Fall

We are having lots of fun this fall already, enjoying the beautiful weather we're having! We went to the Children's Museum and the Zoo this weekend, plus the fun we have right here in town. We're planning a trip to the pumpkin patch next weekend and working feverishly on all our Halloween costumes.

I wanted to share more photos of our last couple weeks! :)

A few photos

Just a few photos now that I learned to add from my phone!

Summer Days

We have certainly been enjoying this warm weather with Wyatt. Stuart takes him to the park on almost a daily basis, where he loves to slide and hates to swing! He runs around in the courtyard of our apartment, and he is always asking for rides in his Radio Flyer wagon. He is such an outdoors boy! We are looking forward to the camping trips we have planned for this summer. He is sure to have a great time!
Stuart finished up his first year of school! Yeah! He's taking one summer class right now and gearing up for a full schedule in the fall. He has been keeping busy as a full-time dad at home and working part time for the Oregonian. At the end of June, he went on a hiking trip with friends to Lost Coast, California. The weather wasn't everything they'd hoped, but Stuart enjoyed his trip and looks forward to future hikes.
I don't have many updates about myself! I am coming up on my one year anniversary with ODS next month. Things have been going very well, and I'm really happy with where I'm at. I am enjoying my work and receiving adequate recognition for all my successes. My only complaint is the commute! It is certainly enjoyable to work downtown, but the hour commute home makes for a long end to my work day. I recently picked up running and completed my first half marathon on the 4th of July. It was a lot of fun, and I am extremely proud of my hard work! I ran the half marathon in 2:03:07 and met the boys at the finish line! I hate to admit it, but even after a nap and a relaxing day, all three of us were in bed before fireworks!
Wyatt is a hoot! He turns two on Friday, which is just about more than I can handle! He is adventurous and independent, but he gives love in the form of hugs and kisses very freely. He is talking more and more each day, expanding his vocabulary with every word he hears. He loves to read and could spend all afternoon reading books if Mom and Dad could stand it! He has several favorite books that Stuart and I have to pry from his fingers to move on to the next book. Thomas the Train and the other trains in the series seem to be his favorite characters right now, with the Cars characters Mater and Lightning McQueen as a close second. Ultimately, he loves anything with wheels, whether it's in a movie or not! He's got a great arm, striking fear in everyone he raises his arm toward. It is difficult to teach a two year old that he can throw a foam baseball in the house, but not a real baseball! We're working on it. :) He's got a great swing too, currently batting left and throwing right. We have big dreams for him, and he certainly enjoys playing now!
We decided to divide his birthday party into three separate parties this year, to make it more manageable for him and to allow everything to really spend some time with him. His first birthday party went great, so we are happy with our decision! He even blew out his candle!
For his actual birthday on Friday, we're going to take him to the Oregon Zoo in Portland and make a day of it, then we'll go out to dinner at Hopworks, where they have a whole children's play section -- and Mom & Dad even get to have a decent meal! Then Saturday morning we'll take him down to Saturday Market where he can play in the fountains, run around on the waterfront, have a bite of Mom and Dad's elephant ear, and enjoy some sunshine!
It's so hard to think of all the updates on the spot. If only, "He's awesome." really explained what an amazing little boy he is. We have so much fun every day. We are learning to cope with the tantrums and are grateful for every day that we don't sense the "terribles" coming on.
Wyatt has some very wonderful people in his life, and Stuart and I are so thankful every day for that! We are all so blessed and we hope to bless all of you in return.

I am working on putting together a photo share site, which will make sharing photos of Wyatt much easier! It is still a work in progress, but I've managed to add quite a few photos and even a couple videos! http://wyattsgrowingup.shutterfly.com/ Check it out!

My big break

Some of you may have followed my Facebook and Twitter posts back in March about 60-hour work weeks, bringing work home, working on the weekend, etc.  It was rough. I always said I would never bring work home. I always said I would "work to live, not live to work". I guess when you're passionate about something, it stops feeling like work.

For several weeks, I "worked" very hard. Extra hard. Harder than ever. Cluelessly and ambitiously, I picked up three of the biggest files I've ever seen, and I dove in.

The result? An amazing opportunity, for myself, my colleagues, and my organization. I am now working very closely with our Medical Director and Supervisor of Community Relations (the two pictured below) to make my efforts and our goals a reality. I have been beaming with pride since we received that acceptance letter. I got to travel to Boston with our Medical Director to participate in a fantastic conference, and I am determined to continue to make things happen.

So, thank you! Thank you for all your prayers and good thoughts as I busted my tail, flew across the country, lost sleep, and teetered on insanity. I can't wait to see what the next year holds! PLEASE IGNORE THE 20lbs THIS PHOTO ADDS! Not my best wardrobe choice. My mirror must be broken. :) 

Quarterly Report

It would seem that my posts have become more of a quarterly report than a monthly account of our lives. I like to use the "we're just so busy!" excuse for not posting, but I feel like we are less busy now than we were the year he was born! I just never seem to find the time - AKA, I'm lazy. But I'm working on it!! I will now attempt to recount the last two months. Here it goes:

I'll start with the boring Stuart & Sara recap -- everything is the same! :)
Stuart is still trudging along in school. He's nearing the end of spring term and, once again, doing very well. He actually just got home from a physics midterm and took his math midterm yesterday!
I am still enjoying my work, and I have even been so blessed as to be part of a great project called the Disparities Leadership Program. It's a great opportunity for me on behalf of ODS and in my future career. In bigger news, I found out last week that I passed my Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES) certification exam that I took in April. Very exciting!
Stuart and I have been so blessed, getting to go hang out with friends, have family time, visit extended family regularly, and even spend time just the two of us. We are so happy to have our families close by! I can't imagine ever being without them :)

At the Blazer game on my birthday

In April, I turned 22. Big news, I know! Stuart took me out to dinner and to a BLAZER game!! Some of my girlfriends threw me a little shindig, complete with dinner, drinks and karaoke. (Yes, I karaoked "Gettin' Jiggy Wit' It; no, it was not good!) It was good fun!

