Still Alive...but barely

I was looking at a friends blog that has her friends and family blogs listed down the side, much like mine. It also, like mine again, has listed the time since the most recent post. I scrolled down and saw mine there at the bottom with two months since my last post! So just to let everyone know, the Bolton family is alive and still taking loads of pictures, we just aren't posting. 

As most of you know life got insanely busy for us starting August 25 when both Tyler and I went back to school and work. I now teach at Syracuse Jr High, and Tyler is working at the IHC Bountiful health center and going to school. Jack spends much of his day at the Layton High School Child Care Center where I hear he is quite the favorite (no surprise there). 

Sorry but I am not going to give more of an update than that or post any pictures. The little free time I have these days goes to my family, so you can probably expect another post around Thanksgiving when I might have a little time. 

Graduation

Everything has been so busy that I haven't blogged for a while so I thought I would catch up on recent events. First, It's official! I graduated. While actual graduation is not super exciting or eventful it felt great to walk across the stage in my goofy cap and gown and know that I had finally done it. My graduation was fairly small because I just went the specific school graduation and the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences at BYU is a small group. I was the only person graduating in physics teaching. Tyler and Jack came of course and so did my parents and Robin and Chelsey was there for some of the time. One of the people that spoke was funny and the other... wasn't. Anyway, all in all it was a great day. The only thing I was bummed about was that my advisor, Duane Merrell, wasn't there. For those of you who don't know he pretty much bent over backwards to get me through school and make sure I had everything I needed for graduation. He got me into a situation for student teaching that would work with having a new baby. He did lots of other things to help me out, and I may not have graduated without his support.

I promised a bunch of people that I was going to send out graduation announcements. It didn't happen. Sorry, so consider it announced. I, Abigail Anne Treasure Bolton, am happy to announce that I have graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelors of Science in Physics Teaching and a minor in Psychology.

Tyler took this picture of me while I was waiting with all the other graduates for graduation to begin. Any good pictures that were taken were on my dad's camera or Robin's camera.

First Day

Today was my first day of "school." No students were there, it was just a day of meetings and teacher preparation time. I have a few more days of meetings and teacher preparation before the students come on August 25!

Syracuse Jr High is organized into teaching teams with several sets of 3 core teachers (English, Social Studies, and science) and I got to meet my team today. Turns out I already knew the English teacher. Her name is Melanie Jones now, but I knew her in high school when she was Melanie Lund. I was already excited about working in a teacher team, but now I'm even more excited. She has a 4 month old baby boy, so she knows what I'm going through leaving Jack all day. It will be so great to have a familiar person to talk to about the woes of being a working mom.

I am still pretty apprehensive about the classes I'm teaching, but I am looking forward to this new challenge. This may sound dumb, but in some ways I haven't felt like I've had enough on my plate lately. Ever since I finished student teaching I've spent way too much time being unproductive. Of course being a full time mom is a hard and very time consuming job, but I feel like I wasn't spending my down time (when he's napping or playing happily on his own) very well. Now I won't really have any down time, so it will be hard to waist time. It always feels good to be busy (have you noticed my overly positive outlook on the subject, yes it is sort of my way of convincing myself that things are going to be ok).
Anyway, that's the scoop on my first day.

Tyler is finishing up working for JC this week, and then he will be stay at home dad and take classes in the evening, at least for this semester. We're still trying to work out at least a part time child care situation that I feel good about. It's hard to find someone that you really feel good about leaving your child with for most of the day.

Isaac's Birthday Party

As you may have noticed this blog is lacking pictures of the older of our boys. Hayden stays at our house every other weekend, and we do lots of fun things together. He loves his little brother and he also is still a bit dinosaur obsessed. He is about to start first grade.
This last weekend we got to go to Isaac's (Hayden's cousin) 6th birthday party. It was a big water party in the back yard and Tyler got some fun pictures of Hayden and Isaac. 

