Dusting off the ol' blog

Wow.. I haven't blogged in over a YEAR! So, so much has happened in my life that I don't think I even want to attempt catching up but maybe I could just start from where I am now? 2015 has been a very transitional year for our family and it has also been the hardest year of my life... so far.  Even thinking about this past year makes me emotional. Maybe that's why I stopped blogging because it makes me think deeper and address feelings more than I want to. But I need to think deeply and I need to put my thoughts down somewhere.




I was reading back through my old posts and I miss that girl! I miss being carefree and driving home and visiting friends whenever I want or hanging out with my cousins ( I MISS my cousins) I miss my friends... (the ones that still talk to me anyway, ha ha). But I do hope with age that I have become a more mature person, more caring, more loving, more aware of others and their needs. One thing about this blog is that it really isn't just a family blog. I will definitely talk about my family more than anything else, but I need this space to write my thoughts out. We recently moved 2000 miles away from family and since I don't talk to other adults about anything besides my kids (oh yeah, I have two kids now!) I will just write everything here! It won't be grammatically correct or flow well but that's okay with me!




Anyway.. where to begin..




I think I will catch up on this past year a little bit. To start off the year, we had a son and his name is Benton Cory.. we love him so much. He is the sweetest little chubby pink thing. He is now 9 months old and he loves to crawl and cruise and get into all the cupboards.





Adalyn is 2.5 years old and is a fiercely wild and loving spirit. She is so sweet and she can also drive me to the edge of my sanity (literally). I didn't realize how busy and wild she truly is until we moved and have been around a lot of other little kids. She climbs on everything and we went over to our friends house and she had torn apart both of their kids bedrooms with in 10 minutes. Embarrassing. She really humbles me every single day. I really do love being around her though, she is very funny and sweet.




Cory graduated from BYU I and is now attending Eastman School of Music working towards his master's degree. He got a job at a Presbyterian church as their music director, and to tell the truth, it pretty much fell into his lap. We know we are supposed to be here in Rochester because several things like Cory's job have happened and things are working well here. 




That's not to say that it hasn't been hard. The transition from seeing family all the time and being so comfortable to moving so far away and being uncomfortable a lot of the time is very hard.  All the sudden I am with my kids all.day.long. with no breaks pretty much ever.  I was called to work in the nursery at church so I literally have Addie pretty much all the time! I love my kids but I also thoroughly enjoy my time away from them. I don't know if other mom's here feel that way (I'm sure they do) but I need to get a girls night going or something.  Anyway,  we are being bent, stretched, molded, melted and shaped into different people than we were. It really is crazy how fast those changes come! We are a stronger family and have better relationships than we did before. We feel like our own family unit and that is a wonderful thing! We have each other to rely on, and we love being with each other. I couldn't hope for anything more comforting than that.




I do get discouraged though when I think about how often we will go back to Idaho in the next 1.5 years.. probably not much at all! That makes me feel claustrophobic so I try not to think about it. Instead I try and make a plan to go see Jimmy Fallon sometime in NYC while we are here, haha!


Going back to earlier this summer.. We worked at Island Park Scout camp for 6 weeks. I ran the trading post and Cory was a camp commissioner (he basically went and checked in with campsites and made sure they were having a good experience). He carried Addie around all day in a backpack and Benton stayed with me all day in the trading post. That was also a very hard experience and I was mad at Cory at least once a day because of the stress but we still talk about it ALL THE TIME. It was such a fun experience we miss it so much!! We lived in a tiny trailer and that was hard with two kids and I would probably never do something like that again, but we truly loved it and I cried when it was over. Mostly because I realized that I had to go home and pack because we would be moving two weeks later, oy!




And at last, but certainly not least in any way shape or form-- Cory's dad passed away on March 1, 2015. I have been wanting to write about this for a long time but it is still really emotional and I wasn't sure what I wanted to say. All I will say for now is that we miss him so much and it is still a very emotional subject. Grief for someone who was part of your everyday life is new territory for me and Cory (especially Cory). When we moved I think our mourning took 3 or 4 steps back. It will be interesting to see how the holidays go without Dee. I have spent my last 4 Christmases with the Whittiers!




Well, I think that is all I will write for now! I am hoping my future posts will be more lighthearted. In the meantime, we are happy, healthy, and trying to figure how to make friends and memories here in New York!

