The C&C Burkman Family Blog:

So how does this blogging thing work again?

2010-12-03T13:09:00.003-07:00

You may have noticed we don't blog a whole lot, and when we do, it's because of Chris. I have been hesitant to blog mainly because getting the pictures from our cameras to the blog is a little tricky for me, and Chris is good at making sure the pictures look good as far as lighting and shading and colors go. I don't ever do that. However, I do try to keep up with everyone else's blogs which are always inspiring and motivating to me. I am amazed with everything each of you accomplish. Thank you for posting. Because of everyone's blogs I have decided to just blog, even if it's a big mess :). So,here it goes. Hang on, I need to figure out how to get some pictures here for you. Got it!! :) (these are pictures I found that Chris had already put on our desktop.)

For Halloween this year we were a Nursery rhyme. Cylie was Little Miss Muffet, Chris was the tuffet, I was the curds and whey and Carter of course was the spider which he loved and did a great job of scaring everyone.

Halloween is so much fun. It is such a great holiday. My favorite part is trying to think of, then make a fun creative costume. Having kids to dress up makes it even better.

We went to the ward Halloween party which was terrific. Everyone had great costumes. On Saturday we went trick-or-treating with my brother's family and friends. This has become a tradition that I love and look forward to.

Now I need to start thinking of and working on next years costumes.

Still Here. Still Have Kids.

2010-04-19T22:59:00.000-06:00

Seeing as how this is the last week of classes for this semester, it’s just about time for a quick update. By update, I mean pictures of kids.

Spring played nice today and stuck around to provide some warm afternoon sun. So, it was outside for some pictures to show that yes, Carter and Cylie are still around, as are we.

Cylie’s almost 7 months and Carter’s 2 1/2. They’re happy, healthy and, like us, staying busy.

Summer should provide a bit of a slowdown with school, hopefully leaving more time for moments like these pictures show, and maybe even a blog update or two to go along with them.

As always, plenty more pictures on our flickr.com site (http://photos.burkmans.com) Pictures from all the action today is here --> CLICK ME.

Cylie!

2010-01-15T21:35:00.001-07:00

Cylie today:

Cylie two months ago:

That was quick.

And a few more for good measure:

A little Post-Christmas Entertainment

2009-12-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

For your enjoyment:

Carter singing (and stuffing his face full of gumdrops)

AND

Cylie, with some wonderful bantering.

If these aren’t playing well on your computer, just uncheck the “HD” button while it’s playing to scale things down a bit.

The Year in Review!!

2009-12-24T11:00:00.001-07:00

Seeing how it’s nearing the end of 2009, now is a pretty good time for look back over the year. This is especially true since our blogging efforts have been spotty at best and don’t really portray the “action” of 2009.

-- Cindy --

Cindy’s great, and Cindy keeps busy. 2009 started off with a baby in the belly. With Cylie on the way, Cindy retired from the workforce (recession helped that decision along quite nicely), and became a full-time Mommy. That is, until June, when she decided to head back to school to pursue Dental Hygiene, as well. And, in full Cindy-awesomeness, she whipped out a 4.0 her first term.

September brought fall classes and little Cylie. Turns out that a new baby, classes, calling in the Primary Presidency, and a super-active 2 year old is a bit much. So, classes were put on hold till January. Thanks to Chris’ flexible work schedule, they both can do classes and take turns with Carter and Cylie, so daycare isn’t an issue at the moment.

-- Chris --

Chris looooooooooves having his picture taken, as illustrated above. 2009 was a busy one, for sure. Full-time work, full-time school is crazy enough, but Chris was called to serve in his ward’s bishopric in June which brought just a little more “busy” to his life. He loves his calling and the chance to serve others, even if it does mean being gone 8-10 hours each Sunday.

Bachelor’s degree is all but finished up for Chris in Information Systems Management, and given the terrific state of the economy right now, he’ll just keep on with school and start his M.B.A. shortly. Along with school, Chris is working on a handful of IT certifications; CCNA, MCSE, and maybe even his CISSP (If you understand those acronyms, terrific). It’s slow-going, but he should get his CCNA next month.

-- Carter --

Here is Carter eating M&Ms and perusing the Toys’R’Us Christmas ad. This is a rare moment where he his sitting calmly enough to catch a picture of him. Still managed to get his tongue out though.

2009 saw huge things for Carter. For starters, he turned two. Swimming lessons, trips to the park, and running around the house at every opportunity did little quench his insatiable appetite for being active.

He rode on a plane twice; once to visit Grandma and Grandpa Cannon and again to visit Grandma and Grandpa Burkman. This year, Carter gave up pacifiers, moved in to his big-boy bed and became a big brother, which he is terrific at.

Turns out he has a built-in big-brother gene that has him looking out for his little sister at every opportunity. He shares his toys with her (for now), holds her, lets us know when she’s crying (even if we’re holding her), and pretty much wants to kiss and love on her whenever possible and sometimes when it’s not possible.

All in all, he’s a happy boy and loves to make others laugh.

-- Cylie --

Cylie’s 3 months old today. It’s amazing to see the differences between her and Carter already. She doesn’t cry much as she’s found it much more effective to just yell when she wants something. She’s talking a bit already, and while Mom and Dad understand everything she’s saying, others may claim it’s just babbling.

Aside from a brief bout of baby acne, Cylie is healthy, strong, and nice and chunky; just the way a baby should be. She sleeps well, eats constantly and is a joy to be around.

Merry Christmas Eve!

2009-12-24T01:27:00.002-07:00

It's Christmas Eve! Finals are done, and preparations for Christmas day are nearly complete. Next up- holiday blog update time! Complete with Cylie talking, Carter singing, and year-in-review goodness. Just not right this minute.

It’s December

2009-12-05T20:49:00.001-07:00

Having two kids is hard.

Christmas catch-up blog and pictures coming soon; once finals are done.

Here’s a picture to tide you over- if you’re still checking this.

More Cylie!!

2009-09-25T21:45:00.000-06:00

We’re home now, and getting ready for our first official night with two kids. Carter’s already in bed and sound asleep. Cylie, however, is livin’ it up by sitting in Grandma’s lap dead to the world, (she just enjoyed her 300th meal of the day).

Being new parents again is awesome and we’re both still a bit smitten with it.

And how couldn’t we be happy parents with these two kids?

It’s a girl!!

2009-09-24T03:30:00.000-06:00

Cylie Ann Burkman was born today at 2:12am. She weighed in at 9 lbs, 1 oz. and is 20 inches long.

Cindy’s doing great. Cylie’s doing great. I’m doing great, too, but I’m tired. So, here’s a few pictures. G’night!

Zoo!!!!

2009-08-09T22:00:00.000-06:00

Carter had his first visit to the zoo a month or so ago. Did he like it? I think this sums it up:

Yup, he loved it. We did, too. Hogle Zoo may not be our favorite zoo of all time, but it was well worth the afternoon visit.

4th of July!

2009-08-06T00:00:00.000-06:00

The 4th of July came and went… so did most of the summer. I went on a blogging strike hoping to “motivate” my wonderful wife to post a little more on here. I’m going to have to chalk that up in the loss column cause this site has been dead empty for quite a while.

To Cindy’s credit though, she’s almost 8 months pregnant with a two year-old running crazy through the house all day and recently started classes again (biology and chemistry. yikes!) so she doesn’t really have an abundance of free time these days.

I however, have no excuse. No classes this summer and only work has me less-than excited to start school again at the end of the month, but it’s made for a lovely summer so far. Lovely, but apparently not the blog-worthy type of loveliness.

Stepping back to last month:

The 4th of July brought family gatherings, parades, picnics and fireworks. Carter’s participated in these before, but this is the first year he actually seemed to understand and love what was going on.

The parade was a magical wonderland for carter. Streams of people banging drums, trucks and cars with loud sirens and lights, plus colorful floats/balloons on wheels. What else could an almost two-year-old ask for?

Fireworks were that evening and Carter was awe-struck and talked about them for days (in the way that Carter talks about things… usually a handful of one word descriptions. Gets the point across though.)

Changes

2009-05-21T20:00:00.002-06:00

I’m not in school at the moment, and I couldn’t be happier about taking the summer off to recharge since this fall is gonna be busy with school, work and a new baby in the home.

With that being said, life hasn’t seemed to slow down. Cindy is now 22 weeks along with our little girl, Carter is almost 2 with every wonderful and terrible thing that comes along with that and, lucky me, I had major surgery on my ear about a month ago and the recovery time has been painfully slow (I should get complete hearing back in a few more weeks, they say). Combine all that together, and for some reason, the hours seem to slip away.

I have been able to steal a moment to change the blog layout to something more… summery (summeresque? summerish?). I’ve started on getting our family website set up, too. (http://www.burkmans.com)

You may notice that the blog address is different now. If you follow us at all, feel free update bookmarks, RSS feeds, what have you, to http://blog.burkmans.com. In the next month or so, I’ll have more content up to the website so you can have one more option in your internet browsing day.

As summer routines get put into place, I’ll have more time to blog, and more time to bug Cindy to blog, which I’m excited about- it’s fun to reread old posts and relive a moment or two from the past.

In the meantime, as Sam, Lori, and Addie (my brother and family), just relocated from Provo to Redmond, WA, here’s a picture I took a few days before they left at the park of the two cousins.

Update!

2009-04-21T23:05:00.000-06:00

What’s happened in the last, uh… 5 weeks? Well, enough noteworthy moments to encourage procrastination of any blog updates. So, rather than try to blog about every update individually, here’s a list instead:

I’ve decided to take the summer off from classes for the first time in a long time. With baby coming this fall, this is a good opportunity to get things ready and to recharge my batteries a bit so I don’t completely burn out before I graduate. The goal, of course, is to burn out as I’m graduating, so this break should put me back on track.

Cindy is officially out of the first trimester, and is doing great. Today marks the 18th week of pregnancy, which means just a couple (22) weeks to go! I do realize it’s easy to be this optimistic when I don’t have a human growing inside me. But Cindy’s a trooper and is doing great as a mommy to Carter and house to new baby. Here she is, in all her 18 weeks of baby-tummy glory:

Easter came and went. We had an Easter dinner with my brother, sister and their families. Tried my hand at baking a ham for the first time… turned out pretty good. Carter participated in his first Easter Egg hunt at Thanksgiving Point. 100s of 1-3 year old kids and parents running through a field picking up plastic eggs. It was scary and felt like a stampede. Carter liked it though, even if it was rainy and gross out.