  Chillin out 
   Lovin the slip'n'slide      
                          Isaac    
                          

Sleep Troubles

Jack hates sleep. I know everything you read says you need to make sleep time a happy time and TRUST ME we have tried. We sing, rock, snuggle and everything else we hear to try, but to no avail. He takes a couple decent naps during the day, but come nightfall the disaster begins. About 8:30 I take him to our room, change his diaper, put on his jammies and nurse him. Then I snuggle him, sing songs, and lay him in his bed, sometimes it takes other times it does not. This is a picture from one night that I thought I had it just right but an hour later I found him like this in his crib. Am I a mean mom to take a picture of him crying because I think it's cute? By the way, this blanket is in his crib to snuggle, he put it like this on his own.

So Little Time

Well just a personal blog here, today is August first and I now have only ten days before I begin work. I'll be honest, I am not looking forward to it. Yes I think it will be fun to teach and yes I am excited for this new opportunity, but I am not excited about leaving Jack all day long. I don't think he will be excited either. He has become quite the mama's boy. For those of you wondering, the current plan is that Tyler is staying home with Jack and taking classes from 4pm on. I know that means we will pretty much never see each other, but it was sort of my stipulation to being a working mom. It is possible that we will try to arrange care for Jack for a few hours a couple times a week so that Tyler could take some of his classes during the day and have a little study time without a baby.
I am very nervous about the classes I am teaching and feel EXTREMELY unprepared. It's very overwhelming. I guess I'll just take it a day at a time and enjoy every last minute I have with Jack before I enter the world of work. 

This is an old picture of Jack, but it makes me smile

First Time Swimming

Last night was the Ward Swim Party so we took Jack swimming for his first time. While you can't really tell from the picture, he really liked it. He would get on his belly and do his belly scoot crawl all over, including to where it would get deep enough that his face would get in the water when he plopped down. He didn't seem to mind it a bit. It was kind of cold, so it was sort of hard to fully enjoy the experience. We'll have to try again before the summer is over. This was also the first time I've been in a swimsuit since Jack was born, notice no pictures of that :)

I should have taken more pictures of Jack, but I was just enjoying playing with him and chasing him around the shallow water. 

Sunday News

Something VERY exciting happened today. Jack got a new cousin. Preston Michael Black was born around 7pm. He was 7 lbs 7 oz. and 19 1/2 inches long-Jeannette's smallest baby yet. Both he and Jeannette are doing very well. I have only seen one picture on my phone, so it's hard to say much about him yet, but he looks pretty cute and my mom says he looks like Isaac did as a baby. Isaac was a super cute baby! We are excited to meet him soon.
In other exciting news, Jack pulled himself to standing on the baby gate. Candice and I were making brownies and I didn't even realize what he was doing until I looked over and saw him standing there. Tyler was out back and he got in in time to run downstairs and grab the camera (good thing he was on the opposite side of the gate). Jack also got back to sitting all on his own without any trouble at all.

New Tricks

Jack is learning new tricks everyday. He is starting to move between his "baby butterfly" crawl and a real crawl, but his baby butterfly gets him places so much faster. He also can pull himself up to a standing position if what he is pulling himself up on is just the right hight (no taller than the top of his head when standing) It's so cute. I'm so amazed by everything he is learning!
These pictures were taken July 15th.


Now as amazing as he is doing with everything else, he still is not doing well with solid foods. He likes cheerios and the little baby puffs. He hates eating off of a spoon. Sometimes I can get him to eat small pieces of veggies if I put it on my finger. The other day we tried to feed him sweet potatoes. It of course like the first 10 times didn't go well. So finally we decided to strip him down to his diaper and just give him the bowl out on the grass. It was messy, but fun. I still don't think he ate much, but we got some cute pictures.



There were a bunch more, but I tried to pick my favorites.... really they were all my favorites, he's so stinking CUTE!

