Time Flies When You’re Having Fun!

  My baby girl is getting so big! This photo was the first I had with her after everything had settled down from birth and everything. (Dec 31st about 10pm) Even then she closed her eyes for the camera, it must definitely be passed on genetically! It seems every other photo I take I’m closing my eyes or about to close them! Haha! I was just thinking about my anniversary coming up in a few days and all that has happened in the past two years. It has been great! So busy!! But wonderful! Since the October of 2008 I got married, went to Hawaii, Graduated College, Moved halfway across the country, and Had a baby!! Heck I did all that BEFORE 2010!!

I have now been a graduate of Utah College of Massage Therapy for 1 year. I can hardly believe its been a year since seeing all my friends!  I love and miss ALL these people!! Since this photo 2 have gotten married 2 have gotten engaged and of course I had the baby! What fun :)

We have been through a lot and still have tons to look forward to! For example this Thanksgiving my sister (inlaw) Lisa is coming to visit us! We are totally stoked! Plus Harry Potter is coming out. Then we are going to Denver for Christmas, and then inbetween 3rd and 4th TRI we are going to Hawaii to visit Julie and the new baby (who is due for arrival in january)!!! My mother inlaw was so generous and purchased tickets AND a hotel for us to go and visit! (Thanks again!!) After that the first year of Palmer will be done! Sciences out of the way and a different kind of busy will come into our world. If things keep moving this fast next thing I know we’ll be moving to Canada, and my baby will be in school!! I hope to enjoy almost every minute of this ride we are on! We have been so blessed with great friends and family and I can hardly wait to see what else is in store for the Brown-Fox family!

My little Helper

Maia was 'helping' me fold laundry it was very cute.

She likes to help she just isn't very good at it yet. She will get there soon I know but it's so fun to watch her try it out!

Baby Food

Sometimes I think my baby only eats Crackers and Puffs. Not that I blame her for not eating baby food but I keep buying it. I get food for her from WIC and they seem to think the only baby food babies need are 4oz single flavor foods = gross. Fruits are not so bad but there are only like 6 baby foods that are single flavor and Maia will eat like 3 of them. I think they are all orange too! So I found some recipes to use up baby food that my baby wont eat. She just wants to be big and eat my food, but she doesn’t usually like my food that much either. So she eats more crackers. At least she still has formula so I know she is getting SOME nutrients! We’ll see how these new recipes for her turn out!

On other fronts I am looking for a new sewing project now that I have finished the buffalo vest; Which is super cute! So if anyone has any ideas or needs/wants a blanket/quilt I am totally willing to do something! Although I also still have plenty of Modge Podgeing to do from my projects I didn’t finish at Super Saturday last week! Jesse has finals this week! He did well on his 2 exams today and there are only 5 more then we are DONE with SECOND TRI!!! Totally psyched! Jesse has also started Hockey practice again! He is the only goalie on the team this year so a bit of pressure. But they only practice once a week and games are about the same in frequency. His first two games are next Thursday (Oct 21st 6pm) at the iWireless center and everyone is welcome to come cheer them on!

Cruisin’

We had a great weekend hanging out with Uncle Bob and Auntie Pam! We are so excited they came out to visit us! On Saturday we went on a River boat Lunch Cruise in Muscatine; Maia went to play with the Ruffs. It was really cool, it was definitely a boose cruise but we were sitting in our own secluded section and we had a great time!

On Sunday Rob ran the Quad Cities Marathon!! We met up and cheered him on at mile 8 and then found him at the finish line. It took him about 5 hours and few minutes, it’s an AMAZING accomplishment!

This photo is about 30 feet from the finish line!

 

Miss Maia has been having LOTS of fun with family in town! She has gotten so mobile and has taken up chasing down Pam when she isn’t playing with her. It’s super cute! The girls were able to go shopping while Jesse was in school and Rob got to rest his sore feet! Maia is a pretty good shopper already! She is very talkative lately and makes noise especially loud anywhere she can hear her echo. Today she was cruisin along the wall trying to get into the diaper bag when she just let go and stood by herself for a full minute!! I couldn’t believe my eyes my tiny baby is getting so big so quickly! Along with all her crawling and cruisn’ she has taken to hitting her head on just about everything! We are tempted to look into a helmet to at least let her forehead bruises heal before she hits them again! She is pretty fearless our small one. She even stands in her crib waiting for us to come and get her once she wakes up!

Boards Weekend

As I was planning out my week I noticed I had at least one something going on every day this week! Then as the time has gone by one by one things on my to do list have gotten cancelled. Which is okay I can have things more spaced out this way but when my Dentist appointment got cancelled and rescheduled for next week I totally lost it! Who cries when they don’t get to go to the Dentist?! Someone with a toothache, i.e. I DO!! Yes it was kind of embarrassing explaining why I was crying to my husband but I have been waiting to see a dentist for almost a month now about this darn tooth and they moved my appointment! I am about 95% sure my tooth is cracked and I know it wont even get fixed right away when I got to the appointment they will have to do it at a next appt which is why i was so discouraged. So just one more week and I will know what to expect with that!

