whoops...

so as it turns out we found out why a bunch of strangers were knocking on our door at midnight.  Apparently a car exploded......yes.....exploded.......in the parking lot to the side of our building and took out the cars parked next to it.  So some neighbors took it upon themselves to knock on every door to find out who's car it was.  Can you believe it??? EXPLODED.  Like their charred frames are still sitting out there taped off.  Apparently it was some electrical fire.  Now everyone's afraid to park next to an old car haha.

It's go time...

I have had some interesting experiences with "strangers" lately.  So last night Code and I were woken up by someone pounding on our door.  I mean, we're talking-the kind of pounding that you'd expect from a policeman who yells "open up!" etc.  It was 12:30.  So Code goes and looks out the peep hole and it was really loud out in our stairwell etc.  There were just a few people out there standing on our doorstep-a girl and a guy.  He didn't really hear what they were saying but heard them say something about "white people".  Now, whether they were talking about us or whether they were talking in general as they were waiting who knows.  Now, they didn't look intimidating or scary/aggressive (other than there loud knock) so I wasn't really scared-more mad than scared, but we didn't open up.  Come on, it's 12:30-we're not opening up unless they are police with a warrant haha.

Anywho, but I wasn't as nervous cause we heard other people knocking on other peoples' doors around us too-NO idea what they were after but again, no way we were opening up.  They pounded on our door a few times before giving up-I was livid.  Luckily Jake didn't even stir (his room is right off the front door-ours is in the back of the apartment and it woke us up!)  But really Jake was the only thing saving them from getting yelled at cause I didn't want to risk waking him up.

Not to be racist but I think code and I are the only white people in our building.  I'm not just talking african americans, but hispanics, middle eastern etc.  Which is fine-I don't care, but I have to say....our building is very...loud sometimes.  Just ask friends of ours who have stayed the night.  Whether it's parties going on out behind our building at all hours of the night on random weeknights (I know!), or loud yelling/laughing in our stairwells/ people pounding up and down the stairs- seriously we had some teens get into a fight in our stairwell and adults had to come out and yell at them etc.  and all of this happens at exactly the wrong time-like during jake's naps or in the middle of the night.  I get really frustrated with our building.

And I swear, there are moving vans out in front of our building at least once a month from people moving in and out so frequently-whether they're evicted cause they can't make the rent, or what, I don't know, but there's little point in getting to know our neighbors cause in a month we'll have a new neighbor anyway.

 But I felt like Cameron from Modern Family-"it's go time"  It made me think how it's not always a terrible idea to have protection in your house (in the way of a firearm), and yet I would never be able to feel completely at ease if I knew there was a gun in my house...but I def understand why people have them.

Sigh...it just bugs me...I've had to call the office like some old crochety grandma complaining about the middle school kids running up and down our stairwells yelling for 30 min to an hour every day when they get home from school and how it wakes up Jake etc.  Not that they can enforce anything cause I don't know what apartment they live in, but still....the loud random bongo drums from downstairs I can deal with, but they need to recognize that the actual stairwell is communal property and respect our peace and quiet.

Anywho,
on a lighter and happier subject I was walking in the park today and this kind old grandpa asked if the grey car was mine as we were both walking back towards the parking lot.  I said yes, and waited for him to lecture me about parking straight or inform me that it was scratched etc, but he then proceeded to say: I have a 2011 Genesis-aren't they great?  and we just gushed over our cars for a good five minutes haha.  It made me feel so good that he complimented our taste and recognized our car for starters haha.  Not many people have heard of the Genesis-I hadn't until Code turned me on to them.

Can't wait to move into a house one day.

2012 Copperfield Ward Halloween Party!

I had my suspicions, and I was right- having a kid makes halloween a whole lot funner-even if that kid is 3 months old :)
So Jake wasn't so sure about this "costume" thing at first...

but he eventually got into it once we got there...

he does this cute thing lately where when he bursts into a big smile he turns his head away like he's being bashful-it's so cute I can't stand it!

