Catch Up

A ton has happened since the last post. The main thing is Sawyer's birth and most everything else interesting has involved him also.

Sawyer Benjamin Alvey was born at 3:53 AM on Wednesday, February 20th. He weighed 9 pounds, 9.4 ounces and was 21 & 3/4 inches long. He has been an amazing baby. He has slept through the night since he was about one month old other than the last month of teething. Right now he has a cold too on top of teething and has been a bit of a terror at night. Poor little guy. He is a super happy baby though and rarely cries. You pretty much know he is hungry, tired, or needs changed if he cries. We absolutely LOVE being parents. Sawyer is a daddy's boy. Ben says he is a mama's boy but he is with me all day so as soon as Ben is home Sawyer wants Ben not mom. Ben and Sawyer have so much fun playing together!

Matney was is Casper at my parents house when Sawyer was born. These are pictures of Matthew and Sawyer together on Friday after we got out of the hospital. Matthew was one month old and Sawyer was bigger than him, but not anymore. We are excited to see Sawyer with his cousins Matthew and Pierce at the Comin family reunion in two weeks.

 Sawyer has super long fingers and toes!

He has monkey toes and will grab whatever touches them. It makes it very difficult to clip his toenails because he automatically curls them to grab your hand when you touch them.

Sawyer was jaundiced in the hospital and had to spend a day under the lights. We thought he looked so cute with his blindfold on. He reminded us of a ninja turtle a little bit.

 This was Sawyer ready to head home from the hospital.

 This was just too cute!

We were so excited when we found this little penguin snow suit! Sawyer was pretty much too big for it from the beginning though even though it was a 3 month suit. Hopefully we will have another baby that can wear it! We thought it was so cute!

 Sawyer wore the bear suit more because it actually fit him. We thought he looked pretty cute in it too!

Sawyer's umbilical cord didn't fall off until he was one month so we couldn't give him a real bath before then. This was his first real bath. He absolutely loved it and he still loves baths to this day. He has taken two showers now and he isn't so sure about them but baths are his favorite. We need to take him swimming!

I graduated with my Bachelors of Business Administration at the end of June. I love being done with school. It makes it so I have more time to just play with Sawyer rather than having to work on homework. I graduated a couple days after my birthday. Ben bought me an awesome new camera for my birthday so I have lots of new pictures of Sawyer now that I have a nice camera to take pictures. My camera had broken and I didn't even get a picture of Sawyer in his blessing outfit. It was sad, he looked so cute!

Ben and I went to Utah to go to the temple and go to our nephew's baptism. On the way down we had to stop in Heber to feed Sawyer. Ben always gets bored while I feed Sawyer in the car so he parked by a dollar store and he went in while I fed Sawyer. I told Ben to get me an awesome present. He came out and had me close my eyes while he put this on Sawyer! It was an awesome present for sure! The mustache didn't even phase Sawyer. We bought more to take better pictures with my new camera sometime.

We bought Sawyer some sunglasses and he loves them! I was really surprised that he keeps them on! He looks too cute in them!

 I was playing with my new camera and these are some cute pictures we got.

This is Sawyer's fishing outfit. I loved how he grabbed his glasses and overalls for this picture. He loves to grab his overalls. It is so cute, it makes him look like an old farmer.

We had to take some pictures with mustaches with his older cousins. They always ask us for mustaches now every time they see us.

 Unfortunately you can't see Sawyer that great in this picture but it was too funny to not post.

 Sawyer got his four month shots and they only had a Barbie band-aid so I had to take of picture of it.

 He did not feel good at all. He was so sad and mellow.

Snuggling with his friends helped him feel better though. He will snuggle with his toys but not mom or dad anymore unless he really doesn't feel good and is tired.

 Sawyer loves our love sac. He can sit up in it all on his own and it snuggles him.

This is Sawyer's lumberjack outfit. I love this shirt! It was too baggy on him for the longest time because he is so skinny but now it is almost too short and still a little baggy. Not to mention it is way to hot out now for it.

One evening I was doing dishes when all went quiet with Ben and Sawyer. Next thing I knew they came out of Sawyer's room like this. Ben says Sawyer was paper boy! I was laughing so hard!

Apparently Sawyer was fascinated with what Ben was doing so he just laid there and let Ben wrap him in paper. The pictures don't show it but he thought it was pretty funny.

Ben has mastered keeping Sawyer entertained while being lazy at the same time. Sawyer loves to play with Ben's hair so Ben just put Sawyer where he can play with his hair then naps. It works great.

