'Tis the Season

Let the Christmas festivities begin! We put up the tree, decorations, and started other Christmas plans. It's an exciting time of year. We are busy, busy, busy. Especially Chris... He worked a 58-hour week at his "part-time temp" job. :D Poor guy! Even though we haven't seen much of him lately, Westley and I feel his dedication to providing for the family and love him for it.

So far, we've had a nice weekend. We got to take our little adopted grandma to her ward Christmas Party at church on Friday, in pouring rain. We had a good time getting to know people and enjoying a nice dinner. There was an almost realistic nativity manger set up for the children to see what it would be like in Christ's time. Everything was well done and very peaceful. 

Yesterday we had a date night. You know what that means... GROCERY SHOPPING! Hahahaha. Funny how that seems to always happen on date night. Oh, well. We grabbed some sushi and rented the new Disney/Pixar movie, Brave, and snuggled up to watch it too. 

In the outfit from Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Grigg

Note the bib on our son... he is a slobbering monster now that he has been teething. It's made a horrible rash on his neck and cheeks, so we have to keep him constantly covered and frequently changed. He has really gotten the hang of rolling around to get just about anywhere. He isn't satisfied to sit up and look around anymore, he wants to be moving all the time. He has a cold this week, so I've been trying to cuddle and rest with him, but he wants to be up and around despite being grumpy. He wakes up several times a night with a stuffy nose and can't get back to sleep until I've given him a shower and a nasal treatment. It's been a little rough on both of us. :) He's pretty happy when he's in the bathtub though. 

While I was at home with our little sicky today, I worked on compiling genealogy. I've been learning about Chris's mother's side of the family and putting their info into our family tree. It's fascinating to learn about the people he comes from. I love researching in general, but to be studying people's lives is so fulfilling and intriguing to me. Doing family history always helps me put my own life into perspective, knowing that what I do in this life affects so many more people than just me. It is amazing to think about it. 

I hope that this month is full of great Christmas cheer for all of our family and friends. We are certainly feeling our blessings and hope that you will too. Keep warm, keep healthy, and spend as much time with your family and loved ones as you can! :) 

Holiday and Hard Work

Happy Sunday means that it’s time to talk about the Wyman family’s week.  It has definitely been an eventful one, filled with Holiday fun and hard work.   This week I started a new job working for a printing and shipping company that is based here in Rexburg.  The workload consists of assembling, boxing, and prepping orders to ship via UPS.  The orders usually consist of customized cards and envelopes, but we also distribute the orders from National Wild Life (shirts, jewelry, birdhouses, etc.).  It’s been hard work because we have to do all the work in a very fast pace.  I was hired as a temp part-time worker for the season, but about everyday this week, I’ve worked 10+ hours. 

 

Lindsey has been so great with Westley and Zella.  She has worked so hard to keep Zella eating healthy and taking care of her.  I am very grateful to have such an amazing wife. Westley and I are sure blessed to have her. 

Speaking of the little guy; He is growing up way too fast.  He has really been enjoying the mushed carrots and bananas.

 

It is very interesting to see his progress.  The other day I put our Wii remote out of reach from him, only to watch him lift up his upper body, move it forward, and plop to the ground until he could reach it.  He goes off and on with the military crawl, but rolls everywhere he wants.  We have to put up a baby gate now at the stairs to keep him from falling.  He also loves to stand (with our help) and walk (also with our help).  He is so much fun. 

This Thanksgiving was a blast.  While Lindsey started cooking, I went to play football with some old friends.  The Turkey bowl was fun and I played better than I ever have, catching 9 out of 11 passes and 3 Touchdowns.  We played hard but it was great. 

We had our friends the Terry’s over for Thanksgiving dinner and had fun spending time with them.  Westley and their baby girl, Katelyn were the sight to see, as Westley tried to impress her with his monster growls. 

Thanksgiving dinner was great, consisting of mostly fat-free, gluten-free, and dairy-free foods.  Other than the Turkey if was completely within our diet, which is pretty good considering that holidays are our cheat days.  Lindsey does such an amazing job preparing our food that I don’t really notice that I am eating healthy. 

 

Well, that’s all the time I have today.  Until next week, we love you all and hope you had a great Thanksgiving.

Welcome Back!

