we got to the last one the clouds had rolled in and it was drizzling rain. Because we were up on one of the volcanoes, we were in the clouds. On the last zip line most of the time you couldn't see the landing from where you started and we would just watch people disappear into the clouds. Off I go!

So I guess when I gets Shawn's pictures I'll have to do a Hawaii part 2 post because he has more pictures than we did and he has some really good pictures. It was a wonderful vacation and I can't wait to go back. Monty said some day we can.

Food, Feet, and Other Adventures

2011-02-16T23:48:00.000-07:00

So last Monday we took on the adventure of rice cereal. It did not go over well and I admit I was ready to throw in the towel and try again in a few weeks. She got good at doing raspberries with her lips while her mouth was full of cereal and I was getting tired of wearing it and washing my glasses. Luckily yesterday a light bulb seemed to turn on and we have now had 2 days of successful cereal eating.
Here is the before picture of the first cereal attempt
She definitely didn't know what to think of it.

I don't think any was swallowed that night. It just kept running back out.

And our end result. A very mad very sticky girl. I'm so glad it got better. We can now even clean up with just a wash cloth and not a bath.

The day before our cereal adventure Mia found her feet. (At least it was the first time we noticed her grabbing on to her feet.) She loves playing with her feet now and has figured out how to take her socks off.

Sometimes she even gets her foot in her mouth.

We also pulled her exer-saucer out this week. She can just barely reach the bottom of it and today kept kicking so she was throwing herself around in her little seat. She's still a little small for it but she likes it for short periods of time.
Tummy time has been the evil word at our house. Mia hates it and starts screaming so we aren't big fans of it and probably don't put her on her tummy as much as she should be. Things are getting better though. Sometimes we can get 3 or 4 minutes now before she's screaming.

I'm hoping if I can get her to spend a little more time on her belly she might roll over finally.

This is just a random picture that I thought was just way too cute. I figured it was a good one to put in for her cousin Lucy.

Crazy she's already 5 months old!

Finally it's girlie

2011-02-03T00:34:00.000-07:00

So it may have taken me 4 1/2 months, but Mia's room finally looks like a girl lives in it. When we first started setting up a baby's room, we made it very gender neutral. I was having a hard time deciding what to do because I couldn't come up with anything I liked that matched the bedding we had. Lucky for me my wonderful neighbor told me about the super clearance on baby bedding at Target so I was able to replace the bedding for only $12.50! We went with flowers and butterflies. I figured it's girlie but not baby so it can grow with her for awhile. I also love the ribbon board so I can keep all kinds of pictures up in her room and change them as often I I want.

I got the idea for this frame from Michael McLean's song "From God's Arms to My Arms to Yours." It's a song about an adoption and I thought it was just so fitting. Mia's birth mom was so nice to help us in doing this.

Her cute new bedding with all her bed time friends.

This wall will still be rearranged a bit. I want to get a picture of the Bountiful Temple to put on this wall. That is the temple we are having Mia sealed to us in so it will be her temple.

This is one of those little growth charts. Because I did all the decorating by myself to surprise Monty when he came home from work, it's not at the exact right height. It's about 1/2 inch to low but I figured that was close enough. Hopefully Mia will be standing good by her first birthday so we can mark how tall she is.

We had a few warmer days (it hit low 40s for a high) and we were tired of being cooped up in the house so we decided to bundle up and go for a walk. It was really rather nice being outside and getting some fresh air. Mia seemed to enjoy it too.

This was how I found Mia the other day when we were getting ready for church. She loves to chew on fabric (particularly burp cloths). I had laid her down to change her diaper when I realized the wipes were in the other room. When I came back to her room, she was happily chewing away at the sheet she was laying on.

Getting cuter by the day!

Monty is 30!

2011-01-24T22:43:00.001-07:00

On Sunday Monty celebrated the big 30. It was a rather nice and enjoyable weekend. Friday night Monty's sister watched Mia and I picked Monty up from work. We went shopping and found Mia's sealing and blessing dress, then I surprised Monty and we went out to dinner. Monty's favorite food is hamburgers and I found a hamburger restaurant we'd never tried. We went to Salt City Burgers. DELICIOUS! Then I surprised him again and we spent the night down in Salt Lake. We swam in the hotel pool, rented a red box and enjoyed popcorn, soda, and candy. It was a really fun date night out. Sunday we headed down to Monty's parents for a "family dinner."

I should preface the rest of this story with a little back story. Several months ago, before Mia was born, Monty was having a difficult time with the idea that he was going to be 30. He made the mistake of mentioning this to one of his sisters. Not smart. She told her family it was a Borrowman family duty to make this worse. For anyone who knows the Borrowmans this is no big surprise. So Sunday afternoon we headed to West Jordan. There was indeed a family dinner. It had somewhat of a memorial theme to it. Everyone was dressed in black (I missed the email about that) and we had black cups, forks, and napkins. We had a classic funeral meal with ham, funeral potatoes, and rolls. The center pieces on the table consisted of dead flowers, Monty's picture, and an urn (thanks Shawn it added a great touch).I made ice cream cakes. There were only 26 candles on the cake, but they were black and I think any more and the cake would have melted away. Amazing, all in one breath.

The cakes.

I had a little bit of trouble with my food coloring icing so the "30" on the first cake ran and so did "the" on the 2nd cake.

Of course anyone with a dark color of icing on their piece got a mouth full of color. Monty and I both had blue.

There were several cards offering condolences and sympathy. Gifts included chattering teeth (dentures), prune juice, magnifying glass, reading glasses, hemrroid cream, large print word search, denture cleaner, and "adult" size diapers. Luckily Monty took the whole thing in good spirits and it was an enjoyable evening with the family.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MONTY!! LOVE YA BABES!!

Mia Update

2011-01-14T23:39:00.001-07:00

So I don't have any fun pictures to post this time because life with a sick baby is a little crazy but figured I would update how she's doing. Yesterday she had her tests. They did an ultra sound of her kidneys and bladder and then did what is called a VCUG. Basically they strap her to a board (it was rather barbaric and very sad to watch) drain her bladder with a catheter and then put dye through the catheter and take a bunch of x-rays as the dye moves through. She was a real trooper for the whole thing. Luckily she was hungry and spent most of the time just sucking down her bottle but she still had her screaming moments. I know she's had it with being picked on and I definitely have too. Her VCUG came back complete normal. We got the results of the ultra sound a day later because they wanted to have the kidney docs at Primary Children's look at it because one of her kidneys is slightly dilated. They are thinking it's just a normal variation so unless she has more problems they aren't going to worry about it. The bad news is her urine wasn't completely clean. They don't know if it's from the previous infection or a new one so they started her on a new antibiotic for at least 48 hours until the final result comes back. The new antibiotic is making her miserable (at least I hope that's what it is so once she's done with it she'll be back to her normal self). Poor girl just has melt downs and screams a few hours after getting it. So sad.

On a positive note, we finally got our court date to finalize Mia's adoption. We go to court March 28 and then we will have her sealed to us April 9 and her blessing April 10. We are so excited to finalize everything and be able to take her to the temple. It will be a very good couple of weeks. :-)

Christmas Adventures

2011-01-06T00:36:00.000-07:00

So I have to say for the most part we had a wonderful holiday season. It was so fun getting ready for Christmas with Mia. We spent time with family and of course everyone spoiled Mia. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, you name it. She also got some of the sweetest gifts from her birth mom and a fun toy from her birth grandparents.

About mid December we went to Temple Square to see the lights. It has been awhile since I'd been there so Mia and I took the train to Salt Lake and met Monty one day after work. I just put her in her carrier and zipped her into my coat and she stayed toasty warm. She slept through most of it but when she was awake she actually seemed to enjoy seeing the lights.