Carter got a massive haircut. As much as we loved that his hair was getting longer, it was getting a toupee look to it – long hair with a bunch of shorter newly-grown hair underneath. So, we leveled it and now his hair is full and luxurious… and short. Here’s a before/after look. First one is last month where Carter fully enjoyed a box of Styrofoam packing peanuts and the second is Carter with his Aunt Cassie at the park yesterday.

Cold/Flu season came and went and we all got hit. Unfortunately, I got hit doubly so and after the cold/stuffiness passed, I got a nasty ear infection and my eardrum ruptured. So, I’ve been on crazy meds for the last 2 weeks and will schedule surgery with my ear specialist this Friday (yeah, ear problems aren’t a new thing for me, at all). Hopefully surgery will happen mid-May, with plenty of time to get better before baby comes.

Lastly, there were some pregnancy concerns a few weeks ago, so we went to the doctor to make sure things were ok. Listened to the heartbeat and all was well. But, to be doubly sure, we set up an ultrasound for the next day. Turns out that 16 weeks was just enough time to determine that the baby is healthy and:
I still need to scan the ultrasound pictures and get them on here. I also have some videos that’ll creep on here soon, too. With school wrapping up for the summer, I actually have some time to take care of things and, as a result, we’ll be back in action in the blogging world.

Yee-haw!!!

2009-03-14T23:15:00.000-06:00

4 posts in January led to nothing in February. But, that’s just what happens when life gets crazy, and last month was just that. Cindy is full-on 1st trimester pregnant, which is playing out similar to her pregnancy with Carter. Unfortunately, this means nausea and morning sickness all day.

We went to our primary care physician and we were told that there’s actually medicine to help with this. Cindy went on zofran and, sure enough, it worked just like it was supposed to, curbing her nausea almost immediately and allowing life to continue at a somewhat normal pace.

The other crazy part of the month was Cindy and Carter heading off to visit her parents in California for a couple weeks. I seriously underestimated how long 13 days is when you’re home alone with only work, school and a couple of cats to keep you company. I survived the ordeal, but only barely. They had a great time and took lots of pictures; none of which I’ve uploaded yet, so I’ll leave Cindy to blog about that some other day.

Aside from that, it’s business as usual. I’m still working and going to school, and Cindy is at the house all day with Carter; running the show here at home. It’s been working great so far and we’re definitely lucky that this is even an option for us at the moment.

Carter is 19 months (still blows my mind when I stop to think about it) and starting to talk more. Multi-word sentences? Not so much. But he understands what we say and he even listens and helps out whenever we ask him to. Will this last? Who knows, but we’re taking full advantage of it.

Carter got himself some new toys recently. One of which is a horse on a stick (thanks to Carter’s California trip and his new obsession with all things horses). He absolutely loves it:

And two more:

**(Click on any of these pictures to see the whole set. There’s some good ones in there.)

There’s video of him tearing up and down the hallway on his trusty steed, too, but I’m better off posting this now rather then hoping I find time to edit the video in a timely manner.

4 Posts in one month!

2009-01-30T15:32:00.001-07:00

This hasn’t happened since June of last year… I don’t even know what to say. Does this mean we’re committed to our HUGE fan base (sarcasm included) to post once a week? Possibly. Will it happen? Yeah, I dunno either.

Two noteworthy events for the week. I’ll let you choose which one ranks higher.

First: It was off to Wal-Mart yesterday. That is not noteworthy, Wal-Mart visits happen all too often. I don’t care for Wal-Mart; never will. But man, it’s cheap. And it’s so close to our place. Usually it’s crowded, I can’t park anywhere, and the whole experience makes me a little more disappointed with the entire human race.

Yesterday though, there must have been something in the air, because parking was a cinch and that place was dead quiet. Cindy and Carter were with me, and Carter, as usual, insisted that we look at all the toy machines that beckon to little kids as we entered. He saw the grabby-arm-claw machine with little stuffed animals and proceeded to identify some of ‘em by pointing and grunting (he’s a genius, I know). I had a dollar on me and tried my luck. And wouldn’t you know, I landed Carter a new toy on the first try. Combine that with a $3.00 Cars book (he’s obsessed with Lightning McQueen) and this is how he felt about the whole trip:

Second: Aside from my extreme crane-toy skills, here is the other noteworthy event. Carter’s vocabulary is increasing, and we caught it on video. He’s bit grumpy, but the video is most definitely worth watching (and under a minute; you can handle that, right?)

YUP! How great is that?! I couldn’t be more excited, and Cindy feels the same way. Carter has no idea what’s going on, but he will soon enough and he’ll love it. End of September is what it looks like, but we’ll know more in a few weeks.

HOORAY!!

Video Time! (#3 is my favorite of the bunch)

2009-01-22T23:29:00.001-07:00

I have a junk load of pictures I need to upload, catalog and then toss into Flickr, but why upload pictures when videos are so much better?

First off, as Cindy mentioned, she has graduated from “working-at-a-job mom” to “stay-at-home mom”. Guess what? She’s really good at it. No surprise, but this house is functioning a thousand times better then when I tried to be in charge of cooking, cleaning and taking care of Carter.

Cindy’s got Carter doing fun things during the day, and his favorite past-time as of late is making COOKIES. In fact, “cookie” has replaced “ball” as the word of choice and when in doubt he’ll just call something a cookie.

Here’s Carter making cookies with Cindy:

We got him to make some animal sounds, too:

Lastly, and my personal favorite, is Carter’s bath time. I really think he only eats dinner because he knows he gets a bath afterwards. If life was just bath time, Carter would do just fine. With that in mind, during his bath tonight, we tried capturing his splash sessions and cannonballs, but ended up with this instead:

Yo Gabba Gabba taught him funny faces and he rather enjoys them from time to time. So do we.

Everyone should try this

2009-01-18T15:00:00.004-07:00

**Update**

This post was actually written by Cindy but she seemed to have posted it from account. So, there you have it. This wonderful post was created by my loving wife.

So this is really fun. Our friends did this and I couldn't believe how real the kids look. So I tried it out. It's really fun. So for those of you who didn't know we had a little girl before Carter, here is a picture of her. We had to put her up for adoption though. We just weren't ready to start a family yet! :)

Stay at home mom!

2009-01-16T10:31:00.003-07:00

Well, unfortunately the poor economy took it's toll on us, because the construction company I worked for ran out of work, and therefore, I no longer work there as of the end of December.

Although this isn't ideal for us, it has been kind of nice being able to get a taste of what it will be like to be a stay at home mom, which is such an awesome job.

I love being able to have more time and energy to work on our house, fixing healthy meals, budgeting and especially taking care of Carter. We have been having so much fun together. He's such a great kid. I appreciate him so much more now, and don't get frustrated with him as easily now. I'm really glad I've been able to have a little time to enjoy Carter at this age rather than have it fly by because I'm too busy and realize too late that his fun experiences went by unnoticed.

Also, this time has helped me not get so discouraged as a wife and mom. When I was working full time, I was always frustrated because I just couldn't do everything at 100% which made me a failure at everything. I kept telling myself I needed to find more time and more energy somehow. It had to be possible because so many people are successful. Of course, all this thinking ever did was cause me to get sick every few weeks, which would put me further behind my self-imposed perfection schedule and this cycle continued.

Well, even though I still stress a little at the need to find a new job, taking care of myself, my home and my family has finally become more doable.

Carter- Now in HD!

2008-12-08T23:02:00.000-07:00

Life is crazy busy around these parts, but the good news is that next Thursday our holiday break begins and we head out of town. We’re headed up to the Northwest for Christmas and will make the grand tour to both our parent’s places. Since this is the last holiday season where Carter flies for free, we’re taking full advantage of the price, but we’ll see if we’re still excited about travelling with a 16 month old after two plane trips and two 7 hour car trips.

It’s been a month since we’ve really posted anything, and since then, Carter’s become more mobile, more aware, more mischievous, and pretty much more everything.

He’s up to 12 teeth including a couple of molars, so we keep our hands out of his mouth whenever possible. Why? Because he has yet to learn the concept of “gentle” biting. He’s got himself a handful of words now and signs 15 or so words as well so communicating is easier.

Carter's obsessed with balls and dogs. Probably in that order, too. He's also developed a healthy fascination with sticks, golf clubs, and any stick-like object that he can wield and use to hit something else. Luckily his rampages are reserved to inanimate, non-living items such as balls, pots, pans and the ground.

Last year, my parents got Carter this wonderful toy plane you can ride on. He loves being pushed around on it, but just recently realized he can walk himself around while riding it (still needs a bit of help but close enough). Taught him what a plane sounds like, and managed to get it on video.

Youtube just enabled HD, widescreen video, which called out to my geeky side. So, these videos of Carter’s plane antics are shown here in high definition. What does this mean? It means that if you’re reading this blog from a slow internet connection, be prepared for a long wait while the video loads. I’m betting though that you’re probably not on a dial-up phone connection so give it a whirl and experience Carter in all his splendor.

Here’s Carter demonstrating how his plane flies:

And here’s Carter showing us that crashing his plane is way more fun.

Updates are coming....

2008-12-02T23:44:00.005-07:00

Life has been busy, for sure. Not a good excuse for skimping on blog updates, but we're using it anyway. Should have some time this weekend before finals hit, so I can finish putting some videos together of recent fun-times we've had and tweak some more photos.

In the meantime, here's a fun photo of Carter enjoying pumpkins last month... well, October. Man, that was two months ago. Does anybody else feel like fall came and went while you weren't looking?

I finally have something to say!

2008-10-28T19:31:00.015-06:00

I usually have something to say, but I just don't take the time to blog. Well, tonight is different. Carter is asleep and Chris is taking a test so I will take this time to write to my countless, adoring fans.

So, since the next time you hear from me may be in a year from now, I'll try and say everything I've been thinking lately.

Positive Influences: Since I can't say this enough, thank you to everyone who has been or is a part of my life. So many people have made an impact on me, and most don't even know it, but I have been thinking about that a lot lately and just wanted everyone to know that even if you don't know someone, or aren't that great of friends, the things you do and say, can still have a powerful impact on them Chances are, if you are reading this, you have had a positive influence on me.

Halloween: I love Halloween. It has always been my favorite holiday. I would try to come up with some exciting, new, inventive costume each year. One that I could be as creative as I wanted. Of course that changed once I hit Jr. High and High School, and the last thing anyone wants is to be creative! That's what get's you teased.

(This is my friend and me dressing up just for the fun of it. I couldn't find any of my Halloween pictures.)

Well, even though I have still enjoyed Halloween every year, this is the first year in a long time that I've really felt the creative excitement that used to be like a drug to me. I really missed that feeling. I can't wait to have the ability (money) to really decorate for Halloween and make it a big deal. Actually, I guess I can't wait to be able to do that for Christmas too.

