Autumn 2010

This Fall has been so fun, and beautiful, and warm - we have thoroughly enjoyed it. Here's a list of some things that have been going on in our family since September.

1. We went to the first BYU game of the season. Luckily we won that one but have been pretty disappointed with these 'young' players in games since. They're just fun to watch with Kraig - he gets just a LITTLE excited.


2.Mikayla learned how to pedal her tricycle. We were almost as excited for her as she was (it meant no more uncomfortable bending down to help her with my belly in the way). Now she always says, "Watch me! I so fast!"

3. We went to LA to have a beach party with the Cramers the weekend after labor day. It was lots of fun! The kids loved the sand and flying kites and the fire pit. It was really nice to see the big happy Cramer clan.






4. We decided to set up Mikayla in her toddler bed. She LOVED it right from the beginning - especially how she could get in and out herself, have free access to her blankies, and feel like a big kid. She has slept really well in it. Sometimes after we put her to bed we hear her playing around in the dark, but she always manages to make her way to her bed and cover herself up.



- It was really funny, last night Kraig was working late in the basement installing new plumbing, right under Mikayla's room. She was supposed to be going to sleep, but she discovered that she could hear/see her daddy through the heater vent, and for about 20 minutes was calling, "DAAAAADDDEEEEEEEEEE! What you doing?!? DAAAAADDDEEEEE!" She finally went to sleep around 10:30!


5. Our basement remodeling is in the works. SLOW. But it's started. We hope to be done by next summer.

6. We have been enjoying the warm weather. Still lots of trips to the park, and we just went to the zoo. Riding the train was one of the highlights.



Another highlight - meeting her new boyfriend.


7. Mikayla has discovered the magic of building forts. We set a big one up in our living room last week, but then had to clean it up. After she woke up and found her 'fork' gone, she was so sad we set up a little one in her room. That day, needless to say, she was a little excited about it and when I put her down for her nap she wouldn't stay in her bed. I came back later to check on her and found this.

8.We had a really fun Halloween! I got a little more crafty than normal with some decorations, and Mikayla absolutely loved her Tigger costume. She wanted to sleep in it. On Sunday we put her in a little shirt and home made Halloween skirt (courtesy of my friend Bethany) and she was so excited to go to church. She was such a happy little delight today.




9. We are excited to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas here in our home. I am getting pretty BIG and it prob wouldn't be too wise to take off for CO or CA at Thanksgiving when I'm 34 weeks or Christmas when I'm at 38!

The First Two Years in 24 photos

My baby is now a little girl...two years old!
We have thoroughly enjoyed each stage though, and she continues to challenge us and delight us each day!
For the first year of her life, I made it a point to take a photo on each month mark, in the same dress (until she outgrew one and had to wear another), with the same teddy bear. The bear didn't always make it in the picture though! After a year I stopped, but each picture is about a month older than the first. Put the curser on the bottom of the photo for the age in months. Enjoy!

I can't believe this...

First of all, I couldn't believe I was pregnant. I was kind of dreading it a little, and haven't been in a hurry to tell people, so if you haven't heard that may be why.
Now I'm over the shock and feeling excited. Now I can't believe we're having another GIRL! Kraig was 90% sure it was a boy (how he came up with that statistic I don't know), I was about 70% sure, and everyone else seemed to agree with our prediction. It just doesn't seem like the Cramer or the Williamson way to have more than one girl! I guess it's payback time for all the years of macho-ism, wrestling, and body functions I had to put up with. Although Mikayla still gives us plenty of the latter two. She cracks up when she burps and I can't lay on the floor without her trying to tackle me.
Anyway, I'm due mid-January and feeling great. I had a rough month of May with morning sickness, allergies, and insomnia, and bouts of intense anxiety over labor and the newborn stage. Thank goodness that is over for now, and I am ready to deal with whatever my lot may be this time. I am going to try for a VBAC if everything is in ideal condition for one, and if I end up with another C-section, at least I tried. The most important thing is to have a healthy baby. Mikayla had 0 problems even if I did, and that is such a blessing.
Most of my excitement of having two girls together comes from the fact that Mikayla will have a sister, and although I'm sure they'll fight, they will get to grow up together and be close, if not always, then probably when they're adults. I really envy my friends who have this. Also, I don't have to go and buy a whole new baby wardrobe, and all those cute girl clothes won't go to waste!
Kraig is excited too - he loves little girls - but he is getting a little nervous that he won't ever get a son, since we probably won't have more than 3 or 4 kids! I would love to have a boy sometime too. We'll see what Heavenly Father has in store for our family.

Rainbows and Childhood

It started to gently rain this evening. Mikayla and I sat outside on our bench, covered by the roof overhang, and we watched and smelled the warm rain. I love to see my child experience new things, like a summer rain, and listening to the distant rolling thunder and seeing the flashes of lightning. We saw a little family of quail running in the rain, maybe 6 babies, all in a line. Mikayla had snagged a piece of red licorice, and was getting it all over her cheeks, her hands, and me. But I didn't mind. Usually I would, but I felt like it was ok to let her be a sticky kid and me a sticky mom in that peaceful moment.

Then the sun came out, and it created the brightest and longest rainbow I have probably ever seen, with the mountains as the backdrop. Mikayla kept saying "WOW" as I pointed out all the beauties.





God is a wonderous creator. There is something so refreshing about nature and the beauties of the earth...it speaks to me somehow.

It occured to to me that to get a rainbow, you need both rain and sun. Sometimes I only want 'sunny' times and think I could do without the 'rainy' days, but maybe we really do only experience the greatest wonder and beauty with both.

As I write this, I can still hear the rain outside, and through the window I can see soft distant patches of lightning illuminating the sky. It's the beautiful kind, not the threatening, jagged kind. I love summer storms. Even if it did spoil our swimming plans for tonight.