Busy 24th of July

Today my niece Grace and nephew Porter came over because the daycare they go to was closed for the holiday, but Bill and Jenny still had work. Needless to say life was a little crazy. My mom had an appointment at 1:00 so I had the task of feeding all five kids lunch and getting the two baby boys to bed. Well lunch went pretty well and I managed to keep food going into Porter's mouth fast enough to keep him happy (that boy eats a lot better than mine does). After lunch I had Brittany and Grace stay with Jack and give him cheerios and puffs while I took Porter to the study to snuggle him and get him down for a nap. I was impressed with how quickly he fell asleep. Then Brittany read to Grace while I took Jack downstairs to get him down for a nap. He went down pretty quick too, but while I was nursing him I heard pounding on the roof (the roof was being worked on) and Porter crying. Porter is a light sleeper. So after I got Jack down I went up and snuggled Porter and realized the only quiet place was down where Jack was sleeping, so I took him down and rocked him in our chair until he fell asleep. Once asleep the only place to put him was on the floor, so I made him comfortable there and then decided to take pictures of the two boys while they finally were sleeping. It didn't last long. Porter woke up within 10 minutes and craziness began again.
In case you can't tell from the pictures Porter is about twice Jack's size. He's just a year old, but he's a tank. Carrying him makes Jack seem very light.

Jack sleeps with his little bum in the air, and I have to cover him with a blanket because my parents keep their house kind of cold.

Milestones

Watching Jack learn and grow it's hard to pinpoint the time and place of each milestone. If I were a better mom I would have a big baby book that had the date of his first smile, first laugh or first time he rolled over, but I don't do so well with that. Tonight I thought I would take a minute to remember some firsts and give the approximate ages of each of them.
-First real smile (we think it was a real smile and not just gas even though they say real smiles don't happen this early) 3 weeks, we say it was a real smile because he did it in response to our voices and smiles.
-First time rolling over, 2 months, but then he didn't do it consistently until about 4 months old.
-Sitting up on his own, 5 months
-Getting up on hands and feet 5 1/2 months
-Moving forward on belly (baby butterfly, like the swim stroke) 6 months
-First laugh, can't remember exactly, but he's been doing it since at least 4 months old, and he does it like crazy now
-First syllables dadadada, mamamama, babababa, and fishy noise with lips, all around 6 months
-Moved from crawling position to sitting up: 7 months (he did that yesterday, and mastered the skill today)
-First solid food, rice cereal, 5 months and he hated it!

It seems like there have been so many more, as each day he amazes us with something new. My favorite thing right now is his really excited uncontrollable laugh. He is crazy ticklish like his dad and if you hold his hands up and tickle his armpits with your chin or mouth he can't stop laughing.

Right now Jack should be in bed, but he woke up 30 minutes after I put him down and now he is 'swimming' around on the floor playing with toys. So cute. He just went out our bedroom door, and got into some sea shells... better go!

Graduation

Well I guess I have officially graduated from BYU with a BS in physics teaching. I say I guess because I will not ever officially walk across the stage in a cap and gown to have photographic proof, but they will be mailing me my diploma. The reason I am not walking for graduation is commencement exercises happen to be on the same day as my new teacher orientation for Davis County Schools. I'm pretty bumbed about it, but at least I finally graduated. I guess I'll walk when I get a masters (yeah maybe when I'm 50). The exciting news, besides the fact that I graduated, is that I am writing this blog on my brand new graduation gift from my parents, a new MacBook. I am really loving it. Here are a couple pictures it took of us the day I got it.













I love Jack's Smile in this picture!












In other news, we moved in with my parents last week. I love having Jack 'sort of' back in the room with us. We have a really big bedroom with a partial wall in the middle to separate our side from Jack's side. We decided if we ever build our dream house and we aren't done having kids at that point (highly unlikely, but we can dream) we will build a master bedroom with a nursery separate but attached.
Jack is really close to crawling, he has decided scooting across the floor on his tummy works just as well so he does a trick we like to call baby butterfly. He gets up on his hands and knees and rocks, but he hasn't gotten down the hand knee coordination.