We took some cute pictures of Mia with her stocking. Sadly we waited too long so she no longer fit in her stocking but we made it look that way. She is growing like crazy and weighs 13 1/2 pounds already. She may have started out small but it taking no time catching up.

Mia in her Christmas dress. She wasn't exactly thrilled about getting up for church that morning so she was kinda a grumpus but she still looks cute even with the pouty face.

We took Mia to see Santa (mostly because I insisted). I wanted to make sure we had a picture of her with Santa for her first Christmas. She slept through it which worked out well for taking pictures.

For Christmas Eve Mia had her cute Christmas jammie's. They say Santa's favorite. Monty actually picked these out last year when they were on clearance just to have for our future child. We had no idea at the time that we would have a baby by Christmas and that the jammie's would fit perfectly. Mia slept through most of opening presents. Maybe next year she'll be a little more excited.Christmas morning started out wonderful with a big family breakfast and lots of cheer to go around. After Christmas naps is when our Christmas adventures turned sour. Mia woke up with a fever and you could tell she was just miserable. I called the on call pediatrician just for peace of mind since it was her first real fever and was told that due to her age and how high her temp was, we needed to take her in to be seen and it needed to be today. Due to the fact that today was Christmas there was no where open but the ER. We packed her up and spent Christmas evening in the ER where she was poked at, prodded at, and then sent home. At midnight that night the hospital called and said they had some test results back and that she had RSV. My heart sank. All I wanted to do was to get through the winter without her getting RSV and we didn't make it very far into winter and she was sick. Luckily she did very well with it and other than some difficulty eating, being very sleepy, and lots of boogers we didn't have to much problem. By 6 days later she was doing much better but that only lasted about 36 hours and then she started spiking temps again. This time higher than before. So Monday we were back at the Dr for more poking and prodding. Now she has a UTI (urinary tract infection). Normally at her age they like to admit them to the hospital for treatment. The Dr decided while we were waiting on blood work to just give her a shot of antibiotics and let us go home and come back the next day. So Tuesday we were back at the Dr for more blood work and another shot of antibiotics and a follow up appointment for the next day again. Wednesday we were back for more blood work but this time they couldn't get any blood so they ended up sending us to the hospital to have blood drawn then and yet another shot of antibiotics. Her blood work is finally looking better so no more daily trips to the Dr and she managed to stay out of the hospital but the poor girl is miserable. In 3 days she's been poked 9 times for blood, had 3 shots, and had a catheter. The good news is she has a week off now. The bad news is next week we have to go in for more tests. Because of her age they want to make sure there isn't anything wrong with her kidneys or bladder that caused the infection. We are praying that it was just bad luck and that everything will be normal next week but I guess we'll have to wait and see. I've learned that sick kids are definitely no fun. The poor girl has had a rough 2 weeks. I guess the good news is she won't remember any of it.

So much to be Thankful for

2010-12-01T23:41:00.000-07:00

So we had a wonderful Thanksgiving...Twice. The weekend before Thanksgiving we went to Idaho and had Thanksgiving with the whole Cobbley family. It was so nice to have everyone together, to spend time just relazing, and catching up. My dad had to work Thanksgiving and the 2 days after and Steve and Shawn had to work the days around Thanksgiving so it just worked out better to do it the weekend before. The day before Thanksgiving Mia got to spend the day with Nana and her cousin Lucy who at the age of 4 was excited to be able to have someone littler than her to look after. I definitely need to get pictures of Mia and her cousins because they are so cute together. Wednesday night Mia and Dad had pie night with the Borrowman clan while I worked. I was kinda sad I missed that but not much I could do. Thanksgiving day, Grandma came down from Idaho and uncle Shawn came over and we had Thanksgiving dinner again. I just sat there thinking how much I have to be thankful for. I have a wonderful family, wonderful in-laws, and now we have a wonderful little family of our own. Little Mia is just amazing and I can't believe how blessed we are to have her in our family. Mia was very tired on Thanksgiving so Monty and Shawn spent about 15 minutes trying to time it just right to get a picture of her yawning.

Mia's enjoying 2 new toys, her little gym and her swing. She hasn't quite gotten the hang of reaching up for the toys hanging down but she enjoys looking at them.

She loves her swing and often takes her afternoon nap there. When she's fussy she calms right down in the swing (well most the time).

Hanging with dad with a full tummy face.

She's starting to smile more and more and while we were in Idaho she started cooing. It's the sweetest sound to hear. She's not doing it a ton but usually at least once a day we can get her talking to us. (She's a little behind what most babies would be doing at 2 1/2 months cuz she was a little early).

Happy Halloween

2010-11-08T13:28:00.001-07:00

OK, I'll confess I've been terrible at keeping up with our blog. I have heard a lot from family and friends who want to see pictures of Mia. Who ever knew one little girl could take up so much time. I'm busy all day but seem to get nothing done. It's a very odd feeling to me, but I'm loving being a mom. Things are about to get a lot more interesting though. I go back to work this weekend so Mia will get a lot more daddy time and I was just put in as first counselor in our ward relief society. Everything always seems to happen at once but I think it will all be good in the end. One advantage to going back to work (I'm searching for advantages to make it easier) is that working mostly nights I should have more time to keep up with the blog.

Mia is growing so fast. She started out small but is catching up quick. At 6 weeks old she weighed just shy of 10 lbs and has jumped from the 3rd percentile in weight to the 51st. She definitely has no problems eating anymore. She is still a mellow baby but definitely developing more of an opinion and personality and when she doesn't like something she lets you know. She is now sleeping 6 hours at once after going down to bed and I am so grateful for the longer periods of sleep. I feel like I function like a normal person again. She is just so much fun and we are so grateful to have her in our home.

For Halloween she was a lady bug and a very cute one at that. Friday we took her to the ward Trunk or Treat and then dressed her up again on Saturday. We were going to take her trick or treating to a few friends houses but the rain kept us in. She just went to the door with us to pass out candy to those who were brave enough to face the rain.

Her cousins like to make sure she sleeps with her animals and doll.

She has started smiling quite a bit but seems to know when the camera comes out and then won't smile. This half smile is the best I've been able to catch on camera so far.

When she is laying down to take a nap she likes to sleep with her hands behind her head. She's not doing it as much as she used to but I think it's funny whenever I find her like that.

This was her first Sunday she went to church so it's a bit older. I started taking her to sacrament meeting at about 5 weeks but we avoided the rest of church because Monty and I were both in Primary. Guess I can't use that excuse anymore.

I promise to do better at keeping up, at least with pictures. Just for you grandma :)

Meet Mia Kay!!

2010-09-21T11:16:00.000-06:00

Mia Kay Borrowman born September 15, 2010 at 9:03 pm

Weighed 5 lbs 10 oz, 20 inches long

So now the truth can come out about what most of our summer entailed. The end of July we started meeting with Mia's wonderful birth mom. After 5 weeks she told us that she had made the decision to place her precious daughter in our home. At that point we thought we had 5 weeks before she would be here, but she fooled us all and came 2 weeks and 2 days early.Friday September 17 we got to bring Mia home to be part of our family. She has been an absolute joy to have in our home. She is such a good and happy baby. She already has so much personality. She loves holding her hands together like in the picture below. She is a great little sleeper and other than a little bit of a high bilirubin level she is perfectly healthy. To help lower her bilirubin her doctor told me to let her sleep in the sun in front of windows as naked as she could be and still stay warm. Seeing as she's a little on the small side (she weighed 5 lbs 5 oz when she came home), we can't make her completely naked, but she doesn't seem to mind sleeping in the sun.This was the first time we put Mia in her car seat when we were bringing her home from LDS Family Services.