I guess I could tell you what it was that made me so excited about Halloween again. We had a Halloween party we went to the other night, and I realized the night before that we needed costumes. They needed to be affordable and pretty easy. I had seen cute costumes where people used wires to make it look like they were in a wind storm and thought that would be affordable, easy, and Chris wouldn't have to dress up as something too weird or embarrassing. But what would Carter be? Well, he is always the force that makes everything a little crazier and more exciting for us, so we thought it would be appropriate to make him...

...our little tornado. Let's just say, I was so giddy while planning and making these costumes. Even if we hadn't had a party to go to, that was a very fulfilling night.

(This picture was taken at the end of the night, I'm amazed anything held up!) After a lot of different attempts to make his costume work (it might be more effective to try this with an older child), I just ended up pining the little animals and trees, planes and cars onto his gray clothes. Surprisingly most of the toys stayed on Carter's clothes. (I loved his hair. I couldn't look at him without laughing.)

Fall: Isn't fall a wonderful time of year? It is my favorite season, no matter where I live. There is a different energy in the crisp air. It's still sunny and warm (this is said more loosely depending on where you live), but you can finally where cute boots, pants and sweaters. :) It's a great time to play a little touch football. And of course, Halloween is in the fall!

VOTE: Elections are coming up. I strongly urge everyone to register, research, study (because nothing is clear cut when it comes to politics. You have to pay close attention to every little word), pray and vote. I think everyone should vote, but it does bother me when little or no research has been done first. That's pretty scary. I thought these cartoons were appropriate for this year's presidential candidates and for the crazy sign stealing that is happening in California over Proposition 8.

Donate blood!: I have tried donating blood many times, but have always been getting over the flu or something. This year, I donated blood. It was great, and I finished pumping about a minute faster than Chris (it took me about 3 min & 40 sec.) So I felt pretty cool. Plus, when I had Carter I found out I am blood type O negative, which is such a weird type. I always thought I was A positive or something, and figured tough luck for anyone that had a negative blood type, especially O. So, I am really in for it if I need a blood transfusion. (If there is anyone out there that is O-, give me your # in case of emergency!) Here are some pretty interesting charts about different blood types.

I love my family!: I have always wished for a close knit family, but have never felt like I've really had one. We have always lived far away from family, and are still somewhat spread out from family. We have some family that lives in Utah, yet it is difficult for us to get together often. It would be wonderful if everyone could live in close proximity to family. We have been blessed to be with certain people in our families for a reason. I would hope that more families can notice the special connection and make the most of it. Time goes by too quickly. So family, I love you all very much!

I tried really hard to find a current family picture with our extended family, or even one with our immediate family. No such luck, but I did find this random funny old picture of my brothers and me. Very nice!

Okay, so I just realized I am writing a book now, and no one will want to read this, so I'll add lots of pictures, plan on writing again soon, and stop writing this blog right now.

P.S. Thank you Chris for helping me post this blog!

Yum Yum!

2008-10-22T22:06:00.001-06:00

Carter LOVES food. More specifically, he loves Mexican food. Rice and beans, quesadillas, tortilla chips, and anything any everything similar. Combine that with being able to use his own fork and spoon in his very own bowl and you’ve got the perfect formula for a very happy boy, as the picture below slightly demonstrates.

(Oh, new site layout, too. Turns out all most of the pre-fab ones online are a little too "scrapbooky" for my tastes, so making one was easier. Now to figure out the banner on the top and tweak things a little more and then call it good, for a while...)

Rainy day

2008-10-04T22:19:00.002-06:00

It rained today… first time in quite a while. Rained all day- made me miss the northwest. So, Carter got to experience some good ol’ puddle stomping.

He loved being out in the rain, Cindy loved being able to put him in his yellow rain jacket, and I got to take a break from school/work to dink around with Photoshop a bit. Everybody wins!

**More Pictures of Rain-time fun if you click on the picture.**

All better

2008-09-25T22:00:00.000-06:00

With school in full swing, life settles down into a nice, comfortable routine of predictability and consistency. That’s what one hopes for at the start of the semester and that exactly what didn’t happen.

For no apparent reason, I decided to get sick right after school started. Symptoms included a fever of close to 104, sharp pains in my left side, sharp pains in the upper part of both lungs and more! Good times, for sure. Plus, I was sick for close to 3 weeks. Awesome!

First they thought it was kidney stones. Nope. They thought I had a pulmonary embolism for a while, too; that was scary.

After 4 trips to the doctors, 2 rounds at the hospital for CT scans, doctors finally discovered that they didn’t know what I had. So, they put me on a bunch of antibiotics and hoped for the best. Lucky for me, that seemed to do the trick and I’m back in business.

Cindy’s been great during all this. She helped out double time with Carter, which allowed me to trudge to class and work so I could try to stay caught up with life in general.

Carter’s been great, too. Haven’t had much time to take pictures and all that, but that’ll be remedied shortly. We did find time to visit the Utah State Fair. Carter loved seeing the animals and all the people walking around.

School starts... again

2008-08-27T20:57:00.001-06:00

Tomorrow marks another semester of classes. The optimist in me says "One more semester means that much closer to graduation", but the realist has long since silenced that voice and sided with pessimism on this matter so I'm not really looking forward to things starting up again. Oh well, at least I have the opportunity of furthering my education, so I shouldn't be too ungrateful.

Prepping for classes is my new plan for the semester. OneNote 2007 and a tablet PC has helped keep me organized so I'm trying to do the leg work ahead of time. It's kinda boring work though, so I've been reading up on a really nerdy, albeit funny, webcomic, XKCD. I'm a fairly geeky guy and comfortable with the label but some of the humor there is completely over my head. It does provide some laughs, and even Cindy enjoyed a few that I was brave enough to show her.

Yeah... humor's a bit dark/off, but that how it needs to be from time to time.

And, for the majority of you that check this blog for cute Carter/Cindy sightings, here you go:

Happy Birthday Carter!!

2008-08-07T22:01:00.001-06:00

I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that one year ago, I was watching Carter be delivered. Looking back at all my many accomplishments over the last 365 days wouldn't make for a very interesting blog and might be a bit depressing for me, so we'll just focus on Carter's big day.

To start, Carter got his first birthday card AND present opportunity after breakfast this morning complete with video proof. But first, here's how he's felt about today in general:

The Birthday Card:

His First Present:

Carter also got to eat his first birthday "cake". We tried to be a bit healthy, so he got a pumpkin spice cupcake. Of course we covered it in wonderful, sugary frosting; negating the healthiness altogether.

At first he was a bit apprehensive and didn't know what to think of the frosting.

But once we helped him try it

We think he was pretty okay with things

And if you haven't had enough multimedia in one post, here's a slide show of the whole cupcake adventure.

Eat, eat, eat...

2008-07-23T22:00:00.000-06:00

That's exactly what Carter was all about at Lamb Days. Well, that and staring. Lots of staring at everybody and everything-

He found part of a hot dog bun in a bag that Cindy set on the ground. Leftover food in a bag? You betcha.

Carter also got his first real stab at ice cream and, of course, he had no problems eating it as fast as possible.

And lastly, Mollie and Josh have 3 cute kids and Carter loved being around 'em. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't even know about Lamb Days. So here's a fun little slide show just for them.

LAMB DAYS!!!

2008-07-21T22:13:00.002-06:00

In what is becoming a tradition, we spent our weekend in Fountain Green, Utah, for Lamb Days!! What is Lamb Days you ask? Or perhaps, where is Fountain Green? Both good questions.

Fountain Green is in the middle of nowhere, Utah, between Nephi and Manti. Lamb Days is a weekend event where people from all over the county get together for two days of activities and fun. Mutton busting, lamb judging and auction, sheep shearing, and lots of lamb to eat are probably where they get the "Lamb" in "Lamb Days".

Don't believe me? Here's a few pictures of lamb getting prepared for lamb-burgers. People line up for these a few hours before they're ready.

They were good, too!

We spent the day with our good friends, Josh and Mollie. Since there were just too many fun things going on, I can stretch this weekend into 2 or 3 more posts!

If you can't handle the suspense and want to see some more pictures, head over to our flickr page here --> Click me!

He Walks!!!! (kinda)

2008-07-07T15:50:00.006-06:00

Carter decided to wait till people were gathered for our niece's baby blessing to try taking his first steps. Don't know if it was the sleep deprivation or what, but he went for it and caught us totally off guard.

Sam, being the quick-witted guy that he is, had the video camera out in a hurry. The actual steps happen right away but there's two minutes of video here for the family members who want a more complete experience and want to see Carter sign "more" while he's trying to walk. Good stuff.

Carter says:

2008-06-11T10:12:00.001-06:00

Happy Wednesday!!!

Movies That Make Men Cry

2008-06-08T00:46:00.003-06:00

Found this blog post from sportingnews.com while I was sittin' around doing nothing tonight. (nothing better than taking an hour to do nothing at all. Wish I had time to do it more often).

Top-25 Movies That Make Men Cry **25 movies now.***

It was a good enough topic that Cindy and I spent quite a bit of time going over the movies and agreeing/disagreeing with the author's comments. I'm not a huge movie-crier, but he did a good job pickin' out the movies that had me at least a bit misty-eyed (which is all of em except #20,18,10,9,6, and 3. Mostly cause I haven't seen 'em).

So, if you have a few minutes, click the link and enjoy the list. Feel free to comment and agree/disagree if you'd like. If not, well- fine then.

Oh, and to make sure this post isn't void of a picture, here's carter in his walker, reading a magazine, and wearing my hat. The hat was a new addition, but he loves running around the house while holding a magazine, talking to it, and tearing it to pieces. Simple pleasures...

Visitors!

2008-06-05T19:55:00.001-06:00

Look who came to visit!

Josh, Mollie, and their 3 boys were in the Orem area, so we got have lunch with them and visit for a while.

PLUS:

Elliot was in town before he headed out to Armenia for his 2 year stint with the Peace Corps.

Needless to say, it was great seeing old friends, even if it was only for a bit.

Swimming, Swimming.

2008-06-01T00:44:00.001-06:00

Carter went swimming for the first time while we were down in Arizona.

There's some pictures of me and my polar bear skin that I omitted so that people won't flee from the blog in terror, but Cindy looks great, as usual, and Carter's cute.

Oooh... new layout.

2008-05-31T14:00:00.000-06:00

Well, we're back from our trip to Arizona. Truth is, we've been back for a bit, but haven't updated anything on here cause we're a combination of busy, tired and maybe just a little lazy.

Also, the look of the blog changed just a bit. Nothing says blog commitment like a new layout, right?

