Growing Up Fast

I don't have much time to blog these days, but I thought I'd post a few pictures of our cute little guy. We love him so much and love seeing his personality grow. He's going to be a fun little kid. He is now almost 7 weeks old and already weighs a good 11-12 lbs. He's almost doubled his birth weight which we are super happy about. Mom and dad are doing well too. Brandon started working at the VA hospital in Salt Lake and commutes up there to work 12 hour night shifts. He is very busy and we miss him a lot when he's gone, but he is learning a ton and loving the work. We sure love him and appreciate how hard he works. He is such a good husband and daddy. I don't have to commute anywhere, but I also stay pretty busy taking care of our cute son. We are very blessed. Life is good.

Our Little Baby Carson

Our precious little Carson decided to join our family on Tuesday, June 7th at 9:30 pm. He weighed 6 lbs and 6 ounces and measured 19 inches long. We had an amazing midwife and nurse who were both so encouraging and supportive of natural birth. I don't know how I would have done it without them and especially Brandon. They all looked like angels to me. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life to bring this little guy into the world.

This picture was taken at our check-up just a few hours before Carson was born. I was having contractions earlier that morning, but they had slowed quite a bit, so we went on with our day as normal. At our check-up, I was dilated to a 5 and 95% effaced. We went into the hospital a couple of hours after we returned home at about 5 pm and delivered 4 1/2 hrs later.
Little Carson right after birth. He had the cord wrapped around his neck twice and had one of his arms up and ready to enter the world.



He loves his daddy and looks just like him.







We sure like our precious boy!!!

Day Trip to Salt Lake

Brandon and I took a day trip to Salt Lake on a Saturday and went to our first rugby games. We watched a couple of championship games, BYU being one of them, and are now fully converted to the sport. Wow...no pansies in this sport. Ouch!

This is the only picture we got out of the day. We went to a park before the BYU game and downed a chicken. We've become quite the fans of rotisserie chicken. Our little boy likes them too!

High Adventure

Brandon and I went on such a pretty hike up above the Provo Temple the other day after the rain let up. Everything thing looked BEAUTIFUL up there!


This is Brandon holding onto a bush for dear life as he slid down this very steep hill of mud. Pretty funny!

Secret cave! ..it wasn't as scary as my face says it was.

Doing a little jig on a hill he climbed. :)

Brandon thought it would be a good idea to imitate all of my big-bellied poses, and I must say, he did a pretty good job. :) Silly boy.

What a fun little adventure we had!

Happy Feet

If you know me well at all, you probably know one of my trademarks...I always have less than silky smooth feet. In fact, many people goes as far as to call them "sad" or even "really gross". But as much as people think I should care...I just don't. I was named "the little indian girl" growing up, because I went everywhere barefoot, and my feet just never have recovered (and I still hate wearing shoes). Anyway...sometimes Brandon feels bad for my little cracked and dirty feet, so he takes matters into his own hands. This was one of those occasions. Needless to say...my feet were very grateful for my sweet husband.

Yes, this is a household scrubber...whatever works, I guess. It sure tickled like crazy!

New Trick

Can you do this? Didn't think so. Just another perk of pregnancy. :)

Too Cute

Some people use Teddy Bears, Brandon uses my leg. I don't really know how this happened but I just had to take a picture when I looked down from where I was reading on the couch to see Brandon fast asleep snuggled up with my leg. I sure love that guy!

Girl's Weekend

Since the only time my best friends from high school see each other all together is pretty much at each of our weddings, we decided to have a long overdue girl's weekend. Nicole arranged it all and used her time-share to get us a very nice place to stay in Midway (so that I wouldn't have to travel far...thanks Nicole!). It was so much fun! It's amazing that we still get along so well, and maybe even better now that we're all married and settled. My favorite part of the weekend was piling onto one bed when we woke up in the morning and just talking and laughing for hours. What good friends I have!

My Trip Home To St. George

While Brandon was in Washington DC, I got to go to St. George and hang out with my family. It was soooo nice to catch up with everyone and actually see a little sunshine! My sweet mother and sisters threw me a Baby Shower while I was there. It was so fun, and I absolutely love the adorable things everyone got for our cute little boy! People are nice, I decided!
My sister-in-law, Jamie, made these little sucker looking cakes (I know they have a name, but I have no idea what that name is). I thought they were so adorable. Another exciting thing that happened while I was there was that my crazy sister, Amber, did the Ironman. Just when I thought she couldn't get any more hard-core....she just never ceases to amaze me. Never having done a single triathlon, she had about three weeks to train on a road bike and in the pool. She swam 2.4 miles, biked an insanely hard 112 mile bike course, and then ran a marathon with the temperature at about 93 degrees. She finished in 14 hours and I bawled when she came through. She is one dedicated girl and I love her to pieces!

Brandon surprised me in the middle of the night when he showed up in St. George, having just flown into Salt Lake that night. I was one happy little wife!!! He brought me roses for Mother's Day and some stuff from DC, and we got to spend all of Mother's Day together. We went to my mom's ward first, cause I sang in Sacrament meeting with my mom playing the piano (we don't get to do that together very much anymore), then we went to a different ward to listen to my friend, Colleen, speak, and then we spent the rest of the day visiting family. It was wonderful! I loved my trip home and I love my family!!!!