Mia all ready for bed her first night homeWe have pictures from the hospital when we first got to meet Mia but for whatever reason I can't find them on the computer. We got a new camera just for this and I still haven't quite figured out how to download pictures and save them where they need to be to use them so I will post more pictures later when Monty is around and can help me.We can't believe we are really a family of three now. There are no words to describe how it feels to be a mom. We couldn't be more happy and content right now. Life is truly complete. Our lives were made complete only by Mia's wonderful birth mom. She is an amazing, strong, and fun loving young woman. Somehow she found the courage to place her daughter into our family and we will be eternally grateful. She also has a wonderful, kind, and supportive family. We got the opportunity to meet Mia's birth grandparents and 2 of her birth aunts while she was in the hospital. They are truly an amazing family and we can't wait to tell Mia about them. The pictures we got of Mia with them will be life long treasures of ours.

Update

2010-09-02T23:18:00.000-06:00

So Monty informed me the other day that it had been a while since we had updated the blog. I looked at him and said you know, you're right, maybe you should do something about that. He then said, "Well when I said we I really meant you." Guess the idea of getting Monty to do a post went out the window. It has been a little while since I've posted. Life has been busy and crazy but hey, that's life isn't it? The only big thing we have done lately is put up Monty's flag pole. I don't know if it's a problem with the pictures or with blogger but I have tried a couple times to up load the pictures and it won't work so sadly no pictures. He worked really hard on it though and it turned out really good. The flower bed around it is all done and we have the light put in, now all it's missing is the flowers. That will have to wait until fall when I can do some moving around in the flower beds.

Not much else to report right now. We did just get a new camera so hopefully we will put it to good use. Monty starts school next week. He's getting his MBA and will have class Tuesday and Thursday nights for the next 2 years. I admire him, I definitely don't have the ambition to go back to school. Hope all goes well for him!!

Camping adventures

2010-06-30T03:54:00.000-06:00

So I finally had a whole weekend off of work that we didn't have something going on so we decided to go camping. Granted it was only the middle of June but it was still June so it couldn't be that bad right...WRONG. We went camping up Ogden canyon near Huntsville. It was a nice little campground and we found a nice spot right down by the river. It was nice, warm, and sunny. We set up camp and just hung out relaxing.I have to say I am very proud of this fire. It was a one match fire and looks like it could be a piece of art. We used coals from the fire to cook dutch oven dinner. Apparently our coals were a little warm because our dinner that was supposed to take about an hour too cook was done in 12 minutes. Surprisingly very little of it was burnt so we enjoyed our chicken, bacon and potatoes. By the time we put the peach cobbler on the coals were a little cool so after about half an hour we had to build a fire around the dutch oven to get more coals. The sides ended up a little burnt but other than that it was delicious.

Monty decided to dip his feet in the river but the water was way too cold for me. I found a make shift fishing pole and tried my luck at fishing. Apparently fish don't like leaves and I couldn't get the dinner roll to stay on the hook. I also tried fishing with Frito's but by the time they were soggy enough to put on the hook without breaking they didn't last long before they too floated away. Oh well though, if I'd caught a fish I wouldn't have known what to do with it.

By dinner time the camera died so I don't have any more pictures. It was a rather enjoyable evening. Once night fell we had a raccoon come to our camp looking for food. Monty scared him off though. Then, the trouble set in. We realized we'd forgotten the extra blanket but figured being in our sleeping bags we should be OK. Also, we realized that left over construction wood burns rather quickly so we weren't going to have wood for a fire in the morning. No big deal, we brought doughnuts for breakfast so we wouldn't need to cook them. I don't know how cold it got that night but I froze all night long. Monty got up at 6:30 but I couldn't bring myself to crawl out of my sleeping bag because I knew it'd be even colder outside of it. About a half hour later he came in and told me if I got up we could break down camp and go sleep in a warm bed. It was so cold that when I put my glasses on they fogged up just from the heat of my face. It was SO cold and to top it all off everything was wet. It didn't rain but there was more than a little dew. We ended up just throwing everything in the car and heading home at 7:15 in the morning. When we got home we had to set the tent up in the yard and lay everything out to get it to dry. Quite the experience.

So I have to show off my garden cuz I'm rather proud of it. It's my first experience with my own garden and it's actually growing.

If you look really close you can see two tiny peppers

The radishes are already popping out of the ground. These are the first harvest from my garden. They have been a nice touch to my salads.

Celebrating 3 years in St George

2010-06-04T03:25:00.000-06:00

Way back when we found out Monty had to have surgery, I decided we needed to plan a vacation. We decided we'd celebrate our 3rd anniversary by spending a week in St. George. I had never been down there and so I figured it would be a nice get away. It was amazing. We stayed at a great resort and and a very enjoyable and relaxing week. We spent 3 days hiking, I lounged by the pool, Monty did some golfing, we had dinner with family and friends, and enjoyed the sun and warm weather.
This is the view from our deck down at one of the pools. We had a BBQ out on the deck one night and grilled chicken. One of the resort hosts suggested we check out Snow Canyon and do some hiking there. It wasn't a very exciting place. There were a couple decent views but mostly just a lot of sand and a few mucky dried up ponds.

Trekking along the river bed.

Stopping to rest in the shade.

While we were in Southern Utah we went to Bryce Canyon. It was absolutely AMAZING!!! We could have spent an entire week hiking through various parts of the canyon. Because Monty is still trying to recover his endurance we stuck to easy to moderate hikes. The canyon is full of Hoodoos which are rock pillars formed mostly by water melting into the cracks of rocks and freezing, thawing, and freezing all over again. There were rows and rows of symmetrical hoodoos that extended for miles. We hiked down through the canyon and up the other side and then hiked the rim up to several lookout points. We realized after the fact that we did it backwards. We should have taken the shuttle up to the highest point and hiked back down instead of hiking up. All the uphill made for a challenge for Monty but he did great.
Me with a view of some of the Hoodoos.

There were several caves carved out along the canyon walls as well. This was just a little one I hid out in.

Us down in the canyon.

Monty with the Hoodoos as we hiked back up.

Hoodoos hoodoos everywhere (I like the word hoodoo in case you couldn't tell)

Us at one of the look out points along the rim. Yes we are dressed a like and no it was not intentional. Monty noticed before we left the resort that morning but didn't bother to mention it. No we are not one of "those" couples.

We also went to Zion's Canyon and spent a day hiking there. It's also a place we could have spent much more time enjoying. All throughout the canyon there are places where water seeps out of the rocks. Some of it is 4,000 years old. You can see marks all along the canyon walls where water has seeped out. There are a few places where the water continually seeps out. One of these is known as Weeping Rock, where Monty is getting his second shower of the day.

We hiked up through the Emerald Pools. There's a lower, 2 middle, and an upper pool all fed by waterfalls coming from the rocks. Apparently there is an algae that grows and makes the pools appear green but they weren't so green when we were there.

Us at the Upper Emerald Pool

Monty on a bridge over the Virgin River which has carved Zion's Canyon.

It was an amazing trip. We had so much fun and it was very hard to come home. Now it's back to reality. The good news is our house looks so much better from the outside now. Our yard is completely in and our new sod is growing like crazy. We planted our garden before we left for St George and it's starting to pop up already. I'll have to post some pictures of that later. It's a new adventure for me testing out my green thumb. I just hope I don't kill it.

Crazy

2010-05-05T17:17:00.000-06:00

I just had the most bizzare shopping experience. Just north of here in Ogden a Winco Foods grocery store opened this week. Since I wasn't working today and I remember Winco having great grocery prices when I was growing up, I decided to venture to Ogden and do just a little grocery shopping and compare some prices. My first mistake was driving around the full parking lot trying to find somewhere to park. I thought it would be a little busy but at 3:00 on a Wednesday afternoon I figured it couldn't be too bad. WRONG. There were no shopping carts and several people standing around waiting for them so I decided to forgo the shopping cart. I didn't need all that much anyway. Once I walked in the door, I couldn't have turned around to walk out if I wanted to. It was wall to wall people forming lines to even reach the products on the shelves. I have never seen such a thing at a grocery store. It truly looked like the day after Thanksgiving only in a grocery store. They did have some great deals, but seeing as my arms are only so big, I picked up my few items and headed out. Craziness.

