Our Christmas Tree

So this is what our tree looks like. Embarrassing, but it is a product of love. We always plan on buying a fake tree after Christmas on sale, but we never get around to it. So once again we have a real tree, but our is a little droopy (and crooked). Also we have always had a small tree in the past, but this year we bought a 7’ tree. I went to Walmart after work one day to buy more lights, but I only have a 3 hours a day with my baby, saw the long lines in the Christmas section, and left. Now all the glass ornaments are on top of course. Well the glass ornaments that are left. It did fall over in the middle of the night breaking quite a few ornaments. Our little buddy is so precious and takes off the ornaments he can reach, then puts them back on. I am impressed because I would think a 16 month old boy would take the ornaments off then throw them on the floor. But no, he patiently works until he gets the ornaments back on. So there it is.

Sweet Baby - Dec 2009

See those big brown eyes? That’s what I see all day long. Aren’t they the most precious kind eyes. When I was young and naïve, I declared I only liked blue eyes. I would only date blue eyed men and so I could ensure all my offspring had blue eyes. The good Lord did a doozy on me. I am officially now the world’s biggest fan of big brown eyes. I even see a strange man on the elevator with kind brown eyes, and my hearts starts racing (don’t tell Clint). I am a total sucker, mainly because of Clint’s gentle light brown eyes and Sawyer dark (almost black) brown eyes. It probably only adds to it that my mother has the most sparkly brown eyes ever.

Now all babies are a gift from God, but I got lucky. He is so sweet natured. He is loving, gentle natured, kind. I could go on and on. He loves to read and try and figure everything out. He only sees something once and he has it figure out. He also has to have something in his hand at all times. His favorite things are wooden spoons and paint brushes. We get lots of comments when we go out in public. He does have his moments but a paci and blankie appear to solve all the worlds’ problems. Also he has to be within 10 feet of Clint or I at all times (so does Heidi lately and she is about to make me go crazy.) So I never have to worry about Sawyer getting into trouble. Ok enough of a mom bragging. He does cry, poop, and make lots of boogers so I guess he is not perfect.
Here he is with a paintbrush. Yes that is a little tie sticking out of his sweatshirt. We get so tickled by that outfit. I am looking for a faux tux t-shirt in his size.

Thanksgiving

I don’t have many pictures from Thanksgiving, but check out papoose Shepherd. Isn’t he the cutest baby ever? It is a weird family tradition to dress up as Indians and pilgrims at Thanksgiving. I wish I had taken a picture of Sawyer in his wig and head band; instead he was too busy playing on the four wheeler with his daddy.


Sawyer did get to go to the pumpkin patch with his cousins. He had a great time!

Thanksgiving was wonderful. We ate a lot and got to spend a lot of time with the family. Poor Sawyer had a rash and a cold and decided he didn’t want to eat. That is unusual for him. He normally eats as much as I do which everyone knows is a lot. I had a realization that I am not cursed with a slow metabolism like I always thought. Actually I have a great metabolism; I just eat like I should weigh 250 lbs. So bring on the egg nog and other Christmas goodies.

But speaking of big, Sawyer is now officially off the growth charts. He was born in the 25th percentile, quickly moved up to the 75th percentile, spent quite a while hanging out at the 95th percentile, and is now off the charts in height and weight. For some weird reason I am so proud of having such a big boy. With my family you can always pick out my kid from the crowd. All the other kids have light light skin and electric blue eyes. My beautiful baby is the brownie.

Halloween 2009

Ignore the quality of pictures please. Trying to get a walking one year old to sit still is almost impossible. It doesn’t help that every time he sees the camera he tries to grab it. Unfortunately we didn’t get in the Halloween spirit too much. We were in the middle of the kitchen remodel so we didn’t decorate. I did put out pumpkins, but they got stolen. Sawyer went to a carnival in town as a frog. It was actually Jack’s costume, but he was too afraid to put it on. Sawyer LOVED it. Clint and I got so tickled watching him in his costume. We still laugh about how cute he was. On Halloween night he went out with Grammy while we went to the OSU vs Texas game (in Clint’s parents’ club seats!) The game was tough, but we enjoyed the rum and cokes so much we didn’t notice. Sawyer wore his pumpkin outfit for an evening with Grammy.