Hello! We are back in Rexburg, Idaho, again! For those of you who don't know how that move happened, we're right there with ya, trying to figure it out. :D

We had been worrying night and day about how we were going to find a place to rent when we returned to school in January. You see, Rexburg is a small area, with an influx of college students (most of which are newly married or young families). Every semester they add 1,500 students to our university's admission allowance. This creates a horrible housing problem, and the city can't keep up. Our returning housing plans fell through twice this year, and that's why we ended up back in Iowa. It ended up being such a blessing for us to be near my family during a stressful series of health issues for my parents.

Anyhow, we were starting to get anxious to find something. Chris was looking on Craigslist for apartments and saw an ad for free rent and utilities... yes, we were a little leery at the "free" part too, but decided to ask about it anyway. Turns out it was a in live-in caregiver situation to take care of a 96-yr old blind woman and we interviewed with her children over Skype that evening.

After meeting with two of her children, we felt very good about the opportunity. They had spent a lot of time discussing and interviewing other couples, but told us two days later that they felt we were the couple they were looking for. There was only one thing that was not ideal about the job, they couldn't wait for us to come in January, they needed us right away. It was a heart wrenching decision to leave our family early, but we realized we'd never get this chance again. So we packed up and left a week later.

We've had such an interesting series of trials and blessings the last couple months, I can hardly believe how the Lord has worked everything out for our good. It took a leap of faith (actually multiple leaps) to come, and yet, blessings are around every corner. The financial side of things hasn't been at comfort levels for a long time now, but once again, we have  had the necessities taken care of. Chris has been such a good provider, willing to work hard for his family. He found a job out here after only two days of searching. He starts work tomorrow at a seasonal position with Artco, a local printing factory. We are so grateful. I am proud to have a wonderful husband whose top priority is our welfare. I couldn't have asked for better, although he never agrees with that ;)

Taking care of our new cute little adopted grandma is a mixed blessing and a challenge for me. She is mostly blind, has cancer, and really bad dementia. But has the happiest and sweetest temperament of anyone I've met. She laughs about her frailties and always takes my hand to tell me that she thinks Chris and I are "special people". It's hard to have bad days when you always have someone telling you that you're special. Chris got her grandfather clock chiming again and she tells everyone she talks to that it makes her so happy. We really enjoy her, which is good because sometimes the work is hard and makes for a long day. She and Westley enjoy each other's company a lot. :D

Westley's coolest new things are teeth and eating solids. He started teething the day that we left Iowa, so the trip was slightly miserable. He broke two little teeth through that day, so I tried to pacify him with bananas on our trip. He loves bananas. It's been a couple weeks now, so yesterday we tried carrots, and he likes them too. I'm glad that he can supplement with baby food so that he can have something to interest him if I ever have to be away. He still likes Mama food best of all, but it's good to have alternatives since he wouldn't take a bottle when he was young. He is working on another tooth up top now too!

Well, that just about sums it all up. We've had a crazy bunch of adventures this month, but are definitely counting our blessings. We have so many good and wonderful things to be grateful for, especially to have loving families and the watchful care of a Heavenly Father. Happy Thanksgiving to all our loved ones and may your lives be ever blessed.

Love,

The Wymans

An Eventful Week

Well it has been quite some time since we last updated the blog and we are very sorry to those who check it often.  I can promise that we will work harder to keep up this more frequently and keep our goal of writing every Sunday.  These last few weeks have been filled with highs and lows, but Lindsey, Westley, and I are doing great.

Westley is growing so much, he hasn’t quite crawled yet, but he can roll back and forth from belly to back and he scoots as much as he can.  He is the most fun little guy I know.  I love to see him laugh and try to talk to us.  He has become very vocal.  He has also become more playful; he loves his toys.  Westley hasn’t given us any trouble because he is the most well tempered baby I’ve ever seen.  He is now about 19 lbs. and 21 inches long.  He is growing way too fast.  It’s hard to see him in 6-9 month clothes when he’s only 5 months old. 

This last week my father in-law had an appointment to figure the pains above his chest.  The doctors ended up discovering three clogged arteries around his heart.  He was then taken to have surgery that day to get a stent in one of them and prepare to go after the second one in a few weeks.  He is home now and doing well, as long as he isn’t over exerting himself.  It was a scary thing, but I am very grateful for modern medical technics that make these procedures safer and more successful. 

It was a very interesting week that led up to this event.  I am working for Equifax and they usually never offer overtime.  I was offered three extra hours that I took, split between two days.  The day that dad went in for surgery unexpectedly, I felt a need to leave and be with mom as Lindsey watched their other children.  I got off work early that day and it ended up being exactly three hours.  I did get my 40 hours+, and still was able to be there when my family needed me. 

