5 months

-we stopped with the rice cereal, it seriously backed him up for about a week and a half and since then, he's been purely breastfed.  he'll poop a little bit every now and then but i'm afraid all that rice cereal will be coming back with a vengeance out of that cute butt.

i think we'll start on some veggies soon and i've heard that won't be too hard on him...i hope.

-he can now roll over from his tummy to his back, last time in this post he learned to roll over from his back to his tummy.

a lot of times though, he needs to be angry to roll over.

-he sucks his double thumb!  it's really freaky when he pulls em out and and out comes these 2 tiny slobbery fingers.  honestly i forget he has 2 thumbs.

(his thumb surgery is next wed, oct. 5th!  wahhhh i'm getting so nervous.)

-he now sleeps un-swaddled as of 2 nights ago.  i swore i'd swaddle him till he's like, 5, b/c of how beautifully he slept through the night.  but he was starting to bust out of his swaddler.  i was nervous that he'd wake up numerous times throughout the night.  brett convinced me that he'll be fine (as he always does) and i put him in those cuddly footie pajamas and voila!  he slept the exact amount as he usually does, which is about 10 hours.

-i would put him in the bumbo for a little bit then when i go to pick him up i say, "come on everton!" then he stretches his arms out for me to pick him up.  ok maybe he stretches his arms out like a plane and not necessarily out to me but he's still learnin and it's SO darlin!

a center for ants?!

{blue steel}

{magnum}

"I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to life

 than being really, really, ridiculously good

 looking. And I plan on finding out what

 that is."-zoolander

temple temple temple-GO!

i LOVE going to the temple, especially doing temple work.

brett and i went so many times when we were first married.

but i haven't been to the temple since i got pregnant and it was due to the usual pregger excuses, i.e. too big, too barfy and too fainty.

 now that the bun is out of the oven i REALLY wanted to go back to the temple.

it's been really hard though because everton is a breastfed baby and he is still really little and doesn't like to left with strangers right now.

but today we overcame all that.

we went to salt lake, i fed everton in a parking garage RIGHT before i went in, brett watched over everton, a session is about 2 hours, and i came out and fed everton RIGHT after.

as much as i would've loved to have gone in with brett it just felt SOO good going again.  going to the temple always puts me in a better mood and makes me feel like i'm doing a great service for someone.

as of right now i think brett and i will just take turns taking care of everton till he's a little bit bigger, is on formula, and can leave him with someone then i'll somewhat be a freer woman.

i do miss how close we were to a temple in rexburg (which is one of like, two things i miss about that place) but being about 40 mins away from the salt lake temple isn't that bad at all.

go to the temple often!

continue doing family history work!

DO IT ALYSSA!

9.11.01

it's been 10 years since the terrorist attack on the world trade center in NYC and the pentagon in D.C.

here's how wikipedia stated exactly what happened,

"the September 11 attacks were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks against targets in New York and Washington, D.C. on September 11, 2001. On that morning, 19 terrorists from the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger jets.  The hijackers intentionally crashed two planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City; both towers collapsed within two hours.  Hijackers crashed a third plane into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.  When passengers attempted to take control of the fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, it crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, preventing it from reaching its intended target in Washington, D.C. Nearly 3,000 died in the attacks."

i was 13 years old and i was living in leesburg , virginia, and was in 7th grade.  i remember i was in 2nd period on that tuesday morning.  there were all these rumors that some planes hit the two towers and my english teacher wouldn't let us watch what was going on on tv.  i remember being so angry at her because i really wanted to know what happened.  looking back on that moment i can understand why my english teacher didn't turn on the tv.  the teachers just didn't want us to be panicked.  but i remember sitting in class with anxiety.    i had no clue what else had been hit and i was worried about my dad who worked about a half hour from D.C.  but school had to carry on.  all of a sudden so many students were getting called to the office to be picked up by their parents.  as much as i wanted to get out of school i knew that if my name wasn't called, that would mean nothing has happened to a member of my family.  then i was sitting in my algebra class and the intercom in the classroom called my name.  i immediately started freaking out thinking of the worst.  i hurried and got my backpack from my locker and pretty much ran to the office.  my mom was standing there and i asked her if something happened to someone in our family.  turns out everyone was fine and my mom was just so scared something might happen to my sisters and i and she was picking us all up.  bless her heart.  she was also scared that one of the FAA (federal aviation administration)'s office, which was right in town, was going to be hit.we went home and just watched the news all day.  and random fact, that night on tv, the movie independence day with will smith was scheduled to play but they had showed mrs. doubtfire instead. pretty crazy huh?

turns out one of my classmates' father was on one of the planes that hit one of the towers.  i remember my heart breaking for him.  it was such an eye opener knowing that you never know what will happen and when you could lose your loved ones.  i always make sure to tell brett i love him and i make sure he always kiss me before he leaves anywhere.  when i get frustrated with everton when he gets really fussy i try to count my blessings and just give him extra hugs and kisses and tell him i love him.  i am so grateful to those who gave their lives on that fateful day.  i'm grateful to those who fight for our freedom constantly.  i feel so blessed to live in a country where people fight for what they believe in and sacrifice so much so that we don't have to live in fear.

my prayers go out to the families who have lost loved ones on september 11, 2001.

lemon blueberry cheescake cookies

say that five times fast.  say it!

i was in charge of making a refreshment for this month's relief society activity.

and i decided to take a HUGE risk and make something i've never made before.  

which is what i like to do but have had  a few disasters in the past.

so i proceeded this recipe with great caution.

here's the blog link with the recipe.

now this blogger has way more awesome pics than me.

but she didn't have this wide eyed baby in hers.

note to self: 

1) actually use lemon zest, it makes a difference!  (i thought i'd be just fine with the lemon juice the recipe calls for but lemon zest would have made the cookies taste more lemon-y.)

2)  don't keep the cream cheese at room temperature!  it would've made the process a lot less messy.

the cookies turned out pretty good with all things considered and i LOVED the burst of blueberries in your mouth and the surprise cream cheese center.

yup.

food beginnings

well it has happened.

the kid has progressed even more in his baby life.

we started him on rice cereal.

and i had brett feed him cuz for real, i've pretty much been doin all the feeding since he was born.

and here's the video of his VERY first slurp of that runny rice cereal.
if you look at his left hand you can catch that double thumb in action.

and he took it like a freaked out baby

see food?

new changes are exhausting.

ya snooze ya lose

and get a video takin of ya.