Sweetie Pie Walter

So last week was a pretty hard one, for reasons stated in other posts. Walter was such a good boy! There was one moment specifically where I was in a lot of pain and needed a drink. So I thought, "what the heck, just try to see if Walter can help." So I hollered to the other room, "Walter, mommy needs your help, can you come help me?" There was a pause as he put his toy car down and then he responded, "okay mommy, I'm coming." I was so shocked at that response, up until that point Walter had been a boy of very few words and they were normally, "no", "mine", "baba" (even though we worked constantly on other words and sentences). I'll admit my heart was filled with so much gratitude that all of my hard work to teach him things was finally coming to fruition. I heard his little feet running into the room I was in. Then I asked him to go in another room and get me my water bottle. And again I was shocked when he said okay and ran and opened the fridge and brought it back to me.

Walter is such a sweet boy! He has his good days and his bad days but at the end of every day, after "tickling" his teeth (brushing his teeth) and saying prayers, he runs to his mommy and daddy and gives big hugs and kisses (and he will say "huuuuugs....Kiss, kiss?") No matter how tough of a day it has been he will always be so happy and loving.

Another thing we have worked on is getting him to tap us on the shoulder and say "excuse me" when he needs our attention. At first I thought it would not work but now everyday he will come up to me multiple times tap me on my shoulder and say "cuse me".....I know that I may be the only one who actually understands much of what he says but it makes me so proud to see how much he is trying to communicate...it's those small things that soften my heart and fill it with an amazing amount of love that I would not have imagined possible. It is amazing to feel that multiple times in a day. I am so grateful that I have been blessed with this sweet spirit in our home.

I was inspired to write this post because this morning he asked for a drink of milk and I gave it to him but he kept saying "thank you" thank you thank you.....(sometimes he just repeats the same thing over and over so I thought it was one of those things) but then he tapped my shoulder and with a big sweet grin on his face he said "cuse me, mommy, thank you!" I looked at his loving countenance and said "you're welcome" and it just made his grin even bigger. If you ever wondered the effect that your attention and words can have on another person this is just one huge example of why we need to give constant nourishment of loving words and actions. Walter was a huge lifesaver when I was physically in so much pain. He is growing up so quickly I miss having my baby boy but at the same time I am loving this independent spirit who just wants to be happy and make others around him happy. Sometimes he'll run around the house saying "appy, appy, appy" now whether he is trying to actually state his feelings or if he is just trying to sing happy birthday, i'm not sure, but it makes me happy to see such small things make this boy happy. I don't have to spend a lot of money to get his love he just wants my attention and love.

On a Happier Note

The beginning of the year is always a super busy time for the Sainsbury family. This year has been especially busy because Seth has been taking his CPA tests.  February: We celebrate Seth's birthday, Valentines day, then Walter's birthday within 7 days. CARAZAY! For Seth's birthday I really wanted to do something special and different. We haven't really gone out to eat since we moved to LA because of my pregnancy cravings and I have been pretty sensitive to smells. I had a great friend offer to watch Walter while we went out. I had reservations and had planned out everything (or so I thought) We pull up to the restaurant and I realize everyone else in LA goes out to eat. They offered a valet service but it cost half of one of our meals (and we are not the wealthiest people in LA). So we drive around for ten minutes looking for parking in the area, due to my pregnancy. Luckily for us, neither of us were starving, or we would have been miserable. Seth's co-workers were amazing and took him out for a big lunch so he was very forgiving and willing to go anywhere for his birthday. So we head to the next best option, ICECREAM! Which wasn't a local option for us so we did frozen yogurt at Pinkberry which was just as close. Here is the birthday boy....

After Seth's birthday comes Valentines day! Right now I cannot remember what we did, must be pregnancy brain. But we certainly love each other!

Then came Walter's birthday. We were lucky to have family in town for Walter's birthday. The Lewis's were out here for a vacation so we were able to put all of our boys and Kathryn together for a birthday celebration. Seth had work off for the holiday so he was able to join us all day! YAY. We decided to go to the beach! What an awesome idea....in February. As you can tell from the pictures it was cold; hence, no one on the beach.

But it wouldn't be a true beach visit if Walter did not get into the water. Which again even in freezing water he did not want to come out. Once he was out he was happy to snuggle next to his mommy and daddy for extra body heat and maybe some snacks. 