Anyway, to get right to the point, picture time!

** With the new layout, comes picture integration on flickr.com. Click on any of the pictures to jump over to the picture set and to download the original if you're so inclined. Plus, there's more pictures there.**

First off, Arizona and bubble time with Brigham and Reagan-

Phototime with the cousins (this was Brigham's idea... good thinkin!)

In Arizona

2008-05-02T10:04:00.005-06:00

We haven't updated in a while... so here's a picture of Carter and his crazy-blue eyes:

We're in Tucson until Monday for a baby blessing for our newest nephew, Chase. Plus we get to visit Cindy's family and friends and get out of Utah and its ridiculous, 80 degree one day, snowing the next weather. Driving 12 hours with a 9 month old wasn't ideal, but Carter was a champ and we made it.

Here's the quick version of our goings on:

Summer classes just started up for me. I'm taking 16 credits at UVU and 4 credits of institute religion classes. It's gonna be a busy couple months.
Cindy's working and staying busy in the primary presidency. She still finds time to keep our house in order and decorated, me on track with school and work, and be a great mom for Carter.
Carter is crawlin around like crazy. He just figured out how to sit up on his own and pull himself up to standing. This means we get to start baby-proofing because when you combine standing with a knowledge of how to open drawers, there's problems to be had.

We'll be here in the Tucson for the next couple days. So if we know you and you want to visit, then so do we! If we don't know you and you want to visit... well, that's just creepy.

Arizona!!!

2008-04-17T10:10:00.004-06:00

For those of you who don't know, I absolutely love Arizona. I lived there for 3 years while I went to College at EAC, and I had the time of my life. I haven't had the chance to go back since I moved to Utah in Dec. 2002 which has been hard. Now, I have 2 brothers who live in Tucson with their families, which means two more excuses to visit Arizona more frequently.

In a few weeks, on of my new nephews is getting blessed, so Chris and I are taking this wonderful opportunity to visit family, visit Arizona, and visit all the friends that I can while we're there. It's weird that most of Chris' college friends live close by so we are able to spend lots of time with them which is nice. But for me, all my close college friends live in Arizona. Needless to say, I never get to see them. The last time I saw my best friend Amanda was at our wedding almost 3 years ago. (Shout out to Amanda!!)

Anyway, I have been counting down the days and can't wait to be back in Arizona soon. (especially since it snowed here 2 days ago.) Unfortunately I've lost contact with a lot of my old friends, so if any of you read this, email me (cindyburkman at gmail dot com) and hopefully we can plan a way to hang out while we're there.

Carter's big night.

2008-03-18T06:04:00.000-06:00

Well... in true St. Patrick's Day spirit, Carter had a bit too much of the hard stuff last night before bed as this incriminating slide show will clearly show.

There's captions on each picture to provide better insight into Carter's milk-induced downfall.

Don't worry, he's getting the help he needs so don't judge him too harshly.

Hope your St. Patrick's Day was as exciting as Carter's!

Carter says...

2008-03-17T20:45:00.014-06:00

HAPPY SAINT PATRICK'S DAY!!

Webcam!

2008-03-10T09:45:00.000-06:00

4 months or so ago after talking with my parents, we decided to try out webcam technology and see if would actually be something we'd consistently use. Unfortunately for us, both Cindy's and my parents live 12+ hours away, so having them interact with Carter was either by phone or having them talk to photos (didn't work so well).

So, long story short, webcam works great and I honestly feel like it's bridged a gap for us. Cindy's parents have one now too and it's wonderful to talk to our parents AND see them at the same time. More importantly, Carter gets to see them and interact with them. The bonus to all of this is that's it's really easy to use and doesn't cost a thing if you have an internet connection and a web cam. Quality's good, too.

So, when our niece, Cadence, was over, we got Grandma and Grandpa Cannon on the webcam and they got to talk with them.

As you can see, Cindy's parents are absolutely mesmerizing. So much so that Carter apparently decided to stop closing his mouth for a bit.

Here are a few more pics from that day cause pictures are fun:

Sleepytime

2008-03-09T15:03:00.001-06:00

Cute Picture moment

2008-02-27T16:52:00.005-07:00

The last post didn't have any pictures. That's no fun. So, while you could have visited the flickr site to see these, here's a couple pictures of Carter being cute.

One Resolution Down....

2008-02-25T15:25:00.003-07:00

One of my resolutions for this year was to get a bit more organized with sharing photos online. Since there are a billion and one different places out there just begging me to use their services, I was a bit hesitant to start investing any energy into a site for fear of hating it completely and swearing off web album stuff altogether.

I've semi-committed to Flickr.com. It's popular, easy to use, and they'll host all my photos at their original resolution (I'm weird that way... don't want anybody changing my files without permission, which is why Picasa got the boot).

So, for your bookmarking enjoyment, here is the link for all things photo-related:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/burkmans

New photos will go there all the time, but blogworthy photos will still go here. For now, this site is publicly available, but I'm going to end up making it most of it private sooner than later.

If you want 100% access, we just need to be flickr buddies so let me know. Our username is burkmans.

Tagged!

2008-02-15T23:15:00.001-07:00

So my sister-in-law Jessie tagged me with this a while back, but I didn't know what some of the exact questions were and wanted to wait until I did. Well, a couple of my other sisters-in-law, Lori and Cassie, did this same little questionnaire yesterday, so I am finally doing it. :)

See if you can guess our answer before you read it.

1. What is his full name? (I assume they're asking about Chris)

Christopher Louis Burkman.

2. How long have you been married?

2 years, 6 months, 3 days and counting.

3. How long did you date?

This is a tricky one. I guess we technically dated about 4 months (including our engagement) but the whole process was a little over two years start to finish.

4. Who eats more?

Chris could definitely eat more but we usually eat about the same amount.

5. Who said I love you first?

I did although Chris tries to claim this one for himself (even though he knows it isn't true)

6. Who has more speeding tickets?

This is easy: Chris! I haven't had any (knock on wood)

7. Who is smarter?

I'm smarter but I know better than to admit that (it'd hurt his feelings) so Chris is DEFINITELY smarter.

8. Who is more sensitive?

Chris is a crybaby, but he doesn't like people to know. So, I'm the more sensitive one. Chris is too manly to be sensitive.

9. When there is a fight who usually wins?

Depends on the fighting style. In boxing, Chris has the edge (longer arms) but if we're thumb-wrestling, I'll win every time (Chris has stubby, sausage thumbs and I have monkey fingers; it's not even close).

10. Who does the laundry?

Maria.

11. Who does the dishes?

Again, Maria.

12. Who sleeps on the right?

Maria. Just kidding. Facing the bed, I sleep on the right, cats on the left and Chris on the floor, but he usually sneaks into the left side of the bed after I fall asleep.

13. Who pays the bills?

Nobody really does. Repo-man will sooner or later, I'm sure. But when we absolutely have to pay, Chris takes care of it.

14. Who mows the lawn?

Good question, probably somebody in our HOA. We haven't lived here long enough to actually see the grass... just snow. Stupid, stupid snow, so we may not even have grass.

15. Who cooks dinner?

Since Carter hasn't mastered this one quite yet, Chris does most of the cooking cause he's obsessed with it and he's home during the day. I'll throw something together when Chris is feeling too lazy, which actually ends up being like 4 days a week. So, in conclusion, we both cook.

16. Who drives when you are together?

Chris usually drives because he's a baby and gets carsick too easy.

17. Who is more stubborn?

This is 50-50 but Chris usually wins an argument cause he just keeps at it if he's losing, adding all sorts of tangents that don't have anything to do with anything. I get so riled up that I end up quitting the argument by ignoring him altogether.

18. Who kissed who first?

Chris kissed first. Her name was Kristi. It was sometime in the 90's. But if you're talking about me and Chris, we usually start kissing at the same time. If one of us isn't kissing, it kinda ruins it.

19. Who asked who out first?

Chris says that I used to bug him about when he was going to ask me out but I don't remember that. First official date, Chris asked me.

20. Who proposed?

Chris did... over Memorial day weekend in Portland, Oregon.

21. Who has more siblings?

I do. 3 brothers. Chris has a brother and sister.

22. Who wears the pants?

Buster has fuzzy pants! (I'll get a picture to put here. It's like puss in boots but with fuzzy pants.) These days it seems like Carter wears the pants too since he dictates our sleeping schedule and pretty much all aspects of our lives.

Now I'm supposed to tag somebody. So, if you're reading this and want to do it- great. If not, whatever.

Also, it's way more fun to do this when your spouse is sitting right next to you piping in with sarcastic quips.

Happy Valentine's Day

2008-02-14T08:17:00.002-07:00

So Valentine's day has never been a big holiday for me. I always considered it just a day to spend money on frivilous, meaningless junk, however, I always felt so good getting little valentines, notes, anything, from anyone on Valentines day. I guess it doesn't take much to remind someone they are loved and appreciated.

I'm intrigued by the history of the weird pagaen holidays we celebrate each year and thought I would share a little information I found about the history of Valentine's day.

"February 14 is Valentine's Day. Although it is celebrated as a lovers' holiday today, with the giving of candy, flowers, or other gifts between couples in love, it originated in 5th Century Rome as a tribute to St. Valentine, a Catholic bishop.
For eight hundred years prior to the establishment of Valentine's Day, the Romans had practiced a pagan celebration in mid-February commemorating young men's rite of passage to the god Lupercus. The celebration featured a lottery in which young men would draw the names of teenage girls from a box. The girl assigned to each young man in that manner would be his sexual companion during the remaining year.
In an effort to do away with the pagan festival, Pope Gelasius ordered a slight change in the lottery. Instead of the names of young women, the box would contain the names of saints. Both men and women were allowed to draw from the box, and the game was to emulate the ways of the saint they drew during the rest of the year. Needless to say, many of the young Roman men were not too pleased with the rule changes.
Instead of the pagan god Lupercus, the Church looked for a suitable patron saint of love to take his place. They found an appropriate choice in Valentine, who, in AD 270 had been beheaded by Emperor Claudius.
Claudius had determined that married men made poor soldiers. So he banned marriage from his empire. But Valentine would secretly marry young men that came to him. When Claudius found out about Valentine, he first tried to convert him to paganism. But Valentine reversed the strategy, trying instead to convert Claudius. When he failed, he was stoned and beheaded.
During the days that Valentine was imprisoned, he fell in love with the blind daughter of his jailer. His love for her, and his great faith, managed to miraculously heal her from her blindness before his death. Before he was taken to his death, he signed a farewell message to her, "From your Valentine." The phrase has been used on his day ever since.
Although the lottery for women had been banned by the church, the mid-February holiday in commemoration of St. Valentine was still used by Roman men to seek the affection of women. It became a tradition for the men to give the ones they admired handwritten messages of affection, containing Valentine's name.
The first Valentine card grew out of this practice. The first true Valentine card was sent in 1415 by Charles, duke of Orleans, to his wife. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London at the time. Cupid, another symbol of the holiday, became
associated with it because he was the son of Venus, the Roman god of love and
beauty."

