I can't believe this kid!

I just want to do a little update on Teagan's life.

~Teagan loves being able to walk and crawl around. He is super fast at "crawling" now. He only really uses his arms and one leg and he just scoots in the sitting position, but man is he fast.

~He loves to play hide and seek/peekaboo where me and Zac hide somewhere and he comes to find us. Every time he pokes his head around the corner to find us he has an ear to ear grin.

~He is getting his 7th tooth and it's lookin like the 8th is close behind.

~He loves to feed himself and will eat anything we give him. Favorites these days are yogurt and bannas, tomatos, spagheti, carrots, bbq chicken, bottles, and the graduate ravioli.

~He has to use both hands while walking (???) so if he wants to bring something with he clenches it in his teeth.

~He is the opposite of a lot of kids. He usually prefers strangers to me and loves meeting new people everywhere we go. He always has a smile for a stranger.

~He loves Zac to pieces and cries when he leaves the house, it's so cute.

~Vacuums, Boshes, dishwashers or anything that makes noise scares him and he always runs right for my legs when they turn on---vacuuming is hard wish a baby on your leg

100 things

I started this a month ago and was inspired by my sister Julie to finish it. I did it in Word first and I couldn't get the numbers to copy. There are 100 things though. Enjoy the embarrassing stories!

I love going on the internet, I feel like it is my only connection to the outside world.
I check my email and bloglines at least 4 or 5 times a day, usually more
I need a life
I have a meal calendar that I use to plan grocery shopping and dinner
Since I’ve had the calendar I LOVE cooking
Allrecipes.com has the most delicious recipes!
I got married when I was 19
In the first 4 months Zac and I knew each other we only didn’t see each other 1 day.
Then I went back to Provo for school L
I LOVE BYU…Go Cougars!
While Zac and I were dating I totaled my Subaru on the freeway and walked away from the accident
When I told Zac, he thought I was teasing him
Me and Zac like to tease a lot
Zac kissed me for the first time after country dancing…
He still claims that I turned my face and that’s why he planted it halfway on my lips.
I peed my pants while four-wheeling when Zac and I were dating
I didn’t tell him until a few weeks before we got married
I got married in Newport Beach, CA
Being married is so fun and so stressful
I had a miscarriage before Teagan was born
I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
I’m so grateful for my baby boy
Teagan has the cutest smile! And I love it!
I love playing with Teagan, he is so sweet
I do not love poopy diapers
Or sharp teeth
I do love Teagan’s laugh
My favorite thing is watching Zac play with Teagan
Teagan loves his daddy!
Me too!
I like to be called Melissa, I just like the sound of my own name
I am 22
I have a degree in Math Education from BYU-I
While in school I went 7 semesters in a row.
I graduated with a 3.9
I love to be silly with my sisters
Me and Whitney used to have flashlight wars when the lights were out for bed
Last year for Christmas we dressed up as the ghosts of past, present, and future and the other one and redid the Christmas Carol for my dad ( he went to bed early)
I love it when you laugh so so hard
I don’t love it when a little pee comes out when you laugh so hard
One time a girls camp me and Julie mooned another cabin full of girls
It was SO funny then and a little gross now.
I used to moon people a lot
I don’t as much anymore
When I was 5 or 6 I wet the bed and was really embarrassed
I put my wet panties over the heater to dry so that my mom wouldn’t find out
That story makes me want to throw-up a little
I was really weird about bras and the sex talk when I was younger
Every time my mom mentioned either one I was freak out, change the subject or run out of the room.
I never had a sex talk, but apparently I figured it out
I secretly wanted to wear a bra, but was too embarrassed to tell my mom
She eventually just put one in my underwear drawer and I started “secretly” wearing it
I wouldn’t put it in the wash because then my mom would know!!!
I think she snuck it from the drawer when I was sleeping and washed it
My mom is the best
Teagan grabs onto my hair and rips out pieces…a lot
I have a set of bangs growing all around my whole hairline now.
I wear my hair up now
I use a lot of hair spray
I sometimes look at the little girl hair blogs for ideas on doing my hair
Scary shows freak me out!
Halloween is my least favorite holiday out of the big 3
I don’t like Turkey, except the one my mom made 2 or 3 years ago---best turkey ever!
I LOVE Christmas time
I love caroling especially carol of the bells with Whitney
I got a set of horns for white elephant last year
I ate a whole thing of grapes when I was 3 while working with my dad
I had to stop multiple time to use the bathroom
My dad got a bucket and said I would have to use that the next time I needed to go
I didn’t have to go again
Sometimes I don’t like working with dad J
I started tutoring math my junior year in high school
Tutoring and teaching math have been my only jobs in life, except Staples
I love teaching math!
I promised my older brother I wouldn’t kiss until I was 16
I made it until I was 18
I had braces my Jr and Sr year in high school
I used to attribute the fact that nobody had kissed me to the fact that I had braces
I now know that it was because of my social awkwardness…hehe
I went to early morning seminary (5:50 or 6:30) all 4 years of high school
I had awesome seminary teachers
I love donuts
I do not love getting up before 6 am
I usually get up at 7
I am training for a 5K
Running makes my lungs and heart burn
I repeat to myself over and over: “I never said it was going to be easy, I only said it would be worth it”
I love exercising every day-when it’s over
I never played sports in high school
I was part of a show choir
Show Choir is really fun!
I love to dance
I don’t love Mrs. Hart and facial expressions
I love to play the piano
I wish I could sight read better
I wish I had a piano
I worry about what people think about me
I try to not worry too much
I only paint my toenails monthly, because my BF Kim used to remind me that painting your toes is important
100. My eyebrows are untameable

This is a fun one, you should try it!

