December 2011 Update

We finally had our family pictures taken by my good friend, Johanna Eardley.

Enjoy :)

Our little family of 3.

Still happy and in love after 6 years!

Love his little diaper butt!

Update on Stockton:

*He is now 18 (almost 19) months old.

*He is learning new words everyday

*He is starting to recognize letters and colors

*He's starting to tell me what he wants (more crackers, baba, night-night etc.)

*Fuzz (our dog) likes to take things away from him. But Stockton tells him, "mine!" and hits his chest with his hand. I'm not quite sure where he learned this, but it's funny for right now.

*He is FINALLY gaining weight! (he's always just been healthy, just small)

*He is my pride and joy!!!

I LOVE Stockton's little face in this picture!

Update on me:

*After months and months of going back and forth, we have decided that it is time for me to get on Clomid again. We haven't been preventing for a year now, and nothing is happening. The weird thing is a month ago I was nervous/worried about getting pregnant, but now I'm soooooo baby hungry! I've done some serious praying/pondering and I've had a huge change of heart!

It took 2 months of being on clomid last time to get pregnant with Stockton. I'm not planning on it working that quick this time, but it sure would be nice if it did!

Update on Bryce:

*First of all, he's just the cutest/sweetest dad and husband! I knew he would be a good dad, but I'm kinda surprised at how much he loves being a dad! He has been baby hungry for a long time now, but it's been me holding us back. Anyway....

*Bryce is SO BUSY!!!

*He is still running ASI (used to be Coral Marketing)

*And, he is a manager for Platinum Protection. He is recruiting a team, with our good friend Ben Arthur, to have our own office this summer. (Which is going to be a BLAST!! I'm so excited to spend another summer with the Arthur's!!!)

I just can't say how thankful I am for Bryce! He's such a hard worker! And he still makes time for me and Stockton! I feel very lucky to be married to him!!!

I just kiss his cheeks all day!

Hope you enjoyed! ;-)

This past week in pictures....

Happy Halloween!!!!!

I'm the self proclaimed Halloween queen. I LOVE IT!!! I'm so excited for it this year, because when Halloween comes around it means we'll be home! YAY!!! Anyway, I thought i would start making Halloween crafts just for something to do here. I found these glow in the dark eyes on marthastewart.com. My friend Johanna, (who loves Halloween too) and I made them, it actually took all day. But I think they turned out great!

Poor little Stockton, had another ear infection. He slept on my shoulder for 3 hours! I felt so bad that he was sick, but I loved just holding him!

He is getting so BIG!!!!


Bryce was watching Stockton while I was getting ready for the day. When I came out of our room it was really quiet in our apartment. I asked Bryce where Stockton was and he's all, hmm.. I don't know. (typical dad, if there isn't any crying everything must be ok, right?) Everything was ok, I found Stockton asleep on the floor in his bedroom.

Stockton is finally starting to want to feed himself. And is doing a pretty good job!

Stockton has figured out where the animals go on his barn. Each animal has a different shape on the bottom. I know every parent thinks this, but Stockton is so SMART!!! :) Maybe he should be doing this at 14 months.....anyway, I love him no matter what.

Our office does an activity every Friday before the guys have to go to work. So this past week we went to the lake by our house. All of the guys had a race in canoes and then had a water balloon fight. Then Bryce and I took Stockton on a canoe ride out on the lake. I LOVE the water!!! It's so peaceful and just plain fun! We had a great time!!!

Oh, how I love this man!!!! Enough said. :)

Stockton has finally moved up in the world to a forward facing car seat! YAY!!!! Life is so much easier, and he is SO MUCH happier in the car! Thanks to my friend Jennifer Arthur for helping me do research for this car seat. We love it!!!

Stockton's first ride in his car seat with Nana and Papa on the way to the Royals baseball game. Yep, he's my son! His thumb is ALWAYS in his mouth now!!!

oops... out of order, oh well! Ray and Lisa Nelson came to visit us this past weekend! It was SO GOOD to see them!!!! We stayed up on Saturday until 2 am just talking and playing games. I was so sad when they had to go home on Monday. I couldn't ask for sweeter, more loving in-laws! I'm very lucky!!!! I love you, bonus mom and dad!!!

