Monty B

He is such a cute kid! He already has so much personality!

He smiles with his tongue a lot!

 He is a major flirt with his eyes and eye brows! 

He raises his eye brows while smiling and talking to you haha

 He has the biggest smiles

 and the saddest unhappy faces!

 Within seconds he's happy again..

 flirting again....

and sad again..

We cant get enough of him that's for sure!

Our Beginnings in Montana

As for now, we are still kind of moving in. We have fixed a lot of little things that are making huge differences. Plus trying to unpack with kids is really hard, especially with Monty. It's just as hard as packing. We actually don't feel away from home up here. The town is really cute and we are meeting lots of neat people. Dawson loves seeing his name everywhere since we live in Dawson County. The high school puts up posters everywhere saying Dawson High School. It's an older town so the architecture is really old fashioned, but I love it. My favorite place so far is the post office. It reminds me of the movies. Dawson is signed up for baseball in the spring, and we are signing him up for gymnastics after he gets feeling better.

We all did catch this cold going around. Monty has pneumonia again, but we caught it super fast so it didn't have a chance to get bad. The chest x-ray barely looked foggy on the left side. I took him in because I was concerned about a possible hernia in his belly button. It turns out it's a small umbilical hernia that could fix itself and just needs to be watched for now. His 'clogged tear duct' that we thought he'd had since he was 2 weeks old is actually an infection. Also, his cold was turning into pneumonia. SO, we got all of it taken care of and hopefully he will be feeling so much better in a couple of days. He weighs 13 lbs, but as far as percentile for that or his height... I will find that out March 26th. Dawson is getting over his cold as well. We can't wait to all be feeling better soon.

 Dawson adores his little brother and Monty can't stop smiling when Dawson is around. Dawson is such a big helper and baby sits for me while I try and get things done. Monty B just laughs and smiles until it hurts.

It's pretty cold outside, so Dawson and Carson play inside together. They play so many games and I love hearing them giggle while they play.

 It got up to 40 degrees outside so we went to the park. It was pretty muddy because of all the snow and ice melting, but the boys still had fun!

 Here's little MK! She loves the baby and gets so excited to see Monty. I try to get her to say Jenny but she just responds, "dawson!" It's hilarious! We've been working on it for 2 weeks now and I think she's learned that it's funnier to say Dawson when I ask her to say Jenny, so she just does it to get a smile out of us.

 The best morning we've had is when Dawson came in begging to drink this....lime juice concentrate. I assured him it was sour and not to be drank. However he insisted and said that the TV showed a picture of it and said it was candy. Soooo I let him drink it.

 
Not exactly what he thought ...lol
It continues to be very eventful as life continues up here.

The Big Move and Drive

Sunday night we spent time cleaning up and packing the last and final things. We said goodbye to everyone which was really sad. Here's Jetta, Brant, Tilden, and Dawson one final time together before we move. I'm sure we will get lots of pics of them together again when we come visit.

We stayed the night in a hotel in Orem and J.D. left the next morning. I drove with Jori and the kids so we could take our time getting there. Jori also needed to visit Carson's grandparents in Orem. Carson's grandma made me a potato bag and the gave Jori all sorts of things she had sewn. The boys had a blast playing with the toys and dressing up. :-)

We didn't end up leaving until late that afternoon, but we made it all the way to Lander Wyoming. We let MK take a bath in the sink while the boys overtook the bathtub. She's so cute!

We took the kids swimming and we got up super early so we could make it to Glendive. We had a pretty awesome road trip after that. Jori turned on some indian 'hi'yie'yie' music as we passed through Shoshone country. The boys were banging drums and Jori was pumping her fist in the air. We passed signs that said, "Watch out for sage hen crossing" and then "Watch out for Kows crossing" (yes spelled with a K), and then we passed a sign saying, "Antelope crossing 55 mph." My sister Jori was a little confused by this sign and asked, "Why do antelope cross at 55 mph? Do they know it's a road and they don't cross any slower or faster?......................." I just laughed my head off! 

We passed a town called Meteetsee....

 

 We had a perverted laugh about this town and it's name. :-)

AND THEN we made it to Montana!