Another interesting thing that happened this week was a panic came over Lindsey and I.  We both started worrying about finances and how we would be able to afford moving back to Rexburg and the rent we would have to pay there.  We both started looking for places to stay that was cheaper and came across an ad for a caretaker needed.  If we got the job, we would need to live in the elderly lady’s home and just cook, clean, take care of maintenance and make sure she ate enough, etc.  In return we would get free rent and utilities.  We applied last Thursday, had an interview over Skype that night and were given the job Saturday morning. It is a huge blessing that we were not expecting.  We will be moving back to Rexburg during the beginning of election week and I will try and find a job that can fit our needs with school coming up.  I am so grateful it worked out, because I really want Lindsey to have the opportunity to be a stay home mom with Westley. 

Well, I am at work most of the time, so I don’t have a lot of more interesting stories to tell, but I will get Lindsey to write next week.  Have a great week and keep in touch.  Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers.  

It's a Florida Surprise!

Sorry it's been so long since we last posted!

Here are the promised pictures of Chris's special b-day cake. Who knew, you can use sugar-free pudding mix to flavor AND color your sugar-free frosting!

We got to give Chris's dad a huge surprise... we flew out to Florida for his 50th birthday weekend! It was so much fun planning with Lisa, Jackie, and Sarah for the surprise. We all kept it a secret for several months. There were a lot of times where we thought that he'd found out, but we were all awesome and succeeded. We flew into MCO on Thursday afternoon, were picked up by Lisa and Sarah and waited for Dad to get home. Chris, Westley, and I all waited in the office and came up behind him and yelled "surprise!". Talk about a good birthday present. Hahaha! It was so wonderful to watch him interact with his grandson for the first time. I think they became buddies really fast. Here is an adorable video I caught of them playing a game:

Westley also thoroughly enjoyed spending quality time with Auntie Jackie and Auntie Sarah, Uncle Brian, and Grandma Lisa. 

That night we went to Downtown Disney. I'd never been to the one in Florida before. It was huge! And very entertaining. We saw giant Disney Lego sculptures, saw a couple shows including a very beautiful electrical quartet that played ramped up versions of our favorite Classical songs. We had a lot of fun with the family there. 

The next day we all went to the Disney waterpark called Blizzard Beach. What a blast! I only went on two rides, but thoroughly enjoyed watching Westley play with his aunts and the water. He is such a waterbaby! All the times we went in the pool he was splashing and laughing away. Here are some pictures taken from Blizzard Beach:

We enjoyed lots of good food, family time, and games of Cornhole. It was a very good visit and we were really grateful for the opportunity to go. 

We're Still Alive, I Think

Westley is trying to help me type up the blog this time... he keeps getting his little toes on the keyboard! He has been so much fun the last couple of weeks. Here he is, saying "Hello!" to his adoring fans. 

His new favorite trick is rolling over and wiggling in the crawling position. He figured it out on his own and now he rolls over in sets of two or three until he rolls right off a blanket and on to the floor. Silly boy! I don't think we'll be able to hold him off of learning to crawl early. 

Here he is demonstrating, even though he got a bit of stagefright in the middle. He and I are cuddling in bed today because I'm sick with a fever and sore throat.

We had a pretty eventful week and Labor Day weekend. It started with the birthday celebration for my dad and Chris. I made Chris a Batman Cake (pictures to follow when I get my camera back from my parent's house).

For Dad's present, Chris and I decided to watch the boys for the Labor Day weekend so that Mom and Dad get away for some much needed quiet time. They have been married for 25 years and never have had a trip away from the kids until now. Even on their honeymoon, they had a lot of people with them because they went on a college choir tour to Austria and Germany. We had to laugh when they announced they were going to Johnston this last weekend for their "getaway" (that's about 15 minutes away from where they live). Even though they didn't go far, they had a very pleasant time together.

The boys behaved better than expected (much to my relief), and everyone helped out. I was very proud of them, especially since Tanner was pretty sick the whole time with a bad cough and a fever. They are all really good at stepping up to the task, whatever it is. Chris, Westley, my mom and brothers, and I all had a hand at helping two families pack and move this week and weekend. It was a lot of hard work, but very rewarding for all of us.

Every day I can't wait for Chris to get home from work. I claim bragging rights about him, I'm very proud of his progress there. He has excelled at his normal duties to the point where they have decided to train him on more complex duties. He now is very flexible for the company because he knows how to perform all of the different tasks in his division of the department. This also mean he is sure to get all of his hours for the week, instead of getting sent home occasionally. It has been a blessing for me to see him take such a leading role in supporting and providing for our family, and I truly appreciate his hard work.