 We also went to Bend to stay at my aunt and uncle's second home. Twice! The first time, we went with my aunt, uncle and two cousins, Emma and Alex. We stayed up way too late chatting, ate very well, went hiking, played at the arcade, went bowling, hit the batting cages, and just enjoyed each others' company. They even made me a birthday cake!
Our second trip, they so graciously let us have the house all to ourselves. We did pretty much the same thing! Lots of relaxing, playing, some hiking, and lots of eating! 

Breakfast time!

Playing on the dog bed

Picnic during our hike!

The sun also came out back here at home in Portland, so we were able to play at the park and enjoy a sunny Easter! Here are some photos from that too :)

shoes! outsiide!!

All tuckered out

not a fan of swings!!

Learning how to ride his no-pedal bike

First popsicle!

Portland waterfront fountain -- Doggie Dash and Saturday Market!

I got to take Wyatt to the Portland Children's Museum too, for a day of fun! He absolutely loved it, and I loved getting to be a little kid! We went on a Monday, so it wasn't even too busy:)

 In May, work took me to Boston, which was AWESOME!! I got to see a lot of really cool things, including FENWAY PARK and a number of historical sites from the American Revolution! 

Fenway

On the Green Monster!

Site of the Boston Massacre

 Wyatt has also graduated out of his crib and into a TODDLER BED!! The transition was pleasantly smooth! He is such a big boy and loves his big boy bed. We've decked it out in Thomas to complement his recent love for Thomas and trains.

His Thomas pillow pet. He was SO excited and still loves it!

Wyatt is talking a lot more lately and showing a real interest in learning new words. He has lots of words that he says on a regular basis and tries to learn new words every day. He loves to read books and point out the different things in the pictures, like monkey or ducks or blocks. He's a picky, PICKY little eater, but we're all surviving :)

Here are a few more of my favorite pictures from recent months that I will leave you with! Hopefully I will be quicker to my next post :)

 Love you all!

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.

Busy yet again... or still!

Hello, hello! The Smith family is most certainly keeping busy with work, school, and child-rearing! We have been enjoying our weekends to the fullest with trips to the zoo, play dates, walks around the neighborhood, and visits with family. Weekdays are a bit of a flurry with Stuart taking evening classes twice a week, but I enjoy having Wyatt all to myself! Although, I will admit, I have a new respect for what Stuart does every day. Taking care of a one and a half year old really takes it out of you! It's a lot of fun, but it sure is tiring and trying at times. Stuart is a great dad. Wyatt just adores him and it is so sweet to see! Of course, he's a momma's boy too, and I will cherish that for as long as I can!!
Wyatt is learning new words left and right, repeating things we say from time to time. Today he said, "Oh what?!" immediately after me when we came across two rams on our evening walk. He's also saying shark, in honor of his favorite bath toy -- a little plastic shark. He still loves to read and loves playing with cars. We've recently introduced him to coloring, which has been great fun with both Stuart and I needing some study time. We all sit at the table together! Wyatt's also a climber, ascending everything he can get a good grip on. Watch out laying on the floor, because he will use you as a jungle gym! He's taken a few spills off the coffee table but always gets right back up. Sometimes I think he'll never learn, but he's certainly a tough kid!
He's getting very good at kisses, even puckering his lips now! And he sleeps like a champion, a trait we have always be so very grateful for. No fussing when he goes down and just jabbers on and on when he's ready to get up, also napping about 3 - 3 1/2 hours a day, which is great for Stuart's study time!!
I've also been trying my hand in the kitchen, much to the joy of the boys! I would say the majority of my dishes are voted "two smiley faces" (out of three) with just a few receiving sad faces or straight faces. (We have a very sophisticated democracy in our home.)
I am still very much enjoying my job and LOVING working a 4-day flex-condensed work week. The days are long, but it is so worth it when I get the extra weekend time with my family!! I am finally getting settled in my position and feeling like I can take ownership on various projects. It is nice to know what you're doing!!
Stuart is continuing his schooling toward a degree in civil engineering and has picked up a part-time night job with the Oregonian to bring in some extra money for savings. He is certainly a hard worker and I am so blessed to have him as my husband!
Speaking of husband, we are approaching our six month anniversary (do people celebrate that?) and so far, so good! :) We're still working out a dishes and laundry routine that works for both of us ;) (I hate doing dishes and laundry, hehe.)
Well, we are off to bed! (Yep, we go to bed at 9pm. Can you believe we're in our 20s?) I just wanted to offer a quick update for everyone! We hope to see everyone soon.

Love you all!

Stuart, Sara & Wyatt