 Jori pulled off the side of the road so I could get a picture. We still had a 5 hour drive, but we were only getting closer to Glendive. We had to stop quite a bit to feed Monty, but we finally made it about 8:30 pm and the boys had already started unloading the trailer. My brother Matt had to load cows in the morning so we had to unload his trailer in -12 degree weather that night. It was freezing, but we got it done fast. 

We stayed at Jori's for the next 4 nights until our place was ready to move into. We had to get the water turned on, set up utilities, paint, and set up a bed to sleep on.
All in all, we made it!

Monty B's Baby Blessing

Monty had a beautiful baby blessing with so many amazing people to help bless and support him. It was truly spiritual and heartfelt by so many. 

This is Dawson and Monty the morning of his blessing. He was blessed in our ward in Orem the day before we moved. Dawson is so proud to be Monty's big brother and loves making him smile. 

 I didn't get any pics of just Monty in his outfit :-( but here it is. It took me a little while find the right one, but when I saw it I knew it was for Monty B. He looked SO handsome in his outfit!

 Here are the shoes that we barely got on his feet. I had originally bought a bigger size, but my mom said that they'd be too big. Well, to our suprise, Monty B is not small and his toes were to the end of these shoes.

Here is our little family right after the blessing. 

I remember J.D. talking about the atonement during his blessing and how Monty would truly come to know his Heavenly Father. The priesthood holders who helped bless him were: J.D., Grandpa Stevens (Bryant is Monty's name sake), Uncle Lucas, Uncle Chet, Uncle Choc, Doug Peterson, Jeff Roundy, & Jefferson Coats. We filled up just about 3 rows in sacrament with all the people that came to support him.

Afterwards we fed everyone ham, funeral potatoes, salads, rolls, and cookies. Thank you to everyone who helped bring food. It was delicious and we are so grateful. It was kind of a goodbye party as well because we were moving. I shed only a few tears, and I fought all the rest. I cried later, but I didn't want to cry in front of everyone. It was hard to leave friends and family that we've grown so close to, but we were excited for this new chapter in our lives. 

J.D.'s 2 Weeks Away

J.D. stayed with my sister Jori and her family for the 2 weeks. During that time he got to know Mckynlee (MK) and Carson. MK did NOT take to J.D. at all, but after a week she'd actually go sit on his lap and learned how cool her Uncle J.D. really is. 

Here is her first time sitting on his lap :-)

 

J.D. took lots of pictures to help me and Dawson learn what he was doing for work. This is the machine he runs and works around. They pull out 2 miles of pipe and do routine maintenance as well as other things. 

He actually doesn't mind his job and loves who he works with since 3 of the guys are LDS. It makes for a nice day at work. He has already offered to baptize people which doesn't suprise me at all. He's going to convert everyone up here because he's such a likable guy. lol!

My 6 Week Check up

I did have my 6 week check up while J.D. was gone as well and YES Monty got to wear his scrubs again! They fit him a little better this time.

 He looks so handsome! The doctors and nurses couldn't get enough of his scrubs.

This is the doctor that delivered Monty B.

 Dr. Bennet and Monty B

She was seriously the coolest doctor I've ever met, and was the perfect doctor for us. We loved her! 

At my 6 week check up she found that my thyroid was extremely swollen. After discussing it, we decided it was hyperactive and she ordered some blood work. After leaving there, I read up on the signs of hyperactivity ... overly tired, shakiness, losing weight (which I can't complain there), and a loss of appetite are just some. These are the signs that I had told J.D. about, but blamed the pregnancy recovery on it. J.D. would constantly say how shaky I was, and I would reply it was because I was so tired. I lost all my pregnancy weight and some in the 6 weeks. I don't mind that at all! 

