Nevermind.

I listed our apartment on Craigslist this morning, then started to list it on KSL. Before I finished the KSL posting, I had four emails about it. I responded to the first person first, and then she wanted to come see it in 10 minutes. It turned out to be a girl that we know from a BYU student ward and I had classes with her...small world, huh? She decided to rent it and so we have that all taken care of now! That was easy!

Know Anyone?

We're very excited to move. There's only one down side, but we don't anticipate it to be too difficult to overcome: we need to find a replacement for our current apartment. If you are interested or know anyone else that might be interested, please let us know.

We have loved living here. The apartment was completely re-done about three years ago, including new carpet, nice tile, stainless steel appliances, washer/dryer. It's a two bedroom, bottom floor unit. The ward is fabulous (I know that shouldn't be a top selling point, but it's true--that's why we're so happy to be staying in the ward). Perhaps the fact that we're staying in the ward is also a selling point because the new renters will get to see us at Church, and knowing that we'll run into each other frequently is only greater motivation for us to be completely honest regarding everything about the apartment.

We're just a little snug here right now. Having a baby requires you to accumulate a lot of items you never considered having in your house before. If it weren't for the fact that Jackson's bedroom is also my office and I work from home every day, I think we'd be happy to stay here longer. This is great place to live. We just have the opportunity to have a lot more space for not a lot more in rent.

Please contact us at jackshirts@gmail.com or natalieshirts@gmail.com if you know anyone who might be interested.

Sheer Awesomeness

Do you think this is purely hereditary or can it be learned? Almost as cool as President Monson's ear wiggle.

Grandma's here!

My mom is here visiting and it is great! She got here late Friday night and will be staying until Sunday. I really could get used to having my family close by! I'm sure Jackson wants his Grama and Grampa closer too. I guess I'll have to report on our happenings of the week later after they happen, but we have plans for a lot of visiting and baby admiring, errands and little projects, and even making use of a very willing babysitter while she's in town.
Oh, for those interested in the crib saga... There is an end in sight! We've got a mattress that fits! After talking to 8 different Wal-Mart employees, we got a mattress that we found online that was 27.8 inches wide (almost 3 inches wider than the original one we had) and it fits perfectly into the crib! Jackson slept in it last night for the first time. I wish I could say that he slept perfectly for 8 hours...but really nothing could be further from the truth. He woke up crying every 15 minutes from about midnight to about 3:30. We did get to sleep from 3:30 until around 6:45, so that's not too bad, right? uggghhh. I do like the way the crib all turned out. I need to make some adjustments to the bumper pad and I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do it yet, but that's one of those projects I hope to do while my mom's here. Otherwise it may never happen.
Things are kind of snug in that room, as you can probably tell from the picture....which brings me to my next topic...
A few days ago my sister called me and said that (see if you can follow this) her husband's mom's best friend's mother is going on a mission and was going to rent out her town home that is here in Orem. Jordan and Shawn were going to go look at it, but then she decided that the 96 year old man they're renting from might die if they move. He really likes them. Anyway, Jordan had the lady call us so we could go look at it. She called us on Friday night and it was a lady in our ward! So we went over there and looked at the place on Saturday morning...it is soooo nice. It's only 3 years old, very big, and beautifully furnished. We were really excited about the possibility of this! We've been looking into moving because we just don't have enough space here with all the baby stuff we've accumulated but we really didn't want to leave our ward either. This was the perfect solution! She told us she'd let us know that night if she was going to let us live there or not and I was just going crazy waiting for her to call. When she called and said it was ours I was so excited! I was dancing all over the place and waaahoooooing like crazy! I'm still just soooo sooo sooo excited about it! We still have to work out all the details but we'll most likely move in there March 1 or a little sooner. You're all invited to help us move! And to come over and visit when we get settled of course. I'll post pictures when I take some, but it probably won't be until we move in. For the good news minute in Relief Society today I announced that we found out yesterday that we're moving. The reaction was priceless! Every head turned and the room was filled with "What?! That's not good news! Where are you going? When? You can't leave!" Then I said we were moving to April's home and there was just a huge sigh in the room and a lot of "hooray!" 's and a few punches from people who didn't like my trick. We feel very blessed to be able to move there. It is an answer to many prayers!

Oh, and happy Chinese New Year to everyone tomorrow! May the year of the ox bring joy and good fortune.

