Raymond is growing like crazy... He has all new tricks up his sleeve. He can now successfully put his binki back in his mouth with is amazing because if he wakes up at night he can find it and put it back in his mouth. This week he slept like a gem. It was amazing. He would go down at like 7 and maybe wake up once and then be up officially at 7 but I was fine with that. He doesn't transfer well. Once we get home it takes us about two hours to put him back to sleep. I still rock him to sleep but he has been sleeping well. There was a time when we had to let him cry it out. For two nights we let him cry for about and hour and a half. It about killed me but it has seemed to help. He loves looking at himself. it is the cutest thing. When I got to put him in the tub I will have him look and the mirror and everytime I do it is all smiles. I love that he loves himself. I hope that we can keep it that way. Not in a conceded but it a confident I am a child of God and he loves me type of way. He loves rolling over and when you try and change his bum he wants to find everything around him. He loves taking baths but he is so funny he is fine when you take him out of the bath up until you set him down on the bed. He dreads putting clothes on and if it were up to him he would just hang out naked all day long. He has also been napping so well. He will take a 2-21/2 hour nap in the morning and then two shorter naps during the afternoon. This sleeping thing has only happened within the last week. He loves food. Any kind of food if he can put it in his mouth he is happy. Actually I take that back I gave him some yogurt melts the other day and he spit them out. Its good to know that he does have taste bud cause basically everything else he is okay eating. He will stand up next to things and hold on. He cant do it for very long and you need to keep a watchful eye on him cause any second he could fall but for most part he is pretty strong. He will still take steps but we are just working on the crawling right now. We took him to see beauty and the Beast and he sat through almost the whole thing. He did so good maybe it was because Derek held his head under a blanket the whole time so that it wouldn't be too loud for him.We have taken him to movies in the past and both times he started crying and I sat outside with him. So we were a little skeptical but he did just fine. I was amazed. Raymond will do a thing where he will grab the carpet and pull himself towards you. He wont do it all the time even though he can but he can inch forward. He just has to have the right thing to persuade him to inch forward. He loves his daddy and on Friday when Derek came home from work he was so so excited to see him. Everything Derek did he thought that it was hilarious. It was the cutest thing to see. I wish I would've gotten it all on camera but he never performs quite the same when I start filming him. He is kinda shy, whenever someone starts talking to him he will smile for a second and then turn away and dig his head into my shoulder. I love it. He is also a cuddle bug. I love when he will lay his head on my shoulder and we can just rock back and forth for a minuet. I swear the kid had a tooth coming in and now it is nowhere to be seen. He can almost completely sit up on his own. He will sometimes throw himself back and he can control that quite yet but he can sit by himself for a good 5 minuets. He also looses his balance when he tries to play with all his toys. He loves to dump things out of a box so I will put it back in and he will dump it out again. My favorite thing that he does right now is when I am putting him down for bed. I will pat his belly and he will put his hand on my hand, so I will put my hand on his hand and he will move his hand so that it is always on top. He loves to pull my hair. I am about to cut my hair so that he it wont hurt so bad when he pulls it. He is just the cutest thing in the world. It is so fun to watch Derek too. I love to hear him talk about Raymond. Today in church he turned to me and said "he is just the cutest thing in the world. I wish I could just babysit him all day". (that is an inside joke, no husband should ever have to babysit their own children). One day while Derek and I were driving in the car we started talking about Raymond and we both  got a little weepy and started talking about the potential that he has to become and how we need to be better parents so that he has righteous examples to look too. We want him to be better than we are now and how we can help him make righteous decisions. As a parent you get a little glimpse of the love that Heavenly Father has for us as his children because I always want to be with Raymond. There are occasions when I just need a little break but I am always thinking about him and want what is best for him. It is so different than watching other peoples children. Every mile stone you are just in awe and you want everyone to experience it as well but I just don't think that they see it like we do. Derek treats Raymond like a jungle gym he is up and down but the little boy just loves it and loves him so much. He does love his mommy too. He will reach for me and try to come to me. Derek said the other day when he I was gone to the gym that Raymond was a little fussy and he thinks its because I wast there. Well I would kinda like that. I want the little guy to be a mommas boy. Which its kinda hard not too when you are with the same person all day long. Derek and I were able to finally sit down with the design center for our home. We got to choose everything and it was so much fun. I think that it will really all come together. We are now juts waiting on the permit from the city and then they will start the digging. I am getting really excited. It will be nice to move out of this joint. Although I like the culture and how everyone is down to earth and doesn't really care about materialistic things. It has been refreshing. But we have now been here for almost two years and I can handle another winter in this apartment and if we have more kids there is just no way! Kristen and Nick are officially divorced. There is not much to talk about with that. I do feel bad for her but I also think that she makes a lot of dumb decisions and she needs to definitely figure it out before she decides to start dating. I was thinking about it last night and I do hate that it divides our family. My mother is so protective of Kristen and her kids and Kristen has to be babied so that makes every not like Kristen that much. All we ever hear from my mom is Boston this and Kollins that. I want things to be better but right now, nobody is willing to change in my family. You would think that they are my moms children by the way that she talks about them. Secretly my dad loves baby Ray. He was telling everyone about him the other day. I love when my dad does stuff like that. Well everything is going well we are happy and healthy. Derek and I have been getting up earlier so that we can exercise and it has been great. I feel like a better mom when I get up before the little squirt to exercise. So Im out so that i can have the energy in the morning. 