The blood work came back showing that it was super hyperactive. So the doctor referred me to an endocrinologist. It is common for the thyroid to act up after pregnancy, but my levels were a little to high regardless. I went to the endocrinologist and he did an ultrasound. He removed fluid that was causing my thryoid to bulge out, and he also took samples some nodules that were on both sides of my thyroid. He sent them in to make sure they were not cancerous. So for the next 2 weeks we had to wait for an answer about whether or not I had cancer. It was pretty scary to even think of the word, but my niece Sari really calmed my fears. She has to have her thyroid removed and so she knows a lot about thyroids and cancer. She said if I have cancer, then that's the kind you want because you can just remove the thyroid with no problems. Then the weekend we blessed Monty J.D. gave me a blesssing with his dad. It was so amazing and we didn't fear the outcome at all. At the end of the 2 weeks it turned out to be okay and I didn't have cancer after all. Thank goodness! I'm so grateful for everyone who prayed for me and for the priesthood. 

Now, I just have to have the fluid removed every 2-3 months and if the fluid comes back after it being removed a couple of times, they will inject alcohol into the space and it will keep the fluid from coming back. However, that's worst case scenerio. I will get my levels tested again to make sure they are down and there isn't any hyperactivity, but until then I'm eating lots of greens, not drinking pop and getting back to exercising to help.

Our 2 weeks without J.D.

After J.D. left I started packing up the house and figuring out all the moving details and Monty's baby blessing. We also wanted to see everyone in the family before moving. We got to see Auntie Amy and her kids (their first time seeing Monty). Some of her kids were sick, so they didn't get to hold Monty... but Auntie Amy did

We managed to get some facials of Monty...

the wink smile...

 the side smirk smile

 and the open mouth smile!

We had so much fun bonding with my sister's family. We then went down to Holden because the kids were sick and J.D.'s mom was able to help me so I could get some rest and just relax a little from packing. We went to Brant's 9th birthday party at the Fillmore swimming pool. Probably not the wisest thing since Dawson had a cold, but we did. :-) It was a swimming party which meant I HAD to swim with Dawson since J.D. wouldn't be there. This is because Dawson always manages to swallow water and have to throw up, or have a close to drowning experience EVERY time we go swimming. It never fails. However, J.D. has always been there when we've gone swimming and he reacts faster than me, therefore he saves the day every time. 

I handed Monty off to Grandma Stevens and got in the pool. I love that it was indoors because then the water wasn't cold. Dawson had ran off ahead of me and was swimming with just a little tube in the 12 foot diving board area..... ya... red flag #1. I rushed down there and just watched his every move. As predicted ... another near drowning experience happened. All of the older kids were doing flips off the diving board while Dawson was just jumping in. I helped one kid swim to the side of the pool because he wasn't a very good swimmer and started freaking out. Then Dawson got brave and went off doing a front flip! As he did, the tube slipped right off of him, and Dawson pretty much did a back flop (opposite of a belly flop....)lol! My heart leaped from my chest and I bolted towards him. I started counting the minute he went under until I saw him come up. As he came up, just kept kicking keeping his head barely above water until I got to him. I pulled him to his tube, and we got tot he side of the pool with ease. Dawson's only reply was, "Mom I'm not trained to do flips yet. Maybe I shouldn't do them." All I could do was laugh because the after shock of what had happened. Dawson got out of the pool and as I watched him walk to the other end I could see his back beat RED from his little trick! lol! 

We went back to the house afterwards and I had enough time to get a pic of Jetta and Monty before Jetta's mom came to get her. 

We then took my niece Sari back up to Orem with us so she could hold Monty while I finished packing. It's nearly impossible to pack and have a baby to take care of. Dawson was easy because he could go to preschool, Taylee's or a friends..... Monty on the other hand just didn't want to be let go of. He wanted to be held 24/7 and so I conned my oldest niece to come help me. 

 On the way up, Dawson kept saying how bored he was. Obviously I couldnt help him whil driving. After an hour I realized I hadnt heard Dawson and assumed he was sleeping... but actually he was reading the truck manual!

lol! He was really into it too! It reminded me of something J.D would do. He's more like J.D. than I realized I guess. :-) I guess it's a good thing he's reading about the truck since it will probably be his one day. 

We made it home safely and had 4 days until J.D. would get there, 5 days until we loaded the truck, 6 days until we blessed Monty, and 7 days until me and the kids headed up to Montana. 

So I had to get crackin' on the packin'!
While packing we still had fun taking pics though....
like how Monty has a perma-fohawk!

