January 2014

Whew! I've let myself get SO behind on blogging again! It has been a busy 6 months and I haven't made the time for it. Part of that  is our computer died in Jan. and I lost pictures, as well as not having anything to blog on! Here goes our January in a nutshell (and tons of pictures!).

Lydia loves being outside and didn't let the cold and snow stop her at all. She loved playing, helping keep the walks shoveled, building snowmen (I built some small ones with her, and she and Neal built some big ones), and even swinging.

She is also loving being a big sister and for the most part, is very helpful and nice to Jacob. She loves to play with him, and was always very excited when I would let her give him a bottle. I hope that these two can continue being nice and playing well together.

Mid January, we headed to California with Neal's family. We were so excited and ready for the warm weather and sunshine. Lydia LOVES painting her toenails so that was a must do before we left.

Waiting in the airport... Lydia was not happy to sit with us so we could take a picture.

We arrived in California Thursday evening, so that night was basically checking into our hotel and spending the night. Friday morning we all got up and headed to Disneyland and California Adventure for a full day. All of Neal's family was there (minus Bradley, who is on his mission) as well as Neal's cousin Grant, his wife Kate (and their two kids). It was my first time at Disneyland, so everything was new to me, as well as Lydia and Jacob's first time. We spent  most of the morning in California Adventure where we stayed with the rest of the family. They were so nice to watch the kids for us so Neal and I could go on some of the rides together. It was also nice to have Dallin with us (he has downs syndrome) because we could get fast passes on all the rides he wanted to go on. There weren't a ton of rides for Lydia, so around lunchtime we went to Disneyland. Right after lunch, Jacob had a MAJOR blowout! We're talking about all over himself and covering Neal's shirt as well. Luckily we had a change of clothes for him and Neal had a long sleeve shirt in our back pack (in case it was a bit cold in the evening). Not the most fun part of the day, but we got cleaned up and back at it. After getting everyone cleaned up, Neal and I took the kids and split off from the group (we didn't want the others to feel like they needed to watch the kids, and we wanted  to go one more of the little kid rides with Lydia). We stayed until evening, and the kids were so tired, that they fell asleep on the walk back to the hotel. It was a fun day, but honestly I am not a huge fan of amusement parks, so it isn't high on my list of things to do again. I do always enjoy trips with family though, and the weather was fantastic! We didn't take a lot of pictures, so here are the few that we got.

Disneyland!

Our first ride, the carousal in California Adventure. We even got Brent, Annie, and Stephanie to ride with us.

Fun in Disneyland!

Kevin and Neal's mom took the kids to Bug land while the rest of us went on Soaring Over California. Bottom right picture is from "Its a Small World"

After a full day of Disneyland, we packed up again and drove down to Newport Beach, where we stayed at the beautiful Marriott Coast Villa. The rooms were huge and really nice, the grounds/amenities were amazing, and it was just a few minutes away from the beach. We spent most of Saturday enjoying the pools/ outdoor activities they had. Lydia loved all the attention from her uncles(mostly Kevin) and spent a lot of time with them in the water. 

The guys spend their time swimming, doing flips/tricks, and playing frisbee

The girls spent more time relaxing in the sun

Lydia thought it was so funny to pretend everyone in the water were dolphins. She loved to "feed the dolphins" a cracker when we would swim up and "beg" for one.

Playing pool with Dallin and Grandma. Bottom right: having lunch with Allison (Kate and Grant's little girl)

Neal and Lydia finding starfish at the beach.

Just hanging out at the beach. Lydia liked it... as long as she didn't have to get too close to the water. She thought that the waves were too loud and scary.

Sunday morning happened to be Regional Conference for the area, so we were able to attend that. The closest chapel was across from the Newport Beach Temple, and we loved seeing the temple and walking around it as well. After church, we drove to Neal's cousin's home (Ricky and Alanna) where we enjoyed a great dinner, visit, and walk to  the nearby park.

Monday morning we had enough time to pack up and make a quick stop at the beach before heading back to the airport. It was a fun weekend trip and we were sad to leave!

Lydia was so tired from our fun weekend, she fell asleep on the drive back to the airport. She didn't even finish her sandwich first.

After our warm and sunny vacation, it was back to reality with the cold and snow! Since we didn't make it for the holidays, I took the kids up to Rexburg for a  quick visit  (Neal had to stay home to work). Lydia always loves to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house, and she even convinced them to take her sledding. It ended up being too cold for Jacob, even in his warm bear suit, so my mom took him back to the house and my dad and I pulled Lydia around in the sled and went down the hill a few times.

Family Pictures

After doing an 8 weeks fitness/health challenge (feel great in 8) and winning some prize money, I thought it was time to get some professional pictures done of our little family. I've heard a lot of good things about the FotoFly studio down in Draper and it wasn't terribly expensive for what you get. They did a great job and I'm really happy with how they turned out. The photographer was really nice and was also great with the kids! I also love the fact that they give us a cd with the copyrights and all the pictures. I won't post all the pictures on here, but there are so many cute ones, it will still be a picture overload. :)

Our cute kids!

Little miss attitude. :) 

Beautiful girl!

Jacob wasn't so sure about everything at first, but we did get a big smile! 

So cute!

The start of it all.. my handsome husband and I!

Christmas 2013 and Our Year in Review

Christmas came so quickly this year! I feel like I hardly had time to think about it before it was over and gone. In the few weeks before Christmas Neal and I tried to think about the gifts we could give our Savior. I tried to focus more on my scripture study, in particular the Savior's birth and surrounding time. 