We have decided we should stop buying Sawyer toys because his favorite things to play with are not toys. He loves straps the most but one evening Sawyer wasn't feeling good and was cranky and tired but wouldn't sleep, Ben gave him his monkey to snuggle with. Sawyer got a hold of a water bottle though and chose to snuggle with it and monkey was forgotten. He makes us laugh.

Unfortunately Sawyer has discovered the camera. He will be cute and snuggling with Dad which is a very rare occurrence so I will try to take a picture, but as soon as he sees the camera he is more interested in it and ruins the cute snuggly picture.

Another evening I was feeding Sawyer when Ben got up and disappeared. A few minutes later he came out of Sawyer's room with Sawyer's gorilla.

I don't know what inspired Ben but he had dressed Sawyer's gorilla in Sawyer's clothes and said it was his baby. There is never a dull moment with Ben.

I think these are the main highlights of what I have missed. We plan to go camping this weekend if Sawyer is feeling better and sleeping again. Hopefully I will post again soon if we do. If not I will try hard to post after the family reunion for sure!

New Year's

I forgot to take pictures over Christmas. I fail. Hopefully we will get some from Bill and Paige they were good and took pictures. We had a lot of fun over Christmas going to Dubois with the Smathers and snowmobiling though. It was Ben's first time and he had a lot of fun. We got some cute baby stuff from my parents, Bill and Paige, and my friend Kelsey. Ben's sister gave us an amazing picture of the Oquirrh Mountain temple. I have been wanting one and can't wait to hang it up. We now just have to work on getting a bigger picture of the Savior. Art work is so expensive though!

 

We had a pretty uneventful New Year's Eve. Ben has to do end of the month reports at midnight on the last night of every month so he had to go out to work about 11:30 to do those. I went along because I was bored and I wanted my first New Year's Eve kiss. I figured I would finally get one being married for it this year but his work tried to get in the way. It failed though and I got a little peck at midnight. :) Then we got back home and started watching Netflix and ended up staying up until 2:00. Then we ended up talking in bed until 4:00! I don't know how I was functioning. Then Ben's work phone rang at 5:30 and he had to head out to work to fix some stuff. I was scared he was going to fall asleep driving, but he was fine. Then he had to go back out to work at 9:00. Great way to start off the new year! He didn't get called out again the rest of the day though so he got to enjoy most of his day off.

 

I woke up wanting chocolate chip pancakes this morning so I headed to the kitchen to start making them.  Ben came in to help me and ended up sending me to go sit down and he would bring me my pancakes. Luckily I got bored and went back into the kitchen to talk to him while he cooked or I would not have gotten a picture of his awesome pancakes!

 

 

 As you can tell he made an excellent Micky Mouse, face and all. This was the front and back.

 

He then also attempted to make me a moose pancake from a cookie cutter I got from a friend a few birthdays ago. I couldn't believe he thought of it!

 



It did not turn out so well. He was pretty disappointed. This was the cookie cutter he was using.

 



 

He was bound and determined to make me a good moose pancake though and kept trying.

He held down the cookie cutter almost the entire time this one cooked. I think it turned out pretty well for a pancake! They also all tasted delicious! Ben decided to grow a beard over Christmas so he didn't have to shave. He says it is going to get shaved soon. I am quite excited. He says he is going to have a mustache for a while until it creeps him out. I think it will last maybe an hour before he is too creeped out by himself. I will try and get a picture of it when he saves.

 



 

The rest of the day we were just lazy and watched a movie and took a nap. Ben is playing Mario now. It has been a relaxing lazy day to start off the new year. Tomorrow we will get busy again. At least Ben will, I don't have a whole lot to do while I wait for next semester to start. I have been working on a rag quilt for Sawyer though. We had an ultrasound on the 21st and everything is going well. He weighs 4.1 lbs. He is moving around like crazy. We had a good laugh today watching him moving around making my stomach go into weird shapes today. Only 6 more weeks! We are so excited to meet our little man.

Not a whole lot has happened since the last time I posted. I gave Ben a hair cut all by myself for the first time. It looked pretty good, but unfortunately I forgot to get a picture of it so no one will believe me. Here is a picture a couple weeks after the haircut though.

 I posted pictures of Ben in this apron about a week after we were married. I went to the kitchen before church to eat breakfast one morning and grabbed the manly apron because it came up higher so I wouldn't get anything on my shirt. Ben came out and informed me I was using his apron but left and came back a little while later wearing mine. I think it looked great on him.

 He wanted to get a picture of me in the camo manly apron so we could tell people who really wore the pants in the relationship. I was wearing a skirt at the time so I informed him he was the only one wearing pants, even if it was under a girly apron.I was surprised I was even able to get one decent picture out of him before he started making faces.

