I got my baby back

Well, my little Cashy is back to normal today. Thank goodness! Since last week he's been running a fever and been soo sad all the time. His gums were all red and puffy. I just assumed he was teething, bad, as I stated in the last post. I suddenly understood all the horror stories about teething. Holy crap, it was worse than I ever thought it would be. Poor little guy. Well, I woke up yesterday and he had sores all over his lips, they were cracking and bleeding. I called into work for the first time in my entire life to say (through the tears...I was one freaked out mommy) that I wouldn't be coming in. About an hour after that, it dawned on me that maybe he's not teething at all. He has a mouthful of cold sores. I felt like and idiot dental hygienist mother that I didn't think of it sooner. I should have known after 4 YEARS of schooling on the matter. The doctor confirmed it. Gingivostomatitis. :( He said to just keep doing what I've been doing...tylenol and advil and wait it out.

Well, this morning he woke up happy as can be, he ate a full breakfast for the first time in a week and is running around crazy. That's my Cashy. He's been enjoying his early Christmas present that Jake and I broke down and gave him last night out of pity. An awesome indoor slide. He climbs up it, slides down it, climbs up it, slides down it. Since my camera died, this phone picture will have to do.

He wouldn't hold still long enough for me to get a not blurry pic with my phone...

BIG smile after the wild ride.

Just had to show off my little big foot. :)

Love, love Sundays

Today was ummm, what's the word...rejuvenating . (If it wasn't for spell check that word would be spelled wrong btw.) I just love sundays, they are set apart. Been reflecting on it lots today because of a lovely lesson given in Relief Society today by my brand new neighbor, Ann, whom I adore. It'sjust nice to have a day that is set apart. The TV stays OFF, the house is quiet, all is well. Not to mention we had some fantastic dinner guests, the house smelled like apple cider and the Christmas tree lights were glowing. Good day. I'm ready for Monday, I think.

(I think I'm especially appreciative of this day of rest after such a traumatic few months with the remodel, which I will divulge at a later date. Not in the mood to think about it right now. I'm not kidding when I say traumatic.)

I may not look traumatized...but I most certainly was.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Well, a lot has happened since my last post. I haven't disappeared, just been super busy renovating a house. I'll do a quick catch up post with the before and afters, once I have a new camera. Mine decided to die last week after being smothered by a 15 month old. Good thing Christmas is in less than a week! Anyway, I promise to be a faithful blogger now that we're settled. Man it feels good to say that...we're settled. :)

Here's a few photos of what we've been up to this holiday season from tree cutting to gingerbread house making. Can I just say how proud Jake was of his leaning "Chapel of Love" gingerbread house? Man, what a good night!! I married an artist. My gingerbread house was already half eaten by the time we pulled out the camera so it wasn't really worthy of a picture.

The Fergy clan at temple square...good looking crew wouldn't you say? :)
Tree cutting day...my favorite tradition! What a face. He tolerated the cold pretty well, I have to say.

The whole crew was there. All 5 of my siblings with 4 spouses, 2 babies, 3 dogs and 2 grandparents. Did I miss anyone? What a day...lots of trees in the bed of the truck. Thank goodness we all had snow shoes. The snow was up to my waist.Our perfect tree...it's a 13 footer! And it fits perfectly in the house. Excellent. All the ornaments are on the top half of the tree to keep them away from Mr. Mischief, but it still looks pretty good I have to say.
Jake's leaning chapel of love, it even has a stained glass window that you can't see. My contribution was licking the candy cane till all the red stripes were gone and it was pointy to make a steeple.
Cash LOVED getting pulled around in the sled. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face.


Sledding in my hometown. Bliss. Cashy and Uncle John lookin' good.

Our Little Copycat

I love my little guy so much I can hardly stand it and he's got so much personality and spunk that it makes me love him even more if that's possible. He's my little entertainer. Here's some of his favorite tricks. Enjoy...and if you want a live show, stop on by.

Anyone that knows me knows that I've been a baby lover all my life. I used to spend hours on You Tube watching the videos of babies laughing. It just always put me in a good mood. Well now, I have my own laughing baby! This video made my day, well my month actually. You can't help but laugh along with him huh. :)

I'm lovin' it!

