BE Knutson

(trumpet sound) Announcing: Dillan Romney Knutson

2011-10-23T20:57:00.000-06:00

So Dillan is almost six weeks old now, and is as cute as ever! I know we are slackers but here are a bunch of pictures.

Really scary picture of me but aren’t all first baby pictures with their mother? Dillan arrived on Sept 14 at 8:02 p.m.. They started me that morning, but we never made progress (because he was so big). The ultrasound we did the day before guessed his weight to be 9 lbs. 7 oz. Luckily, he wasn’t quite that big. He weighed in at 8 lbs. 15 oz. The doctor gave us the option of going home and trying again the next day or having a C-section that night (that in his opinion was the best, because we would most likely have to have one anyway). We decided to have the C-section. Everything went great, and now we have the most perfect little boy!

My boys are so cute!This was his first bath (at home). Given to him by Dad and Grandma Hulet. He didn’t enjoy it.

He has a crazy swirl cowlick in the very front of his hair line. Apparently it is a Stewart family thing.

He is a pretty smiley kid, but as of this week he started to smile when we talk to him.

(Brennan writing now) We do miss our sleep (poor Emma hasn’t slept for more than 3 hours at a time for over a month) and he is kinda messy (we’ve certainly put our new washer through its paces) and sometimes he can be pretty Loud (particularly his flatulence) but we wouldn’t change a thing because there’s nothing we love more than our BOUNCING BABY BOY!... except maybe each other. ;)

Football, walk, and a talent show

2011-10-23T20:43:00.002-06:00

Brennan (and Trevor) is on a flag football team, and I am really excited to go to the games. He already had one so Dillan and I geared up (okay is was only 65 degrees, but in Moab that is COLD). We will most likely stay in the car next time.

Their team name is the Spicy Lumberjacks. Isn’t it obvious?

The game has some pretty goofy rules, but in spite of that Brennan was actually on his feet for most of the game, and he only blocked his own teammate once! And they managed to stay on the scoreboard … their little zero stayed lit up the entire time! If you squint it kind of looks like it could be an eight though. We took Dillan on his first walk yesterday there are some really fun trails inside of Moab, we will have to explore them all.

Although we are not in the Moab 1st ward (we bought a house!) we went and participated in their talent show. It is a talented ward. We saw skits, dances, songs, some stand up comedians, a lady with her “trained” pets (which sadly I missed on account of a stinky diaper), awesome cross stitches and other sewing projects, paintings, wood carving, etc. Brennan thought we should put Dillan on the display table and say, “Look what we made”. In the end we sang a song as the Van Knut Family Singers (Mom, Dad, Reyce, Trevor, Sarah, Brennan, and I). It was a song called “The Testimony Song” (I think) it is really funny, look it up. Dad, Trevor, and Brennan also did a Humorous reading of “Chess” also very funny. Brennan and Trevor did the sound effects and some of the characters while Dad narrated. It was really fun, and even though we didn’t get to be in the first ward very long I still feel like we are grandfathered in because we are Knutsons :)

Dillan Up-date ( this post was actually written about two months ago, I was just having technical difficulties)

2011-10-23T20:33:00.000-06:00

Dillan is the most exciting thing that has happened to us EVER… we just wish he would get here. I was looking at a couple in our old ward’s blog. There baby was born at 25 weeks! They are amazing people, and were so fun to get to know. My heart aches for them. This is their third baby, she is still alive, and it sounds like doing really good for not having a very big chance of survival (their two other kids both lived a few hours and then passed away). It really puts my life into perspective of how blessed Brennan and I are to have a healthy baby boy, and an uncomplicated pregnancy.

Dillan was making progress working his way down and then he got stage fright. The doctor thought he might come a little early because he was making progress so quickly, and at our last appoint, yesterday, I think he was trying to consol us because Dillan could be a while. Here is a picture of him at our last ultrasound (it is really fuzzy). His head is on the bottom right (profile) and the two floating knobs are his hands. The cutie is sucking his thumb. I just hope it won’t be a hard habit to break when he gets out. I was going to be really good at taking a belly picture every month, but that never happened. This is one of the few we have taken (Brennan wanted his belly in the picture too). this is me at ninish weeks.

Here I am full term at 39 weeks. I feel really big, but doctors and nurses keep commenting on how fortunate I am because I haven’t gotten gigantic.

People keep asking me what I do all day when Brennan is gone, so I’ll tell you. • Unpacking our stuff to the halfway house (now I get to do it all over again in our new house).• I’ve been making Dillan a quilt (the top is not quite finished I still have to sew on the boarder)• I made an elephant for him. I’ve made quite a few stuffed animals but this one was by far the hardest and most complicated it took me months. I also made him a couple of crochet cats which only took about two days apiece (go figure. I am going to have to find some more crochet patterns because they are SO much faster than knitting).• My Mom came and visited us for a couple days and we finished a super cute advent Christmas calendar. • I have been doing tons of research on everything involved with buying a house.• Proudly, I have joined the extreme couponing world as well. I am still a beginner but I saved $72 on one shopping trip! • On Sundays I get to teach the 8 and 9 year olds; which has been fun. They are super cute kids. I also to sub in Sunbeams for a month. That was an adventure. Now I can officially say that I have taught every Primary class• We have been washing and organizing all of Dillan’s stuff which has been hard considering we don’t know when we will be moving officially.• Reading books (of course)• I can’t forget sleeping either. Everyone keeps telling us how we are going to be tired from now until our last child has gone to college, so I’ve been taking advantage of the opportunity to sleep.• And of course chores around the house.I have really enjoyed being pregnant and feeling Dillan, getting to hear his heart beat, etc., but I’m also looking forward to being able to play with the little guy, roll over at night, not die from heartburn, or have my hips pop all the time (Brennan told me I sounded like rice crispy cereal (snap, crackle, and pop)). Some day soon!

