Bilingual Baby

For those of you who don't know, we're speaking to Jaxon in both English and Spanish. My parents did this with my siblings and I growing up, and even though not all of us became completely fluent in Spanish, it certainly gave us a  strong foundation for learning Spanish, or any foreign language, in the future. And, as a former foreign language teacher, I believe it's good for the brain's development. During the day, I speak, read, and sing to Jaxon in Spanish. Here's a clip of me singing "Soy Un Hijo de Dios" (I'm not the best singer, but this is just for posterity's sake...).

Blessing Day

Travis had the wonderful opportunity of giving his first baby blessing yesterday. He did a wonderful job, and gave the most beautiful blessing to Jaxon. I'm so grateful to have a husband who holds and honors the priesthood, and for those who were able to be in the circle.

My brother-in-law, Chance, is missing from this photo-
 he had a baby to take care of!

After the blessing, we headed to the Anderson's for a nice pasta dinner. I'm also grateful that my mamita and Uncle Art were able to come from California. I hope Jaxon can one day realize how important my mamita is, and the sacrifices she made to join the church when she was young.

It was a memorable day, and our family is so thankful for everyone who came and helped make Jaxon's day more special. :)

Seven Days of Bliss

Yesterday marked a week since Jaxon's been with us.  He's been such a good baby. He eats great, and sleeps well...during the day. He is confused between day and night, but obviously that's normal and I do think he's getting better. Let's cross our fingers, anyway. :)

He still has those newborn blue eyes. They could still change to brown or might just stay blue, which would really surprise me. I never imagined my kids would have blue eyes- I always figured they'd be brown, especially after marrying Travis. So, whether or not they change, I've been taking lots of pictures of his baby blues. Well, we've been taking lots of pictures of him in general. He's our pride and joy!

We love you, Jaxon!

Jaxon Travis Anderson

He's finally here! Jaxon was born Wednesday, August 17th at 8:57 pm. He weighed 7 lbs 6oz, and measured 20 inches long. He is so perfect, and we are head over heels in love with him!

The labor was fine- a little longer than we thought it would take considering my water broke at 5:30 that morning, (I almost had a c-section!) but he was worth every minute of it. He's perfectly healthy, and never showed any signs of distress or anything during the whole labor. I, on the other hand, had some complications immediately following the delivery, but I'm so grateful for all the doctors and nurses who came to the rescue.

We are absolutely thrilled to have him with us; words can't describe what he adds to our family!

Cherish the Moment

A big thanks to my sister, Caitlyn, for helping us remember this special time! 

Final Preparations

As our baby is currently in the final stages of construction, we couldn't resist getting this picture...

No, we still don't have a name yet. We honestly just can't decide on one. A friend told us if we didn't think of a name by the time he was born, that he would name the baby for us. So that gives us plenty of motivation! :)

As for now, we're making the final preparations for baby's arrival (although it's looking like he's in no hurry) running final errands, hair-cuts, freezing food, organizing his room and taking lots of walks! We're also taking advantage of the time we have now with friends as who knows how schedules will conflict once the baby's here.

(My friend, Natasha, was due 3 weeks before me- guess it's my turn now!)

Travis and I are also taking advantage of this time before parenthood (I guess you can say we've taken advantage of the last three years!). We've had many evening walks, movie nights and trips to 7-Peaks. Now that he's done with his thesis (which he did an AMAZING job defending...), he's done with school this summer so he's been home with me all day, which has been heaven! I feel so spoiled; I just want to freeze time right now and bottle it up. It'll be hard once school starts up in a few weeks and he'll be gone again. We celebrated our three year anniversary last week by going to Tucanos and the Hale Center Theater. He then surprised me afterward and stopped at Cold Stone on the way home. We've now had three wonderful years of marriage together, and an eternity left to go! To be honest, I'm a little nervous with how much things will change once our son's here, but Travis assures me that though there will be trying times, life will be even better, and that we'll still make time to do things "just the two of us". Words can't express how grateful I am for him! He's always been such a strength to me.

