January-mid-March, plus Have You Met My Jori?

Well it's about time for another update, eh? With some pics, eh? So I'll go off the camera. 

First, it's old news...but here's the first pic! I found out I was pregnant with our second child on...um. Some time. Like January 4th or something? I couldn't find this pregnancy test that I had from a while back (you know, buy two in a pack) so I drove to all-a-dollar, since it was the nearest place. So I wasn't positive about it at first but yep, it's real! This one's due September 13th. So as of now, March 12th, I am 13 1/2 weeks along.

Second, our good friends Mark & Halsey and their two kids, KJ and Claire came down and spent a week with us at the beginning of January. At the time, Mark had been considering working for the company Sam was at-now neither of them are and Mark even was all for finding Sam a job at his place! Funny how things flip around eh? haha. (Sam didn't take it, but we'll get to that...)

We spent more time at the beach and Jori acted silly:

Actually, I want to teach you about Jori, with random pictures of her and different aspects of her personality so you can know. In case you don't yet. So. She loves water. Loves to swim, loves bath time. Loved the ocean. But has some idea of danger-half the time she wanted to run into the waves, but the other half they scared her. Which is a good thing, I think.

•  She loves people, loves being with them. Loves nursery (except for a weird couple weeks in January), loves cousins, loves people. Except big (large or just tall) men. They scare her more. Oh, and she loves to make people laugh. I don't know of many her size who enjoy that as much. Of course, she's the one I'm with all day. Just ask her grandparents on either side. This kid has got SPUNK. 

•  Jori also loves animals. She has loved the dogs, cats and horses at Grandma and Grandpa Hatch's house she gets to enjoy, and chases them around all day.

•  Jori has an adventurous spirit-she does like to explore, but would rather do it with someone in tow. Which usually means mommy getting dragged by the finger. Which a lot of the time I enjoy, actually. Oh but though she's adventurous, she's still kind of dainty-not as sturdy as some of her boy cousins, for sure. 

 Jori is super smart, verbally. I didn't even realize it until she started nursery, or is around cousins or other kids her age. But she will try to mimic nearly any sound, and succeeds at a lot of them. She knows a TON of words...I don't really keep track. It was so funny when the nursery workers on Sunday came to us though and said "She knows the word 'snack'!" And we just thought "Yeah...and nap, and blankie, and dog, and grandma, and grandpa, and nice, and calm, and please, and thank you, and sorry (kind of-that one's more abstract), and fork, and bowl, and sun, and snow, and ocean, and horse, and hay...etc. etc." Her Grandma Hatch said something that made me proud, because she mentioned how most kids her age know the word "No," and use it for everything. But Jori knows "No," and "Yes," and uses them appropriately. Which is awesome-we can say "Do you want this?" "No," "Do you want this?" "No," "Do you want this?" "Yeah!" She'll also imitate things I didn't intend, like I said "Hey baaabaaay" to Sam one day, and she kept repeating it that way (all hit-on-you) all day. We laughed a lot that day.

•  Jori is also very determined. This is a positive way of saying stubborn. But when she gets her mind made up, it's hard to convince her otherwise. Obviously this can be exasperating, but I think once she understands consequences more it'll be really helpful. (Like "You really want that ice cream, huh? Well you have to eat so many bites of broccoli, ok?" And she may do it, since her mind is stuck on ice cream...I guess we'll see.) 

• Jori's pretty good about eating what we give her, at least a taste. Unless she ate too recently. She doesn't eat large portions though, which means she grazes a lot. Which I do too, especially now that I'm prego. So it's a good fit.
• Jori really wants to do the right thing. We've taught her to pray before sleeping and eating, and Sam will help her say the prayers too. (It usually goes something like this-Sam: "Thank thee for family" Jori: "Famey"...she's pretty awesome.)

There's so much more to her than that, but those are the first things that popped into my mind! I love my lil sunshine, I just can't imagine filling up my days without her. But now! Back to a regular update:

 We fed the birds, and I got a bit freaked out every time...it's un-like anywhere else I've ever done it! More birds, and they are willing to get SO close! Like, you throw it over your head and they swoop down and snatch it a few feet above you close! Reminded me of the Hitchcock movie The Birds, I couldn't help it...