Here's a couple pictures of Jack's latest tricks, these were taken on June 12.

Recap of May

Well, as it usually does, time has gotten away from me and I went over a month without a single blog. I guess if I ever had any faithful readers... I don't now. But do not fear I will catch you up on the exciting life of the Bolton family. We'll start with the less exciting developments which is basically anything to do with Tyler and I. Tyler is still working at same day surgery at Orem Community Hospital. He also works as a phlebotomist in the lab a few hours a week. He prefers that job, and is looking for others like it farther north so that we can move at the end of June. In other news about Tyler, he shaved his beard off. I can't decide if I'm glad or not, but I think in terms of hunting for a job he ought to be clean shaven.
I am over halfway through my final class, and for those of you keeping track, I am still passing. I am still looking for a teaching job... well sort of looking. If you asked Tyler he would say I'm waiting for one to fall out of the sky and hit me. Can I help it that staying home and taking care of Jack just sounds like WAY more fun!
Mother's day was nice. Tyler got me a pretty little Willow Tree Statue of a mother with her baby. Before mother's day we got Hayden, Jack and their cousin Ryker together for a picture to give to grandma. It was quite an experience to say the least. In the end we chose a picture that at least had the three looking the right direction. Next year I think we should to separate portraits and put them together in a collage!
Over Memorial Day weekend friends of ours from when Tyler was in the Marines came up from California to visit. It was lots of fun. We took them to see Temple Square, and mostly just hung out. We also went to a special memorial service at the veterans cemetery and visited the grave of a, Adam, friend of Tyler's that was killed in Iraq. Then we went to lunch with Adam's parents.
Hayden graduated from kindergarten, and as soon as Robin sends me pictures (we totally forgot to bring our camera) you will all get to see how cute he was. They did a little program and Hayden did so great. He knew every word to every song and his speaking part was "I'm going to be a paleontologist." He will be 6 in less than a week and his request was to go to the Utah Museum of Natural History. I'll be honest, it sounds terribly boring to me, but Tyler gets to take him and Isaac on Saturday.
Now, if you look at the pictures we took this month there is a common theme. There is not a single picture that does not feature Jack. So let me sum up some of his new tricks and then I'll post a few of my favorites for the month. He sits up VERY well now. It's one of his favorite things to do. We also started him on solid foods. That was not one of his favorite things, but we keep trying. Early in May, Jack got a pretty bad cold that he recovered from by sleeping pretty much all day for two days. One of the pictures below shows him and dad taking a nap together. My two favorite boys. Jack has become a huge fan of taking baths in the kitchen sink. He splashes and splashes and then gets a surprised look on his face and then a great big grin. We still sometimes swaddle him to put him to bed, but he has gotten very good at wriggling his way out. I love this picture of him where he got his arms out, rolled over, and snuggled with his little dog.
Well now I am at least caught up. Enjoy these cute pictures, and hopefully there will be more soon.
Napping with dad, don't you love how we match so well!
I love baths!

It aint easy being green.

