swiss miss and her mammals

Back at it again... Well apparently it's been over two years since my last blog post and that seems hard to believe!  I still remember those feelings of defeat and hurt from my last post when we had just left Juneau! Life hasn't been necessarily easy since then but here are a few major things that have happened: -We moved to Caldwell Idaho -bought our first house -added a little girl to our family who is almost 18 months now and I started school to get a bachelors in family and marriage studies! Of course there were a million little things in between..but that's our life over the last two years in a nutshell. Starting my marriage and family studies degree ( I study through BYU- Idaho and take online classes) has changed my perspective on some things and is a good reminder how precious this time is while my kids are so little. Writing this blog was a great way for me to journal when Ezra was little... ...SO, I have decided once again to take up blogging and while

It has been a long time since I took time to write a new post. A lot has changed. We no longer live in Juneau. Things weren't working out for us as a family there and we are back in WA now living with my mother-in-law for the time being. I thought about writing a lot of times but kept on pushing it back making up excuses. Truth is I'm human. I'm more than happy to share when things are going well and I feel like I'm moving forward. It's a lot harder to do that when life throws me a curveball and things aren't going the way I planned them to. It's a lot harder to be vulnerable. When we moved to Juneau we took a big risk as a family and it never crossed our minds that it might not pay off. Even though Juneau gave us many challenges we still felt in control. When it turned out that we would be leaving Juneau I started feeling so lost and still do on many days. Out of all the moves we have had so far this move back to WA has been the toughest on me emotiona

Well it has been a while folks! But you will have to forgive me because this post isn't going to be just about my adorable family because frankly not much has been happening around here. The last two days I have stumbled across two to me kind of ridiculous articles:   The first one is this one about not calling your pets babies: http://www.yourtango.com/2015275999/your-dog-is-not-one-of-your-kids-insult-to-moms And this one about covering up while nursing: http://shejustglows.com/2015/06/dear-breastfeeding-moms-really-hard-cover/ Both of these articles made me chuckle because they are absolutely absurd to me. I love our balou and I do call him my fur baby and guess what it is not meant as an insult to mom's! and yes I have given birth too ( except that I had a c-section which some other article said that that is not really giving birth- even though I dilated to a 10 and pushed for 2 hours but what do I know). And I'm sorry but if you are offended by

Today I had my usual wake up. At least somewhat usual I woke up to ezra snuggling next to me nudging to get out of bed and getting our day started. I stumbled over the toys that were scattered all over the living room floor as I was caring ezra to his room to get him changed. My feet were sticking a little bit to my way too dirty kitchen floor as I sat ezra on his just as dirty highchair looking for a knife in between all the dirty dishes to get him some breakfast ready. Bottom line is my whole family including me make a mess faster than I can clean it up and that is exhausting and frustrating sometime. But than a thought passed through my mind that made me so sad that I cheered up immediately. One day I will wake up to a laundry basket that is only half full instead of overflowing since it is only me and Tj. One day I won't have tiny sticky fingerprints to wipe of my cabinets or at least not as much on a regular basis as now. One day I won't have a hungry baby wake me up anymo

Hey there. I have started work at the gallery I interviewed for and it is actually a lot of fun. I only work every other evening from 4-6 right now and every other saturday till summer will start and I will work longer hours. It is a lot of fun getting to know my co-workers, talking to costumers and learning the ropes of working in a retail store. Ezra cried pretty hard the first time I left him with his new babysitter. It made me sad since I had fun going to work and getting some me time. Last Monday I left him with my friend kristen who has a 10 month and 4 year old and he was happy there. I'm sure it just takes him some time to get adjusted and I know it is so good for him to play with those other kiddos. Yesterday was a super fun family day for us. Tj was off work so we went to the pool for the first time with Ezra and he had an absolute blast. Pool trips are definitely on our monthly activity list now. We had the missionaries from our church over for lunch and at 4 I had to l

First of all can I say that I can't believe Ezra is 8 months today?? Time has flown by This was him in february (I took this one for valentines but never got around to upload it) He is such a little stud muffin. This post will be super picture heavy courtesy of my dad! It was so good to have him here for almost 4 weeks and he took a ton of pictures! I need to get that good at taking pictures! Back to Ezra and his 8 month stats: He still loves bathtime (can you tell?) (seriously look at the happy face!!) and yes I do bath him in the kitchen sink since our apartment only has a shower stall. He loves the swings: again happy, happy baby...I can't get enough of his smiles and giggles! He likes hanging out in the ergo baby on walks and the backpack on hikes He loves daddy time:  So glad for these two! How did I get so lucky??? Tj is such an awesome daddy and Ezra adores him. What Ezra doesn't like: That one waitress at a loca