These two are best friends. You would think Heidi would get tired of all the hugs and kisses she gets from Sawyer, but you give her an inch she takes a mile. We can't seem to get her need for affection met lately. She is about to drive me crazy. I really can't complain because she is gentle and loving with everyone in the family.

Fall 2009

This fall has been the craziest, most stressful time of our life. But don’t feel sorry for us, we brought it all on ourselves. Of course, Sawyer has been nothing but pure joy for us. I am serious. We have been so blessed by such an easy, happy baby. Of course he is easy for us, but not so much at daycare. I think that it is a sign he needs to be home with his mommy right?

One of our biggest stressors has been buying a fixer upper. Our house needs a lot of work. We have almost finished remodeling the kitchen. I can wait to reveal the photos. It looks great and I love cooking in it now. We need to paint in there, and then we are done. But part of the remodel was re-staining over 45 cabinet doors and 30 drawers (we have a lot of storage space). I didn’t think our marriage would survive. I will post a sneak preview of the horrible before. What were we thinking when we bought this house?



The cabin is also done for the year. We, as well as our pocketbooks, are happy. We made the 16 hour road trip up there over Labor Day. Sawyer did great! The trip wasn’t too bad because we were captivated by Louis Lamoure books on tape. Perfect for a trip out west. We also had a great time hanging out with the Blomquists. Clint installed the stove in the cabin. Everything looks phenomenal.

Sawyer helped us drive to Colorado. He actually loves to "drive".



The guy who did most of the cabin building is 60+ year old Joel Blomquist. This is the tub he bathed in when he was a baby.

Another stress was season football tickets. We enjoy OSU football, but it has been too much for us. The games have mostly been nighttime games which don’t bode well with a 1 year old. I think we learned our lesson, the money would have been better spent on cable.


We had my 10 year reunion (uneventful) and the U2 concert in Norman (awesome) on the same weekend. It was like being in college again, not sleeping for multiple days straight. Staying up late and consuming adult beverages isn’t too hard unless you have a toddler waking you up at 6:00 a.m.


We also had the unfortunate stress of going to Europe for our 5 year anniversary. J/K it was awesome! The trip was so perfect and everything went so smoothly we thought surely our luck would run dry. But it didn’t. It was just a short trip where we spent 2 days in London and 2 days in Paris. We hit all the major sights, drank a lot of coffee, beer and wine, ate, slept (part of the time in an amazing 5 star hotel I snagged on Priceline) and just enjoyed the oasis of being a couple in love. We don’t get many of those moments these days.
This is our sweet sweet baby waving goodbye as we left for our trip. It was hard to leave him but . . .






In between we squeezed in the zoo, some time at the farm, some shopping and dinner dates, and a lot of stressing out because we had overcommitted. Now that we are entering the holiday season Clint and I have a new motto. Instead of “ho,ho,ho” this season we are saying “no, no, no.” If you want to find us we will be hanging out at home!

First Birthday - August 19th, 2009

I never made a baby book. I didn’t even start. I am notorious for GI’s, which in our house stands for Good Intentions, which represent the many projects I start with good intentions but never finish. For example I have a large bowl of dried plums that have been soaking in rum for a month now in my fridge. I have been intending to dip them in dark chocolate, but just have never gotten around to it. In my thinking anything can soak in rum indefinitely and be just fine. I am married to the ultimate type A personality. He can’t understand why I just don’t get it done and check it off my list.

But I wanted this blog to be more than a GI. I have intended to capture Sawyer’s first year and make it into his baby book. I am almost there. I just have the birthday left. I still intend to keep blogging after that, because he just gets cuter and cuter everyday. We see our family more often now that we live in OK, so the purpose of this blog will be more of a way to capture a few glimpses of our life. Well at least until the next baby comes. . .

Ok no baby yet. But now the adventures of the first birthday. I know this is a little late since he turned one on August 19th. We don’t have a lot of friends yet in Bartlesville (give us a break, we have spent 6 weekends in town since May due to family events, cabin building, and football tickets) so we decided to have a joint birthday with Jackson and Savannah at the lake. Now a birthday party with three one year olds sounds like a great idea right?