I'm Back

Well I’m officially aloud to blog again. I have finished student teaching and (drum roll please) my teacher work sample! For those of you not familiar with it, my teacher work sample has been the bane of my existence since…. Well January. It is, to put it simply, a big long hideous report of everything I did for one unit I taught along with an analysis of student learning my teaching. I should have finished it bit by bit as I student taught, but I didn’t. Yes folks you are reading the blog of a world class procrastinator, but as of 8 this morning I am finished and one big step closer to graduating. Now I have one class left (again with the procrastinating, I should have taken this 2 years ago, but I was waiting for my favorite professor to be teaching it). So, even with student teaching and TWS (my pet name for my teacher work sample) over and done with I will still have very little time for all the things I enjoy the most, like blogging and playing peek-a-boo with little Jack. I won’t bore you with my to-do list, but later I will have to bore myself with it, but not until I have celebrated the completion of two lengthy and time consuming tasks Oooh-rah as a Marine would say, but I’m not a Marine, so I’m not aloud to say it, so instead Hazaa and Hooray!!
And while I revel in that bit of good news I will also share the wonderful accomplishments of the ever changing Jack. He is as cute as ever and is still a delight of a baby. He hardly fusses or cries, and while he is again not sleeping through the night, he is at least easy to get to sleep. This morning while I was finishing up my TWS he was playing on a blanket. He started to get a bit fussy, but I wanted to finish up quickly, so I let him fuss for a couple minutes, and by the time I got to him he had snuggled his blanket around him and fallen asleep—so cute! We have officially moved him to his own room to sleep It’s been hard on me, but I’m getting used to it. Among other exciting developments, he is very close to sitting up on his own, and can do so for about 5 seconds before toppling over. He loves to grab and hold onto everything, especially the dog. He gets very angry if Roxy ignores him when he wants to pet her. Another fun thing is his mouth toots, I don’t know how else to describe what he does, so I hope that makes sense. Sometimes he does it when his binky is in his mouth and he makes it fly across the room. It’s rather funny.
Finally Tyler has also reached an exciting milestone, one more completed semester! He took both of his finals last night and felt pretty good about both of them, not to mention he got some extra credit on a final project in nutrition for giving such a good presentation (it was about chocolate, so how could it not be good). I am thankful that he is going to have at least a little downtime for a little bit, at least until he starts some online classes to shift into his transition from UVSC to Weber State.
I know this was a ridiculously long entry, but it has been over a month since my last posting, so I had to catch you all up. Expect pictures soon.

Rolling Over

Just a quick exciting note: today Jack rolled from his back to his stomach! He did it three times, so we know it wasn't just accidental. This means Jack can now roll over both ways. We are quite proud of him, and he seemed pretty pleased with himself as well. He is also really starting to take interest in toys. Is this excitement just a first child thing?
We were noticing today that he has grown so much, and as exciting as that is I was sort of missing teeny tiny Jack. Now that he has grown out of many of his 0-3 month outfits (turned three months on Friday) I'm begining to face the reality of how fast we will be moving through clothes. Still, every new milestone is exciting and we can't wait for whatever is coming next!

4 Days at home with Jack!

Well, somehow I've lucked out again with a long weekend. Actually I am especially lucky because I don't have to go to a whole day of meetings on Monday, instead I get to stay home with Jack. So it's Thursday night and I have until Tuesday to recover from the exhaustion of student teaching. I don't understand how teachers do this every day!
Today Jack and Roxy were super cute. Roxy was laying looking at Jack with her head tilted all cute like she does, and Jack rolled from his back to his side (another one of his so cool tricks) so his head was all turned and looked up at Roxy. I should have run and grabbed the camera, but it really looked like Jack might be getting to roll all the way to his tummy and there was no way I was missing that, but... as of yet he is not a full fleged roller. Just tummy to back, and back to side. He is growing so fast. He is to the very end of his 0-3 sleepers because he is so long, but he's still pretty light. I'm doing my best to fatten him up, but so far I think it's working more for me than for him. Still not back into all my pre-pregnancy pants, but hey I can survive with just one pair of jeans right? Tyler won't let me buy anymore because he's certain I'll fit into my other ones any day now. I hope he's not to disapointed. But oh well, I'm just happy to have my little Jack and that makes everything else alright! I will have to take more pictures this weekend, Hayden will be here, and Jack's rash on his head has pretty much cleared up, not that he wasn't cute even with the rash. But for now, it's time for some serious R&R. I hope tomorrow is as sunny as today was!