So I am on a complete coupon high right now. Thanks to my good friend Claire and Amy, the Savvy Shopper, I saved $159 on my shopping trip tonight. It was amazing and I had to tell someone immediately. My groceries rung up to $240 and then after all my coupons and discounts were scanned in, the grand total was $81 and that will get me through to the end of the month. I think I can handle that. :) Last time, I made Claire go with me and she helped me get the total down from $111 to $43. Pretty cool. It only takes me about an hour to cut all the coupons on sunday and then maybe 1/2 hour before each shopping trip to prepare. I used to hate grocery shopping, but now...it's a pleasure! I love handing the cashier my stack of coupons and see the money come off. Such a good time. I can't wait till I get better at it. I'm going to have to start planning my vacation now with all the money I'll be saving. Gotta love it.

All the stars have aligned

So, it seems like things are working out just as they should. We found THE house. It has all but 4 of the things on my list. I won't bore you with the details of how things fell into place, but the game is finally over. It was torturous waiting on counteroffers, wondering if another, better offer was going to come in, etc, etc...But it's official and it will be ours at the end of August. Very exciting. More to come. :)

Poor little guy...

My baby needs to forgive me. I'm pretty sure that he's not going to read this, but I just love him so so much!! Tonight Jake got home from work about 4:30 and when Jake gets home from work, it's daddy time. He fed Cashy, played a bit, and then put him down for a nap cuz he was being super cranky. Then about an hour later I went upstairs to check on him. He was wide awake and SOOOO sad. Right as soon as he looked at me, he started crying and was so upset for the next hour. I think he thought we had abandoned him. I don't know if he slept at all that whole hour. Our baby monitor broke last week and mommy forgot. Yeah...I still feel really bad. I don't know if I was more upset or if he was more upset. Jake is still trying to console me. Here's some memories of happier times. (On the list for tomorrow- go buy a new baby monitor! )

The Beehive State

So, I said in a previous post that ever since Jake got done with school we have felt like we are on vacation...it's also been a reality check though. What do normal people do with all their time? When he was gone at school, I played with the girls alot and with girlfriends, there are plenty of options! We were perfectly content to talk, eat icecream, go shopping, talk, watch chick flicks, go on walks, talk, sit by the pool, do nothing at all, and talk some more.

Well, male company is a little different. (Sidenote: I have a magnet on my fridge that says, "The truth is, I would rather do nothing with you than something with anybody else." Referring to Jake ofcourse and I really mean it. I love him alot and I love that we don't always have to entertain ourselves.) Moving on, there are certainly a few things that you can do with boys that you can't do with your girlfriends, :) but there were a few nights when we put Cash to bed and watched TV for 3 hours straight, so since then, we have been on a mission to find fun things to do that were close by and that we would both enjoy. Come to find out (and to be honest it's something I've known all along) there's lots of stuff to do right here in our valley.

Our adventures last week included looking at all the beautiful flowers on temple square, hiking, going to the church history museum, and we went to Antelope Island. I've never been before and it's a pretty cool place. We saw antelope and bison. Very stinky though and there were biting gnats...YUCK! While we were at the visitor center though, I picked up a myriad of pamphlets with TONS of ideas. There's so much cool stuff to see right here. Needless to say, it made me very excited for this summer. Utah is an amazing place! We're headed to the Pioneer Museum and the Vietnam Memorial next to Capitol Hill tonight...oh and Costco. :)

Thomas and Megan

I have a beautiful new sister-in-law and I couldn't be happier about it. Thomas certainly made a good choice and it's a good thing cuz now it's official. They were married in the Logan Temple on May 14 and it was one of the most beautiful ceremonies I have ever seen. Really, I was touched. :) We couldn't be happier with the new addition.

Another great thing about the day is that we had some time outside the Logan Temple while we were waiting for the happy couple to emerge...and I got camera happy! Cashy borrowed the cutest 3 piece suit from his cousin Gaige and wow, he looked GOOD! I just finished all the editing. Here he is along with a couple of the fam that I made my brother Mark take.

HE DID IT!!

I just have to dedicate a post to Jake who has dedicated the last 2 years of his life to completing his MBA at the University of Utah. I'm just so so so proud of him for doing it. The best part about it is that it has already come to fruition with an amazing new job, which he loves.

It's funny how he and I are so different. I would have expected a party in my honor and to be showered with gifts for all my hard work, but not Jake. He just likes to lay low and achieve quiet greatness which I really do love about him. I would have at least liked to go to his graduation to get a picture of him in cap and gown, but he didn't want to...so we went out to dinner instead, just the three of us. For Jake, that's what it is all about anyway...his little family. He always says that we're the only reason that he was able to stay motivated through it all. Now that it's over and he comes home after work instead of going to school for 4 hours, we feel like we're on a perma vacation. We have been so blessed and really do feel like we are living the American Dream, which has become my new blog title. Didn't really love the old one. :)

Crazy Runner People!

