Random Things

Brock loves to stack things - anything that he can find - he stacks. If it won't stack (like balls) or keeps falling over (like rocks) he just pushes them together harder and longer - it is so cute. He makes this face like "If I just push harder they will stick". It breaks my heart a little when he takes his hand off and they still fall over. I wish I could make everything in his life turn out the way he wants. - Oh the joys of parenting!
Jason has been getting some new "toys" lately for graduation and getting a job. I think Brock has enjoyed it as much as Jason. Everytime he brings home a new box Brock crawls up on his lap and goes through the box with him. It is so cute!
Brock's goal in life the last few weeks has been to see what he can crawl under and what he can't. If something looks like he might fit - he must try. He got stuck one day under the kitchen chairs. It was pretty funny!
I was making an omelet one morning and sat Brock next to me on the counter. Next thing I knew - he was doing this!
Check out those bite marks!

PS - The scrape on his forehead is from playing outside.

Brock's Second Party

This is Brock's birthday party at Jason's parents house. Debbie made him some strawberry short cake. She tried to show him how to blow out a candle - did not work.

He was not to crazy about the cake - so we had to whip out some banana's to keep him interested. We had a great time. Thanks Debbie and Randy!

Brock's Birthday - FINALLY

Brock's birthday was over a month ago - but I have just now got around to blogging about it. I have recommitted myself to blogging!

Anyways - we had 2 parties for Brock - one with the Hanna's and one with the Herbert's (we could not get both families together on one night - so we had to spilt it up). Brock's favorite thing right now is cars - so of coarse I had to make a car cake. (Thanks Jess for the idea and help!) I am pretty proud of it - the round one was for Brock and the Car one was for everyone else.

We tried to get him to blow out the candle - but it was unsuccessful. (However - now he knows how to blow)
Brock was SO FUNNY about his cake. He just started at one end of the cake and slowly ate a little out of the corner and then was done. He never grabbed a handful or shoved it in his mouth. It was pretty clean and organized (I would not expect anything less from the son of Jason). The piece you see taken out in the front was cut for my mom (she is allergic to chocolate).
Family picture. I swear Brock is a happy baby - he is just very serious. In the background you can see a colleague I made for his birthday. I loved having it up for a few weeks! It had all my favorite pictures of Brock!

Looking for a new doctor

I am on the search for a new doctor ASAP (OB-GYN). We figure/hope we will live in Salt Lake when the baby is born, so I want a Salt Lake doctor. If any of you have recommendations PLEASE send them my way. I am 20 weeks along and want to switch NOW - so my real doctor can do my ultrasound. He/she would need to deliver at either Alta View, Intermountain (the new hospital), or LDS.

On a side note - I would really like a doctor that is supportive of natural birth. PLEASE SEND ANY RECOMMENDATIONS!!

Another St. George Trip!

It has been like a month since we went, but Brock and I went with Karli, Payton, and Brooklyn to St. George. Karli's ward friend came with us with her two kids. It was a lot of fun. We did most the same things, it was amazing to see how much difference a month can make in the development of a baby. Brock just seemed to be so much older this time and actually enjoy himself. Here are some highlights.

Hiking at Snow Canyon. (Obviously it was an intense hike - see the shoes :)
Swimming

My sweet little boy got sick when we were just packing up to leave. He threw up three times at the condo, twice on the car ride home, once in the middle of the night once we got home, and three more times in the next 2 days. It was SO SAD! On the third time he threw up at the condo, I had run out of clean pajamas to wear home, so Karli's friend, Michelle, let me borrow her little girls pajama's. I could not take him seriously wearing purple pj's - he is such a boy, even though he was sick - I was like, "Brock what are you wearing?" Isn't that the most pathetic face? It is like he is embarrassed.

Quick update

So I have been anticipating this post for a while... but now that I am finally able to post about it, I haven't. I just haven't had the words, and it was so anti-climactic that it just did not seem worth it. But here it goes.

For those of you who don't really know what has been going on the past few months - here are the main points.

• Jason graduated in December
• He applied to medical school but did not get in
• He has decided to not reapply
• He has been looking for a job since December (huge family trial)
• He got a job and started last Monday (huge family blessing)

• I had my graduation exit interview on Thursday and as soon as I finish my independent study math class I am graduated!
• I am still working from home (HUGE family blessing)
• I was released from my RS calling (second counselor in the RS presidency)

• Brock loved having BOTH his parents home ALL day for 4 months
• Brock is having a hard time adjusting to just mom being at home and not getting whatever he needs/wants whenever he needs/wants it.
• Brock turned 1 last week

• We have been incredibly blessed by the Lord these last few months - and strongly feel like we are doing what we should be doing (despite it wasn't what we THOUGHT we should be doing)
• We are here in Provo for a few more months (arg), hopefully until we save enough for a down payment on a house (maybe August?!?)