So Happy Valentine's Day to Chris, Carter, and our family and friends.

Figured it out... I think

2008-02-06T14:01:00.001-07:00

We got a video camera for Christmas. It's official purpose is to capture cute Carter moments so we can have them for ever and ever and ever. We've done well to capture some moments already, but I haven't put them on our computer yet... until now!

Our blog is becoming more media savvy and now we have streaming video! So, to start off this new chapter in our sporadic blogging life, here is Carter getting tickled:

Yum, Yum.

2008-01-21T22:16:00.000-07:00

Started Carter on baby food. Here's how he likes it so far:

Long Overdue Part Two:

2008-01-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

Man, I was pretty slow getting this updated. I'll save the explanation for why for another time. I tried taking pictures of the inside... they just didn't work out. So, here's the inside of somebody else's place, which looks just like ours, for now; until we decorate and all that.

First, the kitchen: This has got to be like 3 times the size of our old one which is just fine by me cause I like to cook and the extra space really helps

Next up, the dining area/nook thingy. It's attached to the kitchen as any good dining area/nook thingy should be.

We have a laundry room. I feel spoiled. This is a definite improvement over a laundry "closet" attached to our kitchen:

Having just realized that I am not finding any online pictures of the bedrooms or front room, I'm I'm going to just have to make my camera work. So... there will be a part three to all this even if you're not interested and it will arrive much, MUCH sooner that this one did.

Part One: The Outside!

2007-12-16T13:02:00.000-07:00

Well, here are the pictures of the new place we bought. They're not actually of OUR place because I haven't taken any pictures yet. I need a wide angle lens to actually get shots of the bedrooms that aren't just the corner of the walls. Anyway, here they are:

First off, here's the exterior of one of the units. Ignore the green grass- it's snowing here. I don't want you to feel misled; it's actually quite cold and I don't care for it.

Next up:the floor plan. Once again, this is ALMOST what our place looks like. You need to flip it to get the full idea.

Here's a porch. This isn't our porch, but it's close. OUR porch has a little wall so it feels more enclosed. I like it better, but didn't take a picture of it yet. This picture was online, and online is better than standing outside in the cold taking a picture of a door and a concrete slab.

The BIG, Exciting News!

2007-12-16T12:06:00.000-07:00

So I thought it was probably time to let everyone know what Chris meant when he said "Man... life is busy at the moment. I won't go into details just yet cause I don't want to jinx anything. I'll just say that the absence of posts is for a good reason and leave it at that." I thought that was kinda mean. I would have been so curious. So, here's the story.

The weekend right before Thanksgiving we started talking about owning a place to live. We've been renting for two years and plan on living in Utah for at least 2-3 more years. Though we have casually talked about how nice it would be to own a place before, this was the first time we felt strongly that it was a good idea to start seriously looking, actually prepare to buy our own place, and act sometime within the next 6 months or so, no hurry.

That was Sunday. Monday we talked to my boss to get some advice about the market and homes vs. town homes, etc. The following day, he told me he found an amazing deal on some condos and that we needed to check them out. So we did. At first I was so shocked at how quickly this was happening; I wasn't sure if this was the place for us. The only problem was because it was such a good deal, they were selling fast and there were only a few left. So, we looked at them again the next day, and the next day after that.

Thursday night we received a strong confirmation that this was a good thing and we needed to move forward with it. We started the process Saturday, November 17th and closed Dec. 6th and moved in Friday, Dec. 7th.

So, the big news is that we finally have a place of our own!!

Our last place was around 800 sqft or so, 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom. Needless to say, we had grown out of it about 3 times over. Poor Chris (who works from home) had to have his office set up in the dining room/kitchen. Our new place is the perfect size for us: 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1340 sq ft. and an actual laundry room, not just a closet off the kitchen. Anyway, we are so excited and love our new place. It took us a while to get used to the fact that we don't have to ask anyone for permission to paint or do anything.

I found some pictures of it online. Chris will put them up on a different post so this one doesn't get tooo long. We are almost completely finished moving in, which is nice since I have surgery this Thursday and will be out of commission for 2 weeks. We still need to decorate for Christmas though...

The History of Chris & Cindy, according to Cindy

2007-12-14T10:47:00.000-07:00

Thank you Ginger for this cute little questionnaire

1. Where did you meet your husband?

We met after sacrament meeting in the BYU 136th ward. It was on mother's day because I gave a talk that Sunday, and I had a nasty black eye. I'm amazed he talked to me. :)

2. What was the first thing you said to your husband?

I don't remember, probably thank you, or nice to meet you. He either said he loved my talk, or someone introduced us.

3. Where was your first date?

Well, we saw a movie together, a big group of us, but it wasn't really a date setting so I don't know if that would be considered our first date (we saw League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), or if it would be when we got horchata's late one night and hung out at the park.

4. Where was your first kiss?

It was in the back yard of this really cool house for sale, overlooking Provo. This was the first time I had ever initiated a first kiss. Poor Chris had to wait for me to get over post mission shell shock. Thank you for being patient honey.

5. Did you have a long or short engagement/courtship?

It was pretty short. We were engaged in May, married in August, but we had met 2 years before. I left on my mission a few months after we became friends and we wrote while I was gone.

6. Where did you get engaged?

We got engaged in Portland (or was it Vancouver), anyway, it was on top of a hill that looked out over the city. It was beautiful, but freezing. I didn't know he was going to propose, I thought we were just hanging out, freezing for fun, so I kept saying how I was ready to go. Poor Chris.

7. Where did you get married?

Mt. Timpanogos Temple in American Fork Utah.

8. How did your reception go?

Perfect! It was in such a beautiful garden, with amazing food, and we had so many friends and family there to enjoy it with.

9. The Honeymoon!

That's a funny story. We went on a cruise to Alaska, and on our fourth day, (it was our stop in Skagway) we missed the boat. Yes, that's right. We watched as our ship sailed away, so we had a wonderful excursion as we made our way back to the boat. We flew on a tiny little plane, slept in an airport, flew on another plane, tried to get into Canada without our passports, got on a ferry and hung out in Victoria. It was actually really fun. I think that little trial was such a great experience for us and a funny story to tell our kids.

Who's turn is it next? YOURS!! I would like to know how all my friends met the love of their life.

Busy Busy Busy

2007-12-06T13:36:00.000-07:00

Man... life is busy at the moment. I won't go into details just yet cause I don't want to jinx anything. I'll just say that the absence of posts is for a good reason and leave it at that.

In the meantime- here's more Carter pictures:

Trick or Treat?

2007-12-06T12:45:00.000-07:00

It's Halloween in December! Well, that's what happens when your computer fails and you're just plain lazy when it comes to posting outdated pictures.

BUT- Carter had his first Halloween. And, boy oh boy, it was a blast! He was sick, Cindy was sick and I wasn't. So, these pictures, though definitely show Carter in his super-cute Halloween costumes (yes, plural), are actually "recreated" photos a week or so after the fact. Don't be disappointed though. This just gave us a better chance for him to accept wearing costumes and actually seem happy about it.

First off: Pumpkin Time!

And... the crème de la crème: Carter- the turtle.

(he didn't like the hood. At all.)

A little post

2007-11-21T12:42:00.000-07:00

Still getting the Halloween pictures in order- so until then, here are a few pictures of Carter standing. By "standing" I mean he has weight on his legs and he's wedged between the couch cushions so I could snap a few pictures. He's a happy boy though; anything that involves being on his feet pretty much makes his day.

Nuked it...

2007-11-07T16:55:00.000-07:00

Thanks to a freak of nature occurrence, I was fixing our computer and nuked it. What does "nuking" entail? Well, without turning this into too much of a geeky-blog, I rebuilt windows so things would work better. In the process, my computer decided to be stupid and went around eliminating things it had no business touching. This includes all of our personal information and backups. This was 7 days ago.

The result? A heart attack at first which quickly turned into a full-on panic attack. I don't care about losing programs and my computer not working; money and time can fix those things. I was concerned that I lost all of my pictures and backups of pictures. Can't really recreate Carter at the hospital or our wedding- well, not convincingly, at least.

In the end, I've dedicated the last week to fixing this mess. It took much longer then I thought, but I am a lucky, lucky person and managed to recover my lost files. This means we have our pictures back. I've also gone from "anal" about protecting personal info, to "ridiculously OCD-anal" which I'm not getting into here. Needless to say, there is almost no chance of this happening again. If you'd like the boring details about any of this, you can call cause I'm not wasting more words on such a frustrating experience.

So, if you were wondering why there weren't blogs or comments or pictures of Carter, now you know.

I'm still putting the final touches on our computer before we're officially back in business, but there are some Halloween pictures, baby blessing pictures and other cute-Carter pictures forthcoming.

Scott Wolf

2007-11-07T06:57:00.000-07:00

So, how many of you remember Party of Five? I used to like that show, but for one reason really...Scott Wolf. He is the actor that played the Bailey. I used to think he was so cute. Well, Chris, Carter and I flew out to Vancouver to visit Chris' family, and guess who we saw on the plane? That's right Scott Wolf. Weird. He's still cute, but he's really short. Chris just laughed at me the whole time while I kept trying to sneak another peak at Scott like a little 13 year old girl. It was fun!

Pictures and a quick update

2007-10-15T16:15:00.000-06:00

It's been a while, so I thought I'm taking a moment to toss up some pictures and give the quick update.

First, Carter is 10 weeks old tomorrow- and the last two months have blinked by. He smiles when he sees me or Cindy now, and now most of his wakeful times are spent with me doing whatever it takes to get him to smile again; it's like a drug but the fix only lasts 2 seconds.

We had family in town over the weekend for Carter's blessing. I woke up Friday morning and have been going non-stop since about 11 this morning. My mom flew home today and Cindy's parents left also, so things have calmed down enough for me to try to get back into somewhat of a routine again.

So, with that lame attempt to update the last month in 100 words or less, I'm just going to skip to the pictures of Carter (it's the good part of this blog anyway). Feel free to click on an image to get an unnecessarily large version of the picture.

Carter's just barely 4 weeks in this one:

Here he is at 7 weeks...

Carter at 9 weeks... finally got him smiling - only took 50 pictures

Here's Cindy with Carter (his eyes look unnaturally blue here)

and finally, just Carter

Cannon Family Reunion?

