Muscle Definition

Our little....husky Monty is growing and growing and growing! We find out next week what how tall he actually is, but for now he seems like one healthy baby. He has little rolls all over. He isn't fat, it's more like stout and husky. :-) We like to refer to his rolls as muscle definition....

He is so much fun! He smiles so big and when he is sad, he pops out his bottom lip so far. His cry is so sweet and melts your heart. He never screams, he just whimpers if anything. Don't get me wrong, he does cry. It's just a sad little cry, nothing loud or frustrating.

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He has a little umbilical hernia that you can kind of see in this pic. It seems to be going away though. He likes his binky, but isn't attached to it yet. He loves to have space and lay on the floor. He will lay there, on his back, for an hour if we let him. He plays with this little play set thing and is starting to reach for the toys hanging. The toy has a mirror that faces him and Monty will just grin and grin at himself. He has started to giggle! It's so cute! He loves talking to you and never fails to make one smile. He likes to watch movies, or just sit up in your lap. He will sit with you forever! Just as long as he is sitting up and facing out.

He is sleeping pretty good. He will go 5 hours, and then every 3 hours after that. He is so different from Dawson. I can lay him down awake and he will fall asleep. He will probably start rolling over soon...he is getting so close! He scoots on the ground.... I don't think he knows what he is doing, but he will arch his back, push up with his arms, and his little feet flex, and then he pops his feet to a point and it scoots him forward. He will do this over and over again... but he is so little I'm pretty sure he is just doing tricks. lol

He loves his mom. He absolutely loves Dawson. He likes J.D., but in the end he always wants his mom. I don't mind it at all. I prefer it actually. He loves to be swaddled and knows it's bedtime when he gets swaddled.

He is a funny little eater, and EXTREMELY loud. I get embarrassed to talk to anyone on the phone while he is eating because the person on the other end of the line can always hear him. I am embarrassed to feed him in public because he is so loud! lol! It's hilarious! The positive side to that, is that he eats fast. He hates switching sides. When he pulls off one side and I bring him up to burp him, he will fuss and fuss and fuss. And then he burps LOUD, whimpers because it hurts to burp, and then finally gets to eat the other side. I think he'd rather eat all one side and finish, but it would make me lop sided and his burp would probably hurt worse.

The last update is he has started to teeth! His poor gums are so swollen and those teeth just go up and down. We can always tell when they are coming up again because he will get fussy, clear runny nose, lots of drooling, and he just pries on his hands with his mouth. He doesn't really run a fever which is nice. I hate teething and can only imagine the pain.

We love our our little husk. He is so much fun and we finally feel like he is just fitting into our schedule and lives. We love watching him learn and grow, especially because he is so happy about it.

A Kiss on the Head

A kiss on the head is more than what it is.

Last night I was turning off the lights, had just made Dawson a bed on the living room floor, and the conversation went like this:

Dawson: "Mom, Grandma gives me a kiss on the head so will you do what she does?"

Me: "You want a kiss on the head?"

Dawson: "Ya!"

I give him a kiss on the head with a smile: "Like that?"

Dawson: "Ya. That's what Grandma does because she's my bestest Grandma."

I gave him a kiss this morning on the head too. I told my mom what happened and she said that as a child, out of all her children (7), I was the only one who would always ask for a kiss on the head. She said that Dawson sounded like me when I was a child. :-) 

As I was pondering the moment and memory, I remembered my first date with J.D. I was reminded of how I didn't want to kiss him on the first date because I actually liked J.D. and wanted to date him more. I found out later that J.D.'s thoughts were: I'm not going to kiss her because I want to date her more. SO... as we walked back to the truck after the Utes game, J.D. pulled me in for a hug and kissed my forehead. It was so sweet.

 So, I loved kisses on the forehead as a child, J.D. kissed me on the forehead on our first date, and now my sweet sweet first born is asking for them. AND Dawson told me this morning that Monty likes kisses on the forehead too.

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!