Four Month Stats.

No matter how hard I try I can't him to smile for the camera. He'd rather study it then smile at it. It's a work in progress. :)

We finally had Emerson's four month checkup yesterday and he is doing great! Everything looks good, and he has a tooth starting to come in. He also had more shots, and he did so good! He cried while getting the shots but he calmed down once Bryson picked him up. He's was a little cranky and clingy throughout the day but overall a happy little guy! Here are his stats:

Weight: 16 lbs. 12 oz. (72%)

Height: 25" (36%)

Head Cir.: 43.3cm (66%)

Lately

It's been a while since I've posted so this will be a long post, but there will be pictures. Enjoy!

Life has been busy, crazy and fun! UW Rock County started up at the beginning of September so Bryson is back to teaching. He's added another choir at U-Rock which is exciting, and he's also conducting the Festival Choir of Madison, which he's really enjoying. It's been a bit of adjustment being only Emerson and I after having Bryson home all summer, but I think we've figured out a great routine and now are having a great time! I helped out at the University bookstore the first couple weeks of school and that was a bit of a rough time for Emerson. It took a little while to get him back on a schedule, but he was such a trooper through the whole thing.

Emerson is getting so big! We've had a lot of friends in our ward have babies and it's amazing to see in a few months how much Emerson has grown and changed! Gone are the days of sleeping all day and cuddling with mom and dad. Now he wants to see everything that's going on. Here's some of the things he's been up to.

-He loves to smile and laugh but also loves to study everything and everyone. That's what comes from having academic parents I guess. I love to research!! :)

-There are no teeth yet but he's definitely become a drooler and basically puts everything in his mouth which he then chews on. I'm sure we'll be seeing some teeth peeking through in the near future.

-Emerson's been able to play and bat at his toys for a while but now he's figured out how to grip and pick up his toys...and of course put in them in his mouth.

-He's been able to sit up for a while but he's really close to sitting with no one helping him. Right now he sits up on his own for a couple seconds and then sees something he wants and leans that way and falls over. :) Once we work on balance a bit I think he'll have it down.

-Our biggest news...Emerson finally rolled over yesterday! He's been trying to figure it out but couldn't quite get the motion down. Well everything came together and he finally did it! Now he can't be stopped. Every chance he got yesterday he was rolling over. He doesn't know how to roll onto his back yet so he gets mad after being on his stomach for a while, but it's exciting!

I don't have stats for him because his pediatrician has been out of town on vacation but once he's had his appointment next week I'll post about how he's doing. Overall he's a sweet and happy baby. We love him so much and love not only seeing him grow but discover the world around him!

One of his favorite things to do...staring out the window at the tree our front yard.

This is how he loves to sleep...with his face buried in the blanket.

Hello!

Here he is rolling on his side...

...almost there...

...and we're on the tummy! Mission accomplished!

Emerson trying to roll over on the changing table. Now that he knows how, he tries to roll over everywhere.

I love these Dads!

I know this is a little late but I just want to say how much I love the Dads in my life: my husband and my own father. One of my favorite things to do is watch my husband with our son. He is so gentle and loving with Emerson and lights up whenever he's around. Even when Emerson won't stop crying and Bryson gets frustrated, he still says, "You are just so cute!" Emerson knows who his daddy is and loves play time with him. I am so grateful for both of them in my life and love them so much!

Bryson and Emerson on Father's Day!

A couple of weeks ago my dad flew out for a long weekend. It was so fun to have him here and to see Emerson get to know his Grandpa. We also blessed Emerson while he was here and I am so grateful that he was able to be here and stand in the circle while Bryson blessed Emerson. I love my dad so much and am grateful for the wonderful example he is for me. I am so grateful for the time we were able to spend together while he was here and can't wait to see him again!

Three Generations!

One Week Old!

Happy one week birthday Emerson! He is such a sweet little boy and we love him so much! We're starting to figure out sleeping at night between feedings, which helps Bryson and I so we don't feel so much like zombies. Here's some more pictures of the first week of our little munchkin!

