Where Are We In Life?

I do a lot of blog posts ... and they tell lots of stories of small moments in our lives, but where are we exactly in life? Well ...

Eric:
Eric's birthday is next month - he will be 26. Crazy how old we are getting!!!

Eric works as the IT Coordinator at Precoa. Eric's Dad, Mark, is one of the founders of Precoa, but it is by no means a family business... there are over 150 in the home office and a salesforce of over 300 - and it is still growing rapidly! They are a marketing company for funeral homes. They help people pre-arrange their funerals so that when the time comes, there is no stress or bickering among family members when a loved one passes, they can simply take the time to mourn. It is a phenomenal company to work for - the atmosphere is amazing and I love how loved our family is by the employees that work there. Anytime we go to visit Eric, we are greeted by so many people who are truly interested in how we are doing - and I can see the respect in their eyes that they have for Eric. Being in the IT department is so wonderful for Eric. He truly loves what he does there and when he comes home from work, he tells me about the projects and the wonderful people ... It is so evident that he loves where he is at.

He also serves as the Crew Advisor (Priests Quorum Advisor) in our ward. The first day we went to this ward, The Priests saw him and informed the Bishop that they knew he would be the right person for their Quorum. After praying about it, the Bishop agreed. That was the only time we attended the ward without callings...

Don't worry, Eric also still plays the drums! He loves to come home and sit down to play after dinner. He is still as amazing as ever and hopefully, one day, he will be able to teach drum lessons again like he wants! Eric also spends time playing board games and computer games with me and with co-workers. Some of our favorites video games right now are the Uncharted series, Dota 2, and FTL.

Eric is a technology guru and has really enjoyed getting our home set up tech wise. I am truly blessed in this regard because if I go near technology, it breaks ... It is great to have someone who knows how to fix it!

Jessie:
I just had my birthday last week - 24 years old, yikes! Eric surprised me with flowers, helped me do some shopping (online) and then took me to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner (this is rapidly becoming my favorite restaurant). We had some friends of ours, Kody and Ashley, watch Aaron and Audrey. It was a nice break.

I am absolutely loving being in our house. It is nice that everything has a place - this means that it rarely takes longer than 30-45 minutes to neaten up the entire house. Most everything just stays put! One of my favorite features about the house is having a garbage disposal :) Having a garage is also nice. And a playroom ... ok, really, I just love it all!

I serve as the Young Women's Secretary in our ward and I honestly couldn't ask for a better calling! The Young Women are so welcoming! I don't attend mutual on Wednesdays - how could I with Eric going and having 2 kids, but helping them on Sundays and doing all the behind the scenes work is very rewarding. I was also snatched after the first week attending our ward so neither Eric nor I know many people in our ward as we only attended Relief Society/Elder's Quorum once, but our ward is quite fellow-shipping and we meet new people in the hall every week.

Currently, I am a choreographer for the Multi-Stake Dance Festival that will be happening next summer! I choreographed a Waltz for the Laurels and Priests of a different stake to So She Dances by Josh Groban. I am teaching focus groups and teachers so that they can take over and teach the youth. I am also the lead teacher in my stake and I will be teaching the Laurels and Priests a swing that was choreographed by a lady named Angie. I am super excited to start teaching! As lead teacher, I am helping the choreographer teach the other teachers and teach her focus groups. I will start teaching our youth in January of next year and Eric will watch our kiddos so I can do that. I love to dance and am so grateful that I still have an opportunity to dance. In a month when the choreography part calms down for this Dance Festival, I plan to apply to a few dance studios in the area and see if I can pick up a class or two to teach in the evenings/weekends.

My craft room is now organized so I hope to hunker down and pop out some crafts soon! I have some curtains that need attending and I have all the fabric for Audrey's quilt, I just need to get started!

Aaron:
Aaron is 2 and he is progressing so well! He learned to get out of his room so bedtime is a bit of a struggle, but we are working on it! He is slowly getting better and better about staying in his room and sleeping as he should.

He is learning colors and shapes and numbers and letters. It seems his favorite letters are X and Y. (a mathematician in the making, perhaps???) as those are the ones he pulls from the puzzle first or looks for first on the wall. His favorite color is pink. I am assuming that is because everything surrounding Audrey is pink. When I ask him what color [bowl/cup/spoon/anything really] he wants, the answer is always pink. Aaron's favorite number is 25. Not sure why this is ... but if I ask him to count something, he will often immediately tell me that there are 25, without looking   -_-   If I ask him to look again, he often will say, "ooooooh, 26!"   -_-   Eventually he will count them for me though and he is getting better and better every day.

Aaron loves cars and trucks - it is amazing how no matter how many cars he has or how many times he sees a school bus, he still gets so excited! His favorite movies right now are Cars (of course), The Incredibles, and How to Train Your Dragon. But he also enjoys when I switch it up, or sitting and just looking at the pictures on the DVD cases. He can now reach where we keep the DVD's and I will often find him sitting on the couch with another DVD and he will ask me, pointing to the case, "Who's that?" He also asks this question when we are on outings, most often at the grocery store. He gets frustrated when my reply is, "I don't know" so often that eventually, I start making up names for the people around us. This seems to satisfy him.

His favorite song is Call Me Maybe and he sings it all the time. Hopefully I will be able to snatch a video of this soon! The food he gets the most excited about is green beans, but he also loves broccoli, pizza, hot dogs, mac & cheese, and if he hears the word strawberry you are doomed until you give him one! He also, of course, loves anything with chocolate and marshmallows. He still brings me the bag of chocolate chips and marshmallows every once in a while when I'm still in bed and he will climb up with me so we can share it as a morning snack (in fact, they are in my night stand from this morning!).

Aaron loves to play in his playroom and I love listening to him narrate his play... I hear him talk to his animals, ask his cars if they are okay, or simply say aloud what he is going to do next. He also loves to grab a book and read in the rocking chair. And at night, when he wakes up scared, he grabs his scriptures and pulls them in bed with him.

Audrey:
Audrey is just over 3 weeks and she is an angel. She really is. When she is awake, she is so alert and loves to look around. She smiles with her whole face and you can't help but smile back! She loves to be held and sometimes, she demands to be held, but most of the time, she is content to lay on her own and take in her environment.

She is already on the move scooting on her belly. Aaron loves to watch her scoot and then place his hand behind her feet and watch her shoot forward with a force that shocks us all every time! At night, she sleeps an average of 5-6 hours at a time only waking for feedings twice... heaven!

Audrey is still small and petite. Her legs are so skinny that the leg warmers I made her fall off! And newborn size clothing seems like it will fit for a while. She is gaining weight as she should and eats like a champ so I'm not concerned. I'm just loving how little she is! Her hair, like Aaron's when he was younger, appears to be red. Aaron's turned blond, so we'll see if her red hair sticks around or not. Eric's dad has red hair and Eric's beard is red, so we have the genes for it ... who knows?!?


Well, that is a little bit about where we are in life - what we are up to, what our interests are ... I will hopefully do posts like this more often to make sure I am telling the stories, not just the moments :)