I know many of these points deserve much more detail/feelings/pictures, many of them I will do posts on later. I just wanted to get all that info out there.

Getting excited for baby #2

I know I am a few months away, but I am getting so excited for baby #2. I have been having dreams about my two kids and it is wonderful. In my dreams it is a boy (I don't feel it is spiritually motivated though (I did with Brock), I just think it is a boy), but I would be excited for a girl.

I just wanted to express my anticipation. To be honest, the thing I am most excited about is the delivery. I am just so excited to labor and deliver - I know that sounds crazy to most people - but I felt like it was the most spiritual and emotional thing in the whole world - and the moment they lay that baby in your arms... there is NOTHING in the whole world better than that moment. I am just so excited thinking about it. I can't really describe why I am so excited about the delivery, I was so excited for Brock's delivery, and although it was definitely hard (I pushed for 4 hours and then ended up using forecepts), I loved working hard to bring my baby into the world. I can't describe it. I have had a glimpse into what Luke meant when he said, "Mary kept these things and pondered them in her heart." I just loved the whole childbirth process, the pregnancy, the birth, and of coarse the best part - the baby!

When I first found out I was pregnant, I was definitely nervous about having them so close. But now it doesn't even cross my mind, and just can't wait. I found myself thinking, why don't I already have another baby - do I really have to wait 5 more months.

Another good thing about your second baby - is that pregnancy is more real. I mean sure, when you are pregnant with your first, you know there is a baby in there, but you don't REALLY KNOW what the means - you don't REALLY know how much you are going to love it. But now I know that my baby is really in there, and what it will feel like when I see him (or her) and how much I will love him (or her). So to sum up this post - I am so excited!

Brock's One Year Old Pictures

My cousin gave me a $100 gift card to Kiddie Kandids at one of my showers before Brock was born. I decided to use it for his 1 year pictures. I did not really have a good experience there, I got some cute pictures, but I told the photographer what I wanted, and I did not really get that. But they are cute.

If we say "Brock give ____ a hug", this is what he does - super cute! He gives GREAT HUGS!

I hated that his hand and finger are up in this picture - but then I realized it is like he is holding up the number "1" - for 1 years old - so i guess it is ok. (Thanks Grandma for the outfit)
Darling!
His pensive face

(Thanks Ashley for the outfit!)

This is not really my style - a little cheesy - But his expression is just so darn cute!

The cycles of clothing...Is it worth it?

Last January (6 months pregnant with Brock)
Before

After

(repeat)

(these are models - obviously)

So I pose a question to all women (especially those who have had a child or two), is it worth it to re-do your wardrobe every pregnancy cycle?

Today during the conference break I got out all my maternity clothes, and packed away all my "normal" clothes, and I felt like, "Didn't I just pack these away?" and "I am just going to pack them away again in a few months." The most prominent example of the frustrations are my "under clothing". I wore maternity last year, and than for the past year I have been wearing nursing, and then last Tuesday I stopped nursing and FINALLY got to wear "normal" ones again, and then today I got out my maternity again because I can't keep them tucked in! And this cycle will just repeat for the next 5 or more years! Is it worth it? And the same with Bra's, between nursing, pregnancy, and non pregnancy my size fluctuates about 2 or 3 cups, how many different size bra's does a girl need to buy??

And when I ask, is it worth it? I am not asking is pregnancy and children worth it? Because the answer is obviously yes, I am asking is the constant switching worth it? I don't have dresser space or closet space to keep both out, but I think I might as well purchase an extra dresser and just keep nursing/maternity clothes in it year round, and that way I am always ready, and don't have to spend 1 day a year packing maternity clothes away, and another whole day a few months later getting them all out again.

Many of you might be thinking, easy solution..."Don't get pregnant a few months later!" And my answer to that is... ?? "I don't need to explain my life :)" Plus I love being pregnant, I love my maternity clothes, and I love being a mom, so I don't see a down side. (except for the above rant)

Thoughts from a mother's heart

I have just put Brock to bed, and have a very strong desire to express the feelings of my heart. I love being Brock's mother, I love my role as a mother. Sometimes I just feel like I can't hug him enough, or kiss him enough, and I definitely don't have the words to describe what I feel inside my heart every time he looks up at me and smiles. I almost feel like his smile, his laugh, could just heal any part of me that is sad, or lacking, or incomplete. I am reminded of a scripture in Alma where he (Ammon) says that his joy was so great it consumed his soul and made him weak. I have felt that joy and am blessed to feel it on a daily basis, and feel it every time I have the sense to put down my to-do list and just play with Brock. I love just being on the ground with him playing - nothing makes me so happy.

