Life is Good

Today is a good day.  Everyday is a good day.  I get to see my dear, sweet, loving, gentle, kind husband every morning now.  This is the first time since we've been married (6.5 years) that we have seen each other every morning.  It is SO wonderful!  I love that I get to pack his lunch for him and kiss him goodbye.  I love that I am giddy with excitement when I hear the garage door open at the end of the day. I love that Max LOVES his daddy.  He runs out to the car every night and waits anxiously to give him a big hug.  Sometimes, in the excitement of having daddy home he forgets the hug and jumps right into whatever story he's been waiting to tell him.  Sometimes, he forgets the hug and just runs around the house laughing and playing.  So full of excitement he literally can't contain it.  Daddy, of course, never forgets the hug and Max is always willing to give him one. 

Nate, as most of you know, worked for the same company for 4.5 years.  It was based out of Philadelphia and he had to travel, a lot.  It was hard and getting harder.  I'm a pretty independant person and I like to have my time.  Having my husband gone 4.5 days a week, 3-4 weeks in a row and then home for a week and then gone 3-4 weeks, is hard.  I know there are people out there with MUCH harder circumstances, but for me and our family it was getting to be quite a trial.  Poor Max missed his daddy SO much and everyone knows that mom's just don't cut it when it comes to "guy stuff".  I don't get playing with cars and flying like airplanes.  I don't know about cool stuff like robots and power tools, and construction equipment.  I'm just not a guy.  Plus, I'm not nearly as good a singer as Nate.  Max was getting to the point that it was making us all cry, a lot, when Nate had to go on the road.  He's a GOOD kid.  He really is.  He always has been. There was something that kicked in when Nate left.  He pushed the limits and cried for daddy, and I cried for daddy.  The last 6 months of 2009 were probably the longest of my life. 

So, in order to avoid committing me, we started looking for a new job.  Nate posted his resume everywhere.  He got calls for jobs in Utah with no Travel but the pay was not livable. He even interviewed and got offered a local job and it just didn't feel right, to either of us.  So we kept looking and praying and crying and hoping.  When nothing was coming, Nate decided to go back to school.  He figured advancing his education was the only way he would be able to stay home.  The plan was for him to become a Physician Assistant, which would be another 4 years of school.  So I was going to go to work full time while Nate went to school full time.  So he put in his letter of resignation in October, and asked to finish out the year.  That same month 2 different people called with potential job offers.  Both jobs looked great, but both companies were moving REALLY slow.  So he registered for school starting in January.  I started looking for a job to start in Jan/Feb.  We prayed and waited and hoped.  Nate's last day of work was December 18th (we had previously planned to go to AZ for Christmas so he had already taken the last 2 weeks of Dec off).  While he was in the airport flying home he got a call with a job offer.  We thought and prayed about it over the weekend and he accepted it on monday.  Yeah!!!  What was looking like a very scary, challenging year ahead of us suddenly looked sunny and bright.  Nate now has a job that he can support our family on.  I am able to stay home and raise Max.  Nate NEVER has to travel with this job, which is amazing in his line of work.  I couldn't be happier.  Life these last 2 months have been wonderful!  It doesn't matter how hard it is, or how long the day is, Nate is ALWAYS going to come home. 

Its amazing to me to see how much happier we all are this year.  Max no longer cries for his daddy everyday.  I no longer feel like I'm about to cry my eyes out every second of every day. I love Nate more then ever.  I am so blessed to have him.  Having him home has shown me just how much.  I just don't function without him.  I know, I've tried.  I found myself not even able to do the simplest tasks, like regular household chores.  I had a hard time getting out of bed in the mornings and it was almost impossible for me to drag myself to bed at night.  I didn't want to eat or sleep.  I didn't want to be home, because I was so lonely.  I know I have Max, I love him more then words can say.  I just need Nate. 

I guess I've learned that there is a reason I married Nate. There are lots of reasons I was attracted to him, lots of reasons I dated him.  One reason I married him.  I can't live without him. 

I've learned that I am an independant person.  What does that mean for me as a wife and mother?  I love my life.  I love that I get to be a stay at home mom.  I love that I get to be Max's mom.  I love that I get to teach him and cherish him.  I get to be there to hold him when he gets hurt and celebrate with him when he does something great.  I get to kiss his sweet sleeping forehead everynight and look forward to a new day with him.  I get to rediscover the world through his eyes.  He's my son and I get to be his mom.  
Nate is the love of my life.  I can't imagine living my life without him.  I NEED him.  I am sealed to him for eternity and I look forward to every minute of it.  I don't need him to be there for every little thing.  I just need him to be there.  I want to do my own thing and then come and tell him all about it.  I want to clean and decorate and organize ( all of which are really BIG things for me ) and then have him tell me what a great job I did.  I want to go out with my girlfriends and come home more grateful for Nate then ever.  I want to be me and have him love for it. 

