2013 Flashback

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas!  It was such a fun couple of days for us as we celebrated with my family early, and then enjoyed Christmas morning at home, followed by a fun filled day with Marcus' family. I think it's safe to say there were good eats, good treats, and good people.

I wanted so badly to make a newsletter to send out that covered our top events from 2013, but alas....finals were the week before Christmas and that didn't leave me enough time to make one and get them delivered before Christmas.  So I have decided to give you our list in our blog.  Here it goes.

Thiemann Top Eight of 2013:

1. Marcus and I celebrated 3 years of being married (coming up on 4 in February). It has been such a great three (almost four) years. I married my best friend, and he has become even more "bestly" as the years go by!

2.  Bryker turned 1 in March!! I can't believe it. He will be 2 before we know it. It has gone by so fast. He brings us so much joy and so many laughs! He loves to talk, loves books, guys, balls, puzzles, animals, and cars. He is very much a boy!  I think we have also hit the terrible twos, but we love him anyway!

3.  In May, Marcus took the MCAT to get into medical school and did great! I am so proud of his hard work. I know it wasn't easy for him to go to school, be a husband and daddy, and still find time to study for the MCAT, but he is so smart and he made it work!  

4.  In June I turned 22.  Marcus finished the MCAT just in time to celebrate my birthday. I got spoiled, as usual!  It was a fun day with just the three of us.

5.  October was a busy month.  We moved across town to a basement apartment.  It was hard to leave our Maple West friends, but little did we know this was preparing us for what was ahead...

6.  Also in October, Marcus flew to Kansas City, Missouri for his first medical school interview.  A couple of weeks later we found out he had been accepted!  We were so excited! After fasting and prayer we decided Kansas City is where we needed to be and we withdrew his application elsewhere.  So, to Missouri we go next summer!! We are looking forward to the adventure!

7.  November was Marcus' 26th birthday!  He is getting so old ;)  man I love him. He is the best husband and daddy in the world!

8.  December has been chaotic.  As the semester drew to a close I felt busier than ever.  I did my internship this semester, and was very blessed to be at Compassion and Hope Pregnancy Center.  The ladies I met will forever be my friends.  The best part about making it to December was that I GRADUATED!!  After 4 1/2 (long) years of college I am finally done!  I am more excited to be a stay at home mommy than I can put into words!!

This whole year has come with so many blessings.  We have been blessed financially as Marcus is the only one working, blessed to see Bryker learn and grow in so many ways, blessed to know that our  Heavenly Father knows us and has a better plan for us than what want it to be, blessed to have Marcus get accepted to medical school so we can begin the next step of our lives, and blessed as I was able to pass my economics class...yes, that was questionable.  

Here are a couple of pictures of our Christmas celebrations! Thank you for your love and friendship, and thank you to all of those who helped me get my degree. We wouldn't have made it without all of the help we received!

Calendar picture on Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve Jammies, bright flash!

Picture with the tree. Notice the change in his pj's, his diaper leaked!

Playing with his new toys

Exhausted after a long morning of playing with toys!

Happy New Year! 

Summer Is Over Already?

I'm blogging later in the month than I normally do, but when I sat down at the beginning of the month I realized we hadn't really done anything blog worthy.  So I guess July was not very exciting here in little Pocatello! 

Amy and Matt and their 3 boys were here all summer, so we spent a lot of time with them which was awesome! It was fun for Bryker to be able to get to know their cute family.  One of his new favorite things to say is Maymee.  He loves his Aunt Amy.  And the rest of his Aunts too :) I don't want to get into any trouble here!

Joha, my new Venezuelan sister, and her daughter Nella came and spent a couple of weeks at the Thiemann's house too this summer.  It was so fun to have them here! Nella is the cutest! My one year of Spanish in high school didn't get me very far apparently because I couldn't understand her, haha, but her and Bryker got along so well! We were sad to see them go!

Well, with summer winding down quickly we decided we had better have some fun.  These last few weeks we managed to make 3 big trips and do a few other things along the way.  The mall here does a back to school fashion show or something and Bryker and I got roped into being in it.  It wasn't too bad.  I got my hair done and got to dress up and walk down a runway with my little man.

Grandpa Blanscett volunteers at a Dinosaur museum in Ogden, so the Blanscett clan piled into 2 vans made the trek down to see the dino's and Grandma and Grandpa!  I thought Bryker might be afraid of the big dinosaurs, but he totally loved them! We will have to go back!

This was the lab.  These Dinosaurs moved and made noises.  It was awesome!

Bryker and Grandpa Blanscett, not sure why Grandma wasn't in this!