 Later that week Walter and I went to Disneyland with the Lewis' and we finally got the chance to get a picture with mickey mouse...And well Walter freaked out! He wanted nothing to do with this giant mouse. So after waiting in line for 30 minutes he was willing to give mickey a high five.  Here we are at Mary and Jared's house, everyone together! man that is a lot of boys! And why is Walter crying for his birthday celebration....the little hat on his head had an elastic strap that shot up into his eyes right before taking this picture.

Later in the month we all went to visit the Hollywood sign (we figured that since we have lived here for almost a year we had better visit).  These pictures are from a lookout point where you can see the Ocean, downtown LA, and the Hollywood sign in one turn. 

My handsome boys and the skyline of downtown LA

Here I am...pregnant...luckily I only had to climb 30 stairs to get to this view, otherwise I might have stayed in the car. 

This month Seth finished his final test of the CPA and boy it has been so nice to have a husband that can be home when he his home. It was especially great because that was right around the time i started needing physical help getting anywhere. My birthday week was a lot more enjoyable because he could take care of me. As for my birthday, Seth bought me a Kindle cover (which is perfect because I am kind of a clutz) and a cuisinart griddler, which I am LOVING! It is a griddle, pannini press, and grill all in one. Another birthday request was that we have a steak dinner. We ended up buying some steaks and had a weekend of steak dinner....which makes me so happy. 

Sunday: Nice big cuts of steak and corn

 Monday: Shish kabab YUM!

 No birthday would be complete without a birthday cake.

Seth hadn't been feeling to great so he relaxed at home while I went out for some frozen yogurt with some awesome friends! 

I had a wonderful and relaxing day, and physically I was doing really great. I had not felt so great in a while it was truly a birthday miracle! 

Pregnancy

Hallelujah! Today marks the first day in a week that I have been able to get in and out of bed in less than 2 minutes. YES, I mean literally climbing into bed. Pregnancy is such a blessing, I realize how lucky I am to even have the physical capability to grow another human being! I know that there are a lot of people who have had it worse than I, but man I never realized how painful pregnancy could be. I guess in a sense you could relate my two pregnancy experiences to those that are depicted in the movie 'What to expect when you are expecting.' I realize now that my first pregnancy was very similar to Mrs. Cooper who basically sneezed her children out. This second pregnancy......is more like the other Mrs. Cooper.

 This clip is a bit graphic but I cried when I watched it because I was relating to almost everything she was saying, and it was miserable.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuoC2bwB9Do

 Well I guess I should say I cried through the whole movie, but that was not because of my physical pain but rather the emotional roller coaster I am on. I can only pray that I can continue to be able to move my body. Only a 104 days left till I get to hold this little guy!

Crafty?

So I know a lot of people in Utah and the East have been trapped inside due to cold weather these last few weeks....here in sunny california Walter and I have been trapped inside due to the heat (and no car, but that is really inconsequential right?) So I have tried my hand at decorating our apartment, cooking new things, and doing a few crafts.

So we have slowly put our apartment together the last couple of weeks it still isn't finished but who knew it would take so long to decorate a small apartment. We do not have a truck so we have been making multiple trips to ikea to purchase different pieces for our home. Having a small car has really helped us stay in budget and be really conscientious of where we are putting things.

As far as food goes, I am not the best cook and I feel like seth makes dinner a lot which consists of curry, and curry, and curry but we love it. So recently I have tried my hand at apple pie and it is my most proud cooking moment. I took a bite and exclaimed: "This doesn't taste bad! it actually tastes amazing!"

Now for those of you who are thinking "well of course you are going to think your food is awesome" Seth took a bite and he said the same thing. We then went to a friends house and shared our pie with them...they loved it too. So now I have a renewed determination to keep cooking......or to at least keep cooking apple pie. I made another one last night and it was equally delicious. And yes I made everything from scratch. *applause

As far as crafts go I have had four big boxes from the crib we just purchased for Walter and from two thirty pound mirrors. I hoarded them, I know. but I finally did something with them. I wanted a place for Walter to play because he often takes his toys and spreads them all of the apartment. my thought was that if I could centralize his toy play area we would have less of a mess. 

What to make? I needed something masculine and yet easy to make out of a square box.....castle it is!

So I went to Michaels and spent about two dollars in craft paint and a brush.  My biggest fear with crafting is spending a lot of money to make something that doesn't look that great when you could spend just a little bit more and get a good solid product. So 2 dollars was all I was willing to spend for this first one.

