baby news and house news

So we are in the middle of moving right now. Which has been a lot less stressful this time around because the army is moving us. We basically just had to sit there on our bums and watch them while they boxed up all our stuff. Then Jonas came back from the baby sitters and we then we had to chase after him and make sure he didn't get in the way. The next day they came to move everything into a truck. Very entertaining for Jonas. So I don't have a lot of pics right now becuase half the time I don't know which pile of what's it contains my camera.
Anyways, the exciting news is that we had our ultrasound and it looks like we are most likely having a girl! We need more girls in the Atkinson family so we're very excited.
Also we did find a house in GA. We really like it and I'm very excited about having a fenced in backyard complete with deck, patio, some grass and also very important, some shade. I realized since having kids that having an outdoor place to play is very valuable. Especially where we are moving cause there are very few playgrounds in fact, besides post we didn't see a single one and they don't believe in sidewalks there soooo yes backyard is very important. We'll be there for 3 yrs and very far from home so if anyone wants to visit please come.

Graduation

James had another graduation. This time from his military dental residency program. During the ceremony, they talked a lot about how strenuous the program is etc. They even gave all of the spouses of the residents some flowers, a plaque and a pin that says professional pride to say thank you for supporting our spouses through this challenging year. Although it did have it's challenges, coming straight from dental school made it seem quite relaxed. But I appreciated the flowers and other stuff anyways. This graduation picture is us standing with the general dentist of the army. I don't know his official title, but he was very nice. Also, miraculously enough, although I had come prepared to have a major battle with Jonas during the ceremony, he decided to be good for the whole thing. As soon as it ended he ran around like a crazy person but that was okay. The other pictures are of us in GA. We went to Tybee Island beach and spent just a little time in downtown Savannah.We also were lucky enough to go to a boys to men and montgomery gentry concert on the Fourth of July. Jonas loves these sunglasses that we gave him. He also loves the candy machines. He thinks that the machines actually make the candy and every time he passes one, he stops and checks it for change. I don't know how he learned that. Other than those fun things we're just lookin for houses and trying to stay cool.

Fun times n stuff

Our little fix it man





Jonas watched a Handy Manny dvd and turned into quite the fix it man. He was saying things like "come on papa, we got a job to do". Jonas has also loved going swimming. He was cautious at first but is warming up to it a lot faster than he used to. The thing that helped the most was bringing some of his water toys to the pool. We started out at the baby pool. One of the toys was a bucket. James and I were getting repeatedly doused over the head and Jonas was having the time of his life. We tried to have fun but it got old quickly so we took him into the big pool without toys and from then on Jonas was loving it. We also took him for a pony ride at the on post riding stables. He was of course very unsure about doing this. We had to keep one hand on him for a while but by the end he was okay to ride by himself for a little while. The last pic is of James and his military pilot friend from the ward who gave him a helicopter ride. James has also had the chance to go to the range on post and shoot an M16 this week. That's my army guy.

stawberries

We took a short trip to the local stawberry patch and got to pick a ton of delicous and perfectly ripe strawberries. They were soo good that I didn't want to buy strawberries at the store yesterday because I knew they would be nothing like the fresh strawberries we got to enjoy from the strawberry patch. We had to eat them fast cause they were ready to be eaten. We also made some freezer jam out of them which was my first attempt at making jam. I know it's the easiest kind to make but I'm still proud of myself. James helped a lot too. Jonas loved going to the strawberry patch and still talks about it. He of course ended up with lots of strawberry juice all over his shirt as he ate way more than he picked. We also had to give him a lesson about which strawberries were actually ripe and that if they were still green not to pick them. It didn't really sink in but oh well. He also had fun feeding the sheep there.
I've decided that I love supporting local produce. It's just so much better cause it's fresh. Time to find the local farmer's market.

Tagged

Tagged!