Poster Child

I got Jackson's pictures taken at Target yesterday and they turned out so well! I really think he should be the baby up on the wall in the huge x huge frame, trying to persuade all parents that their child could be this cute if they had their picture taken at Target. But of course, they could never be quite as cute as Jackson. I'll get the real things back in 7-10 business days, but for now, here are pictures of the screen that I took with my phone. Shhhh, don't tell. He was just so cute I had to be able to show Jack & Grandma right away. That's why the quality isn't great, but the baby sure is cute!

Growing up!

Jackson now sits up for a couple minutes at a time now. He can't get into the sitting position himself, but once there he can stay...until he takes a nose dive or falls backwards.

He's only rolling from back to tummy now. He rolled tummy to back a few times about a week ago, but won't do it any more. The problem is, he doesn't like be on his tummy.
I confess, I rarely watch videos on people's blogs...but I've edited this one so it is only 9 seconds long.


Some of his 3-6 month clothes are getting kind of small and I keep thinking I need to look through the clothes in waiting to pull out the 6-9 month stuff that he can wear now. On Tuesday I needed to do laundry and so I just grabbed something from the 6-9 month drawer and it is none too big! I went through it all yesterday and washed it and he wore two of the outfits today so far (thanks to a huge diaper blow-out) and it looks like I should have gotten this stuff out a few weeks ago. So far it all fits, but it might not fit too much longer. Oops. And then there are two outfits that were gifts that look like they would fit now, but they're shorts & short sleeved shirts...so looks like we'll never get to wear those. And they are cute, too.

Grandma West (my mom) is coming to visit next week and we're all excited for her to see how much this baby has changed! It's amazing to me how quickly he changes and learns new things.

He's getting much better at using his hands to pick things up and put them where he wants them (usually in his mouth). He can pick up his pacifier, pass it from one hand to the other, and turn it around to get it in his mouth. Quite impressive, huh?

Tooth #2, the crib, and cheerios

You can really only see the first tooth in this picture, but his second tooth broke through the gums yesterday! Hopefully this means the fussiness and sore mouth of teething will subside for a while. He also had an eye infection and stuffy/runny nose for a little bit, both of which have cleared up mostly so life should get back to normal soon.

Oh, and continuing on in the crib saga.... we spent a good part of yesterday putting all the hardware back on and getting it all put together. We cleaned up the office/baby room to make space for it to go. We brought it in the room. It fit just perfectly next to the bookcase on one wall. We were almost done! Then we put the mattress in...... GRRRR! The mattress is about 3 inches too small so there is a big gap between it and the bars, perfect size for baby feet to slip down in and get stuck. Great! So maybe we're not done. We got the mattress for free off of craigslist, so it's not like we're out anything; and it was pretty well-used anyway....but I just want to be DONE with this fun little project! So now the question is this: Which is to blame? Is it the crib that is abnormally big? Or is the mattress abnormally small? Aren't these things supposed to be a standard size?

Jackson thought he'd try some cheerios this morning too. He at least got a taste of the bowl. He has done better at eating rice cereal the past few times that I've tried. Some days he still spits it out and some days he swallows it. He opens up for the spoon now though.

The Never-ending Project

The project that wouldn't end MIGHT be at an end finally. I don't even know how many times I have regretted starting this, but once we started it we had to finish (or just give up and buy a new one, which we've come close to doing). We (I) wanted to paint the crib dark brown...we started in July... When I got the primer I asked the paint man if it should be tinted instead of white since we were painting a dark color over it, and he said no... so we primed the crib. I went to get the brown paint. I wanted oil based paint so it would dry hard. I couldn't find it on the shelf so I asked the worker (different place than the first) figuring he'd know exactly where it was. He did walk straight to a can of paint, told me that is what I was looking for, dyed it, and sent me on my way. We painted two coats of it and thought we were done, finally. Later we realized it was NOT the right kind of paint and wasn't ever going to harden, so babies and sheets and stuff would forever stick to the paint. Not a good idea. ...Sooooo, we primed it again. I went to yet another store and got the right kind of paint. We painted it again. The can said it should be dry to the touch in 2 hours...12 hours later, it was still wet. At this point I was ready to give up. Luckily, 24 hours later, it really was dry. So we did the second coat for the second time.... I haven't seen it yet (we painted it in Aunt Betty's kitchen since it's too cold out) but word is that it is dry. Now we just have to put it back together...only problem is, we don't remember how it goes!