Raymond is seriously the cutest thing in the world. I love him so much and so does Derek. He is just getting over a cold and let me tell you that is not fun at all. It totally threw his whole schedule off and mine as well. He is not normally fussy but he has been extremely fussy and it has been a rough go around. I now know why parents don't want their children to get sick. First of all I hated seeing him be sick and he was sleeping so good at night he would only wake up maybe two times a night and now he wakes up like every other hour. Derek is so awesome. He seriously is the best dad and is always willing to watch Raymond so that I can get out of the house occasionally. He handles him so well and wants him to walk so bad. Surprisingly he will lift up his leg as if he is taking steps and to see someone so small take little steps like that it is so stinking cute. Now whenever I stand him on my legs, its like he is running a race and wants to run right off my lap. He is getting super busy. He is starting to grab more things and is just becoming more and more interactive and I love it. Derek just started a new semester. He is taking 15 credits and I think that he finally found the right major. He is doing finance and he just loves it he is making a new excel sheet every day of his life. He has hated his job at Estify for a while and would come home and complain complain complain. Well in November a man named Rodger whom Derek met at the UPS store contacted him and wanted him to come in for an interview. Well everything went well and Derek accepted the job. It has now been two weeks since this happened and I can already tell the difference. Derek is so much happier. It has been a goo change in our home. He has also decided to take the CFA, whatever that is. All I know is that it will take a long time and that means Derek will not be with us as much. I am not too thrilled but It is what he wants to do and I support him 100 percent even if it means I won't see him that often. I only have to bear it for a couple of months and then it will be over and he will almost be done with school which will be awesome. It is January 25th and Raymond cut his first tooth. No wonder he has been so grumpy and out of character. I would be upset too. This is why we have had so many sleepless nights. I am just grateful I know the cause now. I suspected that was it but now I know for sure. Derek and I are looking into buying a home. We have kept it on the down low because we are not sure with Derek's plans for MBA school but we just went and looked at this town home near UVU and we both fell in love with it. It was beautiful and light and airy! I was so excited! the only problem is that it is a 3 bedroom and the 3rd bedroom is on the main level not upstairs and if we are going to have more children I want them all to be upstairs with me. I know I am picky but luckily I have a husband who supports me 100 percent too. Derek does so much for this family and I am so grateful to call him mine. You should see him with Raymond. Raymond loves him so much and is so excited to see him. Derek always gets the biggest smiles out of him and I just love seeing those two interact. Derek is a wonderful father and husband and I couldn't ask for a better companion every step of the way through this mortal journey. Raymond Loves to take 20 minuet naps. I am afraid I am making a monster napper. But I this little boy so much he is a delight but I will be happy when teething is over and my little boy is back. Last Sunday was the worst Sunday ever. Derek and I had bad thought that we never wanted to go to church with that little guy again. He just cried the whole time and the only time he was content was when we were standing up with him. But he has two teeth but its a top left fang and his bottom right fang. We love that little boy!

Its been while but the christmas season got busy with Kristin and her family being in town. It was fun to see them despite her children being sick the whole time that they were here. It was a good christmas. We spent it with Derek's family. I love his family but they have a way of doing things that I am not entirely use to. First off they parent way differently than my family. If my nieces and nephews do something wrong my siblings are all over it. That is not the case with Derek's family, they are always trying to make it so its not their kids even though it was clearly their children who did something to poor Raymond or the other defenseless kids at the home. It got a little crazy for me, everyone being in such a confined area. There are a lot of people at my mom and dad house but there is so much more room that it doesn't seem as chaotic. When we are at Derek's parents house I need to go and take a break and be somewhere quite because I just can't handle it.