General Conference with a Toddler

General Conference has been tough for us for the last year or so. I'm looking forward to October. I think Dalton will be more the age where I can make a General Conference packet full of activities for him. I've seen SO many awesome ideas. Like This one with a General Conference Board or Conference BINGO or Sugardoodle's Conference Packet or This blog post with lots of ideas 

And we WILL ALWAYS do this from now on: King Benjamin Tents and MORE

A lot the the things above will probably be too old for Dalton in October, but I can't wait to start making it a big deal and letting Dalton know how awesome it is that we get to see and hear our Prophet and other leaders give us guidance! It's truly an amazing thing. I lived 21 years without that knowledge and I pray our child never live a day without knowing we have a Prophet on the earth today, as well as the other obvious things like that Heavenly Father loves us and Jesus Christ is our Savior and  Redeemer. I knew those things my whole life and I am so very grateful for that. I am just grateful for the added pieces to the puzzle. The world is a crazy place and you better believe I want all the pieces I can get! 

And without further adieu I present the Temple crafted by Jed and Dalton.

 Dalton even found that yellow weird block and decided that it would make a perfect Moroni.

:O) I sure love him!

The Furniture is In the Room.

This is the angle from the doorway.

It's not aesthetically pleasing.

The bed should be the focal point from the view of the doorway, but this is the only way these three pieces would all fit in the room. It's growing on me and it make the fact that her little crib looks a little blank without bumpers (since I don't use them) and a crib quilt (we never covered Dalton with his. It would be draped over the side and then thrown onto the recliner when he was in the crib) 

It doesn't look like much, but with a few little things here and there this is going to be one of my favorite spaces, I just know it! :O)

Painting Stella's Room

Dalton was a huge help painting Baby Sister's room

 This is the painted room. I studied purples FOREVER. I don't know if anyone else personally would notice, but I do. It is the PERFECT vintage purple. It is Olympic brand in High Society.

The Actual Graduation Ceremony

Ok, the last of the graduation posts.

It was a fabulous ceremony.

There is nothing like one of these to remind yourself how blessed we are to be Americans. 

I loved going to Jed's brother, Sam's, graduation and this one was even better since I have pregnancy hormones and I was proud as punch, not only of Jed, but of my Papaw Jim.

Papaw was a Navy pilot during WWII and flew the F6F Hellcat. 

He celebrated his 90th birthday on January 13th. 

Jed responded to an email asking if anyone would have family attending that would be considered a distinguished visitor. Papaw wasn't high enough rank normally, but as soon as they heard about him and his service they emailed Jed back and practically said "Of course he is a distinguished visitor!"

We all got to sit in the D.V. area and we thought that would be it. 

At the very beginning of the ceremony the MC (who was a Admiral for the Navy) thanked everyone for attending including the D.V. and then specifically announced Papaw Jim. He stood up and everyone clapped for him. My mom and I were both teary eyed! Thank goodness for the video. 

 

 There is the stud of the night!

 Mr. Jedediah H. Butler Master of Science in Aeronautical Engineering

 It is REALLY over!

 Jed and two of his buddies.

These guys and another five guys spent 18 months in one lab together when not in class.

He was really lucky to have such great friends. The guy on the right is James. He and Jed worked in offices right beside each other before they started school.

 The guys and the wives!

 Check out that diploma!

 Jed and Lisa

My family. It was late by this time, and we aren't known for being the most photogenic folks. :O)

Well until the PhD that's the graduation posts!

Three Years?

Bachelor's Degree- May 2, 2009

Dalton- 3 days old

Master's Degree- March 22, 2012
Dalton- Almost 3 Years Old (one month and one week short)

These two are the loves of my life! 

Congratulations Babe!

Graduation Celebration Dinner

Jed chose the local Japanese Hibachi Restaurant as his celebration before graduation.

It was SO good! I LOVE Hibachi Grills and our chef was the best we have ever had!