On other news we had a long weekend because Jesse isn’t taking boards for another year so we had some fun! We finished painting taught Maia to crawl and climb on her daddy and went to the zoo with the Ruff’s and Merrills! It was super fun!

Fish                                    Elephants

Goats                                 Emus

Lions! (this guy was soo loud!)  Turtles! Which tried to bite!

 

We also had some fun getting Maia a baby doll! She thinks its really funny, probably because it has no hair and no control of its body. Its a cabbage patch what do you expect?

  But she DID try to give it a baba! Quite forcefully I might add, she beat it with its bottle.

 

And today we went out to do a few errands and Maia was such a good baby. When we were at the grocery store I found her a treat to hold onto so she would keep being good. When we got home Daddy opened it for her.

Two hands up for Daddy!                       

All in all it was a pretty fun way to end the last long weekend of the tri!

 

We Painted!!

So it has been pretty eventful at the Fox house! This week I started my new job this week! I was able to do two massages this week, not much but its a good start! I am working at the Institute of Massage Therapy and Wellness in Davenport, it's definitely different from the school I went to but a job is a job.
I am happy to say I am posting from our brand new desktop!!!!!! My dad is so great! He gave us my brothers old desktop (which really isn't old at all but it's new to us!) it is about a hundred times faster than our laptop we were using. It's wonderful thank you dad!! How did the computer get here? Why my mom and Mandy came to visit and brought it with them! It's a short visit but it has been fun to spend some time with them. They helped us paint our apartment!

  

It's something we have been talking about doing for a while we just couldn't decide on a color. When my mom got here we went to the store and just picked a color I liked, my mom was skeptical at first but now that it's on the wall we all LOVE it!! With the new paint we moved the furniture around too it has been soo much fun to redecorate! We even had extra paint, like an entire gallon extra! So we will probably paint the kitchen and hallway to match; I mean its only paint and it doesn't take that long. Now I am just on the hunt for the perfect fabric for curtain in the living room. I hope to find and get them done before it gets cold out, I need them to help keep in the heat!

look at those cute girls!







I think it makes things so much brighter and will help a TON in the winter when I don't want to open the blinds because it will let in the cold!
I can't have a blog without a photo of baby so why don't we end with one of her in her new Cougar sweatshirt! She watched her first Cougar game with daddy on saturday! With an intermission for some shopping with Mom, Grandma, Mandy, and Shari!

Avocados

I have been thinking about what kinds of things to blog about and I can think of all sorts of things during the week but then I sit at the computer and everything goes out the window! Lets see what I can recall :)
My cousin Kenny left on his mission to South Africa last week! I am so excited for him! Totally gonna write him but postage is a couple bucks a letter, maybe I can email him :)

I have been so bored with food lately, just wanting to try to make new things etc. I recently made Jambalaya it was fantastic! And some new chinese stir fry recipes have turned out really well too! With all my new treats I've been making I have plenty of left overs to deal with. This week we made Nachos Supreme

left over taco meat, cheese, lettuce, tomato, avocado, sour scream and queso!

Best Leftovers ever :) (at least for this week!!)

I have finally received my Massage Therapy license for the state of Iowa! So I am going to see about getting a job so I can make a little spending money. Actually right now I need money because I think I cracked  a tooth and finding a dentist that accepts medicaid has been next to impossible! This week I am going to go to the Institute for Therapeutic Massage and Wellness and see if I can get hired on to do a few massages a week. Ideally I would work from my home or have a place I rent but I still have a little baby and renting a place to work can cost almost as much as our rent! Thus my dear friend Shari is going to help me get on board at the school where she works and teaches.

I was just realizing today how many women I know that are expecting!! Its so exciting being a mom and I am so happy for my friends I hope everything goes well for them and their babies! I have one friend who lost her daughter and had no way of knowing anything was wrong or would go wrong. My heart broke for her when I found out, and I still find myself feeling sad and even guilty about it. Guilty that I have my baby girl to hold and play with and she has to wait to see her baby girl again. Tears me apart sometimes! But the strength I have seen from her is so inspirational, through this hard time she is going through she and her husband have held strong to their faith, family and friends. I can only imagine the difficulty they are facing but I keep them in my prayers daily both to strengthen them and myself. It helps me to realize what a miracle it is to have a child! And such a cute one at that!

With our trying new foods I haven't left Maia out! Today I made a short video of her as she tried avocados.

She'll come around to foods that are green eventually...we hope!!

Also shout out to my dad for being so awesome!!! He is sending us one of their old desktop computers that was once my brothers but since Scott is now at school and has a laptop we asked if we could have it. My laptop though I love it dearly is having a difficult time running these days. THANKS DAD!!!

Yep that's my dad dunkin not just donuts