I truly feel that the Lord has blessed me beyond belief.  With this new job, I have felt like we have taken a huge leap of faith, and it has ended up better then we had ever thought possible.  I know that the Lord is mindful of us.  I know that he knows what is happening in our lives.  He knows when life is hard, for whatever reason. He truly wants to bless us, to help us, to comfort us.   I know that He started blessing me when Nate came into my life.  I know that I am a better person because of Nate.  I know that he is exactly the person I need to be with to help me be my best self.  I know that I am so lucky and blessed to have him.  I know that Max is the best thing that has happened to us. I know that we are so blessed to have him, and that he came so easily.   We are so blessed to be together forever.  In the recent past, I have struggled, more then I even realized at the time.  Having things so good now, I have been able to look back and really see just how hard it was for me.  I think that I have learned a lot from the experience.  I have grown closer to the Lord.  Now, I find myself feeling so peaceful and calm.  I find that I am really happy.  I find myself feeling so grateful for my family!

Today is a good day!

Big News!

No...I'm not pregnant.  We had a good week last week.  Max just decided he was ready to be potty trained.  I have tried in the past and he was absolutely not interested.  So I decided I would wait for a while.  Well, Tuesday morning I was watching my niece and nephew (not the day I would have chosen to potty train) and Max told me he needed to pee in the potty.  So I put him in underwear, he had a few accidents that day.  One on wednesday, we even ventured to WalMart and he kept his pants dry the whole time.  One accident thursday, and none friday, saturday or sunday.  Of course Monday was a new week, with more accidents but he's officially out of diapers (except bedtime).  He is so proud of himself.  He beams everytime he makes it. We are so proud of him.  We had been promising him a "really big surprise" when he didn't wear diapers anymore, so on Saturday I took him to the store and let him pick out whatever toy he wanted.  He decided on a "fast car" and a motorcycle. Both of them light up, make noise, move on their own.  They are Cool!  He loves them and he loves showing them off. 

Hooray for Max! 

Happy Birthday Maximillian

At the pumpkin patch

Halloween Spider

Playing with a REALLY gross grub

Today is Max's 3rd Birthday.  I just can't believe that he has been here for 3 years already.  The time has flown by.  I feel so blessed to have him.  He is such a delightful child.  He is so happy and fun. He's hilarious ( I think he gets it from daddy). He loves to sing and listen to music, he has definate taste in music to.  He'll let me know when he doesn't like something and if he finds something he likes he listens to it until he has every bit of it memorized.  One of his current favorites is Rust Monster, Nate's Pirate Band.  We both have every song memorized. Max even has the order on the C.D.'s memorized.  He'll run around the house humming pirate music into whatever he can find and pretend it is his trombone.  He currently air plays the guitar, drums, trombone and piano.  He'll play on my arm or the couch or whatever he can find.  He thinks every thing that is long and straight is a drum stick.  He is constantly singing songs or humming songs or playing songs on his instruments.  Our home is filled with music all day long.

Max loves to play with cars. He has a box of random cars that he has gotten over the years and we pull it out about every day.  He picks the cars he wants to play with and runs around the house driving his cars and carrying on conversations.  I have always been able to bring cars to church with us and they will keep him quiet for a while.  He'll pull them out, line them up, drive them all over the bench, talk to them, have them talk to each other and he'll be good during sacrament meeting. 

He also loves sticks. Those aren't as easy to take with us.  He either wants to use them as drum sticks and bang on things or use them to sword fight.  He also loves to just get a stick and drag it behind him. He calls it "vrooming".  He'll vroom his swords or his pool sticks or random sticks he finds outside.  He just likes to have a stick in his hand.

Max loves to play and laugh and get really wound up.  Some of his favorite things to play right now are the alligator game with daddy.  Nate made it up one night.  We have this blue tube, meant for crawling through, and they pretend it is an alligator that eats them up.  Before it eats them it sings "scary" music, similar to the jaws theme.  We now have an "alligator" living at our house that randomly sings scary music and eats us.  He also loves to get eaten up by myself or Nate.  We play the "I love you so much I'm going to eat you up" game.  Its pretty simple really, you just hold the person your going to eat and say; "I love you so much.....I'm going to eat you up!" and then you pretend to eat them. Max LOVES it! He laughs and then he eats me up.  He also loves to be made into a sandwich/hamburger between 2 pillows and again be eaten up. 