I know this is cheesy, but once I put Brock to bed, I felt the way that you feel in Fast and Testimony meeting when you know you need to bear your testimony, I just had to tell someone (and in this case - everyone) that I love my son and I love being a mother. I am more grateful than I can express for Heavenly Father giving me the chance to feel this kind of love, and I am grateful for this child inside of me (and others to come), because now I know what special spirits they really are, and I love them already. Thank you for humoring me and reading this.

We are "egg"cited to announce Baby Herbert #2

We gave each of our family members a plastic egg for their Easter present - and this is what was inside, a little baby, some plastic binkies, jellybeans, and a note that said, "we are "egg"cited to announce Baby Herbert #2 on September 30th! Everyone was so excited and shocked (except for my mom and Katie, they had suspected for a while). We are so excited and can't wait! I am 14 weeks along, for those of you doing the math, it means they will be 17 months apart, which is close, but I am not worried. My mom had all of hers close (Katie and I are 15 months apart), so I always wanted mine close together.
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PS - For those of you who don't know, My sister Katie is pregnant as well and due 3 weeks after me.

Easter

Dying our eggs

So we dyed eggs, got Brock an Easter basket (just toys, no candy), and hid the eggs for Brock to find. During his bath Jason hid the eggs and put the basket in the middle of the floor. Obviously I figured we were doing this mostly for us, and Brock would care less about the basket, what was in the basket, and not try to find the Easter eggs. How wrong I was. Brock crawled straight to the Easter basket, and one by one pulled each toy out, played with it for just a minute (to find out what it did), then set the toy down, and pulled out the next toy until the basket was empty. We have it all on video, and you can see, as soon as his last toy is out, he spotted an egg hid under the couch, he put down the toy and crawled over to the hidden egg, he then crawled around the room finding 3 or 4 more eggs. It was so cool to watch - I thought for sure he wouldn't get it, he so did. Every time he found an egg he would hold it out in front of him, to show us, then he would smile and clap. It was so cute.

As you can see he is still in the "put everything in your mouth" stage, so I did not do Easter grass in the basket, I just put some green fabric.

Then we went to my grandma's house for another, outside, Easter egg hunt with all the grand kids and great grand kids. My mom also got Brock an easter basket with the cutest little Easter outfit - I LOVE little boy summer clothes. Here is Brock with his cousins. We are so sad Emma will be leaving us in a month. James and Vivian are going to Brazil for 2 months and then flying straight to Washington DC for dental school. Brock will miss his friend.

Park Days

This will be my last post about the trip.

Here are some cute pictures of Brock's first trips to the park for this summer. He mostly just likes to stand on the equipment and hit the bars and plastic to hear the different noises. For those of you who have watched Brock play, it is pretty interesting (if I do say so myself). He is very curious about how things work, he examines all of his toys, to find out how they make that noise, or why the lights are blinking; he likes to watch wheels turn on his cars or watch the hinges on cabinets. You can tell he is thinking deeply about them. His eyebrows scrunch into his nose and he pucks his lips like a ducks beak. He never throws his toys or bangs things unintentionally, he plays with one toy at a time and does it very purposefully and then moves onto the next one. He is definitely a thinker. He gets these characteristics from his dad.

Now that I have bragged about my child, and you are all thinking I'm just the mom, of coarse I think my child is a genius, just look at some cute pictures, and you don't have to believe me about the genius thing.

Swimming Time

Another addition to the St. George trip...

We went swimming every day. The first day Brock just held on to me and acted scared, by the last day he was kicking his legs and wanted to "swim by himself", this pool had a really shallow end where he could crawl around, he loved that, but he kept trying to crawl into the deep end. The water kept getting higher and higher, but he didn't care, he just dept going until it covered his whole face and mom needed to rescue him, but then he always looked mad at me, like I was ruining his fun. Mom's are so mean!

St George

So I have been back from Saint George for over a week and have not "blogged" about it. I intended to do it the very day we got back - but between math and work and Brock, I haven't seemed to get around to it. Plus I have been overwhelmed by all the fun things and cute pictures. So I am going to just do one post at a time - rather than do the whole trip in one sitting.

We had SO MUCH FUN! But it was CRAZY! We had 5 kids under the age of 2. We did 2 activities a day - which does not sound like much, but if there was an hour where all 5 were fed, awake, happy, and in a clean diaper - I felt like we had succeeded! I have to give a shout out to Karli for all of the hard work she did. She really kept the whole group running, she could have handled all 5 by herself I am sure.

One day we went to Snow Canyon and played in the sand dunes. It took Brock a while to warm up to the sand idea, but soon he was climbing all over - and much to my surprise he did not try to eat it!

"Dan Cook would do it!"