The Latest Baby Bump

I didn't realize how big my belly looked until I looked at this picture that Brandon took yesterday. Something must be growing in there! Supposedly he should be gaining 1/2 lb a week now. Cute little guy! We sure like him. :)

Easter Saturday

Brandon left early this morning to give plasma and I woke up to find an easter egg hunt with 24 "I love you because..." notes inside easter eggs hidden all over the house. It was super cute. I decided Brandon needed an easter egg hunt too, so he got one when he got home. I love my husband!
After our hunts, we went to the Temple and then had a lovely Easter picnic on our floor since it was raining outside.
I'm not much of a candy girl, so my Easter egg hunt had notes instead of sweets in them.... but wow, did I want some of Brandon's Jelly Beans for some reason. Brandon found me on the bed opening all of his Easter eggs looking for the jelly beans and thought he needed to document it. He always finds it quite amusing when I go out of my norm. They were SO good!

Our Trip To Grand Junction

Brandon took all his finals on the first day of finals so that we could take a little trip to Grand Junction to visit his cute Grandma Johanson (He did amazing on his finals, by the way). We left on Monday and stayed with her until Thursday. We had so much fun listening to Grandma Jo tell stories about the family and helping her collect aluminum cans wherever we went. She is a very simple, frugal, kind and down-to-earth woman, and I like her a whole lot.

Brandon lived in Grand Junction from age 1 to 8, so we spent some of our time visiting all the places he remembers spending time. It was pretty cute to see him get so excited to climb his favorite tree at the park by his house and to go to the JUCO Stadium where he used to watch baseball games. We also visited his old library, Liberty Park, Graff's Dairy, his old church, elementary school, his grandpa's gravestone, and much more.

This is Brandon reminiscing his Tee Ball days on the same field he used to play on when he was a little tyke.
Us sitting in the dugout hiding from the rain (please excuse the scruffiness, I didn't get ready much while we were there....we were on vacation)
We decided to go visit Brandon's old next door neighbor, Lina and had fun listening to her tell us all about her health and every person she knows. :) Sweet lady. She is 87 years old.
Brandon couldn't leave Colorado without stopping at Highline Lake where he used to go waterski. The lake is tiny, but I'm sure it seemed much bigger to a 4 year old boy. It made him really happy to see this lake.

My Bigger Belly

My belly is still growing and jumping all around with our cute little nameless squirt inside. I'm not sure how far along I was when we took these, but I'm guessing around 30 weeks. I just absolutely love this little guy, and love feeling him squirm around and hiccup.

Brandon's Convention In Florida

Brandon had a wonderful time in Tampa, Florida at his convention. His wife sure is glad that he's home, though. Here are a few pictures that he took there.



Brandon really liked the key-note speaker at the Medi convention. His emphasis was on how to better use the left side of the brain by tapping into the right. He painted a picture of John Lennon in the time it took to play one of his songs. Later in the presentation, he told the audience that they were going to play "fear factor". He threw out a little football which landed in the seat next to Brandon. The guy that got it quickly put it into Brandon's lap so he wouldn't have to be the "fear factor" volunteer. When the speaker got out to Brandon he told him that he could delegate, if he chose to, and give the ball to someone else. Brandon chose to do it himself and the fear factor turned out to be him receiving the John Lennon painting for doing nothing. The speaker said only 5% of his volunteers don't use their delegation privilege. Good work, love. The painting is huge and is being shipped out to us next week. Brandon is set on putting it somewhere in our house, but I'm pretty sure the only place it's going to fit is on our ceiling.

This is Brandon and Erin during the simulator competition. They didn't win the competition like everyone expected they would, but Brandon was glad about it because he said he learned a lot more by not winning than he would if they had. Good sport.

I Miss Brandon

Brandon is in Florida this week to present at a National Nursing Simulator Convention. He has been there for two days and has already had some pretty cool experiences. He had his first presentation today and said that it went really well...of course it did, who are we kidding. He has another one tomorrow and was also signed up in a nursing competition, which he will also do tomorrow. He is judged on how well he provides care to his patient (which is actually a very real-to-life simulator) who will have some sort of trauma happen to him/her/it. I'm sure he will do amazing.

My sweet mother came up to Provo last night to stay with me while Brandon is gone. We had a fun day today...went to the Temple, the fabric store, Tucanos for lunch, Costco, the library, and then I finally got some work done and mom went and did some ProArgi9 testing. It's been a fun day...even though I miss my husband a lot.

Tonight my mom gave me this article of sorts entitled "True and Lasting Love". It rang very true to me and I wanted to write a little bit of it here.

"Few things are more beautiful that a couple in love.... We may consider them lucky, but they will tell you that it's not luck that keeps them in love. It's choosing to stay in love, all along the way. They have come to know that love is a behavior, a series of actions and choices - not just an elusive feeling that might someday escape them."

And then from Shakespeare:
Love is not love,
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove;
O no! It is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken.

I just loved those thoughts. All of those adorable aged couples still holding hands are not the product of a happenstance fairytale romance that just fell from the sky. They have chosen to love and worked at it throughout their whole lives. It is absolutely admirable to me and I want to be in their club. I want to hold Brandon's comforting hands for forever and love it as much as I do today. I miss you Honey!

Do All Husbands Do This?

My dear husband finds great joy in hiding from me. If you've seen how small our apartment is, you will understand why this fascination of his is so funny. ...just not too many places to hide. I sure get a kick out of some of his attempts though. ;)