2007-10-15T15:30:00.000-06:00

With the baby blessing this last weekend, it marks the first time that all of Cindy's immediate family was in town together. The last time was our wedding, 2 years ago. We spent most of the weekend with them and good times were had by all. Cindy's family is definitely larger than mine, with 3 older brothers, all married, 6 nieces and nephews, and who knows how many cousins, it definitely trumped the brother, sister and spouses that make up my immediate family. I'm lucky I don't have "crazy horrible" in-laws or anything close to it so doing stuff with family is always fun, regardless of which side I'm referring to.

To mark the occasion of the unofficial reunion, we had family pictures. Anybody that knows me understands my utter disdain for having my photo taken and this was no exception. I did my part to not ruin the pictures and only time will tell if I managed to pull that off. I did, however, get a chance to take pictures this weekend. The practice is paying off- now I only feel slightly lost using my new camera and not totally lost like I used to. So... in honor of the weekend, here are some shots of my nieces and nephews and one, of course, of little Carter who handled all the extra attention this weekend fabulously. As always, feel free to click for the big version.

Back on the computer again

2007-09-20T19:30:00.001-06:00

I don't know what it is about me and computers but I just don't have a desire to use them. (Come to think of it, I have a similar issue with phones, but that's another blog.) Don't get me wrong, I think the Internet and all the updated computer programs are wonderful, and I enjoy using them. I'm on the computer a lot at work which is great, but when I come home I don't have any desire to communicate with the outside world or get on the computer for any reason. Which is why Chris has become our families designated blogger. I am very grateful for that, and I'm sure our friends and family are as well. Chris has also recently become very interested in taking pictures and editing them, and doing genealogy. Again, I am so grateful to him for these new hobbies! I am very lucky to have such a great husband, and Carter is lucky to have such a wonderful dad.

I started work back up this week after my 6 week maternity leave. I wasn't sure how it would be going back, but fortunately I am starting back part time for two weeks to get back into the swing of things. That has helped a lot. It has been nice being back. Everyone has been great, but I still miss being around Carter all day. I do get to have him with me part of the day though. My bosses have been very accommodating and are letting me bring Carter to work. Chris and I decided to split our time with him during the day to work around school and work which is seeming to work out great for all of us.

Carter is getting big so fast. He just turned 6 weeks old this week and he weighs about 11 lbs. He is such a sweet little boy and started smiling at us at about 4 1/2 weeks old. Chris and I love when he smiles his big toothless grin at us. There is nothing more fulfilling. He loves eating, taking baths, getting tickled by his dad and cuddling (which I love also especially since I know it won't last forever.)

Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of Cater smiling yet, but this was the closest I could get.

Now that it has almost been 6 weeks from Carters due date, we will soon start trying to get Carter on a schedule. We received many recommendations of the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, have enjoyed reading it, and now we can't wait to start putting it into practice.

So I've been seeing lots of doctors lately to try and put me back together. One doctors appointment I had recently was long overdue. I saw an Ear, Nose, Throat doctor regarding my recurring ear aches, sinus infections and swollen tonsils. I was hoping he would be able to give me some kind of answers. He did. I have to have surgery on my nose and my tonsils are getting removed. This is kind of a catch 22 considering I'm not looking forward to surgery. Everyone tells me how horrible it is. Yet he has promised me that this is the solution to recurring illness. Temporary pain is worth it if I can look forward to being healthy the rest of my life. So, that's what I'll be doing for Christmas this year.

I think that's about it for now. Trisha, we are so excited you guys are coming up for Carter's blessing. We can't wait to see you.

Also, to the many newly pregnant women, Congratulations! To all the new fetuses out there, we look forward to welcoming you to the world.

Chris said I need to add pictures, so I added a picture of Carter (which is always fun), the book, and a picture of my unhealthy tonsils (which is just disgusting which is why I added it to the bottom so those of you with weak stomachs may want to stop now). Enjoy!!

2007-09-04T11:44:00.000-06:00

Labor day weekend came and went without much hooplah, which is just fine by me. Yesterday was also the first time since Carter was born that we didn't have somebody over at our place in one capacity or another. Cindy's parents were here and her mom stayed with us for the first bit and my parents were here with my mom staying with us until Sunday. Having them around was a HUGE help and without them, I can honestly say that I would be totally sleep deprived by now and have less of a clue on how to raise a child. The only downside was that we didn't have much time to ourselves. In the end, the trade-off was definitely worth it, but knowing yesterday that the house was ours again was a great feeling; even if it was spent doing very, very little.

Here's today's cute Carter picture(s):

There's a catch to the photos which is obvious to me but other people, including my family, didn't notice- which I find kinda odd. I suppose I could make this some interactive game where I don't tell you what I'm referring to for a few days and you could all post fun comments trying to guess.

I'm not going to cause the suspense would be unbearable for some. Instead, I'll just say that the picture on the left is Carter and the picture on the right isn't Carter. It's me when I was a few months old. I can kinda see the resemblance but I don't think it's fair to curse my son to look like me just yet- so maybe I'm in denial.

And lastly, Cindy is an amazing mother. I still don't understand how she had an 8 pound baby a month ago, pretty much gave up sleep since then, but still looks so amazing and is so wonderful to be around. I'm a lucky guy and here's a picture to prove it.

I'm bugging her to get on here and post something and I think she may actually get to it this week... but don't quote me on it.

This is what we do... all the time.

2007-08-26T21:36:00.000-06:00

Carter eats, sleeps, poops, and repeats. This routine cycles itself every 2-4 hours and has been doing so for almost 3 weeks. I'm tired and Cindy's more tired, but even with Carter being largely responsible for most of this exhaustion, our waking time is still spent staring at him.

That picture is right after bath-time with Carter. This was his first time without the "hospital recommended" sponge bath to protect his umbilical cord stump. we were told to expect 2-3 weeks for it to fall off. He waited 4 days. So- we bathed him and stared at him the whole time. Didn't even bother to look towards the camera either- all eyes were/are on him. I've tried figuring out what I'm looking at when I stare at him, but I really can't describe it. Carter's focusing more so now it feels like he's actually looking back at me but it wouldn't matter either way.

I thought it was just a Mom/Dad thing... but after going through pictures tonight, I've notice a bit of a trend:

So Carter is either irresistible, or newborn babies are just meant to be stared at. Either way, being a dad is great; sleep or no sleep.

More Carter!

2007-08-13T13:38:00.000-06:00

Well... I wish there were more hours in the day- it might help me catch up on sleep. So far, Carter is doing really well, but he hasn't caught on to my pleading for him to sleep through the night. He does fall asleep quickly though and his quiet awake times are the highlight of my days

I have some more pictures here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/burkmans/MorePicturesOfCarter

so feel free to enjoy more Carter-goodness.

Once things settle down a bit more, we'll have time to actually blog AND put multiple photos on here.

He's Here!

2007-08-08T10:54:00.000-06:00

Well... the wait is over, and our baby boy has arrived!

Carter Louis Burkman
was born at 7:34pm on August 7th.
He weighed in at 8 pounds, 3 ounces
and measured in at 20.5 inches.

His apgar tests were high (8 and 9 for those who know what that means... I only kind of do.) and he's as healthy as can be. Cindy is doing well and was absolutely amazing during labor. We got into the hospital at around 12pm because her water broke. She started with contractions around 12:30 and Carter was here 7 hours later!

I never understood what people meant when they talked about how special it is to see your baby for the first time - I don't think I'll ever be the same, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Here's a link to more pictures of little Carter.

http://picasaweb.google.com/burkmans/CarterLouisBurkman

I'll throw captions on em later and add to the collections when we're all back from the hospital.

Done Waiting...

2007-07-24T16:00:00.000-06:00

***UPDATED*** I threw in one more picture from Cindy at 37 weeks.

The last few weeks have been dedicated to getting things together for when the baby comes which helps me justify my lack of activity on here. Books talk about some "nesting" instinct that kicks in. That might be it, but more likely is just a plain old need to have a space for the baby to live. I love our 850 sq ft place, but it became quite apparent a few months ago that we have a TON of crap and it's taking up a TON of space. So, 5 or 6 boxes worth of donations and heaps of trash bags later, we've uncluttered.

Now that our crap is gone, we've been busy replacing it with new, baby crap (not literally). Car seat arrived in the mail today as will most of the other major items we need to keep our son alive and somewhat entertained. With all this purchasing, gift receiving, and general preparing, I really feel like our boy needs to be here... now. He's not yet (or I wouldn't be writing this). In fact, he's not due for another 3 weeks. The problem is that I am not a patient person by nature. I've done a good job at waiting 8 months, but these last 3 weeks just might kill me.

Today marks 37 weeks and doctor says that if Cindy goes into labor at this point, they won't try to stop it. So, I spend my free time encouraging the baby to not disappoint us by waiting till the 14th of August to come. I'm also trying the "stern father" approach, telling him he HAS to come early and he doesn't want to start life out by disobeying his parents. Is this actually working? I'd like to think so; then I can write a million dollar bestseller about getting your child to obey you from the womb. But until you see my book on the shelves, you can just chalk it up to wishful thinking.

Cindy's doing well, but I can understand why the ninth month is the hardest for pregnant women. Aside from having dealt with being pregnant for almost a year, I really don't think Cindy has much space left in her belly if that baby keeps growing. People have requested pictures and all that, so here's a cutesy little slideshow that'll show Cindy from the start of it all till now (well... start of when we started taking pictures.) Hover over a picture to see how far along she is and make sure to leave lots of encouraging comments cause I had to twist her arm to post these. :)

Hair!

2007-07-08T18:16:00.000-06:00

So I just have to say that my super-great sister-in-law Cassie, did a wonderful job on my hair. She has been going to school at Paul Mitchell in Provo and since she has started has been able to dye my hair the perfect dark brown color and recently lightened it again, achieving almost the exact shade as my natural hair color. That isn't easy! Also, she has continued to keep it cute by cutting it and styling it.

Here's my hair when it was dark:

And here it is now, light again:

Thank you Cassie! You're amazing!!

An Update

2007-07-08T17:30:00.000-06:00

Okay, so Chris told me today that I have to write a new post. I don't really know what to say, so we'll see what happens.

These last few weeks I have been feeling very pregnant and ready for our son to arrive. A few things have happened since our last blog so let me give you a brief update. We finally found a crib and dresser for the baby which was very exciting. It was a great deal! Everyone has their opinions about buying used cribs, but after countless hours of research, we decided to at least see what we could find. We really lucked out. A couple in Layton was selling a very high quality set (we found out all we could on that too), for less then half what we would have had to spend on the brand new set.

