Happy New Year

A few months ago I won a blog giveaway for a free family photo session by Brittany LeSueur complete with hair/makeup by The Beauty Mark Girls. I was thrilled. I am always signing up for all these blog giveaways and nothing happens. But this time, I won. The pictures turned out beautiful and I considered for a second sending a Christmas/New Years card, but postage is expensive. I thought about doing some sort of E-card instead, but could never get motivated to actually put it together. So, pretend this post is a Christmas/New Years card from the Cardon's. Here's some of my favorite pics from the shoot, along with a short recap of 2013.

2013 was life-changing. On April 14^th, London was born and time has been flying by ever since. I just know I’m going to wake up one day and he’ll be graduating high school, and I’ll be wondering where the days went. Every day I’m just trying my best to catch up.

Once London was born, I quit my job at Brycon and started working from home, part-time, doing insurance billing for my dad’s chiropractic business. I also started babysitting two cute little girls (6 and 1½ years old) once a week. Our ward released me from my calling as ward pianist and primary teacher and instead called me as the primary pianist. (Bestcallingever!) Some big events for us this year included moving to a slightly bigger home across the parking lot from our old home, London’s first vacation (6 weeks old) to California for my grandparents’ wedding anniversary celebration, a trip to Utah in October for Scott’s sister’s wedding, London’s first Halloween, first Thanksgiving, first Christmas, and first NYE.

I’ve been on-the-job training for the past 8.5 months trying to figure out this “mom” thing. It has been pretty rigorous, exhausting, confusing, and frustrating, but it’s also been incredible, wonderful, amazing, and blissful. It’s this crazy whirlwind of ups and downs, but it’s also this constant feeling of gratitude, love, amazement, and happiness. There’s been a lot of growing in the Cardon house. London takes the cake for most physical growth. But Scott and I have also done our share of growing…growing into our new roles as parents and figuring out what that means for our relationship-how to be parents and partners too. There’s also been some spiritual growth as we begin to see God’s love for us with new eyes…the eyes of a parent. Heavenly Father must really love us to send His beloved son to earth to die for us. That point’s been reiterated over and over again in my life the past eight months. Truly, God loves us, His children.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year!

With Love,

The Cardon’s

Bed Problems.

First, let me refer you to this post.  Beautiful. Right?

Well, a couple weeks after I wrote that post, London got a bad cold and simultaneously learned to roll from back to belly, but hadn't quite mastered rolling from belly to back. During the night, he would roll onto his belly then start crying because he didn't like being on his belly and couldn't figure out how to roll back over onto his back. This resulted in no sleep as I made endless trips to his room to flip him back over and help him fall back to sleep. Also, this new rolling business worried me. With the cold, he could barely breathe and I was worried he would roll over and suffocate. My solution? I moved him into our bed.

Now, co-sleeping is a very controversial topic in the US. Most people I know are adamantly against it. I understand. Some people are all for it. I understand that too. I've heard about studies that co-sleeping decreases the chances of SIDS and I've heard about studies that co-sleeping increases the chances of SIDS. I've read about cases where the parents roll over onto the baby and suffocate it. Everyone wants the safety and well-being of both the baby and the family, so I can see why this is such a disputed topic. Therefore, if you are starting to feel uncomfortable/angry/etc. about this post, feel free to stop reading now. I'm not offended. Really.

Moving on. I had intended to only keep him in our bed until he got over his cold and/or mastered the belly-to-back rolling, eliminating the need to constantly check on him and roll him back over throughout the night. Little did I know that the cold would last a MONTH AND A HALF! Before I had a chance to move him back to his own bed, he started getting some new teeth. Which meant that he would be up a lot crying in pain throughout the night. Which meant that is was much easier for me to keep in our bed where I could easily comfort him back to sleep without getting out of bed.

From that point until now, there was always a new reason why I couldn't move him back to his own bed...sick again, teething again, has another cold, etc. The kid's never got a break! As of today, he still sleeps in our bed.

And I have a confession. I love it. I love cuddling with him at night. I love waking up to him touching my face or grabbing my hair. I love handing him a bottle in the night without getting out of bed. I love having him so close to me all night long. I love watching him roll over to get closer to his sleeping dad. I love weekend mornings when we all cuddle and huddle together in bed. It's the best.

But, it's starting to become a problem. He is going to be crawling soon. He is already moving around in a circle, he just hasn't figured out the forward motion yet. But once he does, I'm in trouble and I don't think our ring of pillows is going to hold up against this big, crawling boy. So, obviously, the crib, with its high bars, is a safer option once he starts moving around. But I'm torn. I love this boy in our bed. During the day and at night. It gives me lots of time to cuddle and lay down by him. I love it. After watching our neighbors house burn down, I am much more comfortable having him in our room. I have seriously considered installing bed rails, but Scott said that is not an option.