I started early in the morning and finished in the afternoon. It was a lot more time intensive than I thought but that was mostly due to Walter climbing on the boxes and getting into the paint. So this is definitely a nap time project or a project to do with older kids. I did have walter help me paint in areas that didn't really matter but that was kind of a big mistake because when I told him it was mommies turn he went and grabbed a pencil and drew on the front that I had just finished, doh!  Here are the pictures from beginning to end. 

 I didn't measure or anything so that is why it isn't perfect but remember I am not the craftiest. After painting two coats of white paint on my two parts of the castle (this took like two and half small bottles of white craft paint which were like 65 cents at michaels) I grabbed a dry erase marker and started working on the decorative elements.

 After I finished all of the drawing I grabbed some black paint, also 65 cents, and started to do some shading so you can see the box on the right is shaded and the other is not. I did this because I didn't know that I would like the shading but in the end i decided to do the whole castle with shading because it looked cool.

 And here is the finished product! I haven't done anything to keep the two pieces together other than wedging one box corner into the other. That has worked so far,  but I may eventually find a more permanent way to keep them together.

 Overall this was worth the 2 dollars and the couple of hours it took. Especially because Walter really loved helping work on the castle I just wish I could have thought of more kid friendly things to ask him to do on the castle. Walter is still a little too young to appreciate the awesomeness of the castle, and he doesn't quite use it as a toy play area; but, we can hope that eventually he will use it as I had originally planned. There was a website that I used for inspiration of this project but I cannot find it right now..i'll post it when I find it.

The third most happiest place on earth-Disneyland!

Well the long awaited post is finally here! DISNEYLAND! We love disneyland so much that almost every weekend we have been here we have made the trip down. Now it is quite a drive for us, sometimes I have wanted to turn around and just go home but once we get there I never regret it. It is such a happy place. The atmosphere is so unique and we love that we can go slowly and we certainly need to with Walter in tow. Walter doesn't quite appreciate the rides just yet. I guess appreciate is an understatement, he is afraid of a few rides....especially dumbo. poor baby. we are pretty proud of ourselves when we can go on 4 rides in about four hours. It sounds terrible but it really isn't. Would you believe we haven't even gone on all the rides yet?

Here are a few pictures of our disneyland adventures:
Walter's first time to Disneyland and first ride in Cars land

 The scenery is just amazing...this is actually a roller coaster ride we have yet to go on because of the height limit

 Walter's favorite ride is not a ride at all but a 3D show. I think it is pretty fun too :)

 How can you go to cars land and not want to try the food at these exciting looking restaurants

 patiently waiting in line...sort of, he likes to run up and down lines and grab onto the chain and shake it really hard

 The teacup ride, im pretty sure walter hates this ride

 On our way out of the park and the firework show was going on...Walter thought it was too loud

 Would you be super shocked if I told you he hated the carousel? well he did..even though he had an awesome seahorse

 Dumbo. I actually like this kind of ride even though it just goes around in a circle it is nice to be in control of the ride to a certain extent

 Muppets again!

We have been a few times and did not take the camera out. We Disneyland has been so fun for us. Especially since I had never really been other than our honeymoon. So I am always excited to go back. We have been so blessed that we have the benefit of working for a place that makes our family super happy. 

Busy busy.......having fun!

June, July, and August were so busy. Life flew by, but so many things happened! To begin we drove out to California in hopes of finding an apartment the last week of June. We found one- and what a blessing it was!

We did take a break and go to the beach with the kenneys to roast smores so fun!

 At the end of the week we drove up to Northern California for a Call family reunion. My family is so funny, I really enjoyed spending time with them one last time before we officially moved.

We hung out at the Kenney family ranch. It was so nice to sit and relax there were so many things to do just on the ranch. There were four wheelers, shooting range, basketball hoop, a pond to swim in, lots of space to hike/walk, and last but not least the pinball machine in the garage. 

here are a few pictures from that week

 this is us at Burney Falls. ...just in case you were wondering that water was like 40 degrees, only crazy people would jump in it.....

 So of course I had to try... (but I only tried after Jared jumped in and then swam around for a while) I guess I thought it was going to be warmer.

 It definitely was not warm....but once in a lifetime experience, unless you do it again. Which is exactly what i did after encouraging my nephews Carter and Jackson to jump in.

 I tried to get Seth to jump in and he said he would do it if I did it with him. So I jumped...he did not. but dont worry after seeing what I went through TWICE he knew he had to do it.