I don't know why but tonight I am feeling like I need to blog about something that is really important to me. My beliefs. I am usually pretty quiet on social media about my standards and views on things but I have been feeling more and more the need to express myself. Mostly I am so terribly afraid of offending ANYONE. But I realize that I am old enough and I am at a place where I think it should be known how I feel. This has been so hard for me as I have slowly been seeing friendships fade that I treasured for years simply because our opinions on things and our lifestyles are different. A lot of this is my fault. I know some of my friends from high school probably think I turned into a boring stepford wife that pops out babies and has no real ambition, but that just isn't true! I have just as much conviction and passion as the next person! Maybe I don't flaunt it and start discussions about things but I do think for myself and I'm not oppressed.

Anyway, I love the Mormon church. I love it's teachings, I love the leaders, I enjoy my church calling, I enjoy being a woman in the church. All that stuff about Jospeh  Smith? I completely believe it! I also know Jesus Christ died for me, for you, and everyone that doesn't acknowledge him.  I love  being married to my sweet husband and I love our daughter. I honestly cannot imagine doing anything else more fulfilling than being her mother. The first time I held Adalyn was honestly one of the most important moments of my life. I love how focused on families the church is and I know it has brought my family closer together and we are happier because of it! I'm not saying people who aren't mormon aren't happy because that would be ridiculous. But in my family specifically I know it has brought us closer together. Maybe country music brings your family closer together and that's great.

I have been seeing a lot of things about how Mormons are bigots and anyone that doesn't want what the world wants is  unfeeling and hateful. And YES there are a lot of people out there are like that. But not everyone is. I'm not hateful. Some of the things I have seen on social media have hurt  my feelings and so I thought  I should just write a rambling blog since Cory has heard all of this before and really this post doesn't have a point. I just don't want anyone to feel sorry for me because they think I am brainwashed or oppressed because I am a woman that stays home with my child because you know what? That's offensive to me. Okay I think that's all for now. Congrats if you made it through this post. I'm sure I will cringe later about writing it ha ha.

Excuses for not blogging, again.

Well, I have had this blog for 5 years! That's really crazy. You'd think I would have posted like over 1,000 times but I haven't! To tell you all the truth I LOVE reading other blogs but sitting down to a computer and uploading pictures and thinking of things to say is hard and kind of boring to me.  Especially since I haven't been in any sort of formal education for about three years now! I can feel the grammar police judging me. Just kidding, I couldn't care less about that type of thing. Although, I am really bad at typing on my iphone.. seriously it is embarrassing because I usually forget to double check before I press enter.
Anyway the past 4 months of our lives have been pretty great! I feel like my blogging coincides with Cory's school schedule. I stopped in April which is when he started and now we are in the 7 week break and here I am! I just don't have time during the semester because I am a one man band when he is in school.  Also, Adalyn loves computers and there is NO WAY she would let me get away with being on the computer for half an hour while she is awake!

Speaking of Adalyn, she is so awesome you guys. I love hanging out with her every day. She is usually pretty happy BUT she can throw fits and tantrums.. like woah. Especially when you stop her from climbing on the dining room chairs, watch out!! She is a climber and since she has decided she wants to be a climber she has had a plethora of injuries. In her short life she has had: a black eye, a deep scratch by the same eye, countless bruises on her legs, knees are ALWAYS scraped, she recently bit into her lip trying to get up into a window sill and falling, and she has bonked her head so many times I hope she graduates high school!! Really though, she is always fine and I do try to watch her pretty closely but she is FAST and sometimes she is veeeery quiet. And I am fully aware of what the symptoms to a baby concussion are. I may not come across this way, but I am very paranoid about her being mortally injured so.. we keep a close eye on her.

Anyway, here are some pictures with some captions and then maybe I will write a little more at the end.

 First off, Addie turned one!

Playing with Tutu the poopoo

Blowing out her candle!

Her first time eating processed sugar, ever

What most of our family pictures look like

                                             

                                              



          What she loves to do.. destroy cupboards. She has grown out of that a little bit by now

Hi, Mom!

Smiling at Cory through the window!

4th of July Parade

Playing in the creek while camping

We actually took Addie on a hike up to Green Lake (its only like 1/4 of a mile) and we all took turns carrying her, she loved it!

 

Chatterton Family reunion

Trying to get a picture of all the granddaughters, I think Grace was playing with something and we took her away from it!

Lauren is like "It's okay Grace I cry sometimes too"

Going grocery shopping with Adalyn is kind of a nightmare. She has a limit of about 10 minutes up where she is supposed to sit before she starts screaming. But she is okay with sitting in the basket

Kind of blurry, but she loves this little chair we got from Grandma Whittier! She will also fold her arms on command, which is what she is doing in this picture. (On command makes her sound like a dog.. so when we ask her to fold her arms she will. Haha.)

