island park / yellowstone

last weekend we had a trip to our family's cabin is island park, idaho planned.
of course that was the weekend remington got a virus that involved diarrhea, a fever, and throwing up in my mouth. luckily only one time in my mouth, but seriously, soy formula throw up. is satan.

after a quick run to the doctor's, we got the go ahead with the trip and embarked on the five hour car ride.
car ride with pukey baby is a bad idea. projectile vomit covered me for most of the drive.
luckily, it was worth it. also it was so nice to have my mom's help all weekend with our sick, not sleeping much child. and island park was pretty nice too.

motorcycle and four wheeler rides. yes, that is snow behind us. 

despite the fever, rem decided he was ready to start crawling last weekend. 

mostly scooting, but he has taken those first "crawling steps"? or whatever. 

shooting guns, the great american pastime. 

sunday we went to yellowstone. 

 good old faithful. 

there's a place in mammoth (where we also went hot springing) where the elk just walk all around town in hordes. we heard them bugling and got close enough that a policeman got after us.

had too much fun and giggling with these two.

baby boy was so great and slept a lot of the day. here he is fast asleep in his front pack. 

yeah, it was freezing. 

also, we did some arts and crafts. i painted these for the dining room. 

of course on our way home, we had to stop

at reed's dairy for grilled cheese sandwiches

and huckleberry cheesecake ice cream. 

here's rem with grandma reed. 

it was stressful with a sick baby, 

but my mom helped A LOT. 

travis and i got to spend some time together,

rare these days, and it was great seeing 

morgan and roxanne for days in a row.

also, travis took this picture of me and i like it. 

good work trav. 

xo.

fall time.

in case you haven't looked outside, summer is over and fall is upon us. the sun sets earlier, the leaves aren't green anymore. the pool is closed.

i usually hate fall time. it started in grade school, when i dreaded going back to that red brick building and dealing with math homework and the bully who mocked me for being a bookworm. and who also called me a lesbian, a term i wasn't familiar with. 

i thought about it, and i've had a rough time with fall since my sophomore year in high school. 

sophomore year: just figuring out that i had been sexually assaulted several months earlier. 

junior year: my best friend got pregnant and our friendship was shattered. 

senior year: i had had it with high school boys only wanting one thing, so i ended up taking my revenge on a boy who had told me he liked me and then stopped calling after we made out. i ended up tricking him into "falling in love with me" and then once he told me he loved me, i broke up with him. over the phone. 

freshman year of college: i moved out and away from my first love, alex hansen. my acne went overboard that fall as well, which made living with roommates difficult. (trying to hide your acne when you share a bathroom.) 

sophomore year of college: alex left on his mission and i was devastated. spent most of my time writing him letters and listening to the voicemails i had saved from him.

junior year of college: okay, that fall was amazing, as i was living in hawaii having the time of my life. 

then i took a year off from college. that fall was awful because i missed hawaii so very much.

the next fall i was newly married and freaking out about that. 

the following fall we were trying to sell our house, i was suicidal and depressed. 

and then the next fall brings us to last year's fall, when i was pregnant and dealing with hyperemesis. 

phew. 

so this fall, i have been determined to enjoy fall. even though my favorite season, summer, is over, i'm trying to do all those cliche-y fall things to try to enjoy it more. embrace the seasons changing. 

plus it helps to be taking antidepressants. ya know. 

so these are the autumn-y things we have been up to the past month. 

scarves and boots. possibly the greatest wardrobe season is fall. 

dressing your baby in skeleton jammies. 

we like to call him "skeletor" when he wears these. and they glow in the dark. (!) 

pintresting our the front porch. 

visiting a pumpkin patch with smiley cyrus. 

having lots of soups for dinners. this was was the easiest recipe of all time. 

but still tasted good. like you know how sometimes easy recipes just taste like 

cream cheese and cream of mushroom soup? 

(don't get me wrong, i use those recipes too.) 

also, it's vegetarian, if you're into that. 

tortellini soup

1 frozen package of packaged tortellini 

1 package spinach

2 cans diced tomatoes 

4 cups vegetable broth 

i also added: 

a frozen package of veggies, including broccoli, 

snap peas, carrots, and water chestnuts 

salt, pepper, onion, garlic, sage, thyme 

black, white, and kidney beans 

i bet it would be even better with fresh everything. 

but using the frozen and canned items made it a five minute prep and 

twenty minute stove time. 

baking pumpkin chocolate chip bread. 

3 cups canned pumpkin puree 

1 1/2 cups vegetable oil (i used canola) 

4 cups sugar (i used 3 and it was plenty sweet)

6 eggs

4 3/4 cups flour 

1 1/2 tsps baking powder, baking soda, 

salt cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. 

i also made a glaze and drizzled over top using 

a combo of butter, milk, powdered sugar, and vanilla. 

just made it the consistency i wanted. 

beware, this bread will take over all your healthy eating. 

don't bake it if you won't be able to share it. you will devour it whole.

bundling up remy boy with furry hats. 

whelp, that's about it. 

i am enjoying this fall much more than those of the past. 

hope you are too! 

xo

summer catch up.

i swear more things happened this summer than me losing my mind.
let these 400000000000000 pictures prove it to you.

 we went to moab for my charles family reunion.
during this entire hike, i was freaking out that remington was going to die. from heat stroke, smothering in his bjorn carrier, or his neck being unsupported and snapping. at one point i was ready to turn back and said something like, "guys, he's all i have. i'm not having more. this is it."
luckily we stuck it out and enjoyed the rest of the day.