Ben turned 25 on the 24th of November. We were going to be in Casper with his family for Thanksgiving for his birthday so I wanted to make and surprise him with a birthday cake early before we left. 

 Ben loves pistachio so I found a pistachio cake recipe on Pinterest for him.  I ended up doubling the pistachio in the actual cake then the frosting had another package of pistachio pudding mix in it. I was a little worried I might have gone overboard on the pistachio but figured I was safe with it being Ben. I was. He said he would add even more! I was pretty proud of myself though, because he said it is his new favorite cake. I liked it a lot too and I'm not as big of a fan of pistachio as he is. I could not handle the pistachio ice cream I bought him however though. Way too strong!

I was pretty excited when I found these lego candles at the grocery store! Ben is basically a big little kid and I think he enjoyed the lego candles almost as much as eating the cake. He made me save them so we can use them again. I think they were definitely money well spent.

We went black Friday shopping in Casper, well kind of. We both went Friday night to Best Buy to get Ben a laptop. We succeeded and he really loves it. I spent most of the time at the food court with my also pregnant sister-in-law Kyla while Ben stood in line for his laptop. I tried to stay in line with him, but I hadn't eaten since dinner and was up much past my bed time so Ben sent me to get food. By the time we got back to his brother's house to go to bed at 2:00 AM, I was basically a walking zombie. I felt terrible. So needless to say, when the alarm went off at 5:00 AM to go get the Christmas tree we wanted I could have cared less. Ben slept until 7:00 AM then headed out to try and get the tree and a few other things we wanted. I was a spoil sport and stayed sleeping. I felt bad but he said he would rather have me be happy later than crabby all day which would have most likely been the case. I do not do well without my sleep, especially pregnant. Ben was able to get us the Shopvac and GPS that we wanted, but sadly we missed out on the Christmas tree. We decided we didn't want to spend money on a real tree because we wouldn't even be home for Christmas and they are so expensive we might as well save the money for the after Christmas fake tree sales. So we had decided to go without a tree this year. Then I found a picture of this tree on Pinterest. (I like Pinterest if you can't tell.) While I was in Casper for a doctors appointment I asked my mom if she had a tomato fence. She did and she supplied me with the lights too!

So here is our completely free Christmas tree! Ben did the wrapping or it would not have looked as good as it does. He put a lot of effort into it! It was a little more time consuming than I thought it would be. I love it so much though! This picture looks better than the one with the lights on, but it still doesn't do it justice. Ben makes fun of me because he comes home from work quite often with me laying on the couch looking at our Christmas tree listening to my Andy Williams Christmas music. When he asked what I was doing I said just enjoying my Christmas tree and music. Now when he calls me on his way home from work he asks if I am enjoying my Christmas tree and music. Most of the time I am!

Ben received free tickets to the Jazz game last weekend from a sales rep at work. So we planned a trip to go down and attend the temple and go to the Jazz game. I also had a 15% off coupon that was only good in store at Baby Depot. So we also planned on buying our stroller while we were there. It turned into a very busy trip! We were able to do sealings at the Provo Temple. It was great we haven't done sealings for a couple months. We were able to do some daughter sealings to parents also which I love doing! They really made me grateful for our temple marriage and that Sawyer will be sealed to us forever. It made me really sad that some of these families had been waiting for over 70 years! It really reminded me of the importance of doing temple work! 

After the temple we went to Baby Depot to get our stroller. Ben has decided he gets two new ties at Burlington every time we go to Utah. He has been getting a pretty sweet tie collection. I am excited about our stroller though! I wanted to get a jogging stroller because the wheels are nicer on them. This one still maneuvers very nicely though, but the feature that sold me is the one handed quick release! All I have to do it pull a handle and it all folds up and I can carry it by the handle. So with Sawyer in one hand I can collapse and carry the stroller in the other easy! I was sold because that will be so nice for when I am by myself with him. I hope it makes it worth not having the jogging stroller wheels! Fingers crossed. I also really liked the pattern it is very gender neutral so I can use it for boys or girls. I can't believe there are only 8 weeks left until my due date! We are so excited! 

I will try to take lots of pictures over Christmas so I can blog some more fun stuff!

I am terrible! It has been way too long since I updated. I will try and update for the last several months. I probably will forget a lot of it. I am going back through my pictures that I took to blog about though.