Well we arrived at the lake with ice cream and all the party food you can imagine, only to find the refrigerator broken. So I called my parents who had the brilliant idea to pick up a fridge on there way to the lake from Lowes. Of course we ended up losing the ice cream and a few other necessities. In the meantime I decided to cook some bacon for breakfast. I spilt a little bacon grease, but I thought I cleaned it all up. Anyway, the fridge arrived at the same time as all the guests. It sounds easy enough to hook up a fridge, but it took and engineer, PhD in math, diesel auto-mechanic, and construction contractor and hour to hook it up. That meant the rest of us had to be out of the kitchen, which meant food preparation was put on hold. When everything was hooked up we started to prepare the food. The guests were getting hungry so everything was on high. Well it wasn’t long before the bacon grease caught on fire. Now we aren’t talking a small flame on the stove, no the entire stove was on fire and quickly spreading. We did get it under control and the only casualty was some of the knobs from the stove. By this time everyone was starving. We finally got lunch ready. Then suddenly it was nap time. We hadn’t opened gifts, eaten cake or anything. Jack started explosive diarrhea. Not good with a bunch of kids in swimsuits swimming in kiddie pools. Eventually the babies woke up and it was time to eat cake. The guests were ready to leave. We started the obligatory messy cake eating process and my camera broke. Luckily I had a back-up camera. The old 35 mm. But I only had about 4 pictures left and no film. Then my older sister’s camera broke, and then my younger sister’s ran out of battery. No joke. It was cursed. Finally we opened gifts and people quickly left. I don’t know if people will come to any more of our parties.








On Sawyer’s actual birthday we took him to lunch. In the evening we ordered pizza and ate ice cream sundaes. We had pizza the night he was born. I was being monitored at the hospital and figured if I can eat half a large pizza there is no way they will want to cut open my stomach. I was wrong. But we had pizza anyway to bring back old memories. We played in the park and opened gifts. It was a nice quiet evening, exactly what we were looking for after the birthday party.

Quick Update –

I promise, I have a million excuses for not posting, but I will save you from the pathetic whining of a working mom. I will get to posting about our first birthday, trip to Colorado, football games, and home remodeling, but until I have to the time I will just post a quick update.

Sawyer is becoming more awesome everyday. He totally has the “awesome gene” as Barney off of HIMYM would say. I have been watching the series while folding laundry. He started taking steps right around his first birthday, but it wasn’t until a week after he turned thirteen months that he decided to be a full time pedestrian. Man they move fast once they start walking. He typically will not go further than 10 feet from Mommy and Daddy but now that he walks it doesn’t take long to lose sight of him.

Sawyer has such a gentle spirit. He is very very sweet. The only time he cries is when you take away something he wants to play with, or leave the park, or leave playing outside. But he gets over it pretty quickly. He loves to be around people and share everything. He also loves to climb into Heidi’s bed and snuggle with her. She puts up with it for a minute then gets up. But Heidi does walk over to him all the time so Sawyer can give her a hug. They are getting to be real pals. His teacher’s say he is the best in the class, but I am sure they tell all the parents that.

It has been amazing how much he suddenly understands. He gets pretty much everything we say to him. He also it trying real hard to repeat what we say. I say “cup”, he says “da”, “bath”, “da”, “down”, “da”, “up”, “da”, “bird”, “da”, “ball”, “da”, “teeth”, “de”. He says “da?” with inflection when he wants to know “what’s that?” He says “dada” to Clint constantly. He only says “Ma” when he is mad at me. He says “Di” for Heidi. He is also learning body parts. He knows nose, and sometimes he knows hair, ear, eye, piggies, and belly button. This is a great age because he is starting to understand things, but doesn’t have the strong will of a toddler.

Overall we are pretty obsessed with the little one. Here are a few pictures. My digital camera broke so it is a little more challenging to get pictures on the computer. These are courtesy of grandpa.

Starting the new job - July 13 - August 8

So we made it back to Bartlesville in one piece. Clint started his first real job after 23 years of schooling. Fortunately he really likes it. It is great to be at home together as a family working on creating a somewhat normal life. The first weekend we needed some major marriage maintenance. We had been apart for 3 weeks and then had some not so nice moments in the mountains. So Clint and I dropped baby off at Grandma’s and planned a romantic getaway in Tulsa . We got a couple’s massage at a spa, a suite at the Ambassador hotel and ate dinner at the Polo Grill. It was Sawyer’s first night with a non-parent. I think he was ridiculously spoiled while we were getting ridiculously spoiled. So everyone was happy. But since then we went to the lake, spent a weekend in Stillwater , and started working out again (it has been 11 months for me ugh). One of the best things is Clint and I spend a lot more time together. We also work about 2 miles apart. We grab a picnic in the park a few times a week and have a real lunch date once a week. I know we are cheesy and here is my confession. We decided to try every restaurant in B’ville. Not that big of a challenge. So on our lunch date we have to try someplace new. We then rate the restaurant 1-5 french fries. If you ever need restaurant advice in the thriving metropolis of Bartlesville, OK come to us!