Our newest addition

I won't give you the long story right now, but we just wanted everyone to know that out little boy is here! I had high blood pressure for a couple of appointments and was on bed rest for a week before my Monday appointment. Our doctor decided the best thing to do was to induce me right away so in the hospital I went and after a long day and night, our little Emerson Chad Mortensen was born at 4:25am Tuesday morning! He weighed 8lbs 4oz and was 20in long! He is such a sweetie and is very content to snuggle with you all day, which can make feeding a bit of a challenge but we're working on it. I'm still catching up on sleep and I'm really sore all over, but I'm actually pretty perky! :) My mom got here last night from Oregon and we're so excited to have her here to help out! Here are some pictures of our little Emerson with more to come!

Emerson all cleaned up right after he was born!

Emerson and I have a little bonding time after birth.

Baby bump pics...finally

I've been terrible at taking pictures of my baby bump..in fact we only have a few pictures throughout the whole pregnancy. But I thought everyone would like to see my belly before our little man makes his appearance! So without further adieu, here I am at almost 38 weeks (I'll be 38 weeks on Friday!).

This is the view I see right now. Feet, are you still down there?

And here I am in all my glory...chubby cheeks and all!

Big News!!

No I haven't had the baby yet :) I still have about 3 weeks to go, although I've had a couple people ask if I'm closer than that. Because I'm so short, there's no where for our little guy to go but straight out. And don't worry there will be baby bump pictures to come. Now on to the other big news in our life. Are you ready? We're buying a house!!!!!! We've been looking at homes for the last couple weeks and found a wonderful house that has just what we need. Our offer was accepted and we will close at the end of June. A little long I know, but that gives us plenty of time to get everything packed and cleaned up and hopefully get some routine going with our new little guy. Bryson and I are so excited and feeling very grateful and blessed to not only buy our first home, but to buy this home. It's a three bedroom, two bath home, with a living room upstairs and a family room, an office and a bonus room/guest room in the basement. It has a ton of storage too! It's an older home so we have some updating to do, such as landscaping, painting, new carpet in some rooms, and new light fixtures; things like that. But we just love this home and are excited to make it our own! I'll post a couple pictures of the house so you can see where we will be living!

There she is! Don't you love the big yard?! We're on a corner lot so we have a lot of yard space around the house.

Front living room with a fireplace!

Dining Room and Kitchen. There is so much storage in the kitchen! I'm going to have cupboards that I don't know what to do with. PS..at some point the carpet in the dining room will be gone.

Master Bedroom. Yes I know you all love the pink carpet but alas, it has to go. :)

Main Bathroom.

With a little paint this girl's room will become a wonderful nursery for our little boy!

Downstairs Family Room. With a little updating it's going to be a wonderful place to hang out! :)

Our backyard deck.

Backyard. We don't have much of a backyard, but like I said before our front and side yards are huge so it makes up for the smaller space behind the house.

Finally!!

Let it be known that this morning (and again this afternoon), I (Bryson)finally felt the baby kick! We've spent several weeks with Whitney trying to guide my hand to where she felt the baby kicking, but he always seemed to stop right when I got my hand in the right spot. Finally today he was in a mood to keep on kicking AND kicking hard enough to me for know that he was actually in there! Coolest moment in a long time!

Power outages and gender findings

I was ready to put this post up last night, but then the power went out. Our whole complex plus the complex across the street was completely out of power. I don't know how far the blackout went, cause we could see some lights from the city, but Bryson and I had a grand time reading by the light of Bryson's bike flashlight. Luckily, the power came back on around 10 or so. But let's get on to the good stuff! I had an ultrasound on Friday! We had a great time seeing our little baby and....finding out the gender! Bryson had a talk with the baby the night before telling it to cooperate during the ultrasound, and it sure did. Is everyone ready? Can I get a drumroll? Thanks! Okay Bryson and I are going to be the proud parents of a......BOY!!!!!! He listened to Dad and let us know that he was a boy. We can't be more thrilled! Bryson has always thought it would be a boy; I at first thought it would be a girl, but lately I've been thinking boy. So we were both right! He's a wiggler so our appointment went long because the tech couldn't get all the pictures she needed. But everything looks great! Here's a couple of pictures of our little man. Isn't he so cute?! (I may be a little biased :) )

Looking out and saying hi to everyone! (And giving a peace sign ;) )

Bryson says it looks like he's blowing bubbles, but that's just his left hand waving around. :)

How cute is he?!

