Hmph.

I'm ready for fall now.  No...really....enough is enough houston...

I see all these cute fun pics of parents out with their kids in fall weather on their blogs.  They're actually wearing long sleeves and jackets while the sun is out (aka it's CHILLY there), and I can't put cute fall clothes on jake for fear of him over heating.
Hmph.
I think I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.  But I really am ready for fall and would like to experience it before CHRISTMAS!
hmph....
I mean, I want to go on a walk with him in the middle of the day (gasp) and not worry about him being too hot....
I want to be able to wear my cute coats and scarves (and magically find my cutest scarf which someone stole from the closet back when I worked at KidsRKids....yeah that's a whole different story).
hmph.
I finally put up fall decorations today which isn't that much cause we don't really have lots of counter/shelf space to put decorations on....
hmph.
I mean we are driving to Utah for thanksgiving but that will be way past the fall weather I'm talking about and will basically feel like winter weather to us texas wimps.
hmph
sigh...ok I'm off to try to shake off this frustrated mood....I should warn code to just stay away from me today-I know myself too well, and the poor guy won't stand a chance with me in this mood...
hmph

when did I become an adult?

Did it happen instantly or did it happen in shifts?  I mean...was it when I turned 18? when I went and lived on my own in a foreign country for 18 months? when I graduated college?  when I got married?  when I had my first kid?  I guess if I hadn't grown up before then that was definitely when I became an adult.  Some things that I enjoy now that I didn't used to that seem to prove the fact that I'm an adult - or at least more adultish than I was before:

-I enjoy going to bed early (even tho I'm a night owl)
-I enjoy watching the news (or in my case: getting tweets about it since we don't have cable)
-I am interested in politics now (this is huge-I HATED politics all while growing up-hated how mad people got-now I understand why people are upset, it's pretty heavy stuff) ROMNEY2012!!! *ahem*
-I eat cooked vegetables (I used to only like certain veggies and only fresh-hate cooked....now I can tolerate it more)
-I seem to have little to no respect for all trendy poppy new artists that kids are into nowadays...
-I refer to "kids" (guess that means I'm not one) and actually use phrases like "back in my day we served missions at 21" etc

That having been said, I'm not so adultish to where I enjoy shows like: American Pickers, Antiques Roadshow, and storage wars-or whatever the heck that one is called.  (no offense dad and mom haha)

Back to that politics thing....I guess you must be doing pretty well if the only thing that your opponent has on you is that you want to cut money to big bird.  Really?  If I had to choose between the future financial ruin of America and some frills like Big Bird-sorry big guy.  It's just like a budget-if you're in the hole then you cut way back on all the unnecessaries until you get your feet back on the ground-it's called being responsible people.  Don't worry there are like 3 DECADES worth of reruns that can teach your kids about the ABCs and 123s.....which...really, if you're relying on public television to teach your kids maybe you should look at your parenting-maybe it's worth it (and free) for you to sit down with your kid and teach them/ quiz them about letters, numbers, colors, etc But something tells me PBS is doing just fine without the gov help-after all they're always saying "because of viewers like you" right?
anywho....can't wait for the 22nd.  If you're not registered to vote-no matter what side you're on- go out and register and vote! That's what America's all about, and this election is HUGE.

19 is the new 21

This past week has been full of fun and firsts.
We went to H mart- a nice Korean/Asian grocery store/food court.  It was pretty good and Code loved having some of his old favorites again:

We watched our first General Conference with Jake which wasn't too bad-tho I'm sure it'll get more challenging in the coming years but he was a good boy all weekend :) It was a really exciting General Conference-President Monson announced that young men in the church can serve missions as early as 18 and women as early as 19-this is particularly exciting since we used to have to wait til 21.  It will be interesting to see if the number of girls who serve missions will increase since they can go at a younger age-and prolly won't be as seriously dating as say 21 year olds.  Poor RMs...it's just getting harder and harder to date and marry freshman girls haha. (no offense to freshman girls who married RMs-we cool ;) Code asked if I was jealous that I had to wait til 21-my response? Heck no! I had so many fun experiences with awesome friends that I wouldn't have had if I had left at 19 plus who knows, maybe he and I wouldn't have met.  It's crazy to think tho, that jake will grow up thinking it's normal to go on a mission at 18 for boys and 19 for girls.  I'll be one of those old people who say: "back in my day we went..." as the kids roll their eyes.

All and all it was a great weekend.

and to brighten your day:

odds 'n ends

Over the past few days I've had thoughts that I wanted to blog about but they're just snippets really and not big enough to dedicate a whole post to so I'm going to throw them all together.  Yes, this is like a ring-side seat to whit's stream of consciousness (scary I know.)

