Graduation and family fun

At the beginning of May Dan graduated with his MBA from USU! Technically, he still had a few more weeks of classes (so annoying to fake graduate!), but he is basically done! This is such an amazing accomplishment and I’m beyond proud of him! He also got a big promotion at work, and he did it much faster than anyone else has at his company. I think he’s pretty awesome.

If you know Dan at all, you know that he doesn’t really click with school. He doesn’t love it (that’s an understatement) and he basically fought the entire time. BUT he knows that it’s super important and he just wanted to get it all done as fast as possible! When we got married 5 years ago, he had 6 credit hours total. We have been on this road for a while and it has been long at times, but he has stuck with it and now we are DONE!

This picture was our first day of school (Dan’s first day of college ever) back in 2008 at USU before we were married. We are so little and cute.

The graduation itself was basically awful and long and we all wanted to stab our eyes out after 2 hours…then 3 hours….my baby wasn’t loving his life either, but between both grandmas and grandpa, they took turns walking with him and he slept a bit. He actually did great considering everything.

Love the parents for supporting us! I went with a comfortable outfit and I’m glad I did. We had to walk up a hill after parking and carrying my baby and a diaper bag (mom helped a lot!) would not have been fun in uncomfortable heels or a short skirt! We saw some other moms trekking up the steep hill in Logan with babies in their arms and I was so glad I dressed that way and that I had Owen in the Bjorn! There was also a mom with 5 inch heels on and she walked up and down the arena steps with her baby during the ceremony and she looked like she wanted to die. She was close to falling down the stairs a few times and I was afraid for her child’s life quite honestly.

My baby isn’t tired at all…he stares into space when he is tired. What a sweet baby. And a sweet Dad!

Before graduation, I came upstairs to see these beautiful flowers and this beautiful blue box waiting for me! I couldn’t believe my eyes and I didn’t even care to open the box! I was just so surprised and excited! Dan bought me a gorgeous bracelet from Tiffany’s! He said it was because of my patience and support of him over the years while he went through school. Wow. I was seriously shocked and so excited! I love my bracelet and love that boy even more!

Owen has the chubbiest thighs EVER! He is definitely not hungry…I seriously want to eat these legs!

Dan is really the best dad. Owen just adores him and I know Owen loves me too but when Dan talks to him or plays with him, Owen giggles and smiles so much. It is the sweetest thing ever and I just love watching them together. It brings me so much happiness!

We have finally been able to get out and walk lately and Owen loves being outside and he really likes the Bjorn. He is a heavy kev (17 pounds!) so  wearing him is a lot better than holding him and he loves to look around. Another bonus is that when he spits up, Dan just has to lean forward and it splatters on the ground instead of all over them! Love it!

My mama had a birthday a few weeks ago and we had fun celebrating with her. Another reason to celebrate is that she had another successful scan and is still cancer free! Hooray!

She is a pretty cute grandma to Owen and he loves to cuddle up to her. It’s pretty precious to watch.

Owen doesn’t love to be held and he usually prefers to lay on the ground and kick his legs and play, but he sat on my moms porch and rocked with her for quite a while last week.

We had some of Dan’s family over for a BBQ and fire and it was really fun to get together and roast s’mores!

This little guy is growing and growing. He was 27inches and 16 lbs 13 oz at his 4 month appointment! He is really big and healthy and we are loving every second of our lives with him. Can’t wait for summer fun!

Owen’s Blessing Day

We blessed Owen last Sunday (April 14) and it was wonderful! We had tons of family and friends and it was such a special day that I will always cherish. Owen is basically old enough to walk now but we have been out of town and with the freezing weather, we didn’t bring him to church for a while. So we finally got him blessed!

He looked pretty adorable in his cute outfit and when we got to church, he was a little fussy because he was way past his naptime so I was worried he would scream during the whole blessing. But he calmed right down and Andrew said he just stared at Dan during the whole blessing. Precious.

Afterwards we had everyone over to our house for food. We had Dunford Donuts, Costco muffins, yogurt, granola, fruit, juice and milk. Dan has such a huge family so I was worried about how much to have, but it worked out really well. We had some extra muffins and yogurt but nothing we couldn’t finish off later that week!