Halloween---warning--very long post!

Since our ward doesn't have trunk-or-treat and we don't have good costumes we decided to take a little trip to Valencia to see my mom this weekend. It was a blast! Friday night was trunk-or-treat, then Saturday we ate at the delicious stonefire grill and relaxed and did our laundry, and the rest of the weekend I started Teagan's awesome Christmas present.

We got there with only a few hours to figure out our costumes. After trying on EVERYTHING in the box (this is by far my favorite part of Halloween each year) we decided on not dressing up (we found out only the kids dress up) and Teagan was a scary, bald, version of Edward Cullen.
When we tried on the wigs we were laughing so hard we were crying, it was too funny

At the trunk-or-treating Teagan participated in the cake walk and he won! He won a cupcake and he loved it! I think Zac's favorite part of the weekend was being able to watch football on Saturday. Our TV is a little terrible so he enjoyed the luxory of more than one channel of football and Teagan didn't mind loungin around either. I hope he isn't developing bad habits early on...

After all was said and done everyone was pooped this afternoon and decided to take naps.

Here is the beginning of Teag's Christmas or Birthday present. My mom has SOOOOO MUCH different fabric and buttons and doodads and dingleberries and anything a sewer could imagine. She gets it for AMAZING prices at the school where she teaches (FIDM) in LA. SO I decided to put the fabric to good use. I'm making Teagan one of those quiet books for church and whenever. I know they have patterns, but I'm kind of flying by the seat of my pants for this one.

The page on the left is a see through page with different things that you can move around underneath...what you can't see are the curvy lines sewn on top so you can push the stuff through a "maze."

The one on the right is a monster. It is awesome, I promise. It is super furry and the mouth opens. Inside the mouth are a fish and cat attached to stretchy string so you can pull them out of the mouth and they bounce back in...haha, this was my mom's idea...she is so creative! Love you mom! There will be many more pictures and posts since this is going to have 14 pages...I'd love any creative idea!

On a happier note...

I appologize for the last somewhat whinny post! I didn't mean to depress anyone, including me! I should be grateful for being busy! Tutoring means that we have money coming in and that stress isn't as bad now. We have been SO blessed with tutoring. I have been getting calls almost every other day for new clients and my schedule is booked! I tutor Mon-Thurs from 3-8:30 with a few 30 min breaks and occasional cancelations (talk about math overload, jk). It means trying to get dinner ready by 1 or 2 and making sure that Teagan is worn out and asleep by 3, but who can complain about getting an answer to a prayer!

I've had to turn down a few customers:
1. 43 year old man who forgot the name of his math class....ya, just a little scary.
2. 18 year old who couldn't speak English...it's not racist, I just really can't tutor someone if we don't have a language in common.
3. Anyone with statistics...I cannot tutor that subject!
4. And one other person who just sounded weird, and gave me a bad feeling. You can never be too careful when you are meeting strangers!

I've only been fired twice:
1. The lady finished the online class...no offense taken
2. I suck at highschool Saxon math, thus the first appointment went horribly and they decided not to reschedule...my only excuse: Saxon math is confusing!

That is my business so far. I make enough to pay rent and buy us groceries. We even went out to Coldstones for a buy one get one night! We are livin large in the city of San Diego and life couldn't be better.

Get ready for an awesome post this weekend...we're goin to see g-ma packer for Trunk-Or-Treating. Get ready cause we are gonna have AWESOME costumes!

Overwhelmed

I have to admit that visiting teaching isn't my strong point, and it never has been. I really do love to visit people, but I just don't make time for it like I should. When Zac and I started dating I was made his mom's visiting teacher. Even when I was trying to impress my boyfriends mom, I still was horrible and only visited her once or twice in 4 months.

Last night I realized why I don't make time. I went over to visit one of our ladies after my tutoring at like 8:30 and had a ton of fun, but we just kept talking and talking. I loved it, but in the back of my head I kept thinking...I need to go home, I haven't seen Zac all day, but I love talking to girls my age. It was such a dilema! Finally I left at 10:30 feeling so guilty. I felt bad cause our lady was probably ready for us to go and because Zac likes to be asleep by 10:30 (he won't go to bed without me, never has since we've been married).

The reason I don't make time is that I know I can't help myself from visiting for hours. We laugh and joke and have so much fun, but then the fam gets put on the back burner. I wish there was some way that I could have the time to do everything. I need a whole day to spend with Zac and Teagan, another whole day for my church callings, another day for tutoring and another day to put the house together, do laundry, and blog. :)

I just feel so overwhelmed. I gave a talk a while back about prioritizing your life, but I have so many important things to do I really don't know which ones are the priorities. I know blogging isn't a priority, but I'm not giving that up. It is like my breath of fresh air. Plus, the "Unity" talk at conference said blogs create unity, so I'm really just following the prophet's command. hehe.

