Jonas Gregory

Introducing Jonas Gregory Pierson

Born September 12, 2012 at 5:21 am

Weight: 8 lbs 4 oz Length: 20 1/2 inches

Beautiful auburn hair and the sweetest disposition you can imagine.

We are completely in love.

Details to come.

First day of preschool photo shoot. With a guest appearance by Elton John!

 

This kid was ecstatic to start school. Even two weeks into it he is wearing his backpack from the moment he wakes up. Nic (or myself when Nic is gone) has been helping him read every night and he is doing so well. Smart boy with some killer style.

The Bebe

I haven't posted much about this pregnancy, and I know I will regret that later, so here is a little something about the last 9 months. This pregnancy was quite a bit harder than my first two. I was sicker for longer, and my body just hasn't felt like its holding up the way it did before. Like I feel like I'm going to just snap in half with every movement. I think that is pretty common the more pregnancies you have, though, and other than the usual aches and pains I have had a very healthy pregnancy. I am so grateful for that. I think moms have a special connection with all of their children and find them to be special in their own way. With this baby, I have felt like I have known who he is before I even got pregnant with him. Without getting too overly personal, I told Nic that I thought we should have another baby because I had such a strong impression and feeling about his baby. Its been a very sweet experience and I am beyond happy and grateful to be this guy's momma.

 

I have not loved being photographed this pregnancy. I've been swollen and just felt generally yucky, but again, I'll be upset if I don't have anything on here documening this process. So here it is.

 



Beginning of May (These pictures are post work-out. Hence the spandex.)

End of June (Again, post work-out. I was able to work out 5 days out of the week for most of this pregnancy which, despite being hard a lot of days, has proved to be a blessing.)

And finally 38+ weeks. Yeah. I'm pretty much ready to explode. 

 

Any day now I get to meet this sweet boy. The kids are excited, Nic is excited, I am excited. Just a lot of excitment going on. So stay tuned...

Donut Falls

We are very pleased that our near and dear friends the Wilsons have recently moved to Utah. We became very close with this family while attending medical school in Pennsylvania and have since had the opportunity to visit and travel with them despite our separation for residency. Matt recently joined a practice here in the valley and so, for the time being, we have our buddies close by. Heather and I took the kids to zoo a few weeks ago and we had a great time. Their son Paxton and Mason are about a year and a half apart, but get along really well. Sage and their youngest Lincoln are only about a month apart, and though they don't really pay much attention to each other yet, I have already betrothed them. So their future is more or less decided.

 

For our first adventure reunited (husbands included) we decided to take the kids up to Donut Falls. Its a pretty and short hike that turned out to be perfect for our kids (despite both my kids biffing it at some point along the trail and struggling to deal with the resulting injuries). It was really nice having a chance to catch up with our friends and we are hoping for many more adventures together.

 

Mason and Paxton

Breaking at the falls.

Sage and Lincoln. Seriously, could they be any cuter?

 

Matt, Nic and the big boys scrambled up the near the falls a bit. Large pregnant ladies and mother's of toddlers (and those of us who are both) stayed behind.

 

There were a couple of chipmunks who were not shy about wanting our crackers. Lincoln and Sage thought they were pretty great and at some point they both wanted to hold one. 



 

We didn't bring our backpack for Sage, assuming she could probably walk most of the way. Despite the mentioned "biff" early on in the hike, she did pretty well. Though there were some spots that were not very toddler friendly.

 

Buddies.



 

 

Thanks for hiking around with us Wilson family. Lets do it again soon.

The finger.

The other day at the dinner table Mason was emphatically telling me something pertaining to the number one (I can't for the life of me remember what it was). The only finger he would use to emphasize his point, however, was his middle finger. So over and over again he was showing it to me. Nic thought it was pretty funny and snapped this picture.

The Barfs.

