Our Journey: November 2012

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Three Fabulous Years, Halloween, etc :)

I apologize for my terribly inconsistent blogging. So much is happening all the time that I feel bad for not documenting it properly but at the same time I just am busy enjoying it all so I guess that is good.

Since I last blogged Ki and I celebrated our third anniversary. Holy smokes :) I love him so so much and sincerely can't imagine my life without him. The past three years have been a grand adventure and I can't wait to see what the future has in store! A few highlights of our third year of marriage include: me graduating, purchasing our first family home, and of course the most exciting thing of all -welcoming Parker into our family. Parker by far has been the best thing to happen to us this year. We love him more then we ever could've imagined, and now that I now how wonderful it is to have him, I can't believe it took Ki so long to convince me to get pregnant haha :)

To celebrate our anniversary we went up the canyon with Parker to walk around, eat a picnic, and just enjoy each others company :)

Up AF canyon

I love those chubby cheeks and that sweet smile!

Best buddies already!

Then one of my best friends in the whole world and her cute family came down to visit! I was devastated when Tiff's husband Jake got a job that moved them to Idaho, so any time we get to spend with them is treasured! We got to meet baby Max for the first time and he is such a cutie! I am excited him and Parker get to grow up being buddies!

Max and Parker meet and play for the first time :)

On our way to hike Cascade Springs with the munchkins

Some of my favorite people!

Tiff, Jake, & Max at Cascade Springs

Parker liked watching the moving water

Love this curious little baby :)

Next was Halloween :) We dressed up as a safari tour guide, a panther, and a baby giraffe :) We thought it was pretty clever for being so last minute. I thought of the idea for Ki to have a sign that said Don't Feed the Animals with the Don't crossed out in the shower on Halloween day. Get it? Cause we want to get fed candy when we go trick or treating haha. I thought I was pretty clever. Coming from like the least creative person on the planet that is some serious progress :) Parker was ADORABLE. He was so cute all day, until we went trick or treating. By then he was wore out so we only went to a couple of our friends' houses in the ward before we called it a night.

Safari Tour Guide, Panther, & baby giraffe :)

So.... my baby is 5 months old! Holy cow. Can you believe it? I can't. It is hard to believe that in a few weeks we will have had him in our lives for half a year. Ever since Parker turned 3.5 months it has been new development after new development. He is getting so fun! We loved him as a newborn too, but it has been so exciting to see him learn new skills so quickly and develop into a little personality :) I by no means have motherhood mastered, but I figure that is probably a life long journey :) I just am doing my best and trying not to freak out when new circumstances arise haha.

Parker can now sit unassisted for about a minute as long as he doesn't try to look around too much, and is getting stronger and better all the time. He can roll over, but still doesn't do so very often. He now enjoys tummy time and plays peek a boo. A neighbor and friend's 3 year old daughter Alyssa, makes Parker laugh so so hard! We can get him to laugh a little bit, but for some reason he thinks she is way more entertaining. He still isn't very big (in about the 15th percentile), but we are glad that he is consistently growing. Parker's reflux is greatly improved, so we tried taking him off his reflux meds at 4 months. He started having problems eating again though and wasn't quite ready, but we think he will be ready by 6 months and plan to try again then. Overall he is a pretty good sleeper but he does still wakes up once in the very early morning for a feeding after going to bed at 7:30 or 8... I am hoping that will end soon, but we shall see. Most days he naps well and he is overall a very happy baby!

One of Parker's quirks is that he loves his little bubba. When he sleeps he loves to cuddle it and pull it on top of his face. In fact when he wakes up in the middle of the night he finds the bubba in his crib and rubs it on his face to put himself back to sleep. If he has the blanket on his face for too long during his naps we usually go take it off but 15 minutes later he will have pulled it back close to his face. (I know letting him sleep with it is against the sleeping guidelines so spare me a lecture, but he is really good at controlling it and just loves it so much that I let him... maybe that makes me the worst mother of the year, but I just don't have the heart to take it away.) Another cute thing is that he loves to play with his feet. His newest discovery is that he can pull off his socks and then suck on them haha. Lately he has also developed this really special interest in his dad, his face lights up into a huge grin every time Ki walks in the room, and he loves to play with him. This is probably in part due to the fact that Ki has been a stay at home dad with us the last 2 months. Long story short is that his position at Linx was no longer an option and he decided he wasn't interested in all the traveling that would be required with the new position they were offering him so he decided it was time to find a new job. This brings me to my next item of blog business...