So my crazy boss is on this major health kick and he's dragging all of us along with him. It's been good and bad. Good because any move in the right direction is a good one as far as health goes, bad because I've kinda been dragging my feet. I just haven't found "it" since I had Cash. I have participated in 2 biggest loser competitions and done my best to stay motivated, but it still hasn't happened....I just try not to think about the number on the scale. It's kinda scary. One good thing about my body though is that I've always been able to run, run, run...with or without training. So, I was on board when my office decided to do a 5k just 5 weeks after I delivered. Probably not the best idea, but I did great and felt fine. :)

So, next thing he dragged us into was a half marathon. Now this I wasn't too sure about. It's been a long time since I ran more that a few miles, but Erin (the office manager) and I signed up thinking we would have plenty of time to train. Of course we didn't train, but we did survive the race. I finished in 2 hours 37 minutes, which is A LOT slower than my pre-baby half marathons, but better than I thought I would do, so I felt okay about it.

Funny story: So, anyone who has ever participated in a race of any kind knows that there are spectators galore who bring signs and balloons and whatever else they think will motivate their runner. Well, there was a sign I passed that said, "GO CUBBIE GIRL!" At first glance I thought the sign said, "GO CHUBBIE GIRL!" I was so excited to have a fan club and was proud of the other chubbie girl running a half marathon behind me. :) I just had to laugh.

I have another half marathon coming up in a few weeks that I'm running with my hard core mom and beautiful sister...a girl power race, if you will. I've heard the Ogden Marathon is BEAUTIFUL so it should be a good time. Race day always is. There's always something in the air, endorphins floating around or something, but it just feels good. Hopefully I'll shave a few minutes off my time and eventually work up to this again:

This photo was taken after my 2nd full marathon, the Top of Utah in Logan. Still smiling (and standing) after running 26.2 miles. I finished in 4 hours and 20 minutes and hope to do it again someday...or not. :)

Cash Daniel

This is my first real video project...I have a lot to learn but I had a BLAST with this! Cashy's 4-6 months old in the video. Now I have to do one for his newborn days which sadly, are long gone. I can't believe how old he is getting and every stage is absolutely amazing. We think he's the greatest. :)

Time to relax

WHEW!!! We're all moved. I can't believe what a whirlwind that last few weeks have been. So, we got an offer on the house...but it turns out it lost a lot of value since we bought it 2 years ago. (stupid stupid economy!) Anyway, we would have had to bring about $20,000 to the table just to meet the full appraisal amount and sell. NOT happening, so we decided to rent it out and immediately felt great about it once the decision was made. YAY! I listed it on KSL and within about 30 minutes had someone coming over to look at it. Applications were filled out, contract was signed and deposit and first month's rent were cashed within just a couple of days...apparently it's very easy to rent a cute, little house in Murray. :) Not only do we have a great renter, but we have 5 others in line that want me to let them know if it becomes available.

We found the perfect little townhouse to rent in Bountiful, right off of main street and can I just say... I LOVE IT!! I thought it would be really hard to rent again after owning a home, but it has been so great. I love that I can walk to the grocery store or the Yogurt Stop or the Post office. I love that we have Jake's awesome brother Jed and his cute little family (including Cash's BFF/cousin Gaige) right around the corner, I love that I can run to the cemetery or up on Bountiful Boulevard anytime I please, I love that we have Jake's family and my lovely Aunt Sue right here in Bountiful and my family just an hour and seven minutes away in Logan. It's also great living just minutes away from my Sarah and my favorite small, town sandwich place in the world, SPANKYS!! (I've been there atleast 3 times a week since we moved.)

I couldn't be happier to be a Bountiful resident. And to top it all off, Jake only has 3 1/2 more weeks till he's done with his MBA and he absolutely loves his new job. He thinks being the boss is pretty great. Oh, and he comes home for lunch! How cool is that?!

As of right now, we are pretty happy with our situation. It's amazing how the tables can turn. We were thrilled when Jake got the job, but then reality set in when we put the house on the market and realized what had happened to the value. I went through some very dark days thinking about how much money we were going to to lose and wondering how we were going to recover. It's so hard not to think of all the should-haves from the past. I've actually learned a lot from what we've been through and am very grateful for the companionship of the Lord through all this. It's nice to finally be settled. We've decided that we won't be buying another home for at least a year or two. We want to feel out our new surroundings for a while...we're perfectly content for now.