You'd think with all the games we play that involve eating he would eat really well.  He doesn't.  He can't be bothered with eating, he would much rather play.  He sits down twice a day and eats a reasonable meal.  I feel like that is a huge accomplishment. He seems to be growing all right so I think he's getting enough food.  He pretty much lives on chocolate milk and peanut butter and honey sandwiches although he will actually eat pretty good food if I can get him to sit down long enough.   He loves corn, peas, green beans, asparigus, cooked carrots, cooked broccoli, bananas, apples, grapes. He likes chicken and turkey, tomatoes, yogurt, toast.  He loves whole grain pancakes and has eaten as many as 4 in one sitting.  He likes juice. He doesn't love drinking out of regular cups. I think he hasn't figured out how to chug it yet so he gets frustrated that he can't drink as fast as he wants to. He's still uses sippy cups for most everything.   He can use silverware but prefers to eat with his hands. He doesn't like chocolate AT ALL. He won't swallow just plain chocolate (i.e. M&M's, candy bars, chocolate chips, etc). He likes to try it if everyone else is eating it, but he just spits it out.  He just recently started eating chocolate chip cookies, I think the cookie is enough to cover up the chocolate.  He definately loves fruity candy.  He likes to put jelly beans in his pocket and run around and snack on them.  He likes skittles, starburst, fruit snacks, sour patch kids, mike and ikes and the list goes on. Sometimes when he's being funny he'll tell me he wants some sort of candy for "dinner" (every meal is dinner, no matter what time of day it is) and then wait for me to say; "You can't have (insert candy name here) for breakfast, you silly!" Then he'll laugh. 

Max is such a good boy. He just doesn't get into stuff. I can leave him down stairs and go take a shower and I know that he'll be fine.  He'll just play or watch a show, he'll come in to the bathroom to check on me when he gets bored.  He rarely gets into trouble when I let him just play like that.  He spends most of the time singing to himself anyway.  He is getting really good about going shopping, visiting friends, whatever errands we have to run.  I've found that if he just knows where we are going and what behavior is expected of him he is an angel most of the time.  He is of course 3 and still finding his boundaries and he gets pretty grumpy when he's hungry but for the most part he is a really easy kid. 

Some more of his favorite things right now.  Bugs, all kinds of bugs but especially spiders. He was a spider for Halloween, Nate was a bumble bee and I was a lady bug. Max LOVED that! He thought it was so great that we were all bugs. He still asks where our costumes are.  He loves Mount Rushmore. We went in June with my family and Max hasn't stopped talking about it since. He still prays for it on a regular basis.  He talks about it all the time. He "sees" it everytime we get in the car and asks me if I see it to. For about 2 months after we went he would ask me if that was where we were going, everytime we got in the car.  He thinks George Washington's name is Mount Rushmore. He'll name all the presidents starting with Mount Rushmore.  He has a friend named Lincoln and he tells me whenever he talks about Lincoln, "Mom, Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln!"   Max loves Toy Story, Incredibles, Thomas the Tank Engine, Clifford the Big Red dog, Mickey Mouse, Elmo. He loves watching musicals and singing all the songs. He loves to watch youtube music videos. He loves to read and really loves going to the Library.  So many books to choose from.  He loves to do puzzles.  He loves to play with friends. He loves to go for walks, especially when he gets to decide where we go. He loves slides.  He is an energetic, smart, happy, fun boy.

I feel truly blessed to have Max in our family.  I know that he was sent to our family for a reason.  He brings us so much joy.  I treasure every day that I have with him.  I love I have been able to stay home and just be his mom.  I get to watch him grow up and discovery the world and develop his personality.  I get to play with him and teach him.  I get to hold him when he's sad and kiss his "owwies" better. I get to fly him into bed and listen to the sweet prayers that he says.  I get to be his mom for forever and I couldn't be more honored. 

I love you Maximillian Omer Peck!  Happy Birthday Kiddo!