ABC Tag

A - Attached or Single: Attached
B - Best Friend(s): Mom, Dad, James, & Jonas, and all sisters and girlfriends
C - Cake or Pie: pie (I am seriously addicted to pumpkin pie, but I also love lemon meringue and cherry)
D - Day of Choice: Friday
E - Essential Item: hand sanitizer, ear plugs, book light, sandals
F - Favorite Color(s): Red
G - Gummy Bears or Worms: Bears especially the cinnamon flavored chocolate covered type
H - Hometown: Sandy Utah
I - Indulgence(s):good night sleep, peanut butter twix, girly movies
J - January or July:- July, I'm usually on vacation then and I HATE being cold
K - Kids: 1 and 1/3
L - Life is incomplete without: Family, Friends, and Good Food
M - Marriage Date: May 10th 2003
N - Number of Siblings: 3 Brothers
O - Oranges or Apples: Pink Lady Apples
P- Phobias or Fears: claustrophobia, Jonas getting hurt or sick, sometimes dogophobia
Q - Quote: Bloom where you are planted
R- Ring size: ?
S - Season: Fall
T- Tag 3 Friends: Mel, Jessica, and Laura
U - Unknown fact about me: I'm scared of diving
V - Very favorite stores: Trader Joes and Whole Foods, Jamba Juice, Shade Clothing
W - Worst Habit: I'm very clumsy and constantly run into things
X-ray or Ultrasound: Baby Ultrasounds
Y - Your Favorite Food(s): snack foods like popcorn and dried fruit, granola, for meals a couple of my favorites are tacos, and potstickers
Z- Zodiac: Taurus

Smokey Mtns

So this is me being a not so assertive mom, "Jonas, how about we say prayers and then it's time for you to go to bed?" This is Jonas being a very assertive little boy, "How bout no." For all of his independence, we took him hiking this weekend at the Smokey Mtns National Park with Granny and Grandpa Powell, and when we really wanted him to be independent and walk part of the trails he decided that it would be easier for him if we just carried him the whole time. Actually he wanted just mommy to carry him. We still had a lot of fun though and I LOVED the smokey mountains. There are lots of beautiful waterfalls to hike to and places to just pull over and stare at the gorgeous view. Also, because this park gets soo many people visiting every year, there is literally anything and everything in Gatlinburg TN. Any type of entertainment or restaurant known to man is in that town. We mostly just focused on enjoying the park, but thanks to Granny we did get to go to Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede. It's kind of like the knight show in Las Vegas where you don't get any silverware for your meal and you get to watch this cool show while you eat, only the show was different. It was all about cowboys and rodeo tricks and stuff. Jonas loved it and is still talking about it.

This month is what James calls celebrate Amber month. I have my birthday, our anniversary, and mothers day all within about a week and a half of each other. This is fun for me but then ya know all my special days are clumped together and James has a hard time thinking of what to get me for all three days at once. It's very stressful for him. But he does a great job. We planned on going to a rodeo on my birthday but a tornado came through and touched down at the fair grounds that night effectively canceling anything planned there. We ended up eating dinner with some friends and I got to play guitar hero for the first time. Yeah I wasn't very good but it was fun.
Then for our anniversary we had a hard time finding a babysitter at first, but we did eventually find some friends that watched Jonas for us while we went to a movie. We saw Iron Man cause everyone's been saying that it's just soo good. Then we picked Jonas up and went to a nice restaurant. For mother's day I woke up at 4 to a screaming child, went to church and chased after some 2 year olds in nursery trying to get them to make a mother's day card for their mothers and to keep their shoes on and not turn off the light etc etc etc. The rest of the day was nice. Talking to moms and just hanging out. So now I'm thirty years old, I've been married for 5 yrs., and I've got an awsome little boy who makes me so happy every day even though he wakes me up waaaay to early. Most friends and family know this by now but we are also expecting baby #2 in December. We are so excited and happy about being able to add to our family. Jonas is also excited and consistently will tell us when we ask him that he'd rather had a little brother than a little sister. He wants to name him Leo, Quincey, or Rocket. Can you tell what he's obssessed with right now? Well if you aren't into watching kiddie movies, it's the little einstiens. He even told us that he can learn little Rocket how to shoot his dart gun.
I also have to say that I'm so grateful for my husband.I can't believe that we've been married for 5 yrs. It's gone by so fast. James has accomplished a lot and I'm grateful for how motivated he is. Around our house I'm more of the procrastinator and James gets things done. He is very patient to put up with my moods too. Especially my pregnant moods. He doesn't let a day go by without telling me that he loves me and thanking me for making food for him. That's definitely the way to his heart! I can even occasionally get him to watch a chick flick with me. These are just a few of the reasons I love him, but I don't want to get too mushy on my blog. Well,celebrate Amber week is over for this year so I'll guess I'll start looking forward to Christmas :)