My sister’s camera takes blurry pictures sometimes so just pretend it’s clear. But we moved some furniture to make the room more open and it worked out pretty well even with all the people in our house!

Four generations of Hill men! I love it. They all look so much alike too, it makes me happy!

Another blurry picture above, but Dustin and Kaley came with cutie pie Reese (Owen’s future wife). She is two months older but Owen could crush her with his hugeness. I’m not sure where his chin  went, but he is a chunker and she is a skinny little thing. Can’t wait to be in laws with the Waites!

We did a little photo shoot before church since I knew Owen probably wouldn’t be in the mood after church!

Auntie Steph loves Owen to death. She may stress out every time he breathes wrong and be afraid to change diapers, but Owen is lucky to have her!

Grandma and Andrew

Luckily the weather was good enough that the gaggle of kids could run outside. I was so glad! It was still pretty chilly but the sun was shining and they were able to run wild!

I really love this baby.

The above picture cracks me up. Owen looks so much like an old man with this funny smile!

We had a great day and we were so grateful for our amazing family and friend who came all the way to our home to see Owen get blessed. I’m so glad that Dan honors his priesthood and he could give Owen such a wonderful blessing from Heavenly Father. I have such a wonderful life and I can’t wait to see what the future brings with my sweet husband and baby boy!

Happenings

 

We are so excited that Spring is here! The nice weather has been awesome and I think Owen is a little confused about what the sun is since he really hasn’t been outside most of his little life. But we are changing that and enjoying the beautiful weather!

Owen is growing and doing awesome. He is a really big kid and I think he weighs about 19 pounds now! We will see at his next appointment in a few weeks but he is just really long and big. He is super happy and constantly smiling and cooing. He almost never cries for no apparent reason and as long as he is fed and comfortable, he is the happiest camper. He is kind of like me and needs some of his own space. He doesn’t like to cuddle and just likes to chill on the floor so he can wiggle and play.

I went back to work a few weeks ago and it was hard. Reallllly hard. I knew it would be, but I didn’t fully grasp it until that morning when we were getting ready to go and then when I dropped him off. I cried a lot and think about him constantly. My awesome neighbor is watching him and luckily it’s only on Mondays and Wednesdays. I work from home the rest of the time and I’m so glad I have such an amazing job to be able to do that. My neighbor has 3 little kids and I love that Owen can be around them. She texts me and tells me how he is doing which helps a ton! He has been really good for her and Dan is able to pick him up early and feed him and put him down for a nap before I get home. The pic below was when I got home the first day I went back to work. I missed my baby!

We had a fun Easter with our families. On Saturday, the Hills had an Easter Egg hunt with almost the whole clan. We missed Joe (in Bulgaria) and Ben, Becky, Addy and Mia (in Mongolia). But everyone else was there for the chaos! 14 kids, including 3 babies..it was a party. Luckily it was warm and the kids can run wild outside.

Owen slept through the hunt, but we collected some of his eggs and obviously he loved them. Haha.

After church on Sunday, we went for a long drive and Owen and I took naps in the car! We had a delicious dinner with my family. Easter is like my Thanksgiving. I’m not a huge fan of Thanksgiving dinner, but I LOVE Easter food! It didn’t disappoint. My mom got us all cute little Easter baskets and of course Owen got spoiled. I totally forgot to take a picture but he got the cutest little outfit and basket!

Owen is the main attraction, obviously!

The picture above is when I got him up from a nap. He smiles like that every time he gets up and he is just a happy boy! He is on a really great schedule (thanks to Babywise!) and he takes several long naps during the day, and sleeps all night long! Sometimes he wakes up at 5ish and I give him just a little to eat but then he goes back to sleep and our normal wake up time is about 7 or 7:30.

We love this little guy and are having so much fun with him in our lives. It is so much fun to watch him grow and change. He is figuring things out and changing so much.

A few other updates with us…we are both training to run the Wasatch Back (Ragnar) in June. This will be the third time we have run the race and we are excited about it. I am definitely nervous but I have slowly gotten back into running. I’m not a a great runner by any means and I am a major slow poke but it is a good goal to keep me exercising and it will be really fun. Luckily I have an easy leg to run, and as long as I can do it slowly and not feel like I’m going to die, then I am okay with it! We just got a jogging stroller and are going to try it out this weekend!