Catch up

2011-09-07T18:55:00.000-06:00

Yikes! I did it again. My goal was to be a more consistent blogger, but I get easily distracted and am technologically challenged when it comes to blogging. I love reading other peoples blogs. So when I mean to update our blog I spend all my time looking at other peoples. Anyway our lives this spring/summer have been crazy. Starting off we graduated Yeah! To celebrate we went to Disneyland. It was Brennan’s first time and I hadn’t been since I was seven. We had a blast, and I am really excited to take Dillan when he is older. Next time, I want to go when I’m not pregnant. I haven’t swollen the entire time except at Disneyland, from all the walking. We ate tons too. After all what is a vacation without tons of food? Outback Steak house, Cheese Cake Factory, and the giant covered strawberries in the park Yum! I also gained about 8 pounds which is what I wanted (I never thought I would write or say those words, but I was behind on my pregnancy wieght)
Brennan was really hot so he played in the water with all the other little kids:) We pretty much were little kids the whole time screaming and laughing on all the rides.
In this picture I think I am about 23 weeks pregnant.

After Disneyland we moved to Moab. Brennan started his job and that weekend was Grandma and Grandpa Stewart’s 60th along with the Stewart family reunion. I am slowly figuring out who people are and how we are all related. It has been really fun getting to live closer to Brennan’s side of the family, but of course I really miss my side. Especially being able to go to soccer games, birthday parties, dance recitals, etc. It wouldn’t be so bad if we could visit more often but I’m in my last trimester. I am really looking forward to Dillan’s baby blessing when they come over. We did get to go to Parowan for the fourth of July (which I still don’t have pictures of Mom (hint hint0) and for my Baby shower April and Sandy gave me (thanks again!).

Brennan participated in the annual Moab Library Cardboard Boat Race. The Elders Quorum decided to do it as an activity. I am not going to lie I was skeptical. There plan was for eight men to fit into the boat (more row power). Brennan would go up to the shop and work on it a couple of evenings a week. They started a month early which paid off in the end because they got second! They figured out the weight in the boat it was 1755 lbs. WOW! The Young Women and the Young Men both competed too. The Young Men’s boat survived, and the Young Women’s boat disintegrated within 5 feet of the shore. Its alright though because they still got a bigger trophy for the “most like the Titanic award”.

We have had tons of fun this summer and can't wait for Dillan to come!!!

Its a...

2011-05-04T16:33:00.000-06:00

BOY! We got to see more of our baby last week and found out we are having a boy. We are going to (most likely) name him Dillan Romney Knutson. We are so excited for our little guy. He is pretty wiggly and big! He measures a week or two big for his gestational age (20 weeks (half way there!)). Brennan was really big when he was born. I am a little concerned:/ Anyway here is a sneek peek of our son.

This is him at nine weeks (he is an inch long in this picture).

Graduation Update

2011-05-04T16:10:00.000-06:00

For anyone who is interested we are graduating this weekend! Clayton Christensen (my Mother's cousin) is speaking on Friday afternoon at 4:30, and we are walking on Saturday at 1:30, both in the Centrum. I never really thought graduation would come. It was always this far distant dream that never seemed to get closer. But WE MADE IT! I am graduating with an Elementary Education degree with an emphasis in Integrated Studies (Summa Cum Laude) and Brennan's is a Communication degree with an emphasis in Broadcasting. We went to the SUU Media Awards banquet a couple weeks ago. They gave out awards (gold, silver, and bronze) for radio, newspaper, and the T.V. station. Brennan leaned over in the middle and said, "So, I am most likely not going to get an award at this thing, but hey I have a job so...thats all that really counts." At the end of the banquet they gave two awards for distinguished service in all the communications programs and Brennan got one of them. Conclusion: Brennan is amazing because he already has a couple job opportunities and got an award for his outstanding contribution of SUU's radio, T.V. station, and newspaper. The only draw back...his name reads Brennan Knutsen.

Happy Birthday to us=D

2011-05-04T15:54:00.000-06:00

April is a great month because we get to celebrate four birthdays, but the best part is that two of them are ours. We got spoiled this year. I got a Cricut and rocking chair (sometime in the near future), and Brennan got a book, movie, and an iPad (also sometime in the near future). We also got gift cards and money for dates. So Thanks everyone for the great gifts and cards!