I guess I only get 1 day though, so I'm going to make it the best day possible. Here is my priority list:

1. Zac and Teagan --> spending time with them-loving them-they are my eternal family, I don't want to screw that up!
2. Tutoring -->we do have to eat and pay rent :)
3. Church callings --> YW and visiting teaching-there are lots of other leaders in YW and only 6 girls, they might have to pick up my slack until tutoring slows down.
4. Housekeeping-->the deep cleaning like window washing, behind the fridge, and scrubbing doors and baseboards are going to have to go out the window. Dishes, bathroom, and vacuuming only. I have officially lowered my standards for having a clean house (until my inlaws come to visit of course. hehe)
5.Blogging-->15 minute activity that I don't want to put as 5, but I should. My new rule: computer doesn't get turned on until after my to-do list is done for the day. Ouch. That one's written down so I have to follow it now. I can't believe I'm doing this to myself.

Sorry, this post is more for me processing my thoughts and getting motivated to "do it all." I just keep feeling like I'm letting people down, and that isn't okay! Especially when it's Zac and Teagan! Alright, enough venting. I need to hurry and turn off the computer so I can do my to-do list!

Zac---I'm sorry in advance

Do I have a problem telling my child "no?" Yes, I do. I try to be consistent, but today I was unsuccessful. We went to walmart and of course took a stroll down the toy aisle. Teagan loves all the toys, but which aisle did he like the best??? Dolls and barbies! My first mistake was letting him hold one of the dolls, he LOVED it. Luckily it was a boy doll, because when I told him it was time to put it back he SCREAMED and CRIED and the tears were flowing. I just felt too bad, and peer pressure was more then I could handle. There were a couple of moms who gave me the "if you let your boy have a doll it's not bad, it's not like he'll be gay" lecture. They don't realize that Zac will DIE when he finds out. Anywho, I gave it back to him because I'm the worst parent and today Teagan thinks I'm the best mom because I bought it for him, $3.

I'm hoping that he never remembers today so that he doesn't turned into one of those spoiled kids who screams when they don't get toys at the store. I need to be strong!

On a happier note, he is really funny with the doll. Especially when he tries to suck on the binkie and the baby's face.

PS: If you have a daughter, she might be getting this doll for Christmas from her cousin/friend Teagan

So much fun!

There are many items of business so here is the agenda:

1. New Favorite song
2. 5k
3. Walking
4. Peekaboo
5. Family

1. I always go through song phases. I absolutely fall in love with a song and for about a month I can hear that song any number of times and I can't get enough! My current song is Viva La Vida by Coldplay. It is some combination of his voice and the violins that intrigue me. I tried to look up the lyrics so I could try to understand the song, I think it's about a guy who realized that all his life he's been famous and popular and the leader and that as he gets older he realizes that he doesn't "rule the world" anymore. I just love this song!

Teagan loves it too! Every morning for breakfast I find it on youtube and we watch the music video. Teagan LOVES it and always bobs his head and waves his arms...which makes feeding him a little difficult. If we are in the car and it comes on the radio he gets excited with me and we sing along. I love my little buddy!


Here is the link to the video...I can't figure out how to put the video right into my blog so you'll just have to click. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvgZkm1xWPE


2. My sister-in-law Sheena (http://adamandsheena.blogspot.com/) just ran a 5K and I decided that I should probably try that at least once in my life. I went online and found a training program that will take me from the "couch to 5K" in 9 short weeks. I'm running in the Dec 13th Jingle 5K (we get to wear jingle bells while we run!!!!!). I luckily was able to drag my mom into running it with me so she is following the same program. I also got my neighbor Megan (the one with the little girl) to join me in the training and hopefully the race!!! We go to the park every morning and run our guts out then feed the ducks bread and play on the toys.

Teagan LOVES LOVES LOVES the swing! Every time we run/walk by the toys he starts hyperventalating and laughing/squealing. It is hilarious. When he finally gets to swing he LOVES it and cries when I take him out. I hope I can stay motivated!

3. Teagan's walking is so cute! He'll walk across the room now and he loves it! He always is so proud of himself after he finishes walking a long distance. There are definately battle wounds from faceplants into every object in the apartment, but he is getting sturdier every day!

4. Teagan is starting to play peekaboo with me and it is so fun. He hides behind the couch and then pops his head out and I yell peek-a-boo and he squeals. I was playing with the camera today and he thought it was especially hilarious. :)

5. Zac's family (mom, dad, jess, grandma, grandpa, and stacey) are coming for Thanksgiving and we are so excited! We are all going up to my mom's house where we get to see my brother and sister-in-law, Brian, Elise, and their kids, Ethan, Grant, and Sasha(http://bedurtschi.blogspot.com/). I think me and Teagan will go up early so he can play with his cousins for longer than a day or 2!