busy week

This last week was pretty busy for us. We had fun going bowling with a couple of friends. We went to the on post bowling alley. Imagine a 100% smoke free bowling lane. There are some advantages to army life. Unfortunately the smokefree air did not help my game and I am still one of the worst bowlers ever. Jonas had a lot of fun the first game. He of course would just basically drop the ball and we had to hurry and push it before it was out of reach so it would make it all the way to the pins. During the second game Jonas kind of lost some interest and just wanted to run around the bowling alley.

At the end of the week we went to Nashville for the 1/2 marathon that I had talked James into doing with me months ago. We did survive. BARELY! Just kidding we had a lot of fun, thanks to Laura and Drew who watched Jonas for us. On our way to the race I was anything but excited however because we had hardly slept the night before, we had to wake up at 4:30 to get there on time, I just wasn't feeling that well, and then while waiting in line for the shuttle to take us to the start of the race we got rained on which made us shiver cause it was still kind of cool outside. Of course once we started running we were fine and luckily the cloud cover kept up for the whole race. James who had not trained at all made it look easy and to his credit he stayed with me the whole time. I did a lot better than I thought I would and kept going until the last few miles where I started getting really really tired. There were thousands of people running in the race and so many people on the sidelines cheering us on as well. It was a great feeling to cross the finish line. We finished in our estimated time and we didn't puke which was one of my goals. Running the marathon made me think about how when we have to go through some trial in life that seems impossibly hard and long lasting, sometimes we have more strength to get through it than we think we do or else we are given more strength than we would normally have. Because I really didn't think that I was going to survive it and I did. That day we all three came home and crashed on the living room floor. The next day James and I were so sore that we were walking weird. But we both agreed that it was a very fun experience.

guitar
violin
trumpet


Jonas received a little t-ball set for easter. Now that it's nice outside we've been having fun with it. He likes it but likes to hit the ball vertically or just tap it forward instead of swinging at it. I think we did manage to finally get a few swings out of him last time. He has also been having fun taking the t-ball set apart and using it as different musical instruments. He likes to jam out to the songs from the movie cars especially "route 66".


He has also been going to "school". It's an in home day care on post that he's been going to two days a week so I can get some work experience. He did have some anxiety about it but he seems to be adjusting quickly. He likes being with other kids and there is a really nice dog at the house that Jonas loves. James is hoping that this will make Jonas less of a mommas boy. Hopefully it will be good for him. I think sometimes that it's harder on me than it is on Jonas. In other moments I am glad for a little break.

I took Jonas to the playground after dinner the other night. We were having fun and were about to go to the swings which are Jonas' favorite when he said to me, "are you my best friend?". Awww so cute.

A looong post

hotel in Atlanta


in the cave
in the cave
camping

James demonstrating just one of the several thousand uses of a bandanna while camping









new handles





I really appreciate the comments on my last post. Unfortunately since my last post I've experienced more public tantrums and aggression from the little guy. I've changed his timeout spot to a more undesirable one though so hopefully that will bring about some improved behavior. If not I guess I'll just have to wait for Seth's book about discipline techniques to be published.
I've had several posts that I've been meaning to do lately so I'm going to try and combine them in this one. The first picture is the hotel that James stayed in when he had to go to Atlanta a couple of weeks ago for a dental conference. It happened to be the very weekend that a huge tornado swept through the downtown area. You can see several windows were blown out. Luckily James' window was not. I was talking to him on the phone his last night there and he kept commenting on the huge storm outside his window. Then he made me nervous because he was sounding worried himself when he told me that huge chunks of something were flying through the air outside his window. It really takes a lot to get James nervous about a storm so I knew it had to be bad. I guess we need to get used to tornado weather while we continue to live in the south for the next few years. I just need to convince James that tornadoes are in fact dangerous and it is in fact a good idea to take cover when a tornado is coming through your area.