So, I now have the task of moving him back to the crib, to the chagrin of both London and myself. This week he's been sick with a fever/barfing and is breaking a new tooth, so I still have a good excuse to keep him in our bed. But, I'm worried that tomorrow he'll start crawling and I will be forced to move him to the crib. It's tough I tell you.

A Tale of Terror

Is anything more terrifying than bugs? Especially the jumpy ones. I am a million times bigger than they are, but the thought of one of them jumping on me gives me the heebie jeebies. Last night, a cricket decided to drop by uninvited and chill on my Boppy pillow in the middle of the living room floor. I was pumping, so I couldn't do anything about it right away. Scott put his shoes on to squash the bugger. I protested, as I did not want bug guts on my nice pillow. Scott got a cup so that he could try to catch it and let it outside, but as he got closer to the cricket, the fear paralyzed him. He couldn't do it. For the next ten minutes we each begged the other to catch the cricket, laughing hysterically at our ridiculous fear of such a small creature. The negotiations began. Finally, it was decided that I would catch the cricket (as I have "experience"* with crickets), in exchange for a 15 minute massage from Scott while watching an episode of Project Runway. I finished pumping, took the cup and bravely captured the unwanted visitor. Scott and I carried the pillow and cup to the doorway and threw the cricket outside. And though it was an unpleasant experience, I got a massage out of it. Boo-ya.

*One time, I had to babysit my little brother's bearded dragon. The thing eats crickets. I had to feed LIVE crickets to a lizard. It was disgusting. I would have to take this black tube filled with crickets and shake it into the lizard cage so that the lizard could capture them. Sometimes, while shaking the crickets into the lizard cage, the crickets would escape out of the open cage door and jump towards me. Trying to avoid these jumping bugs, I would leap out of the way, only to accidentally release more crickets from the tube I was holding, into the air. One cricket actually touched me. Ugghh. After I was done feeding the lizard, I would have to try to catch all of the crickets that had escaped in the process. The escaped convicts walked and jumped down the hallway like they owned the place. Most of them escaped my grasp into crevices I couldn't reach, but occasionally, I would catch one under a plate and then leave it there for the return of my brother. I would catch the bugger, but don't expect me to move it from that place. And all this nastiness isn't even the worst part of the job. Because my family was gone for a week, eventually the crickets ran out and I had to buy more. They come in a bag of 50. I had to shake that bag of disgusting, live crickets into the cricket cage. I cried real tears the whole drive from the pet shop to the house, dreading the task. It was traumatizing. Needless to say, my kids will never have cricket-eating lizards. PERIOD.

\

I Can't Put My Arms Down

In addition to the million other problems we've had with this house since moving in, we turned on the heater for the first time a couple weeks ago only to find out that it didn't work. Within an hour of turning it on, the air dropped from 66 degrees to 62. The air coming out of the vents was ice cold. Unfortunately, the repairman wasn't  able to come until later the next day. We bundled up, kept the oven on, took long, steamy showers, and huddled together at night under the electric blanket to stay warm.

Two layers of pants, two pairs of socks, a shirt, a sweater, a jacket, and a beanie.

7.5 Months

Being Grateful

Last night we watched our neighbor's house across the street go up in flames. We heard some sirens, looked outside and saw bright orange flames in the windows and the firemen getting ready to put out the fire. They got the fire out in seconds, but still, the house is obviously damaged badly. Watching the house burning was one of the saddest things I have personally witnessed. It is devastating. I can't even imagine. Because it is a town house, the adjacent neighbors also had to spend the night elsewhere because of all the smoke. What a way to spend Thanksgiving night. As we watched the firemen put out the fire, Scott held London and I close. How grateful we are for each other.

Happy Birthday Handsome Boy

Today is Scott's 26th birthday. When we started dating, he was only 22. Now he's a father and practically an old man and ready to retire. I love growing old with him.

Sunday Sweater Day

We went out to eat at Liberty Market. London tagged along and thoroughly enjoyed some hummus. It was good times until London had a nap-time melt-down. After being slimed with angry, tired, hummus hands, we hurried out and headed home to enjoy* some carrot cake.

And yes, it looked nasty even before I dug in.

*Cake Fail. Let's just say, I'm not a baker. Period. And apparently, Scott doesn't even like carrot cake. Go figure.