(First time wearing pigtails)

Tutu wearing Addie's dress. She put in on all by herself! It was crazy ;)

Enjoying her first ice cream cone

 

So, so many other things have happened that I should update on here but, alas, Addie is awake from her nap so I must go! But before I go, she is saying: Uh-oh, hi, baby, mama (I refuse to be called mommy for personal reasons haha, mostly because it makes me cringe), dada, bye and bye bye, more. And she jabbers a lot in general, really believing she is saying something I understand. We love love love our Addie girl! Oh, and Cory isn't in like any of these pictures but he is also doing great! More on him at a later time.

Hello, half a year later!

Well hello! Like Cory said in his last blog post, we are still alive and doing great! I am just going to get right into this and try to not make it 77 pages long.

Adalyn is 11 months old! She is the light of our lives. She is crawling, walking, saying uh-oh, she also likes to do a downward dog pose (does that make sense?). She gives everyone smiles and doesn't have stranger anxiety (so far).  She likes to climb on her scooter and get into all the cupboards and drawers and pull everything out.  She is pretty determined when she wants something, she sticks her tongue out when she is concentrating. She is very sufficient at feeding herself. Over all she is just a busy busy girl!

One thing she doesn't do though, is laugh. Weird huh? She will every once in a while but only when we tickle her, never on her own. Oh and one more thing, she has her 2 bottom teeth, they both came in December and currently her gums where the top 4 teeth come in are pretty swollen where the teeth are trying to come through!

Since I last posted we had Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas and they were all wonderful! We also celebrated our 2nd anniversary by going to Disneyland! Here are some pictures from the last 6 months of our lives! I am going to try and post more so I can tell individual stories. Like how the other day I turned around and Adalyn was standing on the door of the dishwasher!

Or in church a couple of weeks ago she kind of smelled poopy and when I pulled the diaper from her bum to check she passed some loud, bubbly gas. While we were in sacrament meeting.

Cory has 2 semesters of school left and we are so excited!

I should have more time to post since I will no longer be working in a couple of weeks!

 Halloween!

 We'll just say she was the wicked witch of the west...

 Thanksgiving

 My best friend Joy got married! So so happy for her

 Addie and Tutu

 Christmas morning

 She really does like her scooter!

(Uncle Preston feeding Addie)

(Disneyland!)

(Adalyn at 10 months)

Adalyn is 9 Months old

She and Hayley are both still alive. Hayley is now 23, and Adalyn is 9 months old. This is my update.

-Cory

Adalyn: 3, 4, 5 months old!

It seems like I blinked and all the sudden Adalyn was 5 months old! I have been SO bad at keeping up to date on this here blog, to be honest I haven't felt like updating much. I have been totally enjoying my lil Addie Jo. She is so much fun and so smiley! We have also moved, Cory started school and I started working again so needless to say, things have been cray cray around here.

Things Adalyn does:
-wears 0-3 mo and 3-6 mo clothing as of 4 months old.
-wears size 2 diapers
-Smiles a lot
-can walk backwards in her walker
-she can arch her back really high so she is basically balancing on her head and feet
-she also arches her back in her swing and can roll out of it so easily it is scary, so we have to strap her in now
-she knows when I am getting her out of the carseat because she lifts her head up to help herself get out
-she squeals and squawks really loud, especially in relief society.
-she can roll over to her tummy, but does not know how to roll back yet
-Started eating rice cereal (4.5 months) a few times a week to get her used to a spoon
-Very stingy with her laughs and giggles
-chews on her feet
-has been going to bed around 7:30 pm (yay!) and wakes up around 4 am to eat and goes back to sleep until 7 or 8.
-can sit up for a few seconds if she supports herself with her hands
-reaches for the sacrament tray (5 months) and anything we are eating

Things Adalyn likes:
-Smiling
-LOVES splashing in the bath
-grabbing anything she can get her hands on
-standing in her walker
-standing up
-being on her back and playing by herself every once in a while
-being sung to
-being talked to
-rubbing her blankies on her face when she is tired
-being held while you walk around
-being outside
-still likes being swaddled
-the morning time (she is SO HAPPY in the mornings, I love it)
-playing with my silicone brush that is supposed to be used to brush butter on things

Things Adalyn doesn't like:
-laying on her back most of the time
-being by herself for too long
-doing the same thing for too long
-being held while you're sitting down
-looking at the same thing for too long
-being in her carseat
-being hungry
-being tired
-cries when you copy her screams/squeal
-her bumbo
-the "kissing" sounds- instantly makes her cry
-immunizations - she is grouchy for like a week after...it is terrible



We love our little girl so so much. Now here is a picture dump from the last three months. Enjoy!