We had a pretty intense case of the barfs a few weeks ago (luckily Nic and I were spared, though I feel a little guilty saying that). The morning after I had a doctors appointment so I left the kids with Nic. Both kids were feeling better, so Nic brought them outside to sit while he worked on the yard. After a little while he couldn't find Sage and he started to get pretty worried. He then found the poor thing fast asleep on the step in our garage. She was still in her jammies with her hair in braids from the night before (my occasionally successful attempt at keeping barf out of her hair). Such a sad and sweet little creature.



Snugs

 

Dinosaur National Monument

I mentioned before that Nic has been moonlighting a lot in Roosevelt, UT. This has resulted in him being gone for a week here or there all summer long. (In fact, he is in Roosevelt as we speak. And I am 38+ weeks pregnant. Yeah. We are hoping for a nice calm weekend). Well, a few weeks ago the kids and I decided we were going to head out to no man's land and visit Roosevelt. Lucky for us Roosevelt is only a few miles away from Vernal, UT which is only a few miles away from Dinosaur National Monument. We found lots to do to occupy the weekend and really enjoyed our time on that side of the state. While Nic is there he is the only functioning radiologist in town (Roosevelt) and so he was tied up for a lot of the time, but he was able to break away every now and then to play with us. We stayed one night in the town home they offer to Nic in Roosevelt, and the next night we spent in Vernal. I found that I really liked Vernal. Its a cute little town.

Day 1:

The kids and I drove to Roosevelt, visited Nic at the hospital, played in the park in the rain, and then headed to the town house (which was super nice). We ate at a nasty restaurant (Roosevelt is NOT known for its culinary...well...anything) and got a good nights sleep.

Day 2:

Nic had to work so the kids and I headed to Vernal to check out the Dinosaur Museum and the Rec Center. 

Here are the kids posing in front of what I quickly learned was the "old" museum.

Here are the kids pretending to be dinosaurs in the garden of the new museum.

That would be a T-Rex claw.

The museum itself isn't very big, but it was nice. And the kids were both free, so I certainly can't complain.

In the movie that they play it showed how fossils are formed and when Mason saw the formation of a leaf fossil he got really excited and immediately following the movie we had to go out to the garden to find this sidewalk imprint that he had seen earlier.

I told him to smile creepy like this dinosaur. He did pretty well.

The rest of day 2 was spent at the Rec Center in Vernal. They have a pretty fun indoor swimming area and the kids and I spent five hours there. Most of these hours were spent around the playground thing that is surrounded by about 2 feet of water. My big, fat pregnant body trying to float around in such a shallow amount of water was likely the most unflattering thing the people of Vernal had ever experienced. That combined with the fact that Sage wanted me to take her down the tiny tube slide like 400 times (every time I would "beach" myself at the bottom and have to "scoot" myself out) made for an extremely ridiculous sight (eventually I got her to do it on her own, but it was a little daunting for a small child). Luckily Mason's favorite was the extremely fast moving "Lazy River", so I did get some time in water that was actually past my waist. The kids had a blast and again, we all slept well that night.

Day 3:

Nic took the morning "off" (aka clinging to his pager, ready to bolt at first beep) and we headed to the Quarry in Dinosaur National Monument. This place was really cool. Its basically a big wall that was once a river bed and therefore has hundreds of huge fossils in it. They just built a big building around it and its pretty impressive.

(P.S. Try to ignore my general roundness. This pregnancy has resulted in some serious swelling issues. Oh. And I'm like 8.5 months pregnant.)

Sage mapping out our plans of action.

After the quarry, Nic headed back to Roosevelt and the kids and I headed deeper into the park to check out some petroglyphs. These too were impressive. Actually, the whole place was pretty interesting. I would recommend it.

Slanted Rocks. The geography of the area is really interesting.

We ended our trip at Josie Bennett's cabin. This lady lived all alone in this cabin, without electricity or any modern amenities, until her death. She was actually connected to some pretty famous outlaws and had kind of a cool story.

And she had some seriously cool property. I might consider living here without electricity too. Or maybe not. But it was cool.

"Welcome to my home!"

After our trip to the cabin the kids and I headed back to Salt Lake. It was a quick trip, but the drive there is absolutely beautiful and we all had a really great time.