So the other day code and I were driving out of our apartment complex and there's this landscaped median near our gate separating where the cars come in/go out etc.  So we're pulling up closer to the gate and we see this lil boy-prolly 6 or 7- walk/running across the opposite side to the median.  Naturally I slow down waiting to see if he's going to keep on coming.  He stops at the median and seems to be waiting...so I continue to inch forward and then code says: aaaand.....run....now! sure enough just as we're pulling up to right where he is the kid darts out into the road and continues to run/walk/gallop across our side.  He actually waited til we were closer to run out infront of us.....I'm not even sure if he was ever aware of the HUGE metal object that was a few feet from him.  I mean  I know our car isn't a clunker so it drives relatively quietly but it's not silent!  I should have honked a bunch of times and scared him.  What an idiot.  Why are kids so brain dead sometimes??? They're like deer-they wait til you're closer and then dart out infront of you and freeze in the headlights....seriously how are they still surviving-it disproves natural selection cause animals that dumb should have been wiped out long ago....the deer....not our children......though if I ever catch my kids being that dumb they are going to get it.

What else what else...oh yes, I feel like I joined the wussy side...I got a flu shot today. sigh.  No offense to you proactive cautious people that get flu shots regularly.  I just never saw the need and really don't get sick that often, but with Jake in our lives now I figured it'll strengthen his immune system which is never a bad thing.  I also got a pertusis (Dtap) vaccination to avoid unknowingly giving jake whooping cough (he got the infant version last week in his shots).  Apparently lots of kids get it and it's no bueno.  It's hard enough to watch him gasp for air if he forgets to breathe while nursing so I can't imagine watching him cough/gag/and gasp for air on a regular basis.  no fun.  Though I will say the needle was so tiny and sharp that I really didn't feel anything after the initial prick which is always a nice surprise.  Though needles never really bothered me that much, just as long as I don't look at it.  And we didn't have to pay a dime-gotta luv exxon's health insurance.

Got panda for lunch today...love me some cream cheese rangoons-if you've never tried them before please do and get the sweet and sour sauce with them...so good.

Code survived his campout with the teachers and the deacons....barely...haha the teachers were fine but apparently the deacons were...well...what you'd expect from a bunch of 11-12 year old boys.  I won't go into too much detail but let's just say: water fight using all 36 water bottles that code bought for everyone at 1 am.....in the middle of a rainstorm....I guess the rain wasn't getting them wet enough soon enough?
Code texted me this message last night around ten: "there is a special place in heaven reserved for scout leaders" haha I asked what about their wives? he said I could come too :)
What is it with 11-13 year old boys tho....it's like all the sudden they get hit over the head with the stupid stick and it takes awhile to wear off.  I'm sure there's 1 in 50 who are half way decent and manage to stay semi-reasonable and normal but man....for jake's sake I hope he's one of the few.  I don't have a lot of patience with people who refuse to use their brains.

Life is Crazy

It's amazing how quickly life can accelerate and just take off on you.  For example, here's a typical week's schedule in the Nolden household:
(I'm just talking evenings cause our days are pretty much the same-code work and whit-jacob)
Mon: Family Night
Tues: all three of us go to the bear creek building to teach stake mission prep (you know, all those young men in suits and ties knocking on your doors asking if they can talk to you about the mormon church? well we help them prepare for the training center they go to before they knock on your doors)
Wed: Code is at mutual (youth activity at our church)
Thurs: apparently this night, what used to be one of our few free nights, is possibly going to be taken up by calls to the far east for code's job-some weekly meeting for a project etc. and has to be in the evenings cause of the time difference. joy.
Fri: if we're lucky date night with lil jaker breaker tagging along
but the past few weekends have been taken up with fishing/camping trips that code has to go on for scouts (he's the teacher adviser).

Oh yeah, and on top of all that there's the whole being newly parents to a 2 month old so any time we're not doing the above we're spending with lil jake which is great but i'm slowly coming to the realization that I can't count "quality time with code" as alone time with code....cause there won't be any.  We only have one kid and we're still young and we're this busy/apart?  They say life only gets crazier and more complicated-then I'll enjoy what I have now I guess and hope the saying isn't too true in our case.

Complaining isn't always a bad thing...

I'm sure many of you can relate to the following:
When I was a teenager and shopping with my mom, I would always be so embarrassed if my mom questioned the price of things and challenged the cashier as we were checking out.  There would inevitably be a long line of people waiting impatiently behind us and my mom would be arguing the proper use of a coupon.  Granted, she wasn't one of those intense couponers that run around now a days with books holding all of their coupons so I guess it could have been worse, but I was always so self-conscious and would try to encourage my mom that it didn't matter and "let's just go" as i'd try to avoid eye-contact with the rest of the line as the cashier would call for a price check etc.  A typical response from a socially awkward and easily embarrassed teenager.  I guess that's how I know I've grown up a bit....or at least gained a little confidence.  I'll question the cashier if something doesn't seem to be ringing-up right.  Granted, if they give me an explanation I don't push further but at least I spoke up.  It's funny cause as we're brought up we're constantly discouraged to complain but instead, to be agreeable and go with the flow.  I guess I've figured out that complaining isn't necessarily a negative thing as long as it's constructive/for a specific purpose.