So our game was the haunted pumpkin patch.  We spent all weekend (thanks code) blowing up white and orange balloons and drawing ghost or jack-o-lantern faces on them.  Though it was a ton of prep work, it was super easy game to manage over-unlike the other games, we didn't have to reset anything or make kids go one at a time.  The kids would try to wait in line at our room like the others but we were all: go crazy, you don't have to wait your turns-go pop a balloon and come get a treat.  It was so funny tho, kids would ask: "how?"   You're asking me HOW TO POP A BALLOON??? what kind of childhood are you having?! um....stomp on it, sit on it, lay on it, use your nails-go crazy kids!  haha

I def think our game was the scariest game of the bunch-some of the lil ones just wanted to play in the balloons rather than pop them and it was funny to watch the adults walk by holding their ears and wincing in anticipation.  One balloon popped so loud everyone walking up and down the hall jumped/and ducked.  You'd think there was a drive-by haha.  

By the end we told the boys who kept coming back for more to just go crazy and pop the rest-it took .5 secs, and then I told the kids to take the rest of the candy holding out the bag-yeah...it was like a feeding frenzy :)

Needless to say Jake didn't like being by our loud game too much so he made some new friends with Sherry Bogdan and Allison Wischmeier who kept him safe from the loud pops

There were some pretty cute costume ideas that I'll have to keep for the future:

I especially liked the themed family ideas like the Loudins-their three kids came as fruit.  I didn't manage a picture of their littlest one but she was a strawberry :)

Julie Woodall had the cutest skeleton shirt on that also showed her soon to be baby girl :)

There were tons of games as well-seriously, if I were a kid I'd have gone crazy with it all.  Along with the hot dog dinner in the cultural hall there was the pick the nose game- some of the girls seemed to shy away from this one but the boys were not shy...

Then in the classrooms around the building there was:

glow-n-the dark tic tac toe

this really cool life-size version of operation (I had a better pic of it but it won't sync for some reason):

There was also a bean bag game, fishing for treats game, and a cupcake walk but I didn't get good pics of those, and some amazing face painting:

By the end of the night allison brought jake back and he was completely passed out haha.  It's so funny but I totally think he is an introvert like code and me.  I guess it could just be cause he's 3 months old, but really he shuts down around tons of people and excitement.  Even when my visiting teachers and their kids come over and he just sits in my lap and watches the kids play he gets wiped out.  Some kids just feed off the excitement and eat it up but not him.

Yes, our picture taking was probably overkill but what do you want? It was Jake's first halloween haha

                                                                                                  I LOVE this pic hahahaha, Jake is SO not enjoying himself and I so obviously am (he had just woken up):

Then we all moved outside for the trunk or treating.  I'm pretty sure Jake's costume was meant for places that actually get cold for halloween (understandably) so he seemed to perk up a little once we went out into the cold air, but he was still tired and obviously over the whole experience.  He just kept leaning into Cody as if to say: protect me from all the craziness!

he's so cute it kills me!

Happy Halloween Jake-you are the cutest batman EVER (and that's really saying something in looking at past batmans).  Thank you to the Jeppsens for the awesome costume!

Memory Lane

So this morning as I'm reading friends' blogs filled with fun fall festivities and the weather changing etc...it's made me start thinking about my favorite memories with fall....and they all seem to be in Utah-what's up with that?  oh yeah, because they actually have a fall :)

I loved fall in Oklahoma too-very pretty there as well and remember the days of trick or treating when your parents would make you wear a coat over your costume....really?  In the words of Jerry Seinfeld: "I don't recall Superman wearing a jacket..."  Except I got smart and realized that if I hid my jacket in a place that my mom would never look (behind the nice couch in the living/piano room where we kids basically weren't allowed) then I could go out without a coat.  I know....sneaky...very sneaky.

Some of the things that I miss from my Utah falls:

the corn maze at thanksgiving point of course!  The last one I remember was the one of napolean dynamite.  This was a very significant date for code and me before we were seriously dating.  Apparently I was playing hard to get a little too hard and not sending enough positive signals so this date was his last attempt.  We held hands as we squeezed through this gross inflatable monster thing-aww yes, true love.  But what really did it was I asked him out on this group murder mystery date letting him know that yes, I did indeed like him.   A year later we'd be having our wedding luncheon at thanksgiving point...