St George trip and other stuff

I was so worn out after our tri that I didn't have the gusto to post pics of what we did when we were in St. George. So here are a few of us exploring Zion's Canyon with Klaron, Amy, and Teagan. We had a good time and wore ourselves out.







The highlight for Mikayla and Teagan was throwing rocks in the river, of course.



Now here are a couple of other recent photos of my little girl. She's not a baby anymore and it amazes me how much she's been developing lately.

We got this helmet to put her on the back of our bikes. Well, that has proved to be more difficult than we planned but she loves to wear her 'hat' around the house anyway.


Big smile, caught on camera (rare these days since she squints her eyes whenever we try to take a picture).

One night she insisted she sleep with her giant Pooh bear. This is how I found her later.


We have been encouraging Mikayla to smell flowers for a few months. She usually ends up kissing them instead. :)





Kayla girl's our little sunshine. We got a great kid.

The Big Day

Since January, Kraig and I have been training for the Sand Hollow St. George Triathlon. Well we finally did it last Saturday. I'm relieved it's over but at the same time it's a little bit of a letdown, kind of like how it feels after throwing a big party or something.

The funnest thing about doing these races is doing it with people you know. Kraig has been trying to recruit family members to join us for a few years, and this time around his two brothers, Klaron and Kent, were competitors also.

The guys started their race at 9:40am with the 1/2 mile swim in the lake. I watched them as they took their places on the edge of the crowd (that way they have to swim farther but avoid fighting the crowd). Thirteen minutes later Kraig was out of the lake and running to transition. He was probably about the tenth one out of the water. He literally can swim twice as fast as me. His bros followed him out of the water 6 minutes later, but by then I had started my swim.

The water was a freezing 60 degrees but we all had wetsuits on so it wasn't too cold at first, except for our feet, hands, and heads. Then I opened up the neck of my suit to let a little water in (for insulation) and talk about a shock to the system! Made me take a few quick breaths, and then my goggles came undone as I was tightening them. Luckily I got them fixed 10 seconds before we took off, and I waited a little longer to let the crowd get ahead of me. Swimming is my weakest area and I was happy to be at the back. So I try swimming front stroke, like I've been practicing for months, but it was SO COLD when I put my face in that it was hard to get my breathing timed right, so I ended up doing backstroke most of the way, and turning around every so often to orient myself. I guess it worked pretty well because even though I felt like I was in that lake forever, I only took 25 minutes, which is what I usually take to do that distance in a pool.

Climbing out of the water I felt a little dizzy and disoriented, but found myself trotting to the transition area to get ready for the bike. At first I couldn't get my skintight wetsuit off, but finally did, put my shirt, helmet, glasses, socks, and shoes on and was off on the 13 mile bike ride. The bike ride was pretty fun! I saw Kraig coming back from the ride on my way out, which was cool since I didn't know if I'd see him much. The bike course was pretty challenging, with a mile long 6% grade hill, which is pretty dang steep. My goal was to just not walk my bike. I kicked it into the lowest gear I had, and just kept peddling, and I made it to the top! After that there was quite a bit of distance still left, then I turned around and headed down the hill I came up, which was pretty exhilarating but scary because if something goes wrong at that kind of speed it's BAD news. The bike ended up taking me 53 minutes in all. Oh, and I dropped my waterb0ttle along the way and had to go back for it.

Then in the transition to the run, I ran out of the wrong gate in the transition zone! So I had to go back and go out the other end, wasting more time. Oh well!

The run wasn't too bad, just 3 miles but it was 85 degrees by that time of the day and I was ready to be out of the sun. The run ended up taking me 30 minutes which is slow for me, but my legs felt like rubber and wouldn't go much faster.

At the end, the Cramer crowd was cheering me on, and I glanced over at them and ended up almost running the wrong way again! They distracted me!

I finished it and felt overheated and exhausted, but so happy I'd finished it and I didn't stop.

Kraig ended up beating his two brothers because of his ultra quick swim time, but they all did a great job! I'm glad I did this race but don't think I'll be doing one again for a while. I'm still recovering.....it took a lot out of me this time!

Below are some pictures of us after the race.

Mikayla got to hang out with Grandma Cramer during our time in St. George, which was fun for both. Thanks to Pat and Amy for watching all 4 kids while we raced!

Lookin' for adventure

Even though we just got back from a couple of road trips, I am craving some adventure! I want to go somewhere new, and try new things, and be spontaneous. I guess that's why I love to travel so much - I love to see the world and sometimes just fly by the seat of my pants. There is so much to learn and explore. Lately being a 'settled' stay-at-home mom has been hard for me, because of these cravings. I love my little Kayla bear so much. Her giggles are so contagious, and at least every day SHE is having an adventure and exploring new territory. But I've always known that staying at home with my kids would be a challenge for me. I've never been a home body. I remember being on a school trip (it was an over-nighter) when I was 11 and some of the kids were crying because they missed home, and I just couldn't understand. Sure, I loved my parents and brothers, but it was so fun to be on a new adventure.

So today I just wanted to book a flight to Hawaii or somewhere. The fact of the matter is, though, we can choose to blow Kraig's bonus on a trip someplace, or we can re-do our basement (without going into debt anyway). I really want to extra space a finished basement would provide! Plus it would be a good selling-point when we can sell this place. So I reminded myself again, to be wise, and to be practical, enough with the spontaneity and frivolous!!! (But I really would like to go to Hawaii again....along with England, and Japan, and New Zealand, or even just the northeast part of the U.S.!) There I go dreaming again!
One day......

Perhaps I was spoiled growing up, since we got to visit so many places. The BEST Christmas my family ever had was when we went to Germany and skiied, and there were no presents. It was awesome!

Where would you go if you could choose anywhere?