Jori started potty training. I mean, just basics. I don't have any special supplies yet-we just bought a little "Loo," and she pees in it when we put her on it. Basically. Not all the time or anything. I just taught her how I teach her everything else-example. So brought her into the bathroom and let her watch me pee in there, and now she's doing it like a champ! I mean kind of. I'm not really pushing it yet-it's like once a day, when I remember. I should up my game, I know.

We went to the San Diego Zoo! It was fun. :) 

Sam let his bosses know he was quitting, and gave them the quitting date soon after. It was a relief to know there was light at the end of the tunnel, since the job had become such a difficult aspect of Sam's (and my) life. So when the time came, Darren and Loalee came down to move us in with them (since we have no moolah) and while they were here, we went to the Mormon Battalion cite.

We also went out to eat a couple times, and took Sam's parents to a nearby park that Jori and I visited frequently: 

 This one below is my favorite. Hahaha Jori! What are you looking for down there?

I really love this one tree they had there, so we got a few pics with it: 

Rad. 

After the fun that weekend, we packed up our boxes, scrubbed down our place and drove the 13 hours to Franklin, Idaho from Dana Point, CA. We spread it out three days though, 6 the first day, 4 the second and 2 1/2 the third, so we could stop in Provo and have a brief visit with my family on the second day. I sure do miss being so close to so many of them.

Since arriving in Idaho, Sam has spent most of his time working with his dad or researching different Master's degree programs. Part of the reason we decided to move in with Sam's parents was because we were hoping Sam could make that a main focus, researching different degrees and careers, and find something that he can feel good about for a number of reasons and not just rush into something else from where we just rushed away from. If that makes sense. That's why Sam didn't take the job with his friend Mark, because it would have been a lot of hours right away and he just barely was working a lot of hours in a job he didn't want to remain at (which he wouldn't have with Mark's company, either. It's just spreading fertilizer so not really a lifelong career fit for Sam.) So he has a list of possible careers, and is leaning towards one but I think I need to stop reporting so much about our lives before our minds are made up at the time being, so I'll just leave it at that. Anyway it's been nice he's had the freedom to spend a lot of time researching careers and different degree programs, and also try to arrange to shadow people in the career he's most interested in at present. I think I can say if he pursues his current interest, he'll have to take a fair amount of pre-requisite courses beforehand, so we'd probably be making that the focus for the next year. We'll just have to wait and see. 

Oh yeah! And I'm still in school. I keep forgetting. I feel like I'm at the finish line, but it's actually seven feet above me and I can't reach it. My last classes are all entirely online, and the teach-yourself-by-reading-every-page-out-of-the-book thing is NOT enticing to me in the slightest. Blegh...I'm the worst at reading textbooks. So! I have to pull some motivation out of somewhere, get a last burst of energy to finish and make it happen or...well. Let's not even imagine ors. But right now the goal is for me to graduate in August, right before baby #2 arrives. Oh boy! I can't wait to walk at 8 months pregnant, honestly. It kind of tickles me at the thought. Because everyone's going to be like "What the hey, she's humongous" and little will they know it's actually my second...inside jokes with myself make me giggle, I'm afraid. I'm just that nerdy.

Well! I think this is sufficient. Except you can see a couple I have taken since we've arrived in Idaho: 

 "Jori, smile!"

 This was her trying to open her eyes wide. hahaha

 Sam made Jori this rocking horse. Sweet huh!

 She loves my helmet. This day her outfit was that much cuter with both the helmet AND the tutu.

 We got Jori three new pairs of shoes! She cried when we had to take them off for bed. I swear she isn't always pants-less...and doesn't always look like a raga-muffin with a wet shirt and hair in her eyes...only half the time. :)

I think this was another 'smile!' pose...

 Oh my lands, I'm so in love with this little girl. Look at my sweet pea. I'm so lucky to have her. Loalee was watching American Idol the other day and I had this thought. It was like "millions of people try out for this and want to win it, and even of those it just showed only one will win..." and then I looked at Jori and I had this feeling like, "I already won something better!" I'm so lucky to be her mom. I hope the feelings just multiply with the next one-I'm sure they will, but I've known Jori so much longer it's hard to imagine loving another human being like this.