Though I went here all the time, I somehow associate it with fall....but the Springville Museum of Art. This was one of the best dates that Code took me on-I had never been there before and he knew I liked art/humanities and stuff.  Really, it was that date that got me looking into doing an internship there.  Plus, I don't know if people there realize how amazing it is to have such a quality museum for FREE.  Man, if I lived there I'd be taking day trips over there all the time with Jake.  For that matter I also love BYU's MOA-also amazing and FREE.  Man...I miss that...

Of course I have to give a shout out to BYU Football-there's nothing quite like being in a stadium with 1,000s of other people all cheering for the same team.  It's pretty much the essence of college.

Oh and I miss all the great hiking that there is around there-sooo pretty and interesting!  I miss our hikes. I mean, don't get me wrong, code and I go for walks here but it's not the same as getting out and spending a saturday hiking and talking and seeing all the beautiful nature.

Alright I need to stop before I get annoyed that I'm in a place where the temp is still in the 70s and it's too hot to get out and go for walks/do fun stuff during the day. 

Needless to say I am so excited for our roadtrip to Utah thanksgiving week!  I'm going to show Jake around campus and we already have a long list of restaurants we have to eat at (zuppa's, cafe rio, in-n-out, crown burger, and that yummy chocolate place in orem with the HUGE cookie pans?)

whoa...is it the end of the world? cause this is my 2nd post today...

So some quick cute pics I shot of jake in his bumbo today-he is doing better and better at it, and i found a way to distract jake from getting upset at tummy time....the tv....now i'm torn.....get my child addicted to tv....or not help him progress to crawling quicker....oh well, I won't let him do it for very long...

even though this one is blurry I love it haha.

So I remember some friends asking about this awesome craft that I did at our ward's enrichment activity:

Though I don't have the exact dimensions of the blocks and am too lazy to measure them out myself, I'll explain real quick how we did it.  

First step paint a light layer of cream colored paint on the best side of the blocks and let it dry.

        Then we took them outside and power-sanded the edges of the blocks so the front surface of the blocks was raised compared to the edges of the block if you get my drift...

        Then we stained the blocks-wipe it on making sure to put it on the front/painted side last and then wipe it off starting with the painted side first.  easy.

        Then you need to pick out basic scrapbook paper that you like and cut them into squares slightly smaller than the dimensions of the blocks.

         You'll need to get vinyl lettering in a chocolate brown color.

         First you put the vinyl lettering and put them onto the papers before you put those on the blocks

         Then you take the pieces of paper and distress the edges with an ink pad

         Then you will modge-podge (no idea how to spell that) the pieces of scrapbook paper onto the blocks with glue.  (I didn't know what that meant at the time, but incase you don't either- you lightly brush glue onto the blocks, place the paper on the blocks and rub it good to make sure it doesn't bubble-you really don't need a lot of glue or it will bubble), then once that is dry you brush a light layer of glue over the surface of the papers.

and there you go.  It was pretty easy-and if I could do it, then anyone can :)

3 months!!!