Cross country moving...the non-stressful version

Well since I am the one wanting to pack so early, I thought I should add my thoughts to the conversation. So I know that packing a month and a half before we leave might sound a little ridiculous, but I thought why not? We have a lot of stuff that we don't use everyday, or even every week, so why keep all that stuff around to be frantically packed in a couple days. It always seems to take so much longer to get everything packed and ready to go when you're in the "frantic packing" stage. While packing little bits early on seems to take no time at all. All that I'm saying is I've done the "pack everything in your apartment in one day" quite a few times and I am done. I don't like the stress of packing up the house and the moving van in one day and then being exhausted the next day (which sometimes is when you're driving across the country to your new place of residence). So while packing early might be a little crazy, I'm going to be excited when that last week in Provo comes and all we need to do is load up the U-pack cube with our already neatly packed boxes, and then relax...oh and don't worry, Bryson will be grateful too. :)

Summer Lovin....

Its hot. I know I shouldn't complain, because there are people in much hotter places than Provo, UT, but Whitney and I have been trying to figure out how to sleep at night. (See above picture for our current "wind tunnel" configuration of our bedroom - I'm sitting on our bed)

After reading a very entertaining posting of ways to beat the heat, we decided to spend at least one day experimenting with the idea of trying to go without A/C, with the assumption that by not turning on the A/C (which is only a unit in our front room), the heat in the evening would be more bearable...

So, armed with misting spray bottles, tubs of water to dip our feet in, and strategically placed fans (we decided to forgo many of the ideas in the posting of wandering the home in clothes - or absence thereof - that may scare away children and neighbors), we decided to champion the day without A/C.

We made it. We didn't enjoy it, but we made it. We're particularly embarrassed to realize that the high today was only 84 (it will get into the high 90's in the next 10 days...). We napped most of the afternoon away (no hallucinations unfortunately) and then spent the evening trying to cool our house down. Admittedly, it was much cooler once we opened the doors and windows an hour after the hottest temperature of the day had passed, and its quite nice in our home now (at 11 at night).

I just kept thinking to myself, I spent two years in Italy without A/C, and those were hot days, how in the world can I not handle this anymore? I used to be totally happy in ridiculously hot days (wearing slacks, a shirt, and a tie no less!), have I become that wimpy? Or is it just the fact that the A/C is sitting there, taunting me, that I feel like I'm torturing myself?

On a funny side note, I feel absolutely no guilt about how much I didn't pack into my day today. Of course, I spent some time reading a good book, but nothing particularly intellectually demanding - the Percy Jackson series - and I sent out the recordings of my most recent choir concert to the members of the choir, but that's about it. Usually I would be at the piano for awhile, writing a few lectures here and there, but doing nothing was PERFECTLY acceptable, despite everything on my list....

Seriously??

So...before you look at the picture below. Consider that we are not moving until August 2nd. It is June 21st, which means we aren't moving for SEVEN WEEKS.

That's right, she began backing (well, I should say WE). We have bare walls and empty bookshelves...kinda' depressing.

We Have a HOME!!!

So, we finally decided to give in and have a blog for the both of us, instead of forcing you to go to several different blogs. We're not sure how it will all work out yet, but you can always trust this blog of the most important information.

So, the most important news, and the impetus for this new blog. We finally have a home in Wisconsin! After several months of online shopping and failed attempts with various landlords (Apparently people don't trust you when you want to get it all figured out without ever actually meeting in person...), we finally have been approved for an apartment!

Perhaps the most tedious part of waiting was when our entire application was approved, except that they hadn't yet heard from our current property managers about whether or not we paid our rent on time. After two weeks and multiple phone calls from both us and the Wisconsin Rental company, they FINALLY faxed back the reference and we were approved seconds later. We are so excited, and as you can see in the pictures below, it is a beautiful apartment! (ps, the new property manager went in and took these pictures for us, how cool is that?)

It has a fireplace, can't you imagine a pair of recliners facing this?