also, doing this hike 6 weeks postpartum was killer.

teamwork. 

sibling loves.

figuring out daily life with an infant. learning about nap schedules, how to get remy to eat, how to get anything done with a little guy taking up every second of the day.

planting the flowers travis bought me for mother's bought me for mother's day

using your child for your own selfish humor. 

we spent many a day at the pool with friends. i finally braved up (with the help of antidepressants and anti anxiety meds) and let remy get all the way in the pool. he loved playing in the water.

we went to idaho falls to stay with my grandparents for the fourth of july. sadly travis was at the fire department and had to stay in murray, but we had fun.

mom, who IS this guy with the giant bucket on his head???

holding my cousin's new baby. 

twins? no thank you.

being a firewife is rough when you have a new baby. i am thankful for travis's job and that he loves what he does, but there were definitely times this summer when i wished he could do something else. being the only parent for 48 hours at a time every week did not help my postpartum depression. still, i am very proud of travis and his hard work. 

 remy experienced his first ER visist. i was convinced (aka my postartum anxiety was convinced) that he had been injured after a family member flipped him to his stomach and he bonked his head. i insisted we take him to the ER, even though we were out of our insurance network. (in idaho.) travis told me, "you're his mom, we do what you say." of course he was totally fine. it was great to have that support from travis.

i am so glad i'm on pills now and am not such a freak about remy's safety.

travis and i celebrated our third anniversary. we decided it was fitting to go to lagoon because, "it's where fun is!" and we didn't have much fun at all the past year. other than the month before i got pregnant, we could count on one hand the amount of times we had sex our third year of marriage. we slept in separate beds for most of it, as i was too sick to co-sleep. after all that horror, we decided to ride roller coasters and be kids for a day.

things didn't quite go as planned. 

here i am after puking several times. 

it was only too fitting that i would throw up on this year's anniversary, commemorating the year we had. 

not only did i puke, but i puked up lamb. 

on two strangers. 

like all over them. 

happy anniversary. 

poor travis was pretty traumatized, probably remembering how awful it was to watch me battling hyperemesis. 

speaking of travis, he went to new mexico for a week to attend BOMB SCHOOL. for the fire department. we missed him tons 

thank goodness my mom slept over every night that week. even though it was her first week of school (she is a teacher at an online school) and she had just started a new job/promotion. (way to go mom!) 

we were so happy when travis made it home, especially after his flight was delayed an extra day. 

i celebrated my unofficial birthday party the day before the actual day with my girlfriends. of course we went to the place we loved to go when we were in junior high: 7 peaks water park. 

it was a fabulous day without babies or husbands or boyfriends. just us ladies, being crazy. 

we even were brave enough to go down the most terrifying slide, something i never would have done before the past year. after than many months on bedrest, i have more of a tendency now to go outside of my comfort zone. water slides, rock climbing in places i never thought i could, etc. 

after being in the loony bin and starving for three days, i made it down to prepregnancy weight. hallelujah. 

we gave our boy a name and a blessing in church. travis and i spoke before hand about what we wanted him to be blessed with. it was really important to me that remington know how much he changed his mother's life for the better. travis also said something to the effect that remington's smile would light up others in his life. if you know remy, you know that he is always smiling. oh our little family. we're pretty cute. 

it's been exciting to watch remington grow and develop more of his personality this summer. he loves to be on the go, doesn't love to eat his bottle, like if i wasn't his mom, he would starve to death because who else could handle fighting with him about it 6 times a day, and he smiles all the time. 

God knew i needed a smiling baby to keep me from going postpartum on him. 

not a good joke collette. 

he started rolling from front to back at three months and back to front at four. 

 giving kisses. wet kisses.

workin' the bedhead.

if you want to keep him happy, he needs something to entertain him at all times.

first time trying solids, we chose carrots. he adored them.

adventuring all summer to break up the monotony of day to day life. 

up at island park to our cabin. 

my dad may have taken remy on a four wheeler ride without my knowledge.

my dad may have been banned from remy for a few hours afterwards. 

i chopped all my hair off. 

when i was considering whether or not to go through with it, one of my brilliant friends, roxanne miller, said this. "do it. reinvent yourself." 

i loved that. i wanted to be a different person than the person i have been the past year. a person who was suffering, miserable, helpless, crazy, and sad. 

so i broke out of my comfort zone and did the chop. you know how i always do drastic things to my hair when i'm going through ish. 

i love it. 

plus it only takes about five minutes to style,

 which is awesome for the mommy thing. 

travis surprised me with an overnight get-a-way to anniversary inn. 

we stayed in the phantom of the opera room,

which was sweet because i grew up on the phantom. 

it was crazy to sleep in and then eat breakfast together

(with a bebe, you sleep and eat in shifts.) 

new beast of a camera that i LOVE. 

went to MGMT with my girlfriends. 

so much fun to go to a loud concert and dance like a fool.

love that morgan moved home. 

don't lose your mind and get committed. 

because it will cost you a fortune. 

luckily, our insurance helped a lot. 

but we are at about $11,000 for my pregnancy and then the psych ward thing. 

without insurance my pregnancy would have been in the hundred thousands. 

wild. 

and there you go. what a wild summer. 

now that we're caught up, this blog can resume normalcy. 

xo.