Sawyer is growing like the weeds in our front yard (I have to keep apologizing to the neighbors because we haven't gotten to it yet.) He is not walking yet, but he is very close. He also is into copying me. It is so cute. He is into everything. He can't do anything though without a wooden spoon in his hand. It is hilarious. On the somber note Heather left August 5th and we had to start day care. My heart rips into two every morning. He is right across the street from my office so I can check on him regularly throughout the day. I think I annoy his teachers, but it is worth it to me. He seems to be having fun. Everyone says it is the hardest on the mommy. We will see how long I make it . . .

Colorado (July 2 - July 13)

I am going to do another post later of pictures of the cabin. I don’t want to brag or anything, but it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. Clint, Doug and the crew have done an amazing job. To be honest I am speechless.

Our week in Colorado was not the best week. I am just going to be honest for the sake of history. Here’s a little summary. I got to see Clint for the first time in 3 weeks – good/bad (I’ll explain later). I got to see my friend Kaitlin’s new house in Denver and eat dinner with her – great. Sawyer had his second cold ever which started the day we left – bad. Sawyer was cutting teeth – horrible. We went to Breckenridge – good. We went to some of our friend’s wedding – great! My husband was a workaholic on the cabin so I didn’t see him when we were up in the mountains—bad. He was grumpy because all he wanted to do was work – bad. The outhouse on the side of the mountain and a crawler was a little tricky to maneuver – bad. We didn’t have any emergency room visits – good. We did get in one great hike while we were up there – good. We blew a tire leaving town – bad. We didn’t blow the entire engine like last summer – good.

All in all it will be nice to get the cabin mostly built. Ok honestly it will never be done, but I have made it a requirement for my husband to have a better work/play balance when we are up there, but trying to tell Clint what to do is like trying to predict the weather in Oklahoma.

Clint Is Still Gone - (June 21 - JuLy 1)

So I am trying to catch up on the blog. Our life appears to get more complicated with every day. But back to the beginning of the summer . . . Through a series of unique circumstance (which I believe were ordained by God) I found out one of my high school friends, Andrew, lives here in Bartlesville . We haven’t talked since high school so it was great to get reunited. Andrew’s new girlfriend (they were set up via facebook) was planning on coming to Bartlesville to spend the summer getting to know each other better not using Skype. I included the note about their internet relationship because they are the two last people in the world who ever expected to meet someone that way. It makes their story even more cute. Heather is a kindergarten teacher in Midland and needed a job for the summer. It was perfect. She watched Sawyer all summer. She even lived with me while Clint was gone. Sawyer loved Heather and we will miss her greatly now that she is gone. But she and Andrew fell in love over the summer and hopefully she will be moving to Bartlesville next summer!

I went to the lake and I spent a lot of time working on the house. Unfortunately we are still not decorating/painting/remodeling yet. We are still trying to get the house clean, deodorized, organized, spider free, . . . My parents spent a weekend busting their @#$% and we still have a way to go. But I will have to admit it felt a lot homier for Clint’s return.

But the highlight of the three weeks of being by myself was having lots of time with my baby. Sawyer and I really got to have good quality time together. He is such a love. Sawyer had not been talking at all (only the little aaahhh babies say) and the doctor was slightly concerned. On my birthday I was very grumpy. I was alone and Sawyer woke me up at 5:45 a.m. So I was getting ready in the morning feeling sorry for myself with a fussy baby. He crawled over to me, grabbed my leg, looked up at me with those big chocolate brown eyes, and said MaMa! Yes his first word ever was mama on my birthday. I couldn’t believe it. And it wasn’t babbling. He was calling me by my name. Now he says all kind of stuff. His favorite word right now is Dada and Heidi. Unfortunately I am no longer MaMa, but MMMMM. So that made my birthday, actually my year. It was extra redeemed by the fact that some of my favorite people in the world came to stay with me. Julie, Shepherd (one of the prettiest boys I have ever seen), and Ashley came to help me celebrate since Clint was gone.