Dan is almost done with his MBA! We can’t believe that he will soon be completely done with school. He has been in school the entire time we have been engaged and married and I’m so proud of his hard work. He hates school but knows that it is important and he works full time and goes to school at night. What great guy! I honestly have a new respect for all you moms who have kids and your husbands are in medical, dental, etc school. Dan’s school is not super demanding and he is not gone a lot but I absolutely hate it and taking care of Owen all day and all night on the days that he is gone is rough. You guys are amazing to do it for so long!

We are super excited for summer and we already have a lot of vacations and fun things planned. We really want to take Owen swimming and I think he will love it because he is obsessed with the bath! We started our vegetable garden as well and I’m excited for another year of veggies and looking forward to implementing some of the things I learned from last year. We are happy and healthy and loving our wonderful blessed lives.

We pulled the plug!

Well we finally did it…we cancelled cable! Holy smokes this is a big deal. If you know us, we watch quite a bit of TV. Dan especially loves watching TV! We have several shows we love to watch together and we also watch a lot of sports. It’s kind of a joke that Dan doesn’t read books but he always says he learns just as much from watching TV. Sure.

We have talked about cancelling our cable for years now but we just didn’t do it. It has honestly been a 5 year battle of haggling with Comcast every time one of our promotions runs out and our bill skyrockets. At first I didn’t mind doing it and they were pretty easy to give us another promotion. But after a few years, I got so sick of our bill changing constantly and they seemed to crack down more and not offer as many promotions. We threatened to cancel several times and they would always give us a decent deal. But it is still pretty pricey and we had a lot of the extras like DVR, HD and a few extra channels for sports. It was a luxury for us and we used it a lot and really enjoyed it so we didn’t feel bad paying a lot for it.

Now that Owen is here and Summer is coming, we finally did it. We want to spend time with Owen instead of watching TV and we will spend more time outside as well. It feels nice to simplify in this very small way. We also decided that we want to buckle down and be hard core about saving money so that when we are ready and able, we can move closer to the Salt Lake area. We adore our house, neighborhood and ward, but we are just so dang far from family, friends and work. So we want to try to save enough to get into the type of house we want in the area we want. And most likely I will stop working at some point and we want to be able to comfortably live on one income. So cancelling cable is just one step towards those goals!

We did buy Apple TV (haven’t gotten yet) so we can still watch a lot of shows that are online and we might get Netflix or Hulu+ at some point as well. So we aren’t completely TV-free but we will definitely be watching a lot less of it. Yesterday Dan was at school and I just listened to Pandora on my phone while I folded laundry and played with Owen and it was very relaxing. It was only one night, but I really enjoyed it! Hopefully this will be a good change for us and I have a feeling that pretty soon, we won’t feel like we're missing much!

Happenings Lately

Things have been pretty awesome lately. Our lives are great and we are loving life with Owen. I have been home with Owen for almost 12 weeks and it has been fabulous! It has been a lot of work and being a mom is hard, but I adore it and luckily Owen is basically a perfect child so he makes it a lot easier!

Last week was a really gorgeous Saturday so we went on a long walk. There was still tons of snow, but we really wanted to get out and it was such amazing weather.

I wrapped up Owen in my solly baby wrap and he fell right to sleep! It was so precious and I loved cuddling him with me. My back got a little sore since he is quite a biggie but it was worth it!

We have gone to visit Dan at work a few times and it has been really fun. Last week we went to an awesome Thai place downtown called My Thai. I love Thai food and this is another awesome Thai place on my list! I think Owen wanted a taste of the spring roll…

Dad’s choice of outfit…Dan’s sister gave us a bunch of cute hand me downs from her boys and this awesomeness was part of that. He seems to have liked it!

I have gone down to West Jordan to visit my mom and sister several times when Dan has school at night and they have smothered him (in a good way of course). I love seeing them with my sweet babe!