Opps, excuse me, I better go get Westley. He has rolled over on top of one of his toys and doesn't like it. Hahaha!

Love you all and hope that you are able to see every day how much you are loved by the Lord and your loved ones.

Baby Playtime

Howdy, howdy! We are writing late again. Sorry.... We've been busy, but most of what we've been doing recently isn't very exciting. So, maybe we'll just make this post a "picture post".

Sleeping Away

He actually loves bath time.. Really!

Storms

Hello!!!!

We are enjoying the cooler weather this week. It was about 113 degrees with intense humidity when we first came to Iowa at the beginning of August, and got to see the awful drought that is hitting the Midwest full force. It was so sad to see the corn all brown and dried up. Iowa is normally a beautiful landscape of different shades of verdant green, but this year's weather has hit it hard.

Luckily, we had a series of thunderstorms last week that helped bring it back to life a bit. There was a particularly big storm one day that set off the Tornado Sirens three times in two hours and was accompanied by a huge torrential downpour. They started a new policy in Polk County that the sirens will be sounded if there are winds over 70 mph. When we lived here before, the sirens would only go off if there was an actual tornado warning in the area, but I guess there were enough dumb people going outside during high winds and getting hurt from non-tornadic debris that they felt they needed to modify the policy. :) Iowa storms are fun to watch as long as you are in a safe, secure place.

The clouds look like angry hands reaching out to shake something!

We finally got to celebrate Lindsey's graduation with the family. We joined the Haddens at Biaggi's which is our favorite Italian restaurant. It's a swanky place that has scrumptious Gluten-Free options like our favorite Chicken Piccante Pizza (which has capers and feta cheese on it!). The waiter charmed us all and even surprised me with a gourmet dessert with a "congrats '12" message that was penned in chocolate syrup, garnished with a strawberry "rose". It was so much fun! 

Westley continues to enjoy playing with his uncles. Chris enjoys playing with them too. : D Every night after work he comes to the Hadden's to pick Westley and me up, he ends up playing football or taking the boys to the park it seems. They are tireless in keeping him busy. Here is a picture of a well-matched arm wrestle between Chris and Joshua. 

Chris was probably a little annoyed that his wife was voting for his opponent. :D

They put us to work at church already too! Chris and I were asked to be Nursery Leaders together (I've always wanted to be one!). This means that every Sunday we get to help out with the toddlers' Sunday School time for two hours. It's the coolest calling... we get to play with toys, have singing time and a really-super-short lesson, have Snack Time, and play some more! We started last week and thoroughly enjoyed it. Westley was the attraction of the day. The little kids (who range from 18-24 months old) swarmed around him, squealing and wanting to rub his cute little semi-bald head. They were surprisingly very gentle with him and made me smile. We talked about how Jesus loves our families and that every person in our family is important. The kids were better behaved that I expected, but I'm sure we will have a few interesting experiences in the future. ;)

That's about it this week. Happy Birthday to Chris's little sister, Sarah! She's 23 this week. Hooray! 

Love, 

The Wymans

P.S. - One more thing. Westley laughed for the first time this week! It was adorable! Chris was changing his diaper and clothes for the day and tickled him. Westley smiled really big and started chuckling in a deep baby laugh. We caught another one on video:

Moved!

Hello! We are back after not posting for three weeks. Sorry! We have a couple of good excuses though. The week of July 9th, we were doing finals, graduating, packing, deep cleaning, and moving! Phew. We are so glad to have all that craziness over now.

Lindsey graduated on July 13th with her Bachelors in Healthcare Administration. It was an incredible experience for all of us. Graduation was held in the BYU-Idaho Center Auditorium, which is the second largest free-standing balconied auditorium in the world. It has 15,000 seats. You can imagine how awestruck we were to attend graduation here!

It was slightly stressful for us all because poor Baby Westley didn't get to eat for several hours and he was very sad about it. Luckily he calmed down just in time for Daddy to see her walk and get her diploma. He snapped a quick picture from the doorway where he'd been standing for most of the ceremonies. It kind of looks like "Where's Waldo?".  :)

Lindsey's favorite part was at the beginning of the Processional before the graduates entered the ceremony, the professors and other faculty all lined up in double lines along the hallways, to make a pathway for them to pass through. The professors were all clapping and cheering, adding a wonderful celebratory element. Dennis Tolman, Lindsey's advisor and instructor for the past two and a half years, was among them (he's a white-haired, jolly grandpa-type of person) and she surprised him with a grateful hug. It was such a happy day.