So not much exciting going on in our lives right now. We're still waiting for the weather to cooperate so we can finish putting in our yard. With the snow and rain the past few weeks our sod keeps getting pushed back (its too wet for them to harvest it). Hopefully this weekend we'll have a back yard and be rid of all our dirt.
Two more weeks and we go to St George. I'm excited!! I've never been there and am definitely looking forward to warm weather, hiking, and over a week off of work!! WHOO HOO!

March (a little late)

2010-04-06T09:33:00.000-06:00

So I'm already falling behind on my goal to update the blog every month. I've been picking up several extra shifts at work. It's been nice to get a little overtime and to start saving up for Monty's next big adventure...He's going back to school! It's somewhat a sudden decision and definitely not one we were planning on, but it's the right thing for us to be doing now. He will be starting the MBA program at University of Utah this fall (or possibly not until January, still trying to work out those details). Between work and starting a few projects around the house we've been staying pretty busy. Spring finally appeared allowing us to get some stuff done outside and enjoy the outdoors a little bit. However, winter re-appeared last night. Someone needs to tell Mother Nature it's April and not time for 5 inches of fresh snow.Just before Easter we decided to color Easter eggs one night. It was a fun little project to do together and we had tons of colors to chose from in our little pack. I tried my hand at the crayon and wrote on my egg.

Monty must be in awe that eggs can come in so many colors

The finished product. Sadly, most of them are not edible because I learned how long you boil eggs for hard boiled eggs after I cooked these ones. The yolks aren't quite done in the middle but at least they look pretty.

While the weather was nice we started working out in the yard and planted fruit trees. We planted a peach tree and a tree with 5 different kinds of apples. I'm excited for when they give big and start putting on fruit.

Monty digging for the peach treeFilling in the apple tree and below is me burying the peach tree. I'm just hoping they survive our little miny winter we have right now.When we moved into our house in July of last year we couldn't decide what we wanted to do with the sliding glass door. So, for 9 month we did nothing. Finally a couple weeks ago we put up some curtains. I think it turned out pretty cute and they have hooks on either side of the door to hold them open. The hooks had to be screwed in by hand because the drill couldn't get the angle right. Makes me appreciate electric tools.

Very exciting news!!

2010-03-08T14:26:00.000-07:00

So the highlight of our February was going to Rock Springs, WY the last weekend of the month to see my brother Steve and his wife Nicky. Rock Springs is definitely not the most exciting spot on the map but it was nice to go see them and we enjoyed a fun relaxing weekend there.

While February was a relatively boring month for us, March started out very exciting. March 3rd we were finally approved for adoption!! We are looking forward to the new adventure of finally becoming parents. It has been a long, difficult, and emotional journey but we couldn't be more excited with where we are at now. We are adopting through LDS Family services and our profile is now on their website. We ask everyone to spread the word and keep us in mind. About a third of the adoptions through Family Services are designated adoptions where birth mom and adopting parents find each other outside of the agency. Also a little plug for Family Services. They offer free confidential counseling to women of all faiths and backgrounds and help them to explore their options. They help explore all options with mom, not just adoption. It's a great resource available out there.

Anyway, put a link to our profile at family services on the side bar of our blog. We have also set up another blog that we are just updating monthly with what we are doing in our lives and doesn't have any identifying information on it. It can be found at http://www.montyandstephanie.blogspot.com/.

January

2010-02-03T17:28:00.000-07:00

January was a rather uneventful month for us. We rang in the New Year by going to bed early. I had to work New Year's Day so Monty volunteered to work that day as well. It gives him an extra day off he can take whenever he wants which is nice. It's still way too cold to do much outside so we spent many evenings at home watching movies. The snow has started to melt so we did go out on a few walks around the neighborhood on some warmer days. (If 35 degrees is warm that is?) The only big event in January was Monty's birthday. We had some friends over for pepper jack cheese burgers and a very competitive bowling tournament on the Wii. I made an ice cream cake which I have to say was very de-lish. The only problem was the writing on the cake. It must have been pure food coloring because it turned our mouths blue.I think I must have eaten more words than Monty because my mouth looks much more blue.HAPPY BIRTHDAY MONTY!!!

Better late than never

2010-02-01T14:41:00.000-07:00

So these are a few pictures from the Cobbley family freeze. Doing family pictures over Christmas was a good idea in theory. The theory went wrong when it was decided they needeed to be outdoors. It was 19 degrees and I for one thought I was going to freeze to death before we were done. It doesn't help that somehow I was the only one in short sleeves too.

We did get a few good pictures of the family.This is one of us just trying to stay warm while Shawn fiddled with the camera.

I thought this one turned out cute of the guys just goofing around.

Just the two of us.

While we were in Pocatello for Christmas we also went out with Shawn to do some pictures of just our little family. They turned out looking like engagement pictures but I think that is just what happens when you are a family of 2.

Home for the holidays

2009-12-30T04:08:00.000-07:00

We had a very nice Christmas once again this year. This year we got to go up to Pocatello and spend Christmas with my family for the first time since we've been married. It was really nice to get away for a few days and we had a great time with family. We now have a photographer in the family (Shawn's so good at his hobbies) so there are some great pictures from Christmas and we did family pictures too but we had to leave before they were done so I'll have to post pictures later.
I just love this time of year. It always reminds me of how fortunate and blessed we are. Especially this year with how well everything went with Monty's surgery. We are so very grateful for our Savior and for the life he lived that makes the rest of our lives worth living.

Life returning to normal

2009-12-11T10:16:00.000-07:00

We're slowly starting to get back into a normal life now. This week Monty went back to work full time. It's his third week back but the week of Thanksgiving he only did 18 hours and last week he did 30. He's doing so well and we are very grateful for that. We know how truly blessed we have been the past couple months. Last weekend was project weekend. My brother Steve and his wife came over from Rock Springs, WY and my parents came down from Pocatello to help us work so some of our projects that have been put on hold. They finished my shelves downstairs which is so nice. I was finally able to get our food storage out of boxes and grocery bags and see what we really have. They did a great job on them.

The next project was a much bigger undertaking and took much longer than we thought it would. That could be because I didn't have the right cutting tool, but I also come from a famliy of perfectionists so things just take longer to do, but that's ok because the backsplash turned out AMAZING!! Thanks guys for all your hard work.

Monty created the design for it and while it added a lot of cutting, I really like how it turned out. We still need to grout it but with working all week that part hasn't got done yet. Hopefully this weekend it will.

So much to be thankful for

2009-11-04T18:41:00.001-07:00

While Monty and I cheered when October was over, it left us with so much to be thankful for. We came home from the hospital last Wednesday, so we have been home a week and Monty is doing so well. Our experience the last few weeks is not one I would even wish on my enemies, but we have survived, and more importantly Monty survived. When we found out he had to have surgery his surgeon said that it needed to be taken care of but that there wasn't a huge rush. Later they realized that wasn't the case. The aneurysm looked a lot worse than they had expected. It was so big it was displacing his heart. We have some amazing pictures the surgeon took but I'll spare you the blood and gore. His surgeon told me that after they opened him up they all held their breath until they were able to get him onto bypass and there wasn't blood running through his heart anymore. The valve that they thought was leaking a little bit because it was stretched was actually not stretched but leaking heavily because it was so deteriorated.

This is a piece of the actual graft that now makes up the first few inches of Monty's aorta.