So a little background. Dan and Jamie Cook are a SUPER CUTE couple that used to be in our BYU ward until they moved to California. A few weeks ago on her blog she told a story about how she lost her keys and her husband, Dan, searched through their dumpster to find her keys. To read the whole story here is the link. (I could not figure out how to just type the word "here" and have it link - sorry)

http://thecookfamilyblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/case-of-missing-keys.html

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Our story:

So my mom gave me a gift card to Cafe Rio, which is basically gold in my world. The next day I realized I never put it in my wallet, I glanced around the apartment for the card it was in, I figured I had left it in the card. I asked Jason where the card was, he said he threw it away, I told him the gift card was still in it. We check the garbage, but it had already been taken out to the dumpster.

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I asked him to go out and search the dumpster, he said, "No way!" I immediately blurted out "Dan Cook would do it!" He looked at me like I was insane and we both started laughing hysterically. He hadn't read the blog - so he thought it came out of no where and was like "What did you say? Is that supposed to make me go out to the dumpster?" I told him about the blog. I don't know if he didn't want to be shown up by Dan or if he was just being nice - but at 10:45 at night, while it was snowing, he went out to the dumpster and searched for the card. He came back without the card. He said it was probably just in my wallet, I went to grab my wallet to show him it was not in there. When I grabbed my wallet I saw it sitting at the bottom of my purse. OOPS :(

Brighton Bengals

It was senior night for the Brighton Boys Varsity Basketball game on Tuesday night (they beat Skyline - yea). They had all the parents and seniors on the court and read some info about them. My dad was out of town - so it was just my mom. Below are some pictures of the night.

We watched 2 games (JV for Daniel and Varsity for Michael), Brock liked the JV game, but the varsity game was close, so I was yelling a lot and Brock DID NOT LIKE THAT, every time I would yell "rebound" or "Defense" Brock would cry like he was being killed. I tried not to yell - but years of basketball enthusiasm took over. And if any of you have watched basketball with my mom you know where I got it from. At least it is good to know Brock never hears me yell, so he was obviously confused and scared when I did yell. I need to take this child to more sporting events.

Since they won the Region they got to cut down the net. Michael was the "last cut", isn't he so cute!

Brock and Daniel

Brock and Michael

The Boys (2 basketball stars - and maybe a future star??)

Delay in Bloggage

So I am finally updating. I have been lagging, not because I am busy - I kind of am - I HAVE to finish my independent study math class by April 4 and all my "nap" time is used either doing that or working. But mostly because life is SO BORING and I have nothing to say. I am so sick of winter and cold I could scream. I am already planning mine and Brock's summer - it is going to be so fun - I have BIG PLANS! We are going to the beach, and the mountains, and on walks, and mommy and me classes, and the park, and basically anything we can do outside. The problem is I don't know if we will be living in A)Provo B)Salt Lake or C)Syracuse, New York, so all the plans are tentative - but still - just the dreams get me through the day. If anyone has any advice on how to get through these last few cold months let me know.

**Karli and I are going to St. George for a week for this very reason, just us and the kids - and I am so excited!!!

My thoughts on the race

(My spell check is not working - so forgive my blatant errors)
Given that tomorrow is Super Tuesday, I thought I would give my input. Jason and I are pretty into politics. We follow the candidates and research the issues.

For strictly political reasons I like Mit Romney, unfortunetly I DO NOT like the fact that he is Mormon. I was not going to vote for him because although I think he would make a great president, I don't think that we, as a church, are mature enough to handle it. However, I really do not like McCain, he is just too much like George Bush, and although I liked Bush and voted for him in the past, I think the nation really needs a change of pace, and I do not think McCain would provide that in the area's needed. Given all this information I am pretty sure McCain is going to win, Huckabee is splitting the conservative vote in the "winner take all" states, and Romney just doesn't have enough percentage in the "grade on a curve" states. If Huckabee would drop, Romney could take it, however I think Huckabee is staying in JUST SO Romney will lose and McCain will pick him as a running mate.

Other than the fact that I think he would be a good president I am a little sad about Romney not winning because I am curious to see how the church would handle him as a president. Would he have home teachers? Would he be a home teacher? Hold a calling? Could he go to the temple? Would he go to the temple? If he wanted too, he obviously could not take body guards or do a security sweep - I just think the answers to these questions would be interesting. I wonder who ever the bishop is for the ward the white house is located in, is asking himself these very questions.

So if McCain really takes it (and I think he will), I hope Obama wins over Clinton (and I think he will), because I would vote for Obama over McCain. I think Obama is just something new and exciting, and it is "worth a shot", his lack of experience is a little unsettling, but I like the idea of bringing in an outsider. So my predictions for tomorrow is McCain and Obama. However I would like it to be Romney and Clinton, because I don't know if Romeny could beat Obama. So I am praying for an upset on both sides.