Random pictures

Happy Daylight Savings! I thought I would celebrate by staying up late and adding some very random pictures to our blog. These are a few of the things we have been doing the last 2 weeks. It was been very busy and very exciting around the Peck house. My youngest brother got his mission call to Columbus, Ohio spanish speaking. He leaves May 2oth. We are very excited for him. Congratulations Rob! My mom took her nursing boards and PASSED!!! We are all very excited and proud of her and all her hard work. Way to keep it up. You are an great nurse and an amazing person. We love you mom! I took Max hiking on the 27th of February, just up Adam's Canyon. He walked all the way up by himself. We only made it to the top of the switch backs, but he had a blast and it was great to get out. The only way I could get him to leave was to tell him we would come back tomorrow with daddy. So we did. Saturday afternoon we went for a family hike. Again, Max walked all the way up (and got carried down) and loved it. We saw lots of animals on saturday. 12 deer ran by about 50 feet from us, some birds, dogs, horses. Max really liked all the animals and wanted to go get the deer. Nate and I had a hard time explaining to him that there was no way we were going to catch up with them. I'm really excited for some warmer weather so we can go hiking more. We also got much needed book shelves. I am so excited. They don't have any books on them yet but I'm working on it. The rest is just some random pictures of Max being his normal adorable self. We have been very busy and having lots of fun. Its been GREAT!

Max is sick!

I can't believe it. Max is sick again. I am having a hard time keeping him well this year. It seems like every other week I am taking him to the doctor for something. He's going to get really sick of seeing us. Anyway, the deal today is he has had a fever of 102-103 since yesterday afternoon. We are going on 24 hours now and I can't get it to break. I have been alternating Tylenol and Motrin and I even gave him a cool bath at 3:00am. Nothing. Needless to say we didn't get any sleep last night. Nate is out of town until friday. Poor Max just wants to be held all the time. I took him to the Dr. this morning and he said his throat looks bad, but the rapid strep came back negative. He sent it in for a culture so we'll see what that says, he's guessing it is a virus and we'll just have to wait it out. I have been practically pooring liquids down him so he isn't dehydrated but his cheeks and lips are getting all chapped. I'm just hoping it breaks today sometime. I can't do another night like that and neither can he. He is so miserable. Any ideas on how to break a fever? I'm desperate.

My boy is a genius

So I just wanted to take a minute to brag about my son. I know that is all I ever write about but he really is the center of my life. I try to set some time aside for my wonderful husband. He really is so good to me, better than I deserve. Thanks Nate! I love you! Anyway, on with the original topic, I could go on and on about Nate. Another time perhaps.

On sunday night we were at my parents house and we were just sitting in the living room talking after dinner and Max was kind of whining a bit (he was probably not feeling well) so I started singing "Little bunny Foo foo" to him. He loved it and of course I had to sing it several times. On the last time I got to the chorus and said; "Down came the good fairy and she said....what did she say Max?" Max sat there for a minute and looked at me and then said; "Peas" (Please). I laughed so hard I was crying, of course everyone in the room was laughing so that was the end of singing. Max ran around and smiled at everyone, he knew we were laughing at him he just didn't know why. I am always asking Max "What do you say?" or "How do you ask nicely?" I have no tolerance for pointing and screaming when he can say please. I think he is getting the idea.

Another story, I was showing Max "his movie" (your baby can read DVD's) the other day. I usually just put the movie in and then do something i.e. clean the kitchen, make breakfast, pick up toys, etc. This time I put the movie in and I was changing Max's diaper, so I was actually paying attention, Max sat there and watched the opening credits and then the first word is "HI" he said it as soon as it came on the screen before the video said it. The next word is "baby" Max said that one again as soon as he saw it before the video said it. I was stunned. I have no idea how long he has been doing this since I don't pay attention. I don't know if he read the words or if he has the order memorized either way it is pretty impressive I think. He is 16 months old. He is so smart.
He is always learning new words. Today he learned hanger. One of his favorites is 'balloon' of course it sounds more like "boon" and he screams it every time he sees a balloon, even in the grocery story. That has been fun these last couple weeks with Easter balloons all over the place, Max points and screams until I acknowledge that it actually is a balloon and then he moves on to the next balloon. It was really fun in sacrament meeting on sunday. Our chapel is kind of small and our Branch (yes, branch) is really big so we open half the gym for our meeting. Well, someone had let go of a yellow helium balloon in the back of the gym so it was just hanging out there. Max of course spotted it right in the middle of the meeting and started pointing and screaming. Nate and I tried to quiet him down but we didn't know what he was freaking out about so Nate got up to take him out and Max took off running down the aisle pointing and screaming "boon, boon, boon". Nate caught him and took him out, it wasn't until the second time this happened that I saw the balloon and realized what was going on. sheesh

Well, that is enough for now. I am so happy to have Max. He is so much fun. I laugh every day at how smart and fun he is. He loves to play and explore and learn. It is so much fun to just be with him. He is so full of energy and life. It is so fun to see the world through his eyes, things that I don't even see are the biggest deal to him. It is so good for me learn to slow down and look at the world around me and live in the moment. Thank you Max