The graft itself is the same size as a normal aorta. The top rim of the cup that it's in is how big Monty's was. The typical aorta is a little bigger around than a quarter and the portion they removed was about the size of a soda can. Very scary. They figure he only had a matter of weeks before it would have ruptured. I can't even begin to explain how grateful we are that they found the aneurysm when they did and that they were able to repair it and the valve so quickly. He now has a St. Jude mechanical valve. He ticks like the second hand on a watch and it is the sweetest sound to me now.

I had to throw this picture in. This is what kept us busy during Monty's 5 hour surgery. They had a few puzzles in the waiting room and we thought this one was fitting for Monty. It took me, my mom, and Monty's mom almost exactly as long to finish it as his surgery was. It was something to numb my brain as I waited for the phone to ring with the next update on how surgery was going.

The evening after surgery was very rough. because of previous lung surgery, Monty's lungs don't function at a normal capacity. While he does just fine like this, it took some convincing of his ICU nurse. They didn't want to take him off the ventilator until his lab work looked good. The problem was he was completely awake and conscious, breathing through a tube for hours on end and his labs were not improving. Poor Monty was awake on the vent choking and gagging for about 6 hours. It took some heavy persuasion, a persistant respiratory therapist, and getting the doctor to come in before they finally pulled the breathing tube. Monty says this was by far the worst part of the whole thing.

This is a picture 2 days after surgery. It's the first one we took in the hospital. While Monty debated whether or not he wanted to see himself right after surgery, after seeing him, I decided it was something I didn't want to remember and so I avoided the camera. Other than being very tired, he was already doing remarkably well. The dressing for the chest tubes looked worse than the actual surgical incision. He recovered very quickly and was ready to come home on Monday, however, because of the mechanical valve, he is now on blood thinners and they had difficulties getting his blood therapeutic. Finally Wednesday morning we had the number we needed to go home.

Since being home he ended up with an abnormal heart rhythm that landed us in the ER Monday night. However, the medications he was already on protected him from any serious complications from the rhythm. Yesterday we had another blessing in our lives. His cardiologist prescribed a med to convert his heart back to a normal rhythm. It can be pretty toxic to the body and is a 3 month course. However, by yesterday evening he felt and sounded so much better. Another trip to the cardiologist today showed that he had converted himself and he won't need the medication. While on our visit yesterday, the cardiologist said that he normally sees patients a few weeks to a month after surgery and they look like they've been run over by a truck. He said Monty looks like he's been run over by a Schwinn bicycle. and he might have to send him back to work early. Not bad for 13 days after surgery.

So this may not be the cutest picture ever but for two weeks after open heart surgery I think it looks excellent. We are so grateful for Monty's continuing recovery. We contribute it to all the thoughts and prayers given on his behalf. We have truly been blessed through this experience. I have learned to appreciate every day with Monty so much more than I ever did before. When you realize how close you were to losing someone you love, you see what a gift each and every day is.

Quick update

2009-10-26T16:36:00.000-06:00

So, Monty's surgery was moved up from Friday to Wednesday for scheduling purposes but it ended up being a very good thing. The doctors didn't realize the severity of his condition until they opened him up. He was in much more danger than originally thought. However, surgery went well. They did have to replace his valve which we were really hoping they wouldn't, but it will be much better for the long term especially considering the condition of the valve. He is recovering well. We're still at the hospital but hoping to be able to go home in the coming few days.

Life on hold

2009-10-10T13:58:00.000-06:00

Call it independence, stubbornness, or just plain pride, there's one thing Monty and I have in common...neither of us like to ask for help. However, at this time we are sending out a quiet plea to family and friends to please pray for us. Friday, October 23, Monty will be undergoing open heart surgery. They will be opening his chest, stopping his heart, and replacing a portion of his aorta. While we have been told that when this surgery is scheduled as "elective" (as if there really is such a thing as elective heart surgery!?!), that it has a very high success rate. However, it is still terrifying and has definitely turned our lives upside down. We ask you to pleas keep Monty and me in your thoughts and prayers over these coming weeks.

What we've been up to

2009-09-13T16:32:00.000-06:00

So I figured Sunday afternoon would be a good time to finally give our blog a good update. We have been very busy the past few weeks trying to get stuff done around the house but have made a little bit of time for fun too. The last week of August we spent trying to get the yard ready for a sprinkler system. We borrowed Monty's mom's tiller which is a very beastly thing as you can see. Sadly it didn't do much but scrape up the top layer of dirt. Where we live the ground is mostly made up of two things, rocks and clay. We've decided we're going to have to wait til the sprinklers are in so we can water good and then just till around the sprinkler heads.

We did finally start and pretty much finish one project Labor Day weekend, and that was the front patio. We had a little inlet between the house and porch and decided to make a little patio out of it instead of finding good shade flowers for it. It still needs a little sand and we have to find the bench we want for it still but it's the first project we've actually finished.Saturday night of Labor Day weekend we went to the Jon Schmidt concert at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah. They have a beautiful outdoor amphitheater with a gorgeous waterfall background. Sadly I forgot to take the camera down for that one. The concert was AWESOME!! I'm a huge Jon Schmidt fan (for those who don't know he is a pianist) and he had his awesome cellist Steve with him. He debuted his new song Love Story Meets Viva La Vida. It's an awesome song, he is still working out the rights to it so it isn't published but you can find it on YouTube. Check it out. Sunday we got to go to Jackson's blessing. He's the awesome new member of the Allen family and it was so nice to see them and get to visit our old ward. Sunday afternoon we headed out to go camping and 4-wheeling with some of Monty's family. It was nice to go camping since we didn't make it out at all this summer with everything going on with buying a house. We went to Simpson Springs out in the west desert. It's on the old Pony Express trail. It was a fun little place and we had a good time. Monty and I got to go out on the 4-wheeler a couple times, including this one sporting his nieces helmets. It's really too bad you can't see the Disney princesses on Monty's helmet. Sadly, Megan's helmet actually fit me (she's 7 and I have a very little head).

This is one of the old stations along the pony express trail. Which apparently you can now take all the way from Utah to California.

One of the coolest things out there was all this green lava rock. It's kinda hard to tell in the picture but there were all kinds of mounds of green rocks. Apparently it's volcanic rock that is native to the area.

When we came home it was back to yard work, however, we now have trenches. Luckily one of our new neighbors knows someone who will trench your yard for the same price as it costs to rent a trencher so we didn't have to do that part. We were very grateful we didn't do it because when he left and told us this was the hardest ground he has ever seen. However it didn't leave us too confident for the digging we still have to do.

This is one of the two big holes I dug for the sprinkler boxes.

I even managed to snap a shovel in half while I was digging. I guess I don't know my own strength but you would really think that the ground would have given way before the shovel handle, who'd a thunk??

We spent the rest of the week digging trenches by hand over the gas and electrical lines, under sidewalks (stupid park strips), and in other places the trencher couldn't quite get to. We have also been attempting to clear some of the rocks out of the yard but there are so many and they aren't exactly little.

My dad is coming down tomorrow from Pocatello to help us put in the sprinkler system so hopefully within the next couple weeks we will have a yard, well a front yard anyway (we're seeding the back yard).

Finally a few pictures

2009-09-11T13:10:00.000-06:00

It's just a couple pcitures and of course everything wasn't put away but I figured I'd better finally get a couple pictures up. Not much time now, more to come later.

Busy weekend

2009-08-17T13:40:00.001-06:00

Ok so I finally took some pictures of the house, or so I thought, but now I can't find them so I'll still have to post those another day. We had a fun busy weekend. Our first project we have undertaken on the house is to build shelves for one of the storage rooms. We turned our basement into a wood shop and got started.It started off rather slow as we tried to figure out exactly how we were going to build them. It also took multiple trips to Lowes before we seemed to have everything we needed. This picture turned out kind of funny colored but I had to put in the proof that I was helping too. I was drilling and then screwing the legs together for the shelves. I'm wearing Monty's gun range ear muffs because I decieded I didn't like all the sawing, drilling, and banging noises. I also nailed the shelves into place. I'm not the biggest handi-woman there is so I was pretty proud of myself for operating power tools.