I was asked to make a centerpiece for a ward relief society party. I think I talked about it in my last post. This is what I made with the help of my mom. It is a sugar cookie bouquet. It was a lot of fun to make. I remember making them with Mom when I was younger for May Day, I think, and other occasions. I got a lot of compliment on them and told I should sell them.

Ben and I went up to Billings, MT every month to attend the temple. Ben's best friend lives there and we would stay with him and make a fun weekend out of the trip. We went to A&W for lunch one day and Ben and I saw these mugs and had to get them!

We bought two big ones and two small ones. Our plan was to have a short couple from church over for root-beer floats and give them the small mugs. We never ended up doing it. We are a little sad about it but plan to find another short couple to do it to sometime. Ben has welcomed the Comin tradition of root-beer floats enthusiastically. We almost always have A&W and ice cream stocked for root-beer floats. We went through about a month where we had one everyday. We slowed down but are still stocked.

In March I finally finished one of my projects for our apartment. My dad built up our bed frame to allow for extra storage space underneath it. The alterations made it so our bed skirt did not go to the ground and looked really funny on our bed. So for a few months it was really ugly showing everything we had hidden under our bed. I finally got to fixing the bed skirt and with Mom's help this is the finished product. We added the black strip to the bottom. It looks pretty good and hides all our ugly storage.

We attended one of our nephews on Ben's sides third birthday party in June. Jeremiah LOVES Buzz Lightyear! He would only answer to Buzz some days. We didn't have any good boy gift wrap but had a plain white bag laying around from our wedding. Ben decided he would decorate it himself.

He looked up a picture of Buzz on the internet and drew it onto the bag. I was really impressed with the end result. It turned out really good! We ran out of time and were running late for the party so Ben decided Jeremiah could color it himself so the bag turned into a coloring page on top of the present.

Unfortunately I can't think of many other little highlights. I had a miscarriage in March. I was not very far along but I decided to set up an appointment to go to the doctor after the miscarriage to make sure everything was alright. It took a few months to get in to the doctor, but got an appointment for June 1st. The exciting news was finding out that I was pregnant again at the appointment. My doctor sent me to get some blood tests done and confirmed it. We were so excited!! I was also really scared, but now I am 26 weeks and everything is going great! We are due February 13th.

On September 25th we had our ultrasound and we found out we are having a little boy! My doctor says he is really tall. She considered pushing my due date forward, but she decided not to since we are both tall. He was all over the place during the ultrasound! He kept grabbing the placenta and umbilical cord. I think he is going to be crazy like his dad. When Ben was born he kept ripping all the monitors off and the doctors gave up trying to test him. I told Ben if our son comes out and does that I will cry. Just kidding.

During the ultrasound he kept putting his arms up by his face. It was pretty cute and he had his legs crossed. I was sad we didn't get a picture of that. We are going to name him Sawyer Benjamin Alvey.

I felt him move for the first time on October 12th. That was a lot of fun! I was so excited! Since then he has become very active! I likes to kick me a lot and roll around. I have only had one painful kick so far, but he does like to make it hard for me to breath by hanging out by my lungs.

 Here is my very attractive side picture at 23 weeks.

 Here is 25 weeks on Halloween. I decided after this flattering photo I don't know if I will take any more. I will just to document it but I have decided I am not the cute pregnant woman I wish I was.

 This was my awesome iron on shirt I found on Etsy. Ben said I had to get it. It was really cute and I got a lot of compliments. I have packed it away for the next time I am pregnant on Halloween now.

Ben felt Sawyer move for the first time on November 3rd. He was kicking like crazy that night. That was the first time I ever felt him with my hand too. Ben can get him to kick almost every night now but putting his arm on my belly. I think Sawyer doesn't like his dad crowding him so he kicks. It is so weird thinking that I have a little human growing inside me. We are so excited for February when he comes!

Another big piece of news that has happened to us is we moved! In July the terminal manager in Rawlins quit. After some negotiating over the wage, Ben was promoted and we moved to Rawlins. It is taking some adjusting getting used to such a small town. No Walmart has been tough. I am really starting to enjoy it for the most part now though. I have gotten to know some really nice ladies at church and am making friends. There is another woman that just moved here due the same time I am. Ben is loving his job which is great. He is in charge of one assistant and his boss lives in Denver so Ben is on his own for the most part. He does a great job and his boss loves him! We went to a managers meeting last month and his boss was bragging about Ben to all the other managers. We think he will go far in the company.He is the youngest terminal manager in Sinclair's history and was only working there for 6 months before becoming a manager! I am so proud of him, it has been a great blessing in our lives.

I think that is about all the big stuff. I will try and remember to take pictures of our duplex and post them and update the blog more often.