 Dalton was so tired and fell asleep in the car the whole 10 minutes it took us to get there. 

He slept on Jed's arm for another 15 minutes before we finally got him awake.

 Dalton is a really good eater and he takes after his mommy and daddy. He LOVES Hibachi grills too.

 My mom. dad, and grandparents.

Thanks for graduating Jed! I loved dinner! 

Awards Ceremony

Jed had an awards ceremony the afternoon of graduation.

His thesis was chosen as Best Thesis in category.

We, of course, are so proud of him.

Way to go sweetie!

Grandma Lisa Visits

Well I did a terrible job of taking pictures while Lisa was visiting. 

We had a fun time and stayed busy.

 We eat yummy food.and had hot fudge sundaes a couple night.

Dalton loved helping Grandma Lisa blow up her bed each night. 

(We have a slow leak in our Aerobed)

We ate a dinner and a breakfast at Bob Evans because Lisa LOVES Bobs 

and looks forward to it when she visits.

We attended the Dayton Home and Garden show. 

Jed, Dalton, and I went last year and loved looking at everything. I think Lisa really enjoyed it too.

We picked out and bought all the paint for our entire interior except the laundry room. It is sad and pathetic, but it will have to wait until next year.

We enjoyed Jed's graduation day, but that is the next post all on it's own.

It was a great time and we look forward to her next visit after Baby Girl is here.

23 Weeks and St Patrick's Day

Before I start this new post I have two Dalton stories that actually happened on my birthday and the other three days later on my brothers birthday.

Dalton has really been into birthdays. He knows the order of birthdays for Jed, him, Stella, my dad, brother, mom, and myself and will start singing the "Happy Birthday" song randomly. We were waiting in the car at the base for Jed to finish something and he started singing the birthday song with my brother's name in it and I told him that my birthday wasn't over yet. He seemed bummed. I told him I was very excited for his "Pirate party" he was going to have for his birthday. His response was "I don't want pirate party. I want pink party".

 Oh bother! He was set on that few days! 

Second, we called my brother to wish him a happy birthday and let Dalton sing to him. After the song Dalton started singing the "Skinamarkiny Dinky Dink" song (Skinamarkiny dinky dink,  Skinamarkiny dinky do I love you.) and he decided to sing it "Skinamarkiny dinky dink, skinamarkiny do I don't love Baby Stella". 

He also has said "Stella go live with her mommy" and "Don't want baby Stella live here". 

I hope he warms up to the idea before she comes!

I'm going to just put this out there.

When I was pregnant with most of the time I felt really good about my body. I was one of those women who felt cute and attractive (to my hubby) pregnant. I'm guessing I felt this way because I only gained 11 pounds and everywhere but my stomach got smaller.

I'm not going to point out the areas that I am obsessing over because this post and no other post is about that. I'm just being honest. It's taking a lot to post pictures of myself when I feel so self conscience about things. I feel bad for this sweet baby. With Dalton we took a picture every week and with her I think I've taken 5 weekly shots.

It doesn't matter what I think about myself I have two sweet boys that I live with that tell me daily how they feel about me. I'm grateful for them! 

Dalton will play with my hair and say "I loves yours hair mommy!", "I love you so much", "Mommy you so pretty". I try to forget the times he tells me "Mommy your bummy is so big!" :O) 

In this picture he wanted to stick his tummy out like me.

Later this day, St Patty's Day, we went to the Miller's house and had dinner with the Millers and the other Millers. It had been a long time since getting together and playing games. It was great! I am grateful for good friends that we can laugh with and newer friends that we can get to know better. :O)

Jed Defends His Thesis and Kera turns 28 years old.

I have gone on and on about Jed on Facebook but I just have to write it on here. 

I am so proud of the hard working man I am married to. 

He doesn't cut corners anywhere. 

 It makes going to the "Premier Institute of Technology" extremely tough. But it means that he works to be the best father and husband he could possibly be.