We didn't get the shelves finished but we got a good start. Hopefully now that we know a little more what we're doing it will go a little faster.

After we cleaned up we headed down to Salt Lake to watch Real Salt Lake. Its the major league soccer team here. The weather was great and it was a lot of fun to just go and relax. We played Houston and it ended up being a tie, but hey at least we didn't lose.

It was Leo the Lion's Birthday (he's the mascot) so at half time they had a soccer game with a bunch of the local mascots from several area universities and some of the other sports teams. You can't see real well in the picture but it was rather funny to watch. Plus it was good to see Big Blue again. He's the mascot from Utah State. I think we'll always be Aggies.

Sooo much better

2009-08-12T00:42:00.000-06:00

Last week a wonderful thing happened. Our blinds finally came in. We went from this...

To this...

It looks so much better than our sheets hanging up and we can now walk around in our underwear. OK so maybe not but it's nice to finally have so privacy. Two of the blinds for the bay window in our kitchen were cut to the wrong size so they had to send those back and we still haven't decided what were going to do for the sliding glass door but that's OK. We have too many outside projects to work on right now. Monty is in the process of building shelves for the storage rooms downstairs (so there's somewhere to put all the food I keep getting such great deals on) and then we have the yard. We're hoping to extend our patio and put the curbing for the flower beds in this month, then it's the sprinkler system, sod, and seeding. I'm actually looking forward to spending some time outside. I haven't done that much lately and can't wait til we have a yard to hang out in.

I promise there will be pictures of the house to come. I just finished working 72 hours in 7 days at the hospital the week after we moved so the house isn't quite put together in a way that is picture worthy yet. That's my goal for this week.

The hard part is over

2009-07-31T01:01:00.000-06:00

So we spent last weekend moving. Can I just say I hate moving. The packing, the unpacking, and the disastrous mess that comes with it all. Sadly I was a slacker and didn't take a single picture while we were moving. I have to give a big thank you to everyone who helped us move. We couldn't have done it without you guys. We're almost settled in now and the messes are slowly going away. The big wait is on our blinds. We have sheets hanging in our bedroom and bathroom window and nothing in the rest of the windows. Our neighbors were outside when we were trying to hang our sheets and were just laughing. I would have been laughing too if it wasn't me. Once we get our Internet set up I'll post some pictures...guess that means I better take some.

Home buyers

2009-07-22T09:08:00.000-06:00

Our agent told us congratulations you are home owners and Monty corrected him and said no, we're home buyers. I guess that's true technically the bank will own our house for many years to come but that's OK. Our house is done and we closed on Monday. Today I get to go pick up keys and then the adventure of moving starts. We decided to rent a U-haul so we can make it in one trip so I guess we aren't officially moving until Saturday but I'll take a few things out today that I really don't want to pack in the truck. It's been a long haul these past few weeks but it's all done. I'm so excited to get moved and settled in our own place.
Other than moving there is no real news. I'm finally working with patients at work and loving every minute of it and Monty loves his job. We are just so grateful for the blessings we have received in the past few months.

YAHOO!!

2009-07-08T21:19:00.001-06:00

I PASSED MY RN BOARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Warning, lots of pictures

2009-06-26T16:15:00.000-06:00

This week has been a crazy one at the Borrowman home once again. I am very grateful for public transportation and that I haven't had to spend gas money to get to work (I got a free UTA Pass so don't have to pay for train or trax either). However, I quickly learned that working 12 hour shifts and having a 2 hour commute each way leaves very little time for sleep. Sadlly I had to buy a parking pass this week and will have to start driving to work sometimes so I can get more than 6 hours of sleep.

About every 2-3 days we have gotten a phone call from our loan officer, agent, or contractor with another "problem." I swear the loan officer has every piece of paper we own and letters from everyone we know, our carpet was discontinued so we had to pick out new stuff, which is now on backorder. We have doors that won't shut and others that won't open. What a pain.

Because of the crazyness I hadn't been able to go see the house until today and am very frustrated with the situation right now. Luckily in the week since I have been there they've gotten a bunch done and I ended up very excited. I took lots of pictures!

The outside is almost done, they graded our lawn so it will be ready with the proper slope to keep us from flooding our neighbors apparently. There is still some touch up paint and the concrete on the foundation to be done but that's about it.

Our back steps are missing a railing, but at least they are there. (Kinda dumb to have a window under the steps huh?)

Our entry way, whick I'm hoping gets weather stipping around the door. I don't want to see daylight there.

The fire place mantel is in!! George's home is almost ready!! (The Prayer at Valley Forge is going over the mantel. Monty's already told George he's moving) The Living room

The kitchen finally looks like a kitchen. The cupboards aren't quite black, they are a very dark brown. Our appliances are there but sitting in the living room still.

The dining area.

Master bedroom

2 pictures of the master bathroom

Downstairs bathroom. It's the only room finished downstairs because we didn't want to have to do the plumbing and tile work ourselves.

Well, I guess that's enough pictures. July 13 is supposed to be our closing date as long as our carpet comes in in time. In Utah you have to wait 48-72 hours after closing to get keys though. Kinda dumb but oh well.

Busy Busy Busy

2009-06-13T14:46:00.001-06:00

It's been a while since I updated the blog and figured it's about time. I started my new job this week and I will love it soon enough. Right now it's pretty draining just because it's 12 hour days of class work. It's hard to sit and stay awake that long but at least I'm learning a lot. The only bad thing is parking. Being a university hospital you have to compete for parking with the rest of the university. Which means buying parking passes to park at the school. It's been a pain but I think I finally got it figured out.

Yesterday was a very busy day. Monty's brother Sam got married. It was a beautiful wedding and a lot of fun. We are very excited Sam found Megan and that she is willing to put up with him. All the Borrowmans are characters but Sam even more so. It has rained every day for about 2 weeks but yesterday the rain stopped (but just for yesterday, it's back today). We made it through the wedding and an outdoor reception with only a few drops here and there.

Monty and I don't seem to have a lot of pictures together so I had to throw this one in.

Monty, Matt (his brother-in-law), and I had the joy of decorating the car. With all of us having bad experiences with our cars being decorated as newly weds we decided that nice was the way to go. We didn't do anything to the outside of the car seeing as they do have to drive the car away and on their honeymoon. Instead we made popcorn people for the front seat and a bag of gummy worm babies for the back seat. (Because we promised to be nice Sam gave us the keys). They turned out pretty good. Then we threw candy everywhere making sure to get it in every crack, compartment, and hole. Nothing that will melt though so when they are finding candy in the car months from now they will just have a treat and not a mess. Congratulations Sam and Megan!

Our house is coming along nicely. The outside is almost done and inside the tile floor is all laid and they are working on the tile on the walls in the showers. They are almost ready to paint too, we're hoping next week. We had to go pick out new carpet today cuz the carpet we picked out in April has since been discontinued. Luckily we found something else we liked.

House Update

2009-05-28T17:56:00.000-06:00

Our house is coming along very nicely. The beginning of this week they finished the framing and got the windows put in. The plumbing is now in and today and tomorrow they are supposed to do electrical and then insulate it. We are very excited but it still doesn't seem like it's really our house. One nice thing is we can make some adjustments for us being giants. They put our shower heads in at 7'2"!! Granted once the floor is in it won't be that high from the ground, but we will still be able to fit under the shower heads. Also, we raised our counters by 6 inches which will be very nice.

We also found out this week that we will probably be moving the middle of July. Originally we thought the house would be done the beginning or middle of August but it's going up rather quickly. Guess it might be time to start packing if we could be moving in as little as 6 weeks. Crazy!!