Dawson is a little too small for these, unless he wants to be bundled for the cold weather,
then these work perfectly

 Not only did Sari help with Monty, but Dawson wanted to help too. However Dawson wanted a pic of him and Monty every time he held him.

 And then there was down time where we just laid on the bed and talked or cuddled.
These are some of my favorite moments.

 We love dressing Monty up! Especially as he grows and there are new outfits to put on him!

 We really had a lot of fun and we did get everything packed between feedings, cooking, cleaning, running errands, or just giving attention. :-)

New Job for J.D.

For awhile now J.D. has been applying for jobs and nothing seemed to be working out. We just kept applying and applying, and we never got one response. It was kind of disheartening, but we stayed strong, kept praying, and we got by. One day I told J.D. that he should just apply for an oil field job with our brother in law Danny. The company he worked for was hiring and we at least had an 'in' with Danny being able to push for J.D. to get the job. At first J.D. was skeptical because he thought I didn't understand how different our lifestyle would be, how much it would change, living in Montana away from family, and he didn't want to work in the oil fields the rest of his life. For me, I had decided in my mind that I needed to be open to all of that and who knows....maybe we wouldn't get it. I understood the changes, but I explained to J.D. that maybe not getting all those jobs we'd applied for was telling us to open our horizons and look a little further. Maybe the Lord needed us someplace else. AND anything can be temporary. We wouldn't have to settle, but we could move up. 

One weekend we went to St. George and my dad talked to J.D. about getting his foot in the door and moving up. Maybe the 'foot in the door' job wouldn't be the lifetime career we wanted, but it would get people to see J.D. and how much he had to offer. 

SO, we applied. The job starts as a hand crewman with a crew out of Glendive, MT. It involves doing maintenance on the oil rigs. It offers so many wonderful benefits and pays really well. We didn't put any effort into this application and just answered the questions. We spent the least amount on this application and making it look fancy than we did on any other application. Literally 1 week later J.D. got a call asking him to start work that next Monday (5 days away because it was Wednesday). He said "you bet!" We spent the next moments analyzing everything, but we felt really calm about the decision. 

The plan: J.D. move up and live with my sister Jori for 2 weeks, J.D. come back for the weekend to load the truck and bless Monty, then all of us move up. It's amazing how everything worked out. My brother Matt has cow loads all the time out of Glendive and he had his HUGE cow trailer that we could use to move. It's a blessing because we didn't have any money to move, so Matt getting a load out of Glendive meant we didn't have to pay for a truck to move things. The head crewman on this crew J.D. would be on offered for us to rent from him as long as we did work on the place. With this he lowered the rent and offered February free. Another blessing counted. Also, it turned out that the crew J.D. would be on was all LDS except 1 guy. Another blessing. 

We spend the next few days telling family, and having a lot of fun. We went to Parker's wrestling match in Juab where he took FIRST place! It was region wrestling, so we were pretty proud of Uncle Parker.

 Three months prior I had scheduled to get my wisdom teeth out that weekend. My mom had already planned on coming up to help with the kids in case J.D. would be gone. I was totally awake and it only took maybe 1 minute to pull them out. I only had 3 too! :-) I was pretty sick, but after realizing it was the medicine making me sick, I stuck with Tylenol and was totally fine. I was so grateful to have my mom there helping with Monty and Dawson. Plus we got to spend some one on one time with her before moving. On Saturday, (the day after getting my wisdom teeth out) we went bowling at Fat Cats. It was SOOO much fun! It was a perfect last day with J.D. before he left for 2 weeks. 

 Dawson was having the time of his life! We ate Costa Vida and bowled while we ate. Here's Grammy and Dawson! So cute!

 

Dawson was pretty amazing at bowling! It got pretty intense once the black lights came on!

 We did make it to Holden a couple weeks prior to let Great Grandma Marjorie see Monty for the first time. I'm so grateful she got to see him before we moved.

 We also made it over to Chet and Bobi Sue's earlier that week. Dawson and Taylee apparently were pretending to be racoons with Chet's skins..... pretty scary!

 J.D. left Sunday morning at 5 am to make the trek to Glendive Montana. It was the start of 2 long weeks without him. However, it turned out to be perfect to have J.D. go first and get things figured out for us before we all came.