Chris set it up and we started getting the room ready for our new arrival (I put all the clothes and fun things away). That was when it became even more real that our lives would soon be changing. The room still isn't completely ready (I'm trying to decorate still), but things are a lot closer. Hopefully we'll have a new addition in a month. It's safe for him to come after the 24th of July, but he isn't due until the 14th of August. We're hoping for sometime the end of July, but will be fine with whenever.

Last week was the last of our four week birthing classes at the hospital. They taught the basics of pregnancy and birth, and we were able to tour the hospital, which was nice. It seemed like a lot of people in our class really didn't know much about anything really, and continually asked what we thought were self explanatory questions. So Chris kept me entertained by making fun of everyone and their stupid questions. I was excited for our last class which was about breast feeding. I thought that this class would teach us a lot of very useful things. I was wrong. Rather than just teaching us clearly and giving us lots of useful knowledge, she was confusing, not focused, mumbled, and spent most of the time telling us why it was so important to breast feed rather then how to be successful at breastfeeding. She gave us list of reasons people say they can't breastfeed, then said they weren't good reasons, and, if you ever have problems, get help from someone. She went on for most of the two hours explaining how it is recommended to breastfeed your child for at least 2 years, and that Michael Jordan was breastfed for 3 1/2 years. She even went so far as to say, "if you want to do the right thing, the ethical thing for your baby, you will breastfeed." It was really weird. We left feeling kind of frustrated. We both understand that breastfeeding is important, and we were never against it, but we ended up feeling annoyed by the way it was pushed on everyone as a moral issue, rather than just teaching us the basics. Oh well. So that's over.

Our doctor appointments are weekly now and we are excited about that! We're 35 weeks along this week. I can't believe how fast time has gone by. My body always hurts now; I feel like the baby has completely taken over my body (I feel him in my ribs, my lower back, on my bladder- pretty much everywhere all the time). Working has become more and more difficult and the heat is getting to me a lot more. I was really surprised when, for the first time ever, I was hot, and Chris was cold. That was weird.

My mom got into town the other night which was fun. We love it when she visits, and especially that she made it here for the 4th of July. I love the 4th of July, mostly because when we were younger, that was when we came to Utah and spent time with our extended family. Even though not all of our family was there, it was great being able to spend the day with a lot of loved ones. It was a busy day. We started off going to the parade in Provo, then it was back to my aunts house for lunch where we stayed and hung out and visited for a few hours. Then Matt and Steph and their cute kids came over (it was great seeing them) and we lit a few fun fireworks for the kids (tanks, snakes, smoke bombs, flowers and parachutes). The kids were loving it. Then we all headed out to the MTC Field by the temple to watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks. Again, the kids just loved it. I was exhausted and thoroughly sore by then, but it was so fun just having us all together.
Hopefully we'll post something again a lot sooner then a month.

Also, I'm trying to update everyones information, so please email us addresses, phone numbers, birth dates etc. Our email is burkmans at gmail dot com.

Registering for your Baby??

2007-06-09T15:22:00.001-06:00

Aside from a really bizarre stretch of weather, this week has passed by without much ado. It was 90 or so Tuesday morning, and after a bunch of wind, dropped to below 50, dumping snow on the mountains again. Kind of a cool thing to see; not cool to experience as it left me with bad headaches and I ended up sick Thursday and Friday.

Cindy had a "ward" baby shower with friends from our ward getting together to hang out and share in the joy of all things baby. "Share" really means "give us stuff"- something I will never complain about. It still seems odd that there are gift-giving parties that aren't birthday related, but I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth (odd saying, isn't it? Turns out it actually means something. Go Figure.). I've come to realize already that we have some pretty nice friends as they were quite generous in helping us get started with baby-life.

A handful of people have asked us if we registered. At first, I thought they meant wedding registry, but that doesn't make too much sense and I hoped our friends were smarter than that. They were. Turns out you can register for baby gifts. We have a Babies"R"Us up the road from us and that's the "place" to register around here. Personally, I feel odd registering for baby stuff. It kinda feels like we're begging. I mean, it makes sense if people want to be generous and celebrate this with us, but setting up a want list still seems odd. I may be alone on this one, but oh well.

We did end up registering. I got to use a scanning gun again- always a good time. I found, however, that registering for baby things was not at all like registering when were engaged. For one, there are thousands of things we needed before we got married. With the baby coming, there are things we need, but there aren't as many categories to fill this time around. Clothes. Definitely need clothes. The more baby clothes we receive, the happier Cindy gets (something about girls and little baby-clothes; don't quite understand it), so there's no reason to skimp there. After that, we have bottles and diapers and burp-cloths. Pacifiers, more diapers, more burp-cloths. Once we take care of that, there's some toys and maybe first-aid stuff. But that about covers the basics.

Oh, except the BIG stuff. That's the other struggle with registering. If people really want to know what we need/want, it's the expensive stuff. We need a crib. We'll also need a car seat, a stroller, high chair, changing table, glider, breast pump, etc. I don't think any of those are under 75 bucks. So, do I feel comfortable telling people they can drop a bunch of cash on us? Can't say I do. I mean, it's definitely welcome, but I'm not expecting anything more than a congrats and maybe some little baby socks to make Cindy happy. When all was said and done it was fun to see all the junk out there for babies... makes it seem a little more real that there's actually a baby headed our way in a few months.

30 Weeks!

2007-06-05T16:59:00.000-06:00

Well... today marks the start of the "two-hand" countdown before we start sleep-deprivation-- 10 weeks until the baby's born. Now, we're sure that the baby will come EXACTLY on the due date because that's what the doctor said and science is NEVER wrong. On the off chance that the baby doesn't understand science, doctors, or technology and decides to come earlier or later, we'll make due; but for now it's still officially August 14th.

Cindy's looking and feeling pregnant. I mean that in the nicest, greatest way possible because there's no way I could ever handle what she does. Besides working full-time to help keep me in school, she spends the day off-balance, sore, and getting kicked and prodded by our little bundle-of-joy as her organs and the baby compete for space. She looks great though. I even have her permission to post pictures of her online, which is a miracle in itself. We took these over the weekend, so that makes her just about 30 weeks along.

Like I said, she looks great. I'm a lucky, lucky husband. The picture quality itself leaves something to be desired, which is why I'm still looking at upgrading our camera before the baby comes. Just need to head out to our money-tree and we'll be all set. (yes, that was sarcastic). Oh, here's one more of her, too.

Aside from baby news, life is fairly routine. I'm taking one class this spring term: Calculus. It's two hours a day, 5 days a week with a good 3 hours of homework a night. I don't mind math, but 5 hours a day is more than I'd want to spend on the subject. The nice part is that, while the course is hard, it's only 8 weeks long. This means the semester's almost done and I'll be finished in a few weeks. I was planning on Calculus II for the Summer term, but I'm not a glutton for punishment so I'm forgoing the math class until fall.

The biggest reason for this change is because the baby will come exactly August 14th, right before the supposed math final. As I said earlier, if our son doesn't get the memo to come on the 14th, he may just come during finals. That's a lot of pressure for a newborn, so I'll just spare him the stress and not take the math class, leaving him free to come into the world when he's ready. And by ready, I mean August 14th. This will give me some extra time during the next couple months to finish up projects around the house and make sure we're as ready as possible for our lives to change.

On the social scene, we're still semi-retarded and don't get out much. We do things with Sam and Jessie (Cindy's brother and sister-in-law) from time to time as well as with Cassie and Kent (my sister and brother-in-law). In the past, we'd also include Sam and Lori (my brother and sister-in-law) into our social scheming, but they decided to play grown-up for the summer in Houston on an internship with Exxon. I know we could actually call friends and be active but for some reason, I'm allergic to the phone, and I think Cindy may have caught my disease, too. It's really just too easy to say we're tired (which we usually are) and don't want to do anything. From there, we've settled into a habit of being "too tired" all the time. I'm hoping we can change that a bit over the next 10 weeks, because from what I hear, we don't have any concept of what being "too tired" really means. So.. if you read this and you get a phone call from us trying to be socially active, please don't think that something wrong or that we're going to die- we're just trying to better ourselves a bit and think you're just the people to help out.

An actual update?

2007-05-31T16:12:00.000-06:00

Well, no. Not really. An actual update would include pictures, newsworthy events, funny stories, etc. This is just to let people know that we acknowledge our blogging weaknesses and decided to join forces and put our blogs together.

Why? Because two people blogging means twice the chance of an actual blog occurring. With that in mind, there'll be three authors to this wonderful blog-page:

Chris
Cindy
Both of Us

Check out the author of the post underneath the title and you can figure out who's writing and, if it's Chris, you'll know you can just skip right over it.

This may be overkill for the time being, but once the baby shows up and we get picture crazy and want to show him off to the world, it'll be easier to do it from one place instead of two. As always, we wish you all lived closer to us and, if you do live closer, we wish we were more social. Hopefully this'll make up for that a bit.

Behind on the update (Cindy wrote this)

2007-04-22T22:17:00.000-06:00

Well, things are going well for us. We've recently painted our condo and re-carpeted so things are slowly coming together as we prepare for our new arrival. My brother Sam is making us some book shelves that will make a huge difference in helping us have a livable home. Now it's time to start doing research on baby cribs and stuff like that, then shopping for it all. If anyone has anything they recommend or absolutely hated, or didn't need, please let me know any info you have. There are just so many options for everything. Anything you have learned during or after pregnancy, labor, whatever it is, I wouldn't mind hearing it.

Anyway, as far as baby updates, I'm way behind on that. We had our big ultrasound april 4th and it was so cool! What an exciting experience for both of us. It was great for Chris especially since he hadn't been able to feel the baby move yet or anything like that. Chris has the ultrasound on his blog so you can check that out if you would like. We had been debating since day one whether or not we wanted to know if it was a boy or a girl, but the further along we got, the more and more I wanted to know, especially since I was already having such a hard time thinking of names. Good thing we found out too, 'cause it's a boy and I was really struggling with boy names. If we hadn't found out I probably would have just had my girls names chosen, and been awfully surprised when I needed to name a boy. We would have had a "Boy named Sue" incident on our hands.

So, yay for babies, and for us, baby boys. We're very excited, but now it seems like such a long time to have to wait for him.

So Chris has been able to feel the baby kicking a lot now which he loves and I am so excited about. I love that he is able to be a part of it. Our baby is moving a lot more now and is getting stronger everyday. Sometimes he really catches me off guard with his strength.
Sleeping isn't as easy anymore. Chris has learned not to touch me at all once I'm asleep 'cause I tend to be not nice while I'm sleeping. I think now he just does it for fun to see what I'll say, and how much he can get away with before I completely wake up. Then he likes telling me about it all in the morning.

