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Ok, obviously I am having a little trouble making the picture fit that I am using as my background on top. Anyone know how to fix that?
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Highlights

All right, it has been a while. But in my defense, my camera broke on Christmas Eve, so of course I turned to my phone as a backup, but then, thanks to Verizon, I lost all the pictures on my phone! Grrrr. So I got a new camera, like a responsible mom and now I can catch up on the last...five months or so.

Christmas was great! I went to my mom's in Colorado and stayed three weeks, just because I could. It was the first time (and possibly the last) that I didn't have work and/or school to get back to.

Now it's March and Teague is 5.5 months old. He is such a little sweetie. Not much of a sleeper, but he has a happy, mellow personality to make up for it.

Brecken is completely potty-trained and I could not be more proud! He's enjoying preschool & doing great.

Also, side note: I have decided to make my blog private, so if you're interested in my (very) occasional post, send me your email address and I'll add you to the list.

Baby Teague Finally Arrives!

 A mere EIGHT days late, Teague finally decided to make his entrance into this world on Sunday, Sept. 19th. My water sort of broke around 8:00 am on Sunday morning, but no contractions...what? So after a couple hours, we went to the hospital where we spent another few hours hanging out. Literally: I walked laps around the hospital, took a little nap, had some visitors...nothing was happening. It was very strange because it was so unlike my labor w/ Brecken. At 4:00 my midwife decided to check me out and she consequently fully broke my water (did you know there are 2 layers to the amniotic sac?). That definitely got the ball rolling. The contractions were legit, but manageable for the first hour and a half and then we got really serious. When he was ready, he was definitely ready. When I thought I couldn't take it anymore, I asked for an epidural, but by then his head was coming out and it was, indeed, time to push. Teague was born at 7:04. So to recap, that was 8 hours of nothing really, and 3 hours of labor/pushing. I have to say, the recovery was SO much easier without an epidural and I felt a lot better quickly after his birth.

 Here's our little angel. He looks a lot like Brecken, not so much like Tim or I. Stats: Teague Garten Jones weighed in at 8 lbs, 3 oz and 20 inches long. The midwife commented on his rather long hands & feet and suggested that the reason he was so comfortable inside was his super thick umbilical cord. Why rush out when he was so well-nourished?

Two days in the hospital due to Group B Strep, but we had excellent nurses (Miryam!). A week and a half later, Teague has already surpassed his birth weight. What a champ!

2 Weeks to Go

Tim & I finished off the month of July by going to see Weezer at the Mid-State Fair. They were fantastic, as always.

Which brings us current to today. I have (roughly) 2 weeks to go until this little man makes his appearance. I am seriously huge, but carry it all in my stomach, which makes it so that (as my mother-in-law pointed out) my stomach actually precedes me into a room. It's like it is its own entity. I'm surprised there aren't moons circling it or something. But as uncomfortable as it is, I am in no rush to get him out. I'm glad to have a couple weeks to get myself and my house ready, plus really focus on Brecken. So my next post will probably be in a couple months and be all about the new baby. Yeah!!

Vegas, Baby!

To celebrate my very pure and wholesome sister's 21st birthday, we decided to take a little girl's trip to Vegas, of course. Are we trying to corrupt the one genuinely good girl in our family? Apparently. But it was her choice, she'd been dreaming of it for years.

We had a great time, seeing the sights, working on our tans at the pool, going to some shows, and, most of all, being together. I would have to say that being 7 months pregnant in Vegas makes it a different and not altogether more pleasant experience....

Master Disaster, as they say

In June, all my wildest dreams came true...sort of. I FINALLY graduated w/ my master's of science degree in Psychology. But, alas, it was an anticlimatic sort of event as I still had to finish out the summer quarter to be really done. On the plus side, I learned that a graduation gown is pretty much the only article of clothing that can camoflouge me being 6 months pregnant. I might also point out the yellow Honor cords I am sporting...

I also have to add that I was very unimpressed w/ how Cal Poly ran their graduation ceremony (that is, the smaller, program specific one). Tim & Brecken ended up missing the whole thing! Which, by the way, I am still mad about. Luckily, as I post this now (at the end of August), I am officially finished w/ grad school and so it is much easier to say that, in retrospect, all the time, energy and sacrifice was worth it.

Probably the best part of my graduation was that my mom and youngest sisters came. It was so fun to have them and so nice of them to make the trip all the way out here. I think they had an awesome vacation as they traveled up the coast and Brecken, Tim & I really enjoyed them.

I feel I have a lot of people to thank for helping me make it through these last couple years, which were so much harder than I ever would have imagined: Tim, of course, for being endlessley patient with me; Brecken, for being a resilient child; Julie, for helping me raise Brecken and being my go-to babysitter; Amy, for donating her summers to Brecken & I; and all my other babysitters (Sara, Melissa, Heather, Vanessa, etc.). Thank you so much!

Trip to Colorado

May was an emotional month: I lost the diamond out of my wedding ring, Brecken turned 3, and my sister graduated from high school. But saddest of all was that my Grandma passed away. This necessitated a trip to Colorado, which turned into a week-long affair in an attempt to make both the funeral and the graduation. I was thrilled that Tim was able to take time off work and come with us and even more excited that I got to see all my family at once (which hasn't happened in forever) and spend a week with them, even though it was for a sad reason.
Here's Brecken loving every second of the plane ride.

We managed to have quite a bit of fun on our trip and see some old friends. We visited the Denver Zoo w/ our good friends from college, Meg & Dan and their two children. We also got to eat at Cafe Rio (woo-hoo) and meet Lindsey & Robert for dinner.

And, of course, the happy part of our visit (and the LONGEST graduation ceremony I have ever seen in my life): Congratulations, Bre!

Seriously, the ceremony was over two hours, complete with fireworks and almost a full hour of musical numbers. Might I add that there were only 100 graduates in the class?