So that awesome mommy that I swap babysitting days with...she also scrapbooks. Wow, right? Well, I hope she won't mind me posting this page. It was too funny not to share! She put Cashy in Girly clothes to go on a walk and he wasn't too happy about it, but...he got over it, as you can clearly see from the sheepish grin on his face.

It's funny how when you're trying to sell your home...any call, any email suddenly becomes the one that's going to take this stress off your shoulders. I get my hopes up so high at ANY spark of interest that a random stranger shows. I check my KSL add about 5 times a day to see how many "hits" we've had. I think I just need to calm down and be patient. Everything is going to work out, right people?!

ps. I think the hardest part about all this is how much time I spend keeping my house clean...not my forte!

A few things that we are most sad to leave behind

We're taking him with us...but I just had to squeeze this one in cuz it's so cute. Don't ya think?!

I have a perfect babysitting arrangement with an awesome mommy in my ward named Jenny. She watches Cash on Tuesdays while I work and I watch her cute little Gwyneth on Mondays while she works. We both happen to be part time dental hygienists. I have loved it so far and I think they have to, Gwyneth and Cash I mean. They are little buddies. Cash has almost figured out how to play with her just in time for us to leave. I really am sad about this because it is just so so perfect. :(

My lovely, new patio. And I only got to enjoy it for 1/2 of one summer. Waaahh! Boohoo. I really am upset about this though. For real.

I will also miss the Young Women and leaders that I have come to love so so much! They really are some of the greatest women I've ever met and I've decided that I'm going to keep them. Bountiful really isn't that far after all.

I love having the farmers market and fashion place mall right around the corner. We love going on walks to these places. Not only can I get all my errands done without a car, but it's a fun outing for me and baby. Everything is close by when you live in Murray and it's going to be hard to adjust to living in a community without so many businesses close by.

So many other thing are going to be missed, but one good thing that I have found is that wherever I am, I seem to adjust quickly and love it soon enough. Hopefully that will be the case with this move as well. We may be here for another 6 months though, it'll just depend on the house. Either way we'll enjoy it for the next few months.

A new start

Well, it's official. A new job is taking our little family to Bountiful...most likely for the rest of our lives. We are thrilled with the opportunity and Jake couldn't be happier about the job, but that means that we have to leave so many of the things that we have come to love here in Murray. We love our home so much and the people that I have met here are amazing, but only new adventures to come! I just have to say how proud I am of Jake. He has worked so hard for this and so deserves it in my opinion. I just love him alot lot lot. Can you tell?

This was move in day...a very happy day. We think our home is perfect and we hope the future owners will love it as much as we did.

A few of our favorites

We really needed a vacation last weekend, so we packed up our little family and headed down south. Las Vegas was in the 70s, so first thing that we did was hit the pool at the Palazzo. Cashy LOVED kicking around in the water...WAY better than the bathtub!

Our little getaway was just what we needed. Especially Jake since he is finishing up his MBA this semester at the U and working full time. He doesn't get much time to himself. I'm so grateful for all his hard work. Makes me love him even more...if that's even possible.

Cash at 5 months. We seriously can't get enough of him. Our hearts have grown so much since he came into our lives.

Our very first family photo. Our lives will never be the same!! I always had wanted to be a mom, but honestly never imagined how amazing it would be. Sounds cliche I know, but it's the truth. It hasn't been perfect...but almost.

Am I back? Am I?

As you can see from the previous post, I started a blog called Fergy Life WAAAY back in June of 2008. I guess blogging wasn't my thing either. :) My good friend Erin helped me set it up and kept encouraging me to contribute to it, since it was mine...I guess that's what you're supposed to do. This time around, I'm hoping to be a little more consistent. I do have new motivation in the form of littleman...my baby Cash Daniel who is 5 months old already! I'm finding myself wanting to show him off. So, I started over with a new blog, title and all. Maybe eventually I'll get around to making it cute. Stay tuned.

(While writing this post, I gave Cashy exactly 6 kiss attacks, told him that I love him approximately 4 times, and said, "You are just the cutest thing" in more than one variation...see what a good mommy I'm TRYING to be? I think I will mostly try to write while he is fast asleep to avoid the guilt.) This video is what Cashy did while I blogged. He's definately discovered his vocal cords!

Fergy Life

Fergy was Jake's nickname all through highschool. When I asked Jake if Fergy life sounded like a good title for our newly formed blog, he shrugged and said, "Sure, that sounds fine babe. But do you honestly think that I'll ever see it anyway?" Honesty...what a great quality. I guess that you could say that blogging isn't really his thing. So, you'd pretty much be safe in assuming that all of the posts on this here blog come from me, Mindy Ferguson. And I'm happy to do it!