Spring Break

Good morning, friends and family. What a glorious weekend we had in the Great Northwest last weekend -- and what a dreary week has followed for Stuart's spring break!
Stuart finished up his winter term with a 3.0 GPA, knockin out another round of difficult math and physics classes while working part time and acting as a part time stay at home dad. I am so proud of him! He continues to work hard in school, and his grades reflect that! He is studying for his Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering and hopes to find work on Portland's bridges, among other aspirations. He'll enroll at PSU in the fall as well, becoming dual enrolled to finish out the remainder of his degree. He has a tough road ahead, but he's very excited to tackle it, and I'm looking forward to offering all the support I can along the way!
I am still enjoying my work and growing in my position. I've been taking on more projects and creating things that are my own. One advantage to approaching my 8th month at ODS is that I finally feel like I've made my many projects my own. I feel settled in and continue to work hard, looking for new opportunities to learn new skills and showcase my existing ones. My supervisor just resigned from her position and headed for another company. I didn't realize how fortunate I was to have a great boss that I actually LIKED. It's very sad to see her go. I can only hope the new supervisor isn't too bad :)
I'm testing for my CHES (Certified Health Education Specialist) credentials next month, so keep my in your thoughts, prayers, and wish me luck! It's a 4-hour exam, and I can hardly find the time to study, but I'm confident in my knowledge and believing in myself that I can pull it off.
And now for the family member you've all been waiting for!! (Do you like how I made you read about Stuart and I first? :)
Wyatt is almost 21 months! (I usually refer to him as one and a half, but for details-sake I'll use months here.) As he has for months, he is walking, running, climbing, and using his tippy toes. Personally, I am loving all of these things. Stuart may disagree, being home with him the majority of the time! He is working on riding his bike around the living room, which he's starting to get pretty good at. His only problem is when he gets to the end of the living room -- he drops the bike and typically gets one leg stuck under it, resulting in a minor meltdown until his leg is dislodged, bike turned around, and he's helped to climb back on. The bike is made for 2-year olds, so I think in the next 3 months he'll get the hang of it -- just in time for bike-riding weather!
He continues to babble and speak an unknown form of the Chinese language (unknown even to the Chinese!) He looks at you and talks to you as if you should understand his broken syllables and fluctuating tone. Stuart and I have gotten pretty good at carrying on a conversation with Wyatt-dialect. He's been doing that for 6 weeks or so and has, in the past 2-3 weeks, started repeating everything we say. It is obvious that he's trying to learn words and it's so exciting when he gets it right! We have a mini-party just about every time. He's mastered some of the important words like mommy, daddy, hi, bye, please, thank you, no, and more. He has many others, but I can't think of them off the top of my head. Sorry! Anyone who has been around him knows that his favorite word is no. Fortunately, he seldom uses it in context. No means no, but it also means yes, maybe, I don't know, I want that, I don't want that, etc. We mostly communicate by him pointing and making a series of grunting and/or Wyatt-Chinese dialect.
Some of his favorite things are his cars. Cars and trucks and anything with four wheels. They are often the first thing he goes for when it's toy time. He lines them all up along the coffee table, drives them around on the floors and walls, cruises them over mom and dad's arms, makes vroom noises, or lays on his belly just moving it back and forth and checking out how things work. He also loves his big Legos. He will set for an hour and just play independently with his Legos, stacking them and taking them apart, making different shapes, using different colors. We're working on learning all the different colors of Legos, but for now he just explains them all as being the color "to" or "do." We'll get there :) He's got a pretty good arm and can throw a ball across the house. He can also slam dunk any of our various different balls into the Little Tikes basketball hoop that Grandpa Mike got him for his first birthday. He can hit off the tee and kick the ball like a soccer ball. He gets so excited with these things that he throws his arms in the air and says, "Yay!" after his makes the basket or hits the baseball. He also loves books. He will read on his own, looking at pictures and telling the story to himself. He brings books to us, climbing up on our lap and holding the book open to read. We just started introducing Spanish into his daily conversation, both by mom and dad and by books and videos. We're hoping he can start to learn English and Spanish simultaneously so that they each come naturally to him as he enters school and begins to learn them on a more fluent level. We're looking into family Spanish classes that will allow us all to learn Spanish together through conversation, play, reading and crafts.
We've been visiting our parents (Wyatt's grandparents) quite often and love that they get to be so involved in Wyatt's life. Wyatt loves his grandmas and grandpas, and we couldn't be more appreciative of them being around. We are so happy to be so close to family. We also get to see my grandparents (Wyatt's great grandparents) on a pretty regular basis as well, in addition to my extended family. We're hoping to visit Stuart's extended family sooner rather than later, but driving to Nebraska isn't something I'm jumping for joy at, so I'm holding out until we can fly. :-D
Last weekend Stuart got to take a trip out to Cannon Beach with some of his buddies from fraternity at OSU. They did a two day hike and had such amazing weather to accompany it! Considering the trip was planned months ago, they couldn't have picked a better weekend to go.
Our little family is headed to Sunriver tomorrow to spend the weekend together with my Aunt and Uncle and their two kiddos, Emma and Alex. We're so excited! Not only am I itching for a vacation, but I'm looking forward to getting to spend more time with my Aunt and Uncle in non-work related adult conversation and play and chat with my kid cousins. I'm fairly certain that they, also cannot wait for us to come down. Wyatt just loves the attention they give him and, after all, it's about time we start getting Emma prepped for babysitting, right? :)
We're also right to work on planning other trips. At the end of June, Stuart's taking a hiking trip again with friends to Lost Coast in California. They'll be hiking and camping 5 days!! That same weekend, Wyatt and I are going to fly down to Sacramento to see one of my best friends for a few days. I decided to cash in on his free airfare before he turns two! I bet you no one will believe that he's not two, so I've gotta remember to take his birth certificate! :)
Well, that's all I have, folks! Check out my Facebook for the latest and greatest photos of Wyatt. The Smith family is doing great. We feel so blessed every day for the wonderful life we lead and amazing people we have to share it with. Thank you for all your love! Take care.