Our lil Jake is 3 months old-he's officially out of newborn clothes and wearing size 2 diapers!  AAAH! It's actually really fun to watch him grow up and develop more and more of his lil personality so it's not too sad.
Everyone asks us is it jake? or jacob?  We figure the more the names/nicknames the more the love-we're not picky and call him everything from: Jacob, Jake, J, Jaker breaker, turkey feather (shrug, ask code), stinker, buddy, and kiddo.
Jake's quirks:
-he always loves to rest his right hand, and only his right hand, behind his head and then starts to scratch his head like he has an itch.  This can be slightly problematic because I'm still afraid to use the baby finger nail clippers and so I file his nails down but it's hard to keep up with his ever growing nails so I have to keep an eye on him so he doesn't scratch himself to hard.
-He has started to discover and play with his tongue-sticking it in and out and rolling it around in his mouth and while he's at it, he is extremely efficient at making bubbles.  99% of his pics show him showcasing this talent.
-He is a champ at sleeping in his own room and only wakes up once between 9:30-6:00.  There was even a night last week where he slept all the way through til 7 and it was heavenly.
-He's also kind of slowed to more of a 2.5-3 hour feeding schedule ever since I tried to structure his time a little more so that he has his awake time right after he eats and then once he starts to get fussy-nearing around 2 hours from his last feeding I put him down for a nap that way he's happy and refreshed for his next feeding. it has been great so far.
-He rolls on his side now and often sleeps in that position.
-He struggles off and on with a lil bit of eczema and cradle cap but they're both generally mild and can be taken care of with a lil lotion and a lil head and shoulders.
-He still doesn't like tummy time very much but we have the bumbo now so I figure as he sits up more and more and strengthens his neck muscles more, then maybe he'll like tummy time more....
-He has the cutest smiles that just erupt and fill his whole face, and we've started to see a few mini examples of laughter
-He's starting to try to reach out towards things sometimes so I think real interactive playing is just around the corner
-He still has his grey/blue eyes!! (I say I don't care but I just think it would be fun for him to keep his daddy's eyes)
-He likes to suck on his hands and especially his thumb-it's really cute and we've sort of given up on the binkie thing....i mean when he's fussy and needs help falling asleep sometimes we'll turn to it but he'd much rather suck on his hand and I'm ok with it. A- we never have to worry about losing his hand or running out and buying an extra one in the middle of the night, B- I sucked my thumb and I was fine, stopped eventually and with jake being our child we KNOW he's going to need braces no matter what we do so I'm not too worried :)
-He coos and makes fun noises with his mouth all of the time.  I've heard guh's, kuh's, buh's, and all the different vowels.  My favorite thing to do is lay him on his back and lay on my tummy close to his face and we just look at each other and talk to each other.

It's been a CRAZY 3 months but we're so happy that Jake is a part of our family and is such a happy,mellow, kid!

We met daddy for lunch at a cool chinese restaurant near his work and jake was so good-the servers just loved him.

like I said, notice his right hand...

                                                                         smilin' before church...

a rational alarmist

yup, that's me.  I didn't used to be quite so bad, but it seems that with the addition of people I love in my life it gets worse-start to worry more because there's more at stake.  But I'm rational about it...at least, I am able to full on recognize that i'm being ridiculous and that the thing I'm worrying about is 99.9% NOT the case.  It still doesn't make the panicky/nagging worried feelings go away tho, even if I know I'm being silly and irrational.

Code is a big help in this regard though.  He's my rock.  I can open up to him (I got over the whole "feeling stupid when I share my irrational worries with him" a long time ago), plus he knows that deep down I know it's dumb and silly so he doesn't think I'm crazy, but just knows I need to hear someone else telling me that everything is going to be ok and that I'm worrying over nothing and offers perspective.

I feel like I get these two bipolar sides from my parents' influences.  My mom is the worrier-if anything can go wrong she's aware of it (and tho she might not say it out loud- she's half-thinking to herself that it's probably going to happen).  When she found out I was going to a mission in Russia she was instantly concerned about the affects of trinoble, and when we were thinking about moving to new jersey with exxon's first job offer she some how found out that there was a nuclear plant nearby....maybe she just has a nuclear phobia.....).  Which in fairness to her, I think honestly this is a textbook common defense mechanism for moms-does it make us fun and fancy free?  No, but it sure helps when the impossible has happened and we're on top of it because we've anticipated every possible scenario and our husbands think....wow....she's super mom...where can I get a bag like that? (anyone know the movie? it's vague so I'll just tell you- one fine day).  But until that super mom moment we just look like over planners/worriers and our husbands seem fun and spontaneous....

The rational/logical- it's not a big deal, it'll be fine- side of me definitely comes from my dad.  As a kid, his confidence was contagious.  We could be driving somewhere and mom is fumbling for the GPS and worrying out loud about where we're going to next, while my dad would say- don't worry I'll figure it out.  Even though I don't know the street name, I know the direction I need to go and we'll find our own way-it's all good.  Definitely NOT a panicker, and as a kid I never panicked when dad was around either cause what could go bad when dad was there-he knows what he's doing etc.