We are so excited for our baby to come- it seems like these nine months have gone by so slow! It's crazy to think we'll be meeting him anytime within the next couple of weeks!

Eight Months Down...

Only one month to go! I'm currently 36 weeks, and it's hard to believe that after waiting so long, our little one will be here so soon! Everything is still checking out fine as my doctor appointments are now weekly. To be honest, though I'm very excited, I'm also really nervous. Travis and I took our 5 hour prenatal class last Saturday; it was very informative, but left me wondering how I can do this!

I'm so grateful for the baby showers that have been thrown for us. We are so blessed to have wonderful family and friends who are willing to help us prepare for this new addition to our family. Now if we can only think of a name for this little guy!

A Great Four Years

After four years of teaching, I officially quit my job. It still hasn't hit me emotionally, which is strange because I always get depressed at the end of each school year. But I guess I've just been too focused on the reason why I'm quitting, than what I'm actually saying goodbye to (if that makes any sense...). I'm sure it'll hit in the next week, or in August when everyone's going back to school without me.

I have been so blessed to work at such a FANTASTIC school, with wonderful students and a faculty/staff that can't be beat anywhere else. 

My classroom quickly became quiet and lifeless. I hate empty classrooms, they make me feel so...empty!

I suppose my new classroom will be my home as I go from 250 kids to just 1. :)

Pop!

We started out with a goal to take a picture of me every couple of weeks throughout the pregnancy. We started out doing well, but kind of stopped after week 15. We decided to pick up again today at week 25. It's kind of funny to see the difference between the two photos. :)

15 weeks

25 weeks

We finally broke down and went shopping for maternity clothes a week ago. I tried to wait as long as I could, but Travis noticed I was stretching my shirts, and we didn't want that. But, they are so much more comfortable! :) Baby's doing well, and is very active. Travis has now been able to feel his kicks, which has been really special.

It's A...

We went in for our 20 week ultrasound and we are thrilled to announce...

It's a bird! No, it's a plane! It's a.... SUPERMAN!

Everything looks good and we're very excited (although we were already certain it was a boy)!

I made the announcement to my classes over the last couple of days and asked for a class guess regarding the gender. This was the first time I even made mention of my pregnancy. Here were some of the responses I received:

"I called it!"

"You want to know how I knew? It's because of that one day you wrote, 'Yo como pizza', on the board, and you were like, 'Mmmm...that actually sounds good right now...', and I thought, 'Yup! She's pregnant!'"

"It's because of the way you rest your hands on your stomach! I've seen you do it before, and fat people don't do that, just pregnant people!"

"Wait, before we guess, what have you been craving? That says everything about the baby!"

"I didn't want to say anything because, when I was a boy, my father taught me this lesson about not saying anything until you were absolutely sure..."

The classes who guessed the gender correctly get to take an upcoming test on Wednesday instead of Monday. So, half of my classes will be taking a test on Monday. But I might just be nice and have them all do it Wednesday.

The pregnancy has been fine so far. I'm really liking the second trimester more than first. :) And it's been fun to feel the baby move; even though the movements aren't strong enough for Travis to feel anything yet. We even saw our baby wave to us at the ultrasound! Anyway, we're super excited. :) Now we can start thinking of boy names...

Love At First Sight...

Five years ago this week, I met the love of my life. :) Whenever people ask how we met, I give the short answer, "Through friends". But, of course, there's a huge story behind it.

Travis had been back from his mission for a few months, and I had just finished my summer/fall track from BYU-Idaho to spend the winter track home working. We had a mutual friend get home from his mission in late February, and I thought it would be good to have a get-together with him and other high school friends. One night, Rob (our mutual friend), called me to ask if he could bring his friend, Travis, to dinner. Now, I had heard of this "Travis" before. Rob and Colby had always talked very highly of their friend who spent high school in South America. I had even seen a picture of him; it was one of Rob and Travis when they had just gotten their Eagle Awards (about 12 years old in the picture- cute...), but I didn't think much of it. So, when Rob mentioned Travis over the phone, the picture of this 12 year old boy scout with this extra-wide, cheesy grin stuck out in my mind. Well, maybe it wouldn't be so bad...maybe he's nice. Sure, why not invite this famous "Travis"?