 His hard work and determination are why we are here and why we have a job. 

To get into the PAQ program in 2009, Jed had to out sell a lot of people through his transcript and his personality.(Who doesn't love him?) :O)

He knew I wanted to be as close to family as possible and he worked so hard to get this position. 

The PAQ program not only secured him a position on base when so many of his classmates were going to interview after interview, but also paid for him to receive a Masters degree completely paid for and we received his salary while only going to school. 

Through this all Jed never takes credit for any of this. He always credits our Heavenly Father for the blessings. I agree with him, but I know Heavenly Father sees the hard work Jed as put in.

 When finished, Jed's thesis was a total of 195 pages. 

The night before his defense I sat down and listened to his whole presentation and watched the slide show.

I can honestly say that I understood maybe 10% of the entire presentation.

The next morning Jed and I went to the base bright and early for his defense. He had so many people there. I love how much the men in his office like Jed. You could just feel their reassuring presence in the conference room. When he finished the presentation his committee drilled him and allowed anyone else to ask questions then had us leave and grilled him more.About 15 minutes later Jed came out and the committee discussed his grade and a few minutes later opened the door and told him he received an A!

This Thursday and he had until Monday to make all revisions and print off the official thesis and have everything signed. It just so happened that my birthday fell on the Saturday in that little window.

We knew weeks before my birthday what we would be celebrating my birthday a few days later and I was totally ok with that.
Jed didn't have as many revisions as he had planned and worked really hard to finish it all on Friday night. 

He didn't quite get it all finished, but on my birthday I did get to sleep in and Dalton and Jed made me breakfast with our traditional candles. 

He finished what he could at home and then the three of us went to the base and Dalton and I stayed in the car and played on the Kindle Fire that Jed got me for my birthday. (YAHOO!) while he worked another hour or so. Then we went to Ikea! I love that place. Seriously love it. 

It was a fun trip up until we tried to eat dinner. I can't believe the old people we have turned into.

 We are totally the "early bird special" folks.

 WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN!?!

Dalton slept the whole way there, so it was a little late when we left Ikea. We went to a three different restaurants to eat at 7:00 and they all had 90 minute or longer waits. Who eats that late? Ha! 

We ended up getting Dalton Wendys and my hormones made me cry and then I felt ungrateful. Pregnancy!

 Really it was the BEST birthday ever! I had my husband and my son all to myself! I couldn't have asked for anything better!

Seriously?

Note: Don't judge me that I feed my child Cookie Crisp. I know it's terrible for him. If it's any consolation he picks corn flakes or honey nut cheerios over this most of the time.

Ok really? Jed gave him a HUGE bowl of cereal and I knew Dalton couldn't have finished it as fast as he said he did. I removed the cover and this is what I found! 

This blog is going to become our little family journal and it's pretty lame a lot of time to most people I'm sure, but it's things like this that when my baby is grown and out of the house I know I will cherish the little memory. I wish I had a camera attached to me at all times, I used to be so much better and I promised myself I would always document my children and our life and I'm always feeling like I'm lacking. Here's to trying to be better.

POTTY TRAINING

I have the opposite of all other toddler boys I know. 

Dalton is the most modest thing ever. 

I'm serious! During the week I took these pictures it was in the 80's here and this child fought with me about wearing short sleeves and shorts. He would say "I want sleeves go down here" (pointing to his wrists and trying to yank the sleeves down) and "No, no mommy pants too short." 

The first few days of potty training Dalton wasn't allowed to wear pants because every time he had them on he would wet his pants. Not wearing pants was really the only struggle we've had. 

This boy is a potty champ! 

I am really so proud of him. Three months ago I was certain that he was going to be 4 or 5 and still wearing diapers. In Dalton's case it was night and day waiting for him to be ready and wanting to do it. 

We have had maybe 4 or 5 bad days where he wets his pants a time or two or in the case of two days ago 5 times. I would say it's still a huge success considering we have been potty training for a full month now.