Ray and Stockton are best buds now! This picture captures how they were acting together all weekend. Stockton loved to wear Ray's hat and would just laugh the whole time he had it on. He loves his Papa!!!

Just a picture of us while at the Royals game. It was much better this time around. We sat in the shade and it was MUCH COOLER this time!!!!

We're still doing good! We found out today that extended season (Sept. 5 - Oct. 8) will be here in Kansas City. We're glad and sad at the same time. We were looking forward to experiencing a new city and taking on a new adventure. The other part of us is thrilled that we (I) don't have to pack up and move for 5 weeks and then pack up again and move home.

I'm so glad that we've taken on this adventure! I actually love Kansas! It's so pretty here with all of the trees. I do miss our family and friends, but it's been good to get out of our comfort zones a little and stretch and grow out here. At the same time, I'm looking forward to going home (although I have 11 more weeks to go). It will be nice to have time with Bryce and to see people we've been missing! Anyway, life is GOOD!!!!

Summer life 2011

I went with Bryce one day while he was out knocking. Holy cow!!! There is no way I could EVER do this job! I'm so grateful that Bryce is working so HARD for our family! And things are going well for him. He's the #2 sales rep in our office! There are days where he has a hard time, but for the most part he really likes what he's doing.

Stockton and I are just doing our usual thing. Although, it is so nice to live close to our friends. At some point during the week we usually get together with other wives and kids to go do something or just hang out.

I know it's been forever since I've blogged, but our computer crashed so I haven't been able to update. But, here we go........ :)

Last Sunday (July 10) I guess there was a big rain storm in Utah. We usually have problems with one window well filling up with water and leaking into our basement. We've known this for 3 years and we've tried to come up with a solution, have a sump pump down in the window well to pump any water out. Well on Sunday, we had some problems and not with the window we usually do. Two window wells filled up 1/2 way full of water and came into our house. And what do you do when your 1,000 miles away??? Thank goodness for AWESOME parents!!!! They went over and tore out my carpet (one bedroom was completely soaked) and pulled back carpet in my family room. Then they got a punch of fans to dry out the pad and carpet. They think that they've been able to save the carpet, but we'll have to find someone to come relay it. Thank you, thank you Mom and Dad for all of your help!!!!

And I believe now how our window wells filled up with so much water! This storm came about two days after we found out about our house.

I love living in Kansas for the awesome storms we get here! I've never seen rain like this before. At one point I could hardly see outside, it was raining so hard. LOVE IT!!!! I'm my daddy's girl that for sure! He LOVES any sort of freak weather! :)

Bryce and I got to go see Harry Potter @ 12 am! What a good show! I will never go see a movie opening night again though. Maybe I'm just getting old, but the theater was full of 12-14 year olds that were screaming and talking loud. Just shut-up and watch the movie!!! But, we had a good time.

Sunday, July 10th our friends Brittany and Rob Peck arranged for all of our friends out here to go see a Royals game (baseball). It was really fun, other than the fact that it was 105 degrees outside.

Stockton with his friends Taelie and Broox Arthur. I watched these cute kids when Jennifer went knocking with her husband, Ben.

Oh, my little helper! Stockton thinks it's so fun to pull out all of the clothes in the laundry basket while I'm folding them. :)

Just because.

Stockton LOVES his daddy!!!! Whenever Bryce comes home and Stockton happens to still be awake, Stockton just can not wait for Bryce to pick him up and give him a hug!!! I love what a good Dad Bryce is to Stockton. I didn't picture Bryce wanting to be with our child all of the time. I'm so glad that I was wrong!!! He loves this boy more than anything in this world!!!

Stockton loves to wear Bryce's hats! He walks around with the BIGGEST smile on his face!

Stockton in his Jazz jersey.