Now 90% of the time in most areas of life I lean towards the whatever-go-with-the-flow-it'll-all-work-out mentality of my dad.  if given the right conditions though-an unexplained ailment, or-now that I have jacob- I just have to hear about different things that have happened to other parents. For example thinking his eczema is ring worm, or hearing about SIDS, or a delayed autism diagnosis and suddenly I'm researching the details hoping to find some sort of stipulation so that I can instantly rule out any possibility in Jacob's case.  And the whole time I'm obsessing over it and thinking how awful it would be I'm fully aware of how silly I'm being.  That most likely everything is and will forever be FINE with jacob, and that even if something was wrong, there's nothing we can do til real symptoms show anyway so why worry all the time and ruin the fun and memories we could be making now?

See?  Rational alarmist.  Needless to say I'm constantly regaining a testimony of faith and hope and that worrying only shows a lack of faith in God's plan for me/my family.  To trust in Him (not that that means nothing bad will ever happen), but that everything is in His hands and no matter what happens in our lives, good or bad, I can deal with it with His help.

In lighter news my dress came and I LOVE it!  I think I need to wear something like a shirt/tank top etc underneath cause it will be cold and I don't want to wear a cardigan over it and cover up it's cuteness...and a slip, but otherwise it's awesome and I'm so happy that I fit in the small no problem :)  Can't lie, that feels pretty good.

oh yeah, and I made this way cool craft at our church's women's activity. It was way fun!  I thought my hand was going to slip and I was going to power sand my face but it was still fun.

little of this little of that

So what's up in the Nolden household you ask?  Oh not much, just feel like I haven't posted recently enough in here.  Jake is still a champ when it comes to sleeping at night to which we are very grateful.  We recently got a bumbo seat so we'll see if we can't get him sitting up good-he holds his head pretty well though his whole upper body is a different thing entirely.

hmm...for some reason I can't focus my thoughts so I'm just going to post random pics of my cute boys:

(you like pics better anyway right? haha)

We're already ready for basketball season sadly, haha

What is it about polo shirts on lil boys that is SO adorable!

It's a sickness really:

At first I was annoyed by instagram...I don't know for some reason I felt like the pics were always fuzzy/not great quality (though it never occurred to me that maybe the CAMERAS on peoples phones weren't very good) cause now that I'm using it....I kinda like it :)

Also LOVE the layered look on lil boys-too cute

If you ever need your shoulder moistened-Jake is really efficient just saying

In other news I might be getting my dress from MODCLOTH today!!! I hope it fits....or at least is really close to fitting so I can have motivation to slim down a bit between now and eric's wedding...

Friday of firsts

Yesterday we had some fun firsts around here.  Jacob and I went over to Sara's to meet her and her cute little girl evie who was just born about a month ago.  It's so crazy that all of us from college are married and having kids-it makes those college days feel like they were an eternity ago, but it's still fun to hang. We had a little photo shoot-and I thought it was hard to get eye contact/expressions out of one baby! haha but they were so cute next to each other and she made Jake look so big!

so sweet:

This one cracks me up.  It's like..."*gasp* they've found us, don't move and maybe they won't see us" or they're about to get beamed up haha:

Another big thing happened yesterday-our baby monitors arrived a day after buying them (gotta luv amazon prime!)  They're really cool cause once they get used to the ambient normal level of noise coming from his room they don't transmit white noise but wake up once he sqwaks and then you can hear the fan etc on in his room.  The thought of my lil guy not being a few feet from me def gave me a lump in my throat, but once we fed him and laid him in his crib he was instantly asleep and FINALLY that room became a nursery.  It was sad at first but walking into our room and realizing we could sit up with lights on and READ or TALK and not have to worry about disturbing him-well, let's just say we got over the sad part pretty quick :)  And he did great-slept just as good as he normally does.  Went down around 10, woke up around 4 (usually makes it to 5 but whatever), went back down and woke up at 8, went back down and he's STILL down- I have a feeling that getting ready for the day is going to be WAY easier now that my movement/shower noises etc won't wake him up.  That being said I can't begin to comprehend how hard it's gonna be for him to go off to school when he's older, college later or even a mission-sheesh. 

 But we are proud of and love our lil guy!