Brian & Teresa Happenings

As you may have noticed the last post was solely about Chloe. And that is how it should be. However there is so much happening in Brian and my life I figured it was only fair that I write a little update about us.

First off, since it's easier to write about other people, is Brian. Brian is currently in his last semester of coursework at Claremont Graduate University. What does that mean? He's super super busy. By the beginning of April he needs to have his master's thesis done. So he's working on that on top of everything else that is expected of him, his normal coursework, teaching online for BYU-Idaho, and playing with Chloe and I. After this semester is over he will have completed his master's while on his way to a Ph.D. This means that he will be able to start teaching at more local universities starting this Fall. (which he's needing to worry about applying to as well) In January we received great news that the grants for Brian's lab were approved, and now Brian will get paid for the work he does. Once the semester is over he will still be attending Claremont Graduate University to finish his Ph.D but will not have to attend classes on campus. He should be able to focus more on his dissertation, whatever teaching positions he may have, and continue working with the lab on campus.

I am feeling a lot more busy than I was a year ago. I am currently the first counselor in our Young Women's presidency and that has caused some great changes in my life, in addition to some added stresses. Every Wednesday we have mutual and I love getting to work together with the girls and getting to know each one of them better. The difficult part sometimes is that in order to give Brian some uninterrupted study time is that I bring Chloe with me. It is interesting to try to wrangle a hyper becoming increasingly tired two year old who doesn't like to sit still, or stay in the same room for longer than twenty minutes. Chloe does love the interactions with the girls though, especially the neighbor girl who has babysat her a few times. Currently we are trying to raise money for the girls to go to Girls Camp this summer. And so right now I am in the midst of planning a Fiesta Dinner and Silent Auction. It's going to be awesome, but there is a lot of work that goes into an event such as this. (much bigger than planning a toddler birthday party) It'll be May 2nd, just in time for Cinco de Mayo, so I'll try to remember to update everyone on the success or semi-success of it. Besides wrangling and teaching Chloe daily and Young Women stuff that's pretty much my life right now. I am still going to the doctors monthly to try to figure out this joint pain thing, but it's slow going. We've been thinking for years it's fibromyalgia, but from what we've read it takes awhile to actually be diagnosed, and the doctor has mentioned it as a possibility a few times. But it seems like she's still trying to rule out other things. She just ordered another round of bloodwork and x-rays. Yay! :/ So for now we keep trying different doses of different medicines, but it only ever really dulls it barely, not exactly the treatment I want for the rest of my life (since it seems to be here to stay). The physical therapy was kind of helpful in that it made me recommit to being physically active everyday because that seems to be the only thing that consistently keeps the pain at bay. An added bonus: it means I will continue to be in shape the rest of my life. So that's my life in a nutshell right now.

Anyways, because of  generous family we were able to buy Disneyland Passes in January. We are so excited for this. We have gone 6 or so times already. We can only go on weekdays, but since Brian has no classes on Tuesdays we have made those our Disney days. It's fun and Chloe is loving the Disney magic in her life. We've missed the past couple weeks because of stuff, but we look forward to going again this Tuesday.

Well...until next time enjoy life!

Chloe's 2nd Birthday

Chloe turned 2 on February 7th. (Yes, I know it's been almost 20 days, I've been a little busy. :P) Anyways, over the past months Chloe has shown a great love in the movie Finding Nemo. She would constantly request to watch it, and memorized lines from the movie. So when planning Chloe's birthday party I decided to do a Finding Nemo themed birthday party. I had a blast planning it, and I think Chloe and her guests really enjoyed it. Here are some pictures from the day:

Our Nemo Ocean Wall

I had Jellyfish around the room.

Yummy Food!

Nemo Coloring Pages

Playing with Playdough

Pin the "Lucky" Fin on Nemo

Fishing! The kids loved this and would have done this the whole time if they could.

We also played a game where the kids rolled a cube with different colors on each side, and with each color we would do a different action such as "Jump on the jellyfish" "Glide on Mr. Ray" or "Peak out of the anemone."

Chloe's cake that I made.

We didn't even practice blowing out candles and she did it first try!

She got a Squirt to go with her Nemo.

The Kids. (this is the best group shot we could get lol)

We had a great day and I'm grateful for those that were able to come.

So here's some more things about Chloe now that she is two:

• She has so much personality. She will stand in front of the mirror and make faces at her herself.
• She has become extremely talkative. (Except she's developed a shyness with strangers in the past weeks)
• She picks up new words almost instantly.
• She is a climber and explorer.
• When she does something she's proud of she'll turn to us and say "I did it!"
• She likes to pretend cook like "Ratatouille", she says it as "Touie", and likes to help mom cook.
• She has mental maps of places that we go frequently (mall, church, apartment complex)
• She's become quite the picky eater.
• She goes down for naps and to bed for the night extremely well.
• She stopped breastfeeding a month ago.
• She loves most anything Disney related (We probably let her watch too much...)
• Still likes Tinkerbell, but has recently become obsessed with Frozen and singing "Let it Go"
• Loves going on our walks to Barnes & Noble where we read many books, and she asks us "One more" when it's time to go.
• Pretends to read any book, even if it's dads textbooks.
• 25lbs (29th %) and 34inches (44th %)