Touching real dinosaur skin.  Bryker refused to touch it though!

5 of the boys! We missed Jordan and Emma!

We also stopped to Grandma and Grandpa Ferrin on our way home! It was good to see them!

Riding the bucking barrel at Chris and Kara's house

Canoeing! This is the pond I had my bridal pictures taken on!

Bryker and Nella playing the piano...also got a bridal picture taken at this piano.  

Trip to the Tautphaus Park Zoo in Idaho Falls with the Thiemann's! 

This tiger was his favorite

Saying goodbye to Joha and Nella. We miss them!

Marcus has a training in Boise every year for work and this year I decided that we would go with him. Here are a few pictures from that trip!

Little aquarium in Boise. Bryker loves fish!

This bright yellow one seemed to be the one he like most

splashing a lot in the tide pools

Ann Morrison Park

Shoshone Falls on the way home!

I know I always apologize for too many pictures, but this one takes the cake.  I had so many things to blog about today!  School has begun now so family time is hit and miss.  I am so glad we were able to do some fun things before we went back.  This is my last semester so between my classes and internship it's a little overwhelming.  Don't be surprised if I don't blog again for a while, but I will do my best to keep you all updated on our busy lives!

A Lot to Celebrate!

What an eventful month! It has certainly been full of fabulous things to celebrate! Here is a quick review of everything that has kept us busy and partying:

First came Father's Day! It has been so fun to watch Marcus as a daddy.  He is such an amazing dad.  There is no questioning how much he loves Bryker, or how much Bryker loves him!  For a while I thought Marcus was going to have to stop passing the sacrament because Bryker would distract the whole back half of the chapel with his (loud) desire to have his daddy.  I love my boys, I cannot imagine what I ever did without them! 

My two boys on Father's Day! Unfortunately Bryker blinked in every picture so this is the best I've got. 

I seriously love these two! Bryker's Jammies were wet when he woke up so we put him in a matching shirt with his dad for breakfast.  Best buds forever right here!

Months of preparation and a five hour test later (which meant 5 hours of stressing for me and our moms!), Marcus is done with the MCAT!  What a relief it is to have that over with! Now we get to play the waiting game; at least 30 days from the day he took the test until we find out his score.  Meanwhile we have been filling out applications.  Who knew deciding where to apply could be such a task!  While the unknown is always a little unnerving it has been fun to look up the schools together and think about where the adventure of medical school might take us. 

With the MCAT out of the way we were able to do some "Spring" cleaning.  It has been needing to happen for a long time! Fortunately we had a cute helper!

Trying on Dad's crazy hat! 

He's finally big enough for his baseball hat, and to our surprise, he LOVES it! 

Sitting in the top of our closet, and yes...that's my leaning tower of pants :/ hence the need for Spring cleaning!! 

 We took Bryker swimming for the first time! He had fun!

Loved the slide, even though the water on it was freezing!

Next was my Birthday! The three of us spent my birthday doing things that Bryker would enjoy, and to be completely honest I didn't mind at all.  It was awesome to just spend the day as a family.  We forgot to bring the camera to all of our activities, so bear with the poor quality of these next few pictures!

Started out the morning with a yummy breakfast made by cute Marcus!

Mini golfing! Bryker helped Marcus with a hole and they got a hole in one!  He also insisted on carrying one of the balls so we had to take turns putting with the other one; good thing he's cute!

Costa Vida in the park for dinner! Then off to Mckee's petting zoo! 

Marcus was sweet enough to put Bryker to bed so that I could have a quick girl's night to finish off my birthday. It was so fun! I have the best husband!

Showing off his big muscles in Nana's pool

Big slip n' slide with the Thiemann's!

Finally, Independence Day! Nothing like celebrating the Fourth of July with a parade, two barbecues, fireworks with cousins and (attempting to watch) "The Biggest Show in Idaho."

 Here's Bryker and Papa at the parade! It was long and hot.

Sparklers! First time he's seen them and not sure what to think!

Sitting on a mountain waiting for fireworks.

Unfortunately the show was delayed due to wind and didn't start until after we gave up and went home!

We did manage to see a few from our apartment though, so at least Bryker got a taste of what fireworks are!

We're really glad that the weather has finally warmed up (maybe even a little too warm) so we can enjoy the outdoors! I think I'm going to be brave enough for us to go camping at least once this summer! Bryker hasn't ever been so it will be an adventure! 

Sorry for all of the pictures, I tried to be selective but it's hard when you have the cutest boys in the world :) I am definitely the luckiest girl ever!