We really have had a great year and are blessed with a wonderful family! The first half of the year we were blessed to house sit for the Mayers while they were on their mission. When they came back in June, we made the big move across and down the street to an apartment (Neal's parents own a triplex here). We love Bountiful and feel blessed to still be here close to many family and friends.

Neal: He's stayed busy being a wonderful husband, father, and breadwinner for our family. He's still working at Academy Mortgage in Sandy, but has switched to the marketing department. He loves sports (both watching and playing) when he can find time for it, and is currently teaching the 14-15 year old Sunday school class.
Becca: I love being a stay at home mom and wife for Neal and our two cute kids. A big part of the year  was being pregnant and bringing a new member to our family in October. I also spent a lot of time painting furniture, doing projects, and turning our new apartment into a home.
Lydia: This has been a huge year of growing and accomplishments for Lydia. She loves to talk and has quite an extensive vocabulary. With the arrival of Jacob, she became a big sister and does great! She's my little helper and Momma's girl, whatever I'm doing, she wants to do too. Potty training was another of her big accomplishments this year (although she still wears diapers to bed) and she's doing great at it! She also loves to sing songs, pray,  make people happy, and going to "bamas" house (grandma).
Jacob: Jacob made his grand arrival October 4 in the back of our SUV on I 15, making us a family of four. He's our happy little boy who loves to coo and smile at us and we can't imagine life without him.

We spent Christmas this year with Neal's family. Christmas eve we had a nice dinner and enjoyed reading the nativity story and singing Christmas songs at Neal's parents. Everyone was there except Bradley , who is on his mission. The next morning we woke up and opened stockings here before heading over to his parent's house. Lydia was so excited to find fun things in her stocking, but she especially loved her fruit snacks! After making some bread for neighbors we headed up the street to grandma and grandpa's house. It was so nice being with family and we were spoiled with so many gifts. Lydia is at such a fun age and  it was so fun to watch her open presents and get excited about them. After presents and a late brunch we were able to Skype with Bradley. The rest of the day was spent visiting family, eating, playing games, and sledding. What a great day! I forgot the camera so I only have one picture of Lydia with her stocking ( before we left home) .

December

December was a fun and busy month filled with lots of family get-togethers and parties.

Lydia, Sadie, and Kaitlin

My sister Melissa came to visit from Alabama with her three girls. While she was here we met up with Jen and Rhonda, so we had four of the five sisters together. It's always so fun to get together with them and Lydia loved playing with her cousins. We tried to get the three little girls together for pictures but they were not very cooperative this year. These were the best I could get.

Jen also recently had another baby (Hannah) and she and Jacob are a month apart. I love that my kids have cousins their age to play with.

My mini me. :) I came out wearing this and Lydia wanted to match me, so I let her wear her red pants and white shirt too. She loved it.

Jacob and Lydia watching each other and hanging out at home.

Santa came to both the Johnson and Swalberg family parties (Neal's dad and moms side of the family). Jacob didn't mind sitting with him but Lydia wanted nothing to do with him. The first night she just cried and wouldn't go anywhere near him. The second night she still wasn't anxious to have anything to do with him, but she did let me hold her next to him so we could get a  picture.

Flossing

Neal is a flossing fanatic. In all the time I've known him, he always has to floss his teeth, every night. (Don't get me wrong, I think flossing is important too, I just don't do it as often.) Recently, he's been helping Lydia floss her teeth and she loves it. Well, one Saturday morning she woke up and came into our room with this...

... She had taken a package of floss (of course it was brand new), pulled it open, and unwound the whole thing. She was so proud of herself for flossing all by herself.  How can you get mad when she's so cute and just trying to learn good habits?

Jacob's 2 month checkup

Due to a busy season and late scheduling on my part, Jacob's 2 month checkup didn't happen until last week (so he was 2 1/2) months. He's growing fast and things are looking good.

2 month stats

Weight: 13 lbs 13 oz (90%)

Length: 24 in (75%)

Head 16 in (50%)

Hanging out at the dr's office

I forgot just how fast they change and grow. He is a very happy baby and is starting to coo and "talk" a lot more. He loves being out with us and especially loves watching whatever Lydia is doing. He still is not a big fan of being on his tummy, but will tolerate it for a while. Since we moved him to his crib (sharing a room with Lydia) he's been sleeping much better. Some nights he's still up every couple of hours, but mostly he'll only be up once or twice to eat and then go back down. There were even two nights this last week where he slept through the entire night! 

Jacob's blessing and attempted photo shoot

Wintertime is definitely harder to get everyone together for a baby blessing. It seemed as though each Sunday someone was always sick. Jacob also picked up a cold (complete with congested and stuffy nose- which made it  hard for him to breath, eat, or sleep) which lasted for about a month. Because he was still sick when we originally planned on blessing him (Dec 1st), we pushed it back another week. Unfortunately it snowed a lot that weekend so most of my family was unable to come, but most of Neal's family live very close and were here. Those in the circle included: Neal, his Dad and Grandpa, Brent, and Josh (Stephanie's friend). My sister Rhonda and family made it up here for the tail end of the blessing, due to the bad roads. The blessing was very nice and Jacob was quite content and happy throughout it (unlike Lydia). What a blessing it  is to have the gospel in our lives and to have Neal be a worthy priesthood holder to preside over our family. We didn't get any pictures taken on Sunday, so Monday morning I put him back in his outfit.

As soon as I pulled out the camera, Lydia wanted in on all the action, so we did a little photo shoot with her as well. What a job! I think that I'll leave picture taking to the professionals, or at least when I have someone here to help out.

Trying to get a 2 year old still and smiling! I think that I took about 30 or 40 pictures trying to get one that I loved and still wasn't super happy with any of them. Oh well, we're getting family pictures taken next month!