Mission accomplished! We are more awesome because we jumped in freezing water

Another day we hiked around Lassen National Volcanic Park. It was so beautiful! 

 We went on a three mile hike up Bumpass Hell and it was well....smelly. It was at least a couple miles of bubbling sulfur pots. Stinky by pretty cool.

The weirdest part of this hike was that it was so hot but there was snow on the trail leading up to the stinky sulfur pot. It was great for two reasons: first, it gave you something to cool down with. second, it kept the younger kids busy and not too bored.

Later that night we went shooting. This was my first time in my whole life shooting a gun! I shot a bb gun, a 22, a shotgun, and a revolver?

 My nephew Nick shootin' it up!

 Yes I shot at a broken laptop and I hit it every time!

 Seth took a shot at it with the shotgun

 Here are a few of my family members. The little kids were given a chance to pull the clay pigeon machine.

The next day we went on another hike to a cave! I didn't want to go at first because Mary told us horror stories about bats, luckily, there were not any. Walter loves his cousins

 Taking pictures in the cave

can you say photobomb...TWICE  and not only that Walters forehead barely made it in the pictures

Most days there was always someone out in the lake/pond thing. It was nice to have a place to cool off.

We even got my DAD into a canoe on the lake. Granted, he and I almost capsized at the very beginning but with a pro like my dad we had nothing but smooth sailing from there on.

Another great thing about the reunion was doing nightly activities. We had watermelon carving, a Chopped dessert competition, guess who family game, a backyard Olympic challenge, and arm wrestling competition!

Arm wrestling is not just for kids!!!

 Jon looks really interested in the outcome of this match. haha

 Brady and Jared sat in this exact position for a very very long time

 It was fierce competition....Pat is like the strongest person I know, so the fact that Seth beat him was really shocking to me. ... and I think to Seth too.

So Seth took first in the mens category, ana got first in womens (big surprise there) and I think carter got first in the kids, luckily no one got hurt :)

Well that pretty much sums it up...other than it was THE BEST CALL FAMILY REUNION EVER! I guess I did forget to mention that it was our first reunion but whatev, it was pretty awesome! 

That Saturday morning we left around five am so that we could make it back to Utah for a play Seth had been really wanting to see and then to finish up packing for our trip back to California two days later. We made it to Utah and headed to the play Guys and Dolls with Seth's parents at the Orem Hale Center Theater. It was really well done and so fun to watch! 

Monday we get our moving truck and pack up our stuff at the Calls and then the Sainsbury's. And we were off to Vegas around three pm....Seth drove the moving van and I rode with my side kick walter. I technically left about an hour and a half earlier than Seth but he got to the hotel first. We probably made like four stops ...poor Walter he hates the car. Now he even cries if we are in the car for thirty minutes. 

Our hotel in vegas was awesome I really wish we could have got there sooner so that we could have had more exploring time. I had only ever driven through vegas. 

Around 8 the next morning we headed for our final destination! We got there around noon and while I drove to drop off Walter at Mary's so that I could help unload. Seth just drove straight to our apartment. I think Monday night Seth got a hold of a counselor in the bishopric of our ward and asked for some help. Because it was such late notice we didn't think anyone would be able to come. I pulled up to our new apartment and there were 4 or 5 guys there helping unload. What a blessing! It was super duper hot and our apartment was the farthest from the front door! Not only that but we have a lot of heavy stuff! But with all of that help we were able to get all of our stuff in our apartment within an hour. 

A couple hours later we drove down to join the Kenneys for dinner. Geesh did i mention what a life saver they had been this entire experience. After dinner I wasn't feeling too well, I thought that maybe I had over eaten. So we left around 8 and get Walter into bed. Around three a.m. I was in so much pain that I knew something had to be done. So we took a trip to the ER. it was not fun. but the pain medication helped a ton! They told me I had Colitis. Which I had never heard of before, nor do I want to hear about for the rest of my life. Thousands of dollars later we left the hospital and I came home,  Did I mention that this was our Very First Day moving to California? haha. I laugh because I don't want to cry. So I slept and slept and took medicine for the first two days. I started functioning later that week and was slowly able to unpack our apartment. What a great intro to Cali huh? (well if you read my last post about the DMV you know that the first move experience wasn't great). but along the way there were so many miracles. And I am grateful that our experience was not WORSE. We are finally moved in and I am feeling awesome and enjoying the weather. ....but more so I'm enjoying being close to some family and DISNEYLAND.......to be continued.