The few pictures after that are a trip that we took to mammoth cave. We got to go into the mammoth cave which is the largest in the world (over 300 miles). Of course we only got to see about a quarter of a mile of it but still very neat. At the cave's entrance Jonas got a little nervous because it looked so dark. He said" I don't go in the cave" but we got him in there and he loved it. We then went camping at a site nearby the cave. It was a lot of fun. Jonas kept himself busy around the campsite and went to bed that night without a peep.

The other few pictures are of the easter egg hunt we did for Jonas. We did the hunt on Saturday just inside the house. He loved it but it was similar to his birthday in that he was so interested in each individual egg he found that he really needed a lot of prodding to continue to look for eggs.

The last pictures are for mom and dad. I wanted them to see the new tv armoire we found on Craig's list. We removed the original handles to some more updated ones which was kind of a pain, but I think well worth it.

Okay I just have to tell the funny thing that Jonas said tonight. He was really having trouble falling asleep. So I let him get up and get a drink. Then told him to go back to bed. "Will you tuck me in?" he asked with his cute puppy dog eyes. So I tuck him in and kiss his cheek and decide to be so so nice and lay down to sing him twinkle twinkle little star before I leave. I guess he's outgrowing that song because I didn't get very far before he said, "now get out of my crib". His crib is more like a bed now but he still calls it a crib. Anyways, how rude but I was laughing too hard to really be hurt by it.

Fun at the Playground

I looove to throw these tiny rocks!





Who needs legs?





I took Jonas to the playground a couple of weeks ago to get these pictures. He is doing a lot more lately, learning so fast. He was climbing up this curved ladder at the playground and my tendency to be a helicopter mom was kicking in, but I let him try it and he made it up and back down a few times.It surprised me because often he's pretty cautious to try new things. He is now also very good at using the mouse on his leapfrog computer game. Just a couple of weeks ago he needed our help to play the games that used the little computer mouse but now he can play on his own and would do it all day if I let him. He is excited to go camping now that the weather is warm. He is also very into four wheeling in papa's truck or boony bouncin as James taught him to call it. Jonas once asked me if I would take him boony bouncin and I told him that only Papa knows how. Later he asked James to take him boony bouncin and James agreed and then Jonas said, "YOU know how". Of course with all this new learning also comes the desire to do everything independently, and have things his way. Jonas has always been very strong willed (wonder where he gets that from? =) I had my first experience with leaving my items where they were in the grocery store and dragging out a screaming flailing child to the car with many onlookers. Of course the fun times far outweigh the difficult and I just try to remind myself that he is still learning how not to be a little monster. Most of the time he does pretty well especially if his mom makes sure he gets enough sleep.

waiting for spring

future Bono

"should we play soccer mom?"

afternoon church

We have been very busy lately. James has been busy at work and working with the young men in our ward. He went on an overnight backpacking trip with them. Yes it was cold that night but the next day was actually warm and they all had a good time. Now it's cold and rainy again. I'm so excited for spring! Jonas got to come with me to work as I was in charge of a speech and language group for little ones last Monday. He had a great time and always loves being with other kids although he does turn into a "that's mine" monster at some point whenever he's around other kids. It was really nice that he could just come with me.
One of the funny things he's done lately is that he takes the wire for his monitor and puts the little end in his ear and holds the other end and then sings one line of a U2 song over and over like this, "he runs like a riverrrrrrrrrrrrr". I think he puts that wire in his ear because he saw this Disney music video and he really liked it so of course he wanted to watch it over and over and over again. I'm pretty sure he's trying to imitate those kids.