The next couple days were a hectic whirlwind. We packed and cleaned like crazy for the next couple days. Leaving the little house we had called "home" for almost two years was a sad thing, but we were excited to have new experiences. We stuffed as much as we could into our great little car and put the rest in storage and headed out for Iowa.

We took a beautiful scenic route through the Teton mountains and Jackson Hole, WY. Here is a picture similar to what we saw. And the picture below captures an incredible sight we were privileged to see. The morning mists rose from the lower parts of the mountain, meeting a thick blanket of clouds that completely covered the  valley. We descended from the top of the peak into this whimsical sea of clouds and into a still and peaceful fog. It was utterly breathtaking!


The drive was pretty uneventful after we got out of western Wyoming. Westley was so well behaved in the car and hardly cried (even though we drove over 15 hours that day!). We arrived at our hotel in Lexington, Nebraska for a much need sleep around 11pm. The local pioneer history was printed in our hotel welcome brochure. We enjoyed stopping at little towns as we chugged across Nebraska and Iowa, immediately feeling the difference in the Midwest. People at gas stations and food places would ask where we were heading in a friendly way, fuss over the baby, and wish us a good day. It felt so good to be back in the Midwest!

We drove three hours to Omaha, NE, and met up with Margie, a dear friend of Lindsey's. We thoroughly enjoyed visiting with her and her two little ones. The breather was just the thing we needed to give us enough "umpf" to finish the trip. We rolled into Ankeny about 6:30 that evening. We stayed with Lindsey's mom the rest of the week because Dad and most of the boys were in Colorado, hiking Mt. Elbert (one of the 14 highest mountains in the U.S. and the highest in the state of Colorado!) for a Scouting High Adventure. Only 4 boys in the scout troop made it to the top (it was a 12+ hour climb) and three of them were Hadden boys. Here is what the peak looks like in the wintertime... And next is a picture of Joshua and Tyler at the top, showing their Troop number, with their friend Granite. We were sure proud of them!

 So now we are settled in at our own place. We are renting a room and bathroom from a sweet family friend, Fay Carmichael. She has made us very comfortable and we love our new home. It very cozy. We feel blessed for all of the help we received from kind and wonderful people on both ends of our move. We also were incredibly surprised and grateful that Chris got a job the first week upon our arrival. He interviewed with a professional temp agency in Des Moines and now works for Equifax, a loan processing company that works is owned by Wells Fargo Mortgage. He is working full-time and loves his job. We are super happy to have a change from school. Lindsey is enjoying being a stay-at-home mom and taking care of the little guy. Westley is much happier to have her around instead of rushing off to school every day! He's been pretty adorable lately, and growing like a weed (a cute one though!).

Westley LOVES showers! He throws his head back so he can get soaking wet  and coos and smiles when we wrap him in a towel for drying time!

First Swimming trip - He was loving it until he got splashed in the face :D

Laughing at his elephant

Loving his strong daddy...

Talking to Grandma Debbie

4th of July

Happy 4^th of July to everyone!! I am so grateful that Lindsey, Westley, and I live in this beautiful country.  It may not be perfect but we have our liberty.  This past week we were able to celebrate our Independence Day by sitting on our front porch and watching the 4^th of July parade pass our front yard.  It was so much fun to see and Westley definitely enjoyed it as you can see from the picture.  He likes a lot of noise and trust me there was a lot of noise.  He falls asleep to loud commotion every time. 

After the parade we decided to go get some frozen yogurt at our favorite place in town, Kiwi Loco.  It was just an all around fun day.  The only complaint would be how hot it was.  I wish we had a pool or could visit a relative’s pool or something.  Oh well, not many people expect it to get up in the 90’s in Rexburg, so why have a pool. 

I am so proud to say that in two weeks, Lindsey will be graduating.  Westley and I are so proud of her and I am very impressed with how she does so well in her classes and takes great care of Westley.  We are so blessed to have her in our family.

It’s going to be a hot, hard, last two weeks of school, with finals coming up.  I am ready to finish a few of my classes.  I have enjoyed them so much, but I can’t wait to continue on to other interesting things.  We are also very excited for our move to Iowa, after the semester is over.  We’ll be there until January and then we’ll move back to Rexburg for me to finish school.  I can’t wait to graduate myself.  

I forgot to mention our 4^th of July pizza, here’s a picture….