Two and a half years...gone

2009-05-24T13:18:00.001-06:00

So it has been a very busy week. I have been working a ton and understook a major organization project of which I will post pictures of later. However, I felt the need to post the pictures I've had several people asking about first. Two and a half years ago when Monty proposed my hair was at the length were it was uncooperative and annoying but I refused to cut it before our wedding because I wanted to be able to do something with it. By the time we got married it was past the annoying point so I just let it keep growing. This is how long it ended up.

At the beginning of my last year of school I decided that it was time to cut my hair, however I knew I had one more year of very early morning clinicals and I refused to get up in time to do anything but ponytail my hair. At this point I decided that once school was out I was going to cut my hair and donate it to Locks of Love.

The ponytail ended up being about 12 inches long. You only have to have 10 inches to donate but I decided to round it off to an even foot. The end result was hair shorter than I have ever had but I think it turned out pretty cute although it's still very odd to wash and brush it. :-)

Snow Warning

2009-05-19T23:37:00.000-06:00

This past weekend Monty and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary. It was my turn to plan and I decided we would have a nice weekend out in nature. I found a cute little bed and breakfast up Big Cottonwood Canyon and got a killer deal on it because ski season is over. So we went up for the night and then I figured we'd do some hiking in Big Cottonwood Canyon. I'd never been up there but had heard there were some great trails. I figured being a higher elevation we might need light jackets (which I forgot) but thought nothing else of it. Saturday morning we headed off toward the trail head for the hike I chose and we were met with snow. Not a few skiffs of snow but over 2 FEET in places on the trail. Luckily it was warm and we didn't need the jackets but it was an adventure trying to keep to the trail in the snow.

The snow didn't cover everything, just pretty much the places that didn't get much sun. The hike up was OK because you could usually get a grip in the snow by kicking into the top layer of ice. However coming back down once it had warmed up was a different story. I was up to my knees more than once when a foot when all the way into the snow.

This picture is kinda dark but it shows the river we followed for most of the hike. It was beautiful, and definitely worth the sight at the end.

At the top is the water coming out of the middle of a rock. Monty nearly fell in the water trying to get this picture. You can hike up to the top of the waterfall but due to all the snow we opted not too.

It was a pretty hike and fairly easy which was good for the first one of the year. We are going to try it again later in the summer when we can hike to the top. Without the snow!

Coupons

2009-05-11T08:26:00.000-06:00

So my sister in-law has got me hooked on coupons. I've always used coupons to help keep grocery costs down, but she taught me how to use them. I have to say I am very proud of my shopping trip today. I got...

2- bags of Tyson chicken nuggets
3- boxes Krusteaz muffin mix
2- 3 pack of tree top juice boxes
2- Easy mac
7- Kraft mac n cheese
4- bottles Kraft salad dressing
2- boxes Red Baron french bread pizzas
1- Deli Creation
1- Pasta salad
1- Sara Lee bread
1- Jello No Bake dessert

I got all of this for $25.18 after tax!! My receipt says I saved $48.29! It was a very exciting trip to the grocery store which I can't say happens very much anymore, especially buying easy things to take in lunches. The most amazing part of the purchase...salad dressing $0.25 a bottle. Thanks Nicky!!

Killer Geese

2009-05-09T20:37:00.000-06:00

So I decided I need to be better at taking pictures and that is going to be my goal for the summer. If no pictures have popped up for awhile, someone keep me honest and call me on it. We went and fed the ducks last night and we were nearly attacked by the geese. The ducks stayed in the water and waited patiently but the geese were trying to peck at our feet. We survived but just barely. Monty kept backing up and they just kept following him. It would have been a very funny video. We went out to see the house today and the foundation is now in so we can see a little better how it's going to sit on the lot. We have probably 3 months to go but it's nice to see a little progress.

University of Utah here I come

2009-05-06T03:08:00.000-06:00

No, I'm not going to school. I am officially done with school. I GOT THE JOB!!! I have never been so excited to be woken up after 4 1/2 hours of sleep. Monday afternoon I found out that I was hired on in the newborn intensive care at University of Utah Hospital. It's a great opportunity. It's only 3 days a week with 2 weeks days and 2 weeks of nights a month. They have a great training program for new graduates that should get me exactly where I need to be to work in a critical care unit. It will also be nice to spend 2 weeks a month living the hours of a normal person. Now I have to decide what job to give up. Those who know me know I'm kind of a work-a-holic. Even during school I've managed to work two jobs. But who can give up a job where you work 1 or 2 shifts a month and get a great discount on clothes. I think I want to stay with home health one night a week at least for the summer because that would still only put me working 4 days a week, but we'll see. I think I almost have Monty convinced I can work Old Navy, home health, and the hospital. I really am crazy I guess :)

Test results and Tonka trucks

2009-05-01T13:17:00.000-06:00

First off, my mom got her final test results back and they were all good which means no chemo!! WooHoo! We're all very excited. Second of all, they finally broke ground on our house today!! I went out there today and there were backhoes and dump trucks hard at work. It was an exciting and beautiful sight.

Also, I had my job interview at University Hospital on Tuesday. I think it went ok. I think it could have gone better but oh well. They are interviewing about 12 and hiring 3-4 so I thinkn I have a decent chance. I should know Tuesday or Wednesday.

The 6 letter word and blessings from above

2009-04-29T15:56:00.000-06:00

So it has been a very crazy and emotional week. Last Friday my mom heard the word no one ever wants to hear. She was diagnosed with cancer, a rare form of melanoma. Three days later she was having surgery to remove her thumb and remove lymph nodes to check and see if it has spread. It was all very sudden, she went to the doctor to have it looked at on Tuesday, it was biopsied on Wednesday, diagnosed on Friday, and removed on Monday. All is less than a week. It was a weekend of lots of emotion and LOTS of tears. They had no idea how bad it was because everything removed in the biopsy was cancer. Luckily I was able to go to Pocatello on Sunday and stay through Monday evening. It was amazing how much peace and comfort we were blessed with as Monday neared. We are so grateful for the prayers shared on my mom's behalf. Monday went amazingly well. They did have to remove over half of her thumb but the initial report on the lymph nodes looks very good. It will probably be another week or so before we have final results on the lymph nodes but we're praying they stay negative. My mom has truly been blessed and she's realizing how loved she is by those around her.
A side note, I just want to put a warning to everyone out there. My mom is a nurse and works with many other nurses. It is likely she had this cancer for about 6 months before having it looked at. She thought nothing of it nor did those she worked with when they saw it. Subungual Melanoma starts as black or dark lines under the nail. It is often seen in the thumb, great toe, and index finger. It may or may not eventually cause a sore at the tip of the finger. If you know anyone who has these strange dark streaks, get them checked out. Better safe then sorry.

Now it's my turn

2009-04-21T20:14:00.000-06:00

I have a job interview next week at University Hospital in Salt Lake for a NICU nurse residency position. It would be a great job, exactly what I want to do. I'd be working half as many nights and have the training I need as a new graduate. The interview isn't until Tuesday so I have a week to wait for the interview and then probably at least another week before I know anything so I have a long wait but I'm very hopeful. Wish me luck!!

So Weird

2009-04-20T15:49:00.000-06:00

Today at 2:10 I stepped off the Weber State bus for the last time. I turned in my last project, took my last final, and am officially done with school!!! It is an odd feeling to think that I'm done. It definitely hasn't sunk in yet. Apparently I now know everything I need to know to be a nurse and I am free for school...forever. I honestly never thought this day would come. Finishing school always was more of a dream than reality. But today REALITY!!! I still have to take and pass my state boards before I'm officially an RN but NO MORE SCHOOL. I think I'm going to need a hobby for all my spare time now!?!?!