Well, I'm still in my pajamas and it's almost 11am, so I probably should be doing something other than posting on my blog, but I wanted to share the cute pictures that we took this weekend while Hayden was here. Jack was so cute when Hayden first got here on Friday night. He couldn't stop staring at him no matter where Hayden was in the room. I think he likes his big brother, and Hayden liked playing with Jack too now that it is so easy to get him to smile and jabber.
Another great thing about this weekend, Jack started taking a binky and will now fall asleep just fine on his own if he's already pretty drowsy. This is a lifesaver for my poor arms and back that are tired from hours on end of rocking. He is sleeping pretty well at night, and takes good naps during the day. He is more fun every day. He is now rolling from his front to his back pretty regularly, and his smiles and jabbering make every day brighter.

A Long Weekend!

Well I have now taught five whole days. I know it doesn't seem like a lot, but I'm feeling totally burned out. I'm especially bumbed because my students' average on the first test was a D. Pretty discouraging. I always knew teachers were busy, but I swear I did not sit down for more than 15 minutes today from 7-3, and that includes my lunch! How will I ever stay on top of it.

But enough whining about it because now I have a nice LONG weekend. I don't teach again until Wednesday, and I'm already almost ready with my lesson plan, I just need to plan an assignment. So this weekend is all put the house back together and play with family time. But before all of that... I think it's time for a nap, if only I could convince Jack of that.
Jack of course is being extra cute today. Right now he is sitting in his bouncy seat jabbering and smiling away. Earlier we was laying on his back just hanging out, and I left the room for a minute and he had rolled to his side (not quite his stomach, but I was still impressed). Hooray, Jack just had a big yawn, so either he is bored of me reading my blog to him, or he is about ready for a nap. So enjoy this incredibly cute picture I took of him yesterday, and check back again later.

2 month check up and SHOTS

Poor Jack had to get 4 shots today. The doctor thinks he's great and is impressed by his growth, but he still needs his vaccinations. I'm sure Jack thinks I'm the meanest mom ever for letting that nurse jab 4 tiny needles into his perfect pudgy thighs, but with all the sleeping he's doing to recover, maybe he'll forget the whole event. He cried so hard while he was getting the shots, I don't know if I've ever heard him cry so hard, but he calmed down quickly after. I wasn't sure what to expect after he woke up from his nap, but I wasn't expecting an entirely different child. Jack screamed for almost half an hour and there was little I could do to console him. I felt so bad as great big tears streamed down the side of his face. Finally I got him calm, and he immediately fell back to sleep. I think next time I have to get any shots I'm going to sleep it off as well, it seems to be helping Jack.

So for now things are quiet, but he will probably wake up soon, and then who knows what. I hope to have my happy baby boy back, but I think that might require a little Tylenol.

Baby Jack

For a long time I thought blogs were kind of silly, then the other day I was playing with Jack and he smiled so big and SO cute that I wanted to show and tell everyone I knew. That's when it came to me, I finally have a reason to blog. Before Jack, Tyler and I did pretty much the same thing everyday (SSDD Tyler would say, but you'll have to ask him yourself what that means, I think he learned it in the Marines). Work, school, work, school..... and so on. Now it feels like each day is a new adventure. Sure, it's still a lot of the same eat, sleep, poop, eat, sleep, poop, everyday, but now the monotony is interspersed with new discoveries, new growth, and new joy. Like for instance, not only was Jack blessed this week (which was a priceless family memory) but he also learned a new trick. He rolled from his front to his back. Tyler and I were beside ourselves with pride. While it may have been an accident, he has repeated the trick, but not regularly. His first real smile that wasn't just from gas relief was equally exciting, now we live for every smile.

Sadly I miss many of his smiles during some days of the week. I started my student teaching last week and he stays with his FABULOUS Great Aunt Bonnie while I'm at school. We are so grateful for her help! Still, I miss him so much everyday and race to my car as soon as I can get away from school.

So now I will join the world of proud parent bloggers, and while I know most of what I say will be far from original, since most moms have gone through everything I'm going through, I will say it anyway. My way of shouting from the rooftops: "My baby boy just smiled, and my world keeps turning because he did!"