Mother's Day

Happy Mothers day to our wonderful Mothers! They played a huge role in making us the people we are today. I am the first of four kids, and the only girl which makes my mom and I very close. She taught me a lot of things like: Sewing, crocheting, How to see the world with DIY eyes, cooking should be simple and delicious, Family is what's important, boys will be boys, Parks women are stronger than you think, and chocolate milk is the breakfast of champions.

My mom and I grew even closer after I graduated high school. We made time to go out to lunch, to the mall and Ikea, to watch Dharma and Greg in the morning, and to be creative. I miss living close to her (and of course my whole family too) but technology makes the distance feel a little bit smaller.

Although she isn't my mother Laurie-ann has influenced my life greatly by raising a wonderful son, and family. She loves to garden, spend time outdoors and with her family, and she swam over a 1,000 laps to raise money for MS.

We will always be grateful to our wonderful mothers for all they do, and to the other women in our lives that have influenced us. Justin's step-mom Kathy Hugie, who has always opened up her home when we came to visit. My Grandma Carol Looney (mom #2) who let me live with her in California, and stayed up till I got home. And my aunt Jill Irving (mom#3) who put up with me tagging along all last summer.

Last of all I am grateful for the reason I became a mother this past march. For Justin and James and how loved they make me feel. I hope you had a wonderful mothers day and took the time to celebrate the women in your life.

Take me out to the ball game

On Wednesday night Justin and I (and JJ of course) went to the Salt Lake Bees game for free courtesy of our Pass of all Passes. We thought our tickets were for the grass area in the outfield but were pleasantly surprised that our tickets were actually in the stands.

 It was fun to go to a baseball game and to look up the players to see who was on the angels call-up list. For those of you who don't hear about baseball all the time (I do thanks to Justin's fantasy baseball & MLB TV) The Salt Lake bees are the farm team for the angels. This means that players that are hurt or are extras on the Angels go down to the Bees to play so that they play until they recover or are needed in the Angels lineup. Mike Trout went to the salt lake bees because the Angles roster was too full, but recently returned to the Angles lineup. We're looking forward to learning about the players and seeing which Angels come to Utah for a visit.

Justin loves every chance he gets to hold JJ, and of course share his love of all things sports. This is how they watch the baseball games at home. We were both surprised at how interested JJ seemed in everything that was going on, apparently we should get out more.

We had a lot of fun, and look forward to having many more adventures with our family and friends. Especially our trip to Minnesota in 2 weeks, which will include JJ's first plane ride! hopefully he's on his best behaviour.

All the little things

I was recently informed at my lack of blogging, the truth is I felt as though I didn't have anything to blog about... of course I do! baby James keeps me busy all day long, and I have about a million pictures of the little guy. All the pictures are in order, the beginning to now. Its hard to believe he'll be two months on Monday (the 14th) I've definitley learned a lot about babies, and myself in these two months. So here's just a few things I've learned...

Breastfeeding sucks (no pun intended) the first 4 days he would not latch on, he got really frantic really fast, and didn't eat much at all. Which is why he had low blood sugar in the hospital, and had to have tests done. Once we got back home he calmed down a bit but it hurt a lot for me. Finally around 6 weeks we got the hang of it and not it doesn't hurt anymore.

Time flies when the baby sleeps! when they're first born they say sleep when baby sleeps but now I don't have that luxury since I have to get stuff done now. As soon as the baby falls asleep its like a timer starts, although you never really know how long you're gonna have.

I'm more awake when I'm not (let me explain) Justin has told me two stories of me in the middle of the night... One night Justin offered to get up with JJ and feed him. I woke up got the bottle ready, pumped, and went to bed. Justin fed, changed, and got him back to sleep. When he came back to the bedroom he couldn't figure out how to turn the baby monitor on. He woke me up, my eyes popped open... and fell asleep. He woke me up again, my eyes popped open and he asked how to turn the baby monitor on. Without saying anything I turned it on and quickly fell back asleep, None of which I remembered in the morning.

Babies go through LOTS ans LOTS of diapers

Tiny person, BIG mountain of laundry. They dirty so many burp cloths, clothes, blankets, and shoulders of mommy and daddy's shirts.

Sometimes you feel accomplished simply when you've taken a shower.

You've gotta find something to keep you awake while you're feeding the baby in the middle of the night. I've started to play games on my iPhone, I even watched some Food Network shows on there too.

When you make them smile, it makes you melt. When Justin comes home from work he loves to play with JJ, mostly making noises to make him smile.  He loves when he can get him to make noises, and when he gets to cuddle with him and take a nap.

They grow and change SUPER fast! Justin says that sometimes when he comes home from work he's changed since the day before.

It's crazy learning to live life while taking care of another tiny person too, but it's so much fun when they start to smile and "talk" to you that it makes everything worth it.