Other than just feeling more and more pregnant everyday, things are going well. I just got a raise at work and Chris is almost done with this semester.

Don't forget to give me any advice at all!!!!

I think it moved! (Cindy wrote this)

2007-03-22T21:47:00.000-06:00

So, I'm 19 weeks pregnant now, and I have maybe 2 pair of pants that fit. Only a couple more weeks before the big ultra sound. I'm so excited. I can't wait to see what our baby looks like now. Chris and I are slowly trying to make our condo a little more livable and roomy. We have to maneuver things around a bit to make it all work but right now we're hopeful.
So I know people start feeling the baby move before 19 weeks, but I just assumed I wouldn't even be able to tell so I didn't even think about it. On Sunday, one of my friends had asked me if I felt it yet and then gave me a better description then I had heard of what to expect. It's like a muscle twitch, only you will feel it a couple of times in the same spot. She also mentioned it's more noticeable when you are lying down.
That night I decided to actually take the time to focus on what I was feeling while I was lying in bed, and I felt it. I couldn't believe it. At first I thought, I think that's it, but I doubt it, there's no way I'm really feeling the baby. There's so many things going on with my body right now, how do I know that's really it. But it was such a different distinct feeling. A mixture of muscle spasms and butterflies in your stomach. Anyway, now I recognize it more. It's so exciting.

Full Time Job Opening (Cindy wrote this)

2007-03-19T22:21:00.000-06:00

I work for a great construction development company in Orem Utah. We are currently growing very fast and need to hire someone else as full time office administrator. 8 to 5 hours, 5 days a week, starting around 9 to 11 dollars an hour. No benefits at this time. Hoping to find someone who is looking to stay for at least a year, is familiar with basic Microsoft office and with a friendly personality. I love working there I just am too busy with other job responsibilities and we really need someone else, so please, if you know of anyone who might be interested, have them call me to set up an appointment at 226-2777 or fax their resume to 226-2888. We hope to hire someone asap!

It's the little things (Cindy wrote this)

2007-03-13T19:55:00.000-06:00

It's the little things that make a difference. Whether it's a smile, a wave, or an angry face and an angry hand motion, just one little thing, from a friend or a stranger can change everything. I'm always amazed at the impact someone can make on other people, without even realizing it sometimes. I have so many different examples of this, but don't feel like going into each one, so I am just going to encourage each of you to stop, and notice the little things while you're out and about, and while you're at home. Thank you to each of you who have ever done a little thing to make someone else feel special, or happy that they know you. Life is a blessing and i'm so grateful i've been blessed with each of you in my life!

2nd Doctors Appointment (Cindy wrote this)

2007-02-01T18:47:00.000-07:00

Today we went to our second prenatal appointment. At the first one we saw the baby, saw it's little flicker of a heart beat, and found out how far along we were. That was very fun and cool. I wasn't sure what they were going to do today, and didn't except anything even close to as cool as the first one. However, today, we were able to hear the baby's heartbeat, loud and clear. What an amazing experience. I still can't believe it sometimes. Anyway, we're excited and are looking forward to the day we get to meet it. Our doctor mentioned pregnancy always seems longest with the first baby. I can see that. I feel like I've been pregnant now for a long time. It's only been 12 weeks. Yikes!

Also, I just want to say, thanks to everyone who are so inspirational to me as bloggers. It helps me a lot being able to read everyones new blogs, and everyones comments. Probably seems like a weird statement, but it's true. You guys keep me going. Thanks!

Jewelry, and other Endorsements! (Cindy wrote this)

2007-01-27T10:46:00.000-07:00

Well hello again. First of all, baby updates, I'm just a few days shy of 12 weeks so that's exciting. We have our 2nd doctors appointment in a week, yay! For now, it seems like it will take forever before we get to meet our little baby. That's frustrating. We still haven't decided if we are going to find out if it's a boy or girl, but we still have a little while for that.
Okay, so as most of you know, I worked for a pearl company started by a stay at home mom here in Utah. I worked there for a little over a year, but now I am with a company that builds custom homes. I have enjoyed the change. Anyway, one of the reasons I left was because of the way business was being done, the way people were being treated, and mostly, 'cause I needed to move on. Anyway, one of my friends that also left the previous company started her own company and I'm so excited for her. She has some really cool stuff. You should check it out. Threefoldgifts.com. Anyway, I am trying to help come up with different ideas of jewelry and products, so please feel free to write and tell me of styles of jewelry you like. Whether its simple, or you like chunky, be as vague or as specific as you like.
Also, while I'm sharing my opinion of products, for anyone who likes candles, over a year and a half ago, Chris and I found the most amazing candles ever. They are made of soy, they smell amazing, and burn clean. You won't really appreciate what I'm saying until you own one. We are addicted. I hate all other candles now. And, if you spill the hot wax, it wipes up with soap and water. Check them out, mymiabella.com. Our favorite is the Orange chili pepper. Last product I love, arbonne. They have great skin products. I really like them. We have an account with them which helps 'cause, it's kinda spending, but we get pretty good deals this way. Nice thing is it lasts, and it's high quality. Anyway, that's about it for my endorsements.
Oh, also, anyone have pregnancy workout tips or favorites?

This one's for Sarah (Cindy wrote this)

2007-01-15T22:17:00.000-07:00

Okay so, Chris and I don't take pictures often. We have maybe five from our pre-marriage days (not counting our engagement pictures), a few from our wedding with again, maybe five that actually turned out, and maybe two since we've been married. Needless to say, we aren't the best at taking pictures. We do take pictures of our cats sometimes, but that's about it. Well, while we were visiting my parents during Christmas, my mom took a picture of us hanging out at Moonstone beach, in the rain, naturally. Chris is wearing my dad's bright yellow raincoat and cowboy hat so you should be able to pick him out pretty easily. I'm the one next to him.

Sarah, you asked me for pictures, so there you go! This one's for you!!

It's Really There!!! (Cindy wrote this)

2007-01-13T23:27:00.000-07:00

So last Friday was our first doctors appointment. What an exciting and weird experience. First of all, not knowing exactly when we were due, and not having any "proof" (other than the 5 positive pregnancy tests of course), I kept thinking I was going to be told, we weren't really pregnant. We met our doctor and explained a little of our problem (not having any idea of when we were due), then quickly proceeded to our first sonogram!! Yay! I was excited to finally find out whether there really was something in there, growing or not. But I was also so worried that he wouldn't find anything and say something like, yeah, I don't know why they came up positive. Sorry.

Needless to say, when I not only saw a little lima bean looking thing on the screen, but when he showed us the heartbeat and said, oh, and there's junior, what a feeling. I couldn't believe it. There really is something growing inside me. Freaky. It's soo cool! That's when it finally felt real. Now, whenever I think it's all a dream, I take a look at our baby's picture on the fridge. Let me just say, I feel so blessed to be able to have this amazing opportunity to be a mom and bring a life into this world. I am so excited, and yet also a little nervous. Oh, the due date!! August 14th 2007. We're so excited! It's hard to be patient. I just want to meet it already. I think I'm getting more used to feeling nauseaus all the time so it doesn't seem as bad anymore, although I am looking forward to not feeling like throwing up all the time, or wanting to sleep all day. That's been kinda hard. Only a couple more weeks!!

One on the Way (Cindy wrote this)

2006-12-27T12:01:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed from the last post, if you didn't know already, we are going to have a baby. What a different experience! Today is the first morning in a week that I haven't been nauseaus as soon as i woke up. Don't know why, but I don't mind. We are guessing we are about 7 weeks along but we won't know for sure until our first doctors appointment Jan. 5. I'm very excited about that because even after 4 positive pregnancy tests, and all the symptoms, it still doesn't seem real. I still keep thinking, these could be symptoms of something else. It's possible. So, the ultrasound will help. They will have to do an ultra sound to know for sure how far along we are and when we are due. That will be nice.
It's so exciting to think that by this time next year, we'll have a sweet little baby to share Christmas with. It's still very surreal.
Hope everyone had a Wonderful Christmas. We are still on our vacation. We just got back to Vancouver to be with Chris' parents after being in McKinleyville with my parents for a few days. It was nice being home again. Especially since I felt the sickest I have yet the week I was there. It was nice to be able to just relax. I loved it. I wish we would have had the chance to visit some people, but I never felt up to it. It was good being able to see a lot of old friends at church though. I wish we could just live in the same neighborhood with all of our family and friends we have ever had. That'd make it convenient. Then we wouldn't have to make more friends either. :) Well, I'm starting to feel yucky again so I'm going to go eat something now.

On the Road Again (Cindy wrote this)

2006-12-20T09:53:00.000-07:00

We're on our way, home for the holidays. Our wonderful vacation started yesterday. The morning was rather crazy. We were trying to finish all of our last minute errands, pack and pickup the house before we ran out the door at two. Chris was a great help. He did pretty much everything, while I was laying down, sicker than a dog. The nausea that often comes with pregnancy, had been peeking it's ugly head every so often, usually when I was hungry or full. Yesterday morning however, it came out to play. I was extremely nauseas, to the extent where I knew if I moved I would barf. Really weird. I hate that feeling. Thankfully it eased up by the time we needed to catch our flight. Sam, Chris' brother is always so nice to take us to the airport. Thanks again Sam. Hope your finals are going well.
The airport and flight was rather uneventful. You know what, I'm not feeling so great, and I don't want to write anymore.

The Wonderful World of the Blogs (Cindy wrote this)

2006-12-10T15:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I've finally done it. Chris is usually always a little ahead of what's popular in technology, while I, on the other hand, am usually just a little behind. I think the credit belongs to my parents. I was raised in a town where "horses have the right of way", and we were the last people in the entire town to get a microwave, cable, and an answering machine. We never had the internet, and rarely even a working computer in the home. So, needless to say, my husband usually is the one keeping us up to date. I'm so grateful to that. My job is to keep us active, and social. I haven't been doing as good at that as I could be, that's for sure, so today I am using technology to try and remedy our lack of interaction with all of our wonderful friends and family.
I have always loved being social and active, but after we were married, I guess I was so content just spending time with Chris, that I let my social life fall by the wayside. Now after being married for almost a year an a half, I am willing to admit that I have a problem. The next step is changing. We'll see how that goes.

I will have to admit, this whole blog thing is exciting. What a great way to not only keep in touch, but really think out loud. It will be great just to "spew" all of my thoughts and goings on into cyberspace. I hope you are as excited as I am about this.

If you have any other ideas on how to get out of this anti-social abyss, please let me know. I could use all the help I can get.