I'll let my journal entry tell what happened next: "We finally [met up] at Mi Ranchito, and I got to shake hands with Travis and introduce myself. And oh my goodness- the moment I saw him I knew I was in trouble!"

I really was in trouble...I was frustrated and disappointed in myself, not to mention depressed. I just couldn't like someone as wonderful as Travis-and talk about bad timing! I was headed up to Idaho the first week of May and wouldn't be back again until Christmas. How could I, who'd never been good at this kind of stuff anyway, strike something up that would last until then? It was depressing. So I decided from that moment on that I would NEVER reveal how I felt- no matter what, he couldn't know that I liked him. It would just make things awkward in our group of friends.

But we started hanging out more as a group and we got to know each other better. Travis will now say that he knew I liked him, but couldn't figure out for the life of him why I didn't make any moves, or even try to flirt with him. To put it plain and simple, I had no hope for "us". Yes, oh me of little faith. But then I left for Idaho, and he stayed behind, and we started e-mailing...then calling...then he'd ask me out on the weekend I'd be home visiting...then he'd come up to visit...and sent me roses for my birthday...and, well, it worked out! :) I finally came home for the winter and we were inseparable. I went up to Idaho again for one last semester, and then I was home for good! So after two years of dating, we were happily married and have been so for almost three years now. To commemorate this five-year mark, last Friday we went back to the restaurant where we met and reminisced. We also spent time together yesterday and went on a date to see to Harlem Globetrotters in Salt Lake. We had so much fun being together and reminiscing the road we took to get here.

My "Teacher Roots"

I presented at a conference last Saturday in South Jordan, and after my presentation we decided to make a special trip to my "teacher roots" in West Jordan. It had been so long since I'd seen my previous schools; it felt very nostalgic being there again. For posterity's sake, I might as well dedicate this post to my early teaching experience in Salt Lake.

For those of you who don't know, BYU-Idaho does their student-teaching a little differently than most universities. Since Rexburg (and the surrounding towns) are some-what rural areas, the only student-teachers who get to do their actual student-teaching in and around Rexburg (i.e. Idaho Falls) are married students! There was no room for the rest of us, so we had to go elsewhere. BYU-I has teamed up with different school districts in the western states that took us in. I had the option of going to Salt Lake, Arizona, Nevada, or Washington. Since I was madly in love with a boy named Travis, who was ever-so patiently waiting for me back home, I decided to student-teach in Salt Lake. (I'm still madly in love with him...)

But it wasn't easy moving away from BYU-I. The scariest part about graduation day was waking up in a cold sweat that night in my hotel room in Idaho Falls! I was going to be separated from so many wonderful teachers and friends! I was on my own! I never had my professors visit my classroom. Instead, it was a lady who worked for the local district. She was super nice, but...not the same. Even today, I get a little sad when I'm at a conference and my friend, Danielle, stops to chat with previous classmates from her days at BYU-Provo. Lucky, her. I don't know where my classmates ended up!

But it wasn't so scary after all. I was assigned to teach U.S. Government and Spanish at Copper Hills High School from August-December of that year. Both cooperating teachers were fantastic, and taught me so much! Copper Hills even offered me an internship there for the rest of the school year, but when the administration asked permission from BYU-I, they were denied. (BYU-I doesn't offer internships for teachers; strictly student-teaching.)

As my semester of student teaching was nearing its close, I started looking around for other teaching jobs. Not so easy in December! But I was very blessed to have one open up nearby. My government cooperating teacher was so kind and offered to take over a class period so I could drive down the street for an interview. I received a call later that day and was hired! I finished my last week at Copper Hills and the very next week started my new (paid!) job at Joel P. Jensen Middle School, also in West Jordan, where I taught geography and Utah History.

Of course, when I got married that next summer, I really had to move closer to home. And that's where I've been since. But I think about my Salt Lake days often, and am so grateful for the things that I learned, the people I met, and experiences I had there.