Owen is lucky to have TONS of cousins on Danny’s side. He is the 16th grandchild and there is one more due in May! There will still be a lot more to come too and he has 3 other cousins that are within 9 months of him (Brioney in July, Benson in September, Owen in December, and baby boy Hill in May)! 3 of the 4 babies will be in the same grade and they are all boys. Tons of fun. Here is Owen with baby Benson and Taylor.

We have had some fun doing photo shoots in his adorable little outfits. What a doll.

Last weekend, we went on a quick trip to Las Vegas. We left Thursday afternoon and came home on Sunday evening. We had a lot of fun but we also learned a lot. We stayed in the Mandalay Bay because I got a great deal using Priceline (almost half price!), but the hotel was MASSIVE and took forever to walk to our car, which is tough with a baby. And there were not really any baby friendly cheap restaurants in the hotel either. We probably should have just gone to St. George which is just as warm and a few hours closer! But we still had fun and Owen was a dream child the whole time. Our room was super nice and we did some fun things.

The weather on Friday wasn’t too great but we drove to the temple and after the rain stopped, we walked around then drove back to our hotel via the scenic route.

We spent Friday evening in our hotel room just chillin. We had a nice room and a pretty sweet view since we were on the 25th floor. Owen loves to coo and talk to us and it is the most precious thing ever! Dan is the cutest dad ever and I love watching how much Owen loves him!

This baby still loves the bathtub!

On Saturday we drove to Hoover Dam and it was awesome! The weather was really nice and comfortable and Owen slept the whole time we walked around the visitor’s center and the dam. We were so glad Owen wakes us up early because we got to the dam early and by the time we were ready to leave, the line was huge and the place was way busy.

The dam and the bridge were HUGE. I had been there when I was young but didn’t remember much of it and we really loved walking around and seeing just how amazing the whole place is!

After Hoover Dam, we found a park and Dan and I ate some snacks and sat on the grass while Owen slept. it was really nice and relaxing. Then that evening we went to an AMAZING buffet at the M Resort. We had eaten there a few years ago when Dan did the Ragnar in Las Vegas and it didn’t disappoint again. We were nervous to spend a lot of money on a buffet when there was a chance we would have to leave early or not enjoy it as much because Owen got fussy or something, but he was a gem.

It was a seafood buffet so there was all kinds of yummy seafood (Dan tried crawfish and all the weird stuff). I love shrimp so I pounded about a million of those babies. There was a whole Asian section, Italian, all kinds of meat, vegetables, bread and everything else you can think of. And the desserts…whoa. Dream come true. There was tons of gelato and every dessert you can imagine. Amazing.

After the early dinner (we missed the crowds thanks again to O-man), we drove to the strip and parked at the Bellagio. Dan had never seen the fountains so we walked around the lobby and just a few blocks down the strip. We watched a few of the fountain shows and then Owen was done and so were we!

On Sunday morning before we left we took a long walk around our hotel and a little ways down the strip. The sun was shining and it was gorgeous! Perfect timing for us to leave…

I had some fun adventures feeding Owen all over the place. Nursing is convenient since you don’t have to bring formula, bottles, or find warm water, but it is also a little difficult because you are so worried you are going to flash people and I’m sure some people saw my religiousness but oh well. We made it work and did a lot of feedings in the back seat of the car. I also got pretty dang good at changing the kid in the car with him in my lap. Dan hypnotized him with his hands while I changed him.

I took some pictures of him for 11 weeks and he smiled in every single picture.

What a cutie pie! He is starting to look more like Dan to me and I love it. He is a super happy baby and doing so well with naps and sleeping at night! He usually sleeps around 10 hours except that I wake him up at 10:00pm to feed him but he goes right back to sleep. Sometimes he wakes up in the night but goes right back to sleep if we re-swaddle him and give him his binky.

I am going back to work next week and I am excited but nervous. I’m so lucky because I will only be going into the office on Mondays and Wednesdays then I’ll work from home the rest of the time. I really love my job and miss it and the people there so I’m glad to go back, but I will miss Owen and it will be so hard to leave him! My neighbor is going to watch him and I know she’ll do a great job but it will be tough. I’m glad Owen will be able to be around her kids and so grateful for the flexibility of my job to work from home and be with him 3 days a week!