Ki got a new job this week! Woo Hoo! Tuesday was a bittersweet day for us as we were really excited that Ki got offered a job at AtTask, and really disappointed that Romney lost the election. But we don't dwell on the negative and feel so so so blessed to have found another job. Ki will be an educator and teach the companies that purchase AtTask's software how to use it. I think... haha. He is really excited to start a new chapter in his professional life, especially since he was hoping to get this job ever since one of his best friends worked for and spoke so highly of AtTask. He starts the Monday before Thanksgiving and we are SO thankful!

In less important news I got a new calling as the webelo cub scout leader :) Yeah... I feel like I don't know anything that I should so if you have any advice help me out!

That about sums up the most important information I think...

To end I will post a couple videos of Parker. He is pretty cute. Enjoy if you so choose :) Thanks for checking in on the Jensen family! I will try harder to keep the blog better updated.

this is Alyssa making Parker laugh :)

this is Parker playing peek a boo

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Some of my Favorite Things

So I wrote this post two months ago but then it never got posted so... here ya go. Two months late :)

Parker is now almost 12 weeks and it basically feels impossible to keep up with the blog on top of everything else... I am still adjusting to being an attentive mom to Parker while simultaneously getting dinner made every day, doing the laundry every week and keeping the house clean. Not to mention grocery shopping is now the hardest thing ever haha. Luckily for me, Ki is always willing to stop at the store on his way home to grab some groceries for me :) It is a good thing that in my case kids come one at a time! I don't even know how I'd keep up with more than one haha. But even though I don't think I could handle more than one yet, after having Parker I think I want more kids than I originally thought :) He just is so fun and smart and cuddly and the way he makes me feel makes me think I want more kids than I used to think I wanted if that makes sense.

So instead of trying to share every single detail of our lives since Parker's birth, I will post some of my favorite pictures since he was born and some of my favorite things that Parker does that I really don't want to forget!

We will start with the details :)

Parker ever since he was really little LOVES to stare at the bear on the wall next to his changing table. Before he could smile you would see his eyes light up when he saw the bear. His first smile was at the bear. And now that he babbles his cute little baby talk he always talks to his bear :) It is so cute. He could be crying when I pick him up out of his crib, but the second I put him on his changing table and he sees his bear he is all smiles and coos! It is so funny.
His second smile was at his Dad and his first coo. I was sorta jealous! haha. I was like geez I am with him way more then you, and he smiled at you first! But I was also glad, because that was when Ki started to really bond with Parker.
Parker has a little play mat with animals that hang above him and at first he totally showed favoritism to certain animals at first! Haha he would talk and smile at the giraffe, but if you hung the parrot above him he would look away and refuse to look at it. I think he was afraid of it or something lol. Now he talks to all of his animals, but it was so funny to Ki and I that at first he was afraid of the parrot for some reason.
Parker is super cuddly. Maybe all babies are? I don't know since he is my first, but I LOVE that he loves to cuddle with me. When he is tired he rubs his face into your shoulders or chest, and he loves to cuddle his soft blankies. I am not kidding. Whenever he is crying because he is tired or upset and you give him his blanket to hug in his arms he calms right down. He loves to feel his blankies with his hands and rub his face into them. It is pretty much the cutest thing ever.
One of Ki's favorite things to do with Parker is fly him around the house like superman. It is so cute and I love that Ki likes to be involved with Parker. Whenever Ki is home he likes to change Parker's diapers and help out just to spend time with him :) I wonder how long the diaper changes will last haha.
Parker loves to be outside. Whenever he is being fussy and we go sit outside on the grass or go for a walk he calms down. He just looks all around and for some reason it calms him. It is strange but helpful. He doesn't like the wind though so if it is really windy he doesn't enjoy it as much.
For some reason when I take naps with Parker in my bed (don't worry I don't sleep close enough to squish him and he sleeps on top of the blankets so he doesn't get smothered) he will sleep like 2.5 hours! Which is longer than he usually naps. I haven't figured out yet if it is because of our mattress that he sleeps better or if it is because he wakes up and sees that my eyes are closed still and goes back to sleep or what haha. It is kind of nice though. I love taking naps with him and wish I could feel good about taking one every day :) Unfortunately there is too much other stuff I feel like I need to do to take naps everyday (emphasis on the FEEL- Ki tells me I always find things to do that aren't really necessary but they always feel necessary to me haha)
Parker rolled over at 3 weeks old twice... but clearly it was a fluke since he hasn't done it since then. Not to mention you would think he would grow accustomed to tummy time the older he gets, but it seems like he hates it worse the older he gets.
Ki has this tendency to think that our child is a super baby and that he will do things faster then all the other babies. Lately he has been practicing "sitting" with Parker even though I don't think you could consider it sitting since obviously Parker can't hold his body weight yet haha.

Now for the pictures :)