DONE!! Well, almost

2009-04-13T13:09:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I finished my precepting and I have to say it is a good feeling to know I'm not going to have to work 36 hours a week for free anymore. I am going to miss working with all the babies though. I have 1 class left, one test, and a final. Then I am done with school forever!!! I have to say, I never thought my life would take the path it did. No one at high school graduation ever says, 9 years from now I'm going to finally be done with school and have 2 associate degrees. However, I wouldn't change a thing. Life is great right now and honestly I couldn't be happier. I've learned so much over the past many years that has truly shaped me into the person I am and I am grateful for that.

Life is amazing

2009-04-04T17:01:00.000-06:00

Working in a newborn intensive care unit brings a whole new appreciation for life. It is truly amazing to watch an infant grown and develop outside of the womb. The past three weeks I've been working with a baby born after only about 25 weeks. His eyes were even fused shut for the first 5 days he was alive. Watching these babies come to the world and seeing their strength has been a very inspiring thing for me. NICU where I want to stay. I'm hoping to get into a critical care nurse residency program after graduation that will help me prepare for working in an NICU and gain the experience that I need.

Not much else going on here. We have our construction meeting where we build our house on paper this coming week and then they will get the permits and start building. We just hope it doesn't take too long to get permits. The sooner we can move the better.

I haven't abandoned the blog

2009-03-24T17:07:00.000-06:00

I promise I didn't create this blog and then abandon it. It has been a very crazy two weeks. 3 days after hearing about the house, Monty's car died leaving us stranded in the tiny town of Riverside, Utah. After 5 hours of sitting at the gas station, Monty's uncle was able to tow it to Tremonton and Monty's parents were so kind as to drive up from West Jordan to take us home. We got home about 10:00pm Saturday night, the only problem was I started my precepting Sunday at 4:00am. Luckily we were able to buy a new car on Tuesday because it wasn't worth the cost to fix Monty's poor car. Actually, if it was going to break down, it's a blessing it happened when it did. If it had happened much later we would have been in big trouble because Monty started his new job this week and we wouldn't have been able to do his commute and my precepting with one car. Plus he got a discount because he was still working at Enterprise.

Monty is loving his new job. I am loving my precepting, getting up at 3am bites the big one but I love working with the tiny babies in the newborn intensive care. I'm halfway done and it's going really well. I've learne a ton and got to see so many things. I think after going through nursing school I will probably be a very paranoid mom when I am pregnant. Anyway, this got really long. Sorry

More good news

2009-03-11T21:00:00.001-06:00

So Monday we found out that Monty got the job. Tuesday we got more good news, I don't know if it's better news but it is pretty darn exciting. See this beautiful picture...it is our future home. We heard back from our agent on Tuesday and everything went through and we are actually building a house. It's kinda crazy but because of the poor economy the builder is offering insane incentives so it is going to be the same price to build as it would be to just buy. We are very excited and can't wait to get started. The sooner we get started the sooner we can shorten Monty's commute.

By the way, our new house is going to be in Syracuse which is just southwest of Layton and about about 20 minutes closer to Monty's new job.

This is basically what it will look like when we're all done. We'll get to pick the colors and the type of stonework so it won't look exactly like this but you get the idea.

2009-03-09T18:27:00.001-06:00

MONTY GOT THE JOB!!!

Leaky Roof

2009-03-04T19:18:00.000-07:00

So this is what we have been dealing with for the past several months. This is the corner of our bedroom. What you don't see is the water damage on every ceiling tile along the wall. You can sort of see the streaks running down the wall. The paint is cracking and the sheetrock tape is peeling up in the corner. Lots of fun. At least we have gotten used to sleeping through the sound of dripping water as our buckets catch a few of the leaks. A lot of the water is dripping down inside the wall so there is nothing we can do about it. At one point we had 4 buckets catching water. They have fixed our roof 3 times but the patches aren't taking and the whole roof just needs to be replaced. Our landlords know but we don't think they have any idea how bad it realy is.

The second picture is the view looking up in the corner. The sheetrock is gone for about a panel and a half and the support beam is split. I think we need to move before we die of mold poisoning because that corner just looks nasty.

Monty had his interview yesterday. It lasted over 2 hours and he thinks it went pretty well. He got a phone call today from the recruiting department asking him a question about his application so we think that is probably a good sign, at least they are still looking at him. He'll know the end of this week if he's going in for a second interview the beginning of next week and then hopefully they'll make a decision by the end of next week. We're still very hopeful. It would be great, a new job, better pay, less hours, and LEAVING OGDEN!!!

An Interview!!

2009-02-24T01:47:00.000-07:00

YEAH!! Monty has a job interview next week. We are so excited. It has been 6 months now that he has been actively looking for a new job and he has only been on 2 interviews. The first interview was in October and the last one was the very end of December. The one in October he got beat out by someone with many many years of experience and the one in December the position was eliminated before they even filled it. We are hoping and praying that this interview will go well. It is for an entry level financial analyst for an IHC based insurance company. The pay would be great and best of all we would get to move out of Ogden!! The interview isn't until a week from tomorrow (I guess really a week from today), so the next 2 weeks are going to be very very long. That is he he finds out within a week.
I had a nice exciting weekend. My mom came to visit and we went shopping, went to the movies, went to the temple, and all sorts of fun stuff. It was good to spend some time with her and Monty was such a trooper to let his mother-in-law come visit for 4 days. Thanks Hun!!

Things we miss about Logan

2009-02-14T04:14:00.000-07:00

Yes this blog really is being posted at 3 in the morning, but it's okay, I'm at work. The nice thing about working nights is a fair amount of time the kids sleep. This leaves me time to do homework or whatever strikes my fancy. Right now about once a week I also have access to internet. I decided I'd use my spare time to see if I could post pictures. We have decided these past couple weeks that we really miss Logan. We really don't want to move back to Logan and I think a lot of it is we just hate Ogden. I figured I'd post a couple pictures of things we miss from Logan. First and foremost would have to be Aggie basketball. For anyone who has never been to an Aggie basketball game, it's quite the experience. We went to as many games as we could and yes we were part of the obnoxious student section.

Another thing we miss is the many canyons surrounding Logan. There were always great places to hike, camp, and even just go for a drive. Ogden has some decent hiking near by but we didn't get a chance to enjoy much of it last summer because I worked every weekend and Monty had weekends off.
One final note, if anyone knows of a company looking for a financial analyst that doesn't have to hae a lot of experience, let me know. We're willing wo go about anywhere!!

Really not so lazy

2009-02-12T15:48:00.000-07:00

It doesn't matter the reason but when you sleep in until 2:30 it just seems lazy. In my case, lately I have felt lazy far more than not. 2:30pm is one of the earlier times I have gotten up lately. In my defense, I do work nights so it's not like I don't have a legitimate reason, but it still makes me feel lazy. Lately my schedule has been 2 nights on with one night off so pretty much every day of the week I'm either sleeping in because I worked the night before or I work that night. Hopefully one day I will have a job where I can work 36 hours a week instead of 40 and not feel so lazy because I sleep my days away. The good news is, while I work 6 of the next 7 nights, I have 4 nights off after that. Woo Hoo!!

Welcome to our blog!

2009-02-07T21:00:00.000-07:00

Well, Monty finally convinced me that I needed to join the blogging world. This blog is going to be a work in progress but I'll figure it out eventually. I'm still convinced we have a rather boring life but that's okay. A little about us: Monty and I were married in the Salt Lake temple May 15, 2007. Right now we're living in Ogden so I can finish school. I'm working as an LPN and will graduate in May with my RN. Monty is working for Enterprise in their management training program and looking for a job he will enjoy more. We are greatly looking forward to the day we can leave Ogden. However we will miss our fabulous pent house apartment when we leave. It's not everyday you have an elevator open into your living room.