2 months

Wow, i can't believe Parker is two months old.  We've experienced and learned so much since he was born and I can't imagine our lives without this sweet boy.  While I've never been so emotional and exhausted at times in the past 2 months, I've also never felt such great joy and love.  Rich and I are still in awe that this little guy is ours.  I haven't blogged as much lately since I just stare at Parker and take instagram pictures of him all day, but I wanted to write about some of the happenings of the past two months.  Parker has been busy!

Milk comas all day every day! This would be the reason that our 6lb 4 oz newborn now weighs 11lbs 6oz!  So glad he's growing healthy and strong.  :) 

4th of July festivities.  At 2 weeks old, Parker sported a very patriotic outfit, attended our ward breakfast, a bbq with friends and slept through our little firework show.

Celebrated his dad and mama's 27th birthdays and 2 year anniversary!

 

Enjoyed lots of baths

Attended his Aunt Brooke's wedding in St George at 4 weeks old and met many of his adorable cousins.

 

Was given a beautiful perfect blessing by his dad that same weekend.

Had many special visitors, went on adventures with dad- a hike and dip in the ocean and attended his great grandmother's funeral in L.A. 

 

 

Has been smiling and cooing more every day!

We love our little guy!

sisters

jess and i have always had a thing for babies...

 

can't believe we now have our own!

*picture by my dad

july 6th

Today was Parker's due date.  I had a feeling he might come early since my mom and sister both had early deliveries.  Luckily I was eventually able to convince my boss of this so we could get my replacement hired and trained at the beginning of June.  Parker timed it perfectly and came on the weekend so his dad didn't have to miss school.  It also worked out well as my replacement was scheduled to start two days later on that Monday!  I'd love to write more details of his birthday sometime, but for now I wanted to share some pictures from an impromptu photo shoot with my dad.  Here's Parker at a week and a half old..

Hanging out in his mama's arms

Beautiful blanket made by his Great Grandma Fran

Tiny guy with Auntie Jess

Our beautiful perfect boy

our biggest adventure yet

Yesterday my pregnancy app told me I was 39 weeks pregnant.  I guess I forgot to tell it I already had my baby.  :)  I also forgot to tell the blog world this exciting news. So even though those that read this already know that Parker arrived I thought I'd still do a little announcement post.

I can't believe that Parker is already 2 weeks old!  We are so in love with him and think he is just perfect.  He's been patient with us as we are learning how to be parents and take care of a tiny human.  We've learned that I'm really good at giving kisses all day and Rich is a pro at burping Parker and calming him down (along with calming me down).  :)  Parker has many talents that include eating, giving us lots a sleepy smiles and partying at night.  We're so grateful for his safe arrival and all the love and help we've had from friends and family!  My mom was here for a week and a half and saved me as she did laundry, cooked meals, cleaned and organized the entire house and gave me so much love and support.  My Dad, Jess and Cedar arrived this past Monday and also took care of us.  It was so much fun to be together!  Here's a pic my mom took of us hanging out in the backyard.  I love my boys so much!    

spring break: day 1

as you can see i'm doing a bit of catch up on the blog. we also took an amazing road trip in march for rich's spring break.  we had been talking about driving up the coast to san fran to visit my brother matthew for a few months but didn't do much planning besides saying we wanted to go.  :)  a week before our trip the weather was pretty bad along the coast so we were unsure if we would even make the trek.  a few days before we decided to just go for it so we called matthew and luckily he was still happy to put us up and play tour guide for a few days.  we headed out on our spring break/babymoon/ last minute adventure on monday morning and drove the 9 hours straight to san francisco.  we stayed inland for the drive there and decided we would do the highway 1 drive on the way back.  we weren't expecting much scenery on this first stretch but ended up driving through some beautiful country.   here are some pics from day one of our adventure...

after seeing these gorgeous orchards we decided we're moving here and setting up a fruit stand on the side of the road.

okay, let's hope i'm on a roll with the blog and can get the rest of our trip up in the next few days.  right now i'm going to bed.. this little guy in my belly makes me sleepy.  :)

march madness

our march madness did not include basketball..oops (expect that my belly looks like one).  it was filled with lots of midterms/studying for rich, busy work travel for me and some really great road trips thrown in there too.  i was in st. george for a 2 day health fair in early march so i decided to catch a ride with my coworker back to provo for a quick weekend family and friend tour of utah.  :)  i had a sleepover with ally and becca on friday night which was a blast.  then my sister jess and cedar drove from moab saturday morning and met us for french toast at riverwoods in provo. jess and i continued on our trek north with a stop to meet my cousin jackie and ryan's precious new arden frances in slc (along with their awesome new home).  then on to logan to meet up with mom and lots of family!  i flew out of slc sunday night.  it was a whirlwind trip and i was exhausted by the end but was so happy to get to catch up with lots of family.     

hi c

you can always count on grandma and grandpa to feed us lots of moose bars!

we could stare at him for hours :)

so glad mom made the drive from IF to play for two days!

january saturdays

something i love about vegas is that you can drive just 30 minutes out of town to play in the snow...

 ... and then spend the next weekend riding bikes around town! 

i also really love my adventure buddy.   :)

december

wow, i've really neglected the blog these past few months.  other things i neglected from october to december include cooking, cleaning, exercising, and christmas shopping (rich did an amazing job taking over on the gifts this year which you can see here), just to name a few.  i did feel good that i was able to help with our ward christmas party, but realized i probably cried about it more than helped.  oops.  but it's definitely all worth it for the cute little bean we get to meet at the beginning of july!!  i'm feeling so much better now at 16 weeks, so i'll try to get back to blogging and other important duties like making sure rich doesn't try to live off of cheetos. ;)

here are some pics for a quick update of what i did do in december (besides go to work, lay around and eat goldfish crackers). 

went climbing with the pros, jess and nick.  the one climb i did was the only exercise i did in 3 months.  jess was a climbing machine and left me in the dust.  she had baby cedar just a week and a half after this picture was taken!  amazing sister!  also pictured below, i got my christmas wish- a really tall tree that took up way too much space in our living room. 

my big brother maffoo came to vegas for a day before we took off to idaho for christmas. yay!

our weekend in idaho/utah was spent with our adorable nieces and nephews, visiting the nativity display at the museum that my mom is in charge of every year, video chatting with jape in london (google added a nice touch allowing us all to be reindeer on christmas), and the neeley christmas eve progressive dinner and program in logan (one of my favorite traditions)

then it was back to vegas for more festivities and to meet the newest member of the family, maisy!! 

weston doesn't look too excited about the huge gift he just helped nana and pop open.

playing with crazy uncle rich (although andrew looks like the crazy one in this picture)

precious maisy

we also had a very entertaining new years eve party...

the best christmas present came a few days after christmas.  welcome to the world cedar!

okay, that's the update.  it was a really really great month.