For example, I took advantage of a deal on facebook for this cute bubble necklace for only 10$.  I guess a lot of other people did too cause it was taking forever, and of course this site didn't offer tracking so there was no way to know if it was on its way or if they had forgotten about you.  So I sent an email asking about the status of my order.  They promptly informed me that due to the bulk of orders they had received they were trying their best to keep up etc and that they were planning to ship it the next week.  Well once they charged my credit card, the next week passed, and I still wasn't seeing it in the mail I felt I had a little more room to speak up.  So I emailed the site again pointing out that they really needed a better way to show their customers the status/location of their orders and that I'd like my necklace now that they had taken my money etc.  (I wasn't quite so brazen with it but you get the idea). So they promptly reply again (gotta give them kuddos), and apologized for the delay and said that they had mailed it the day before and to encourage me to use their site again in the future they had included a mini bubble necklace free of charge....complaining is AWESOME!  Oh all right you can throw free stuff at me and buy my affections-I'm not above being bribed :)

So here's the original one I ordered and LOVE (I figured I needed more pop in my accessories- bright happy colors)

and here's the mini free necklace:

In other news we survived the night.  Around 9:30 we could tell that jake was just not his usual happy chipper self-so lethargic like he had been hit by a truck and super crabby.  We took his temp and he had a temp of 100 so we decided to go ahead and get him some tylenol hoping it would make it easier for him to sleep.  (approved by our pediatrician btw-I know some people tell you you can't give babies tylenol under 6 months) 15 min later he was on his way back to his old self and much happier.  He slept 5 to 6 hours straight last night so he's feeling much better today :)

speaking of tylenol I found a really helpful article/chart on the subject-I googled about it as I was looking over the different OTC choices at walmart cause I was concerned with so many people saying you shouldn't give kids tylenol, but knowing my dr said it was ok, was curious why it was discouraged etc.  apparently it's not b/c it's bad but b/c it's really easy to give the wrong dosage:

how to dose acetaminophen

I think I'm going to print out the chart in this link and tape it in our medicine cabinet, it's good info.

2 Months!

I can't believe it-Jake is 2 months old!! Of course it feels like he's much older than that cause time has flown by so it seems like it has to have been more than 2 months.  It's so much fun to see him develop and grow into his own little person with a definite personality.  So here's what we've learned and the few tricks he can do now:
Overall Jake is a very chill kid unless he feels strongly about something in which case he will def share his opinions and make himself heard.  A lot of the time he is content to lay in his crib/sit in his bouncy chair or swing on his own, but if he ever gets fussy he's instantly happy again if held.
-He's super good at tracking things with his eyes now.  My favorite is standing above his crib and making sure his eyes are locked on me and then walking past him and watching him follow me with his eyes and not only that but tilt his head as far back as he can to keep following me-it's so cute.
-He's definitely socially smiling back at us now.  His smile when fully unleashed is ridiculously cute.  I like to think that I can be a firm parent when need be but if he hits me with that I'm not so sure anymore...
-he's cooing and making fun lil vocal noises that are so adorable-mostly vowels, but last night he totally said: "oguh" our first consonant, pretty cool :)
-He's been holding his head up really good for a long time now while we hold him without supporting him etc and turns his head back and forth looking around.  He's getting better at tummy time but still doesn't like it for longer than 15 min or so
-He started sucking his hands a lot lately and most recently his thumb-it was so cute to see him actually sucking his thumb like a big kid (I was a thumb sucker) tho we'll prolly introduce the pacifier now...as they say "it's easier to ween a kid off of a pacifier than a thumb" plus our pediatrician said he prefers pacifiers to letting kids suck fingers-messes with their teeth less in the future.  I've been putting it off since I was trying to get jacob and breast feeding figured out but he's been good for a month now so I figure he'll be fine.
-He sleeps pretty good-hasnt' slept straight through yet, but sleeps a 4 hour stint, then a 3, then a 2 and by then it's 7/8 am haha.

------Ok the dreaded dr appointment:----------
so Jacob is 23 1/4 in (grew 3 in since birth) and is in the 63% in height, 10 lbs 14 oz (the dr said if he had had a BM/wet diaper before coming (which he did) then he's prolly more around 11 lbs haha) and is in the 30%.  I was slightly concerned by this but Dr K didn't seem phased in the least so I guess he's just small yet healthy :) and his head is in the 50%.  Jacob was so cute and cooed and smiled at the dr etc.

Then the nurse came in...Jacob got three shots in his cute chubby thighs and it was so sad watching the pain register on his face-his eyes got all big and then his face went red and then the screaming started.  I felt sooo bad.  He sort of calmed down after I held him for a few minutes and once we got rolling in the stroller out to the car he calmed down completely.  He's been crabby this evening but nothing that has driven us to tylenol-our dr said we could give him 1/2 a tsp if we need to.  We'll see how he does...code and I are both really tired tho so we may not have tons of patience for crabbiness later in the night so we may just turn to the tylenol if he keeps it up.

I just have to say it sucks watching your cute baby who is so content and trusting looking at you with the saddest face...I felt so guilty, it made me want to cry but I stayed strong.

Happy 2 months jaker breaker-don't be too mad at us!

He was moving around so much he eventually touched and smudged the picture on the ipad haha

You can see two of his three bandaids above :(

the blur!

cheese!