Grandma Murdock

October 2,1919 - May 25, 2011

Ok, I'm going to try to write without crying. (This section is mostly for me.) I've been putting off writing anything about my Grandma because how can I put into words how much I love this wonderful lady?!?!

My Grandma is my hero! Not only was she a FABULOUS wife and mother to all 8 of her children, but she was also a school teacher and taught piano, she is just everything that I want to be! Giving and selfless, always thinking of others and she was a GREAT cook! Her house always smelled like homemade bread with a touch of bacon and clean clothes. Weird combination of smells, but oh, it always smelled so good!!!! She was such a good example to me and her other grandchildren.

I feel like I have a special connection with my Grandma because she died on my birthday. I know that sounds silly, but I will never forget the date that's for sure!

I love you Grandma! And will miss you, but at least I know I will see her again!!!

(I almost made it without crying)

Update (part 1 of 2)

Well....we finally made it to Kansas! After a LONG 17 hour drive that we did in one night/day we can begin our little adventure. Stockton did great on the drive, he slept all night! For Bryce and I on the other hand, it wasn't so fun! We both were so tired at one point that we pulled over on the side of the road and slept for 2 hours. Anyway, we arrived in safety and we were excited to get to work. (I say we, but I really mean Bryce) :)

We've been here for 3 weeks and we're loving it! Bryce has been doing really well! He was in the top 10 salesman for rookies category last week, so that's good! He's had his bad days, but it's mostly been good so far!

Stockton and I have just been hanging out. We do our normal routine, so not a lot has changed for us. Although, it is really fun to live so close to friends! We do something with friends almost everyday: go to the pool, do lunch, go on walks or just hang out. It's been a pretty good schedule for us!

I thought I would take pictures of our apartment so you can see where we are living. (Mostly for my mom and dad, but everyone else, enjoy. :) )

Living room (the front door is next to the table on the far left of the picture)

Kitchen is behind the wall



The laundry room is behind the doors

Dinning room and hall which leads to bedrooms

Guest bathroom (located where Fuzz is standing in the picture before). There is another door to the right of the picture (not shown) that can go into Stockton's room.

Stockton's room

Just because :)

Our room

Our bathroom (it has 2 showers! One is behind the door to the right of the picture)

Our closet, which is HUGE!! To bad we didn't bring tons of clothes.

Update (part 2 of 2)

This past Sunday (Mother's day) was so fun! Bryce gave me chocolates and a really sweet card. And he made me a yummy breakfast! Since he had the day off we thought it would be fun to go explore KC and see Liberty Jail.

We drove downtown and we found this little street market that was SWEET! It was full of flea market items (which we bought Stockton a walker toy for $4. Some Lysol wipes and it's as good as new, kinda :) ) There was also vender's selling produce and flowers. I LOVED it! I think I have a love affair with food. I think fresh produce is so pretty. I know I'm a weirdo!

At the street market. I forgot Stockton's hat, but he was lathered up in sunscreen.

Crawling on the grass at Liberty jail.



He loves to chew on his flip flops!!! It's his favorite teething ring.



I don't think he likes this very much now that I look at the picture.

Our little family

I thought it was going to be a really old building. But it was destroyed and a replica has been built inside.

Outside Liberty jail

The replica which is built almost exactly where the original stood. The walls are 4 feet thick. The ceiling had rocks on it so the prisoners couldn't escape. And there was no door knob to actually leave the jail. Even the guards had to wait for someone to let them leave. It was neat to feel the spirit here.

Joseph Smith and others were here for 5 months in the winter time. How awful it must have been! And during this time Joseph would pray, but he didn't receive any answers until about 2 weeks before he was released.

I'm grateful to live so close to these historical sites. And we plan on visiting more while we have the chance. I'm reading The Book of Mormon on my won for the first time while I'm here and I can already feel my testimony growing. I'm grateful for Joseph Smith and the sacrifices he made to restore the gospel.


All in all, it was a fabulous Mother's day! I feel so blessed to be a mom this year!