Ketchup Pictures

2011-04-19T14:22:00.000-06:00

Here are some pictures we have been meaning to post for a while:/

We finally got to eat the top of our wedding cake! Brennan has been begging me all year to let him eat it. The cake tasted really good for being a year old. Also for our anniversary Brennan bought me baby stuff and I took him to the "King's Singers" concert.

These next pictures are from Christmas. Brennan was trying to bounce three kids on a giant exercise ball...it didn't end well, but there were no tears.

Over Christmas we hiked "Bow Tie Arch"

My goal (now that I am done with school) is to be a better blogger, so look for more posts soon:)

Bwah huh?!?

2011-02-08T22:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, lemme splain ... on second thought, too much time, lemme sum up ...

It is well past our bedtime, but Emma and I are both at the computer lab while she finishes some of her Americorp service stuff. I just finished cleaning for four hours, and frantically trying to put together a newscast.

In preparation for graduating this upcoming May, Emma is virtually half way through her student teaching (WOOT!) and I am taking a bunch of filming classes that are required for my major, but irrelevant to my chosen career path, including being the sports producer for SUTV news every Tuesday. Don't ask me how that one happened. One of the regular news anchors was sick today and I ended up taking her spot. We have half an hour to fill and were running about 15 minutes fast. After stretching my sports section, my co-anchor and I then ad-libbed our way through the final five minutes of the show. Quite spectacular. Check out the newsbreaks on suunews.com.

I am however doing a radio show every saturday morning at 10 am. I have a co-host there as well, and we pretty much run our hour like your average morning show. We made an on-air wager on our respective superbowl teams that the loser would have to karaoke to a song of the other's choice live on the show and well ... I'll be sure to record it to share. Maybe I can post it somehow.

I no longer write for the newspaper, but am the Copy chief. As such my involvement with the paper is greatly reduced, which I am very thankful for.

Emma no longer works at Deseret Book, and i am trying to balance three part-time jobs and be a full-time student/husband/home-teacher/ward mission leader. YAY! Meanwhile Emma has to deal with a bunch of delinquent second graders for 8 hours a day, and then spend the rest of her day getting ready to do it all over again. Personally i wouldn't switch places with her if offered the chance. We get to spend about an hour a day with each other in the afternoons ... usually in the form of a nap.

Tis life! Anyway, it is now our bed time. More later ... hopefully not 4 months later. =S

Writing and Teaching

2010-10-04T14:41:00.001-06:00

So I'm a published writer! YAY for me! Jordan tried to convince me to put my stories here on the blog, but I think it will be easier to just post the link to the website. Here it is:

suunews.com

Easy enough, right? I'm pretty sure if you search my name, you'll be able to find the stories and articles I've done so far this year. Don't miss my story on the religious panel and matching opinion article, as well as the opinion article on dating and matching scathing comments from readers. I thought it was in good humor, but apparently it is easier to offend people than I thought.

Emma just finished her first practicum in the block, meaning she took over a class of 4th graders all by herself for two whole days! She is so brave. She'll be going to Price in a few weeks to do the same thing, and I won't see her for an entire week! =...(

Thankfully the newspaper has taken over my life sufficiently that I should remain fairly occupied for the duration of her absence.

I was planning on doing the newspaper thing for the rest of school, but Emma and I have prayerfully decided that I'm going to shift back to my original plan-- radio! The plan is to give up this particularly insufficient source of income/insatiable consumer of time job for a better paying one, and just do the radio practicums and gun for a payed internship over the summer. I'll still write of course, there's nothing wrong with a bit of freelance to supplement an income, but we'll see how well it all works out in the long run. That's about it for now, if we remember to update this thing more frequently we might get some more random funny stuff. Yay Autumn, BOO Winter!

2010-08-04T20:09:00.000-06:00

So, Emma had planned a "kidnapping" for over a month, and never revealed her plan to me. She didn't even tell me what direction we were going until day of! We had an awsome day date and stopped at Cove Fort, went through the Manti Temple where we met Julie B. Beck and her husband, and watched the Mormon Miracle Pageant. SO AWSOME!! She's such a sweetheart.

Cove Fort Wagon ride!

ahh... simply Celestial.

This... I'm not sure what this is... but it was definitely fun!!

2010-08-04T19:49:00.000-06:00

UTAH SUMMER GAMES!!!

Boogie Nights

So Brennan comes to me and whispers, "Can I build a giant cardboard slide on the stairs?" We were tending our niece and nephew. I said okay if you promise they wont die or go to the hospital!

Emma wanted to donate her hair to locks of love. The epic hair cut!

Emma's culinarily contrived birthday brownie pig, by Brennan

Easter Eggs!!

2010-08-04T19:41:00.001-06:00

Honeymoon pics

2010-08-04T19:22:00.001-06:00

We had a wild honeymoon... oh yeah, and we saw some animals too.

We are now Bremma forever more

2010-03-24T16:51:00.000-06:00

The deed is done! We are now husband and wife, for all eternity. Be still my heart! Life is great, and we hit the grind hard after our amazing honeymoon, which was full of great lessons on how to take what comes and love it.

We left Cedar City early Saturday the day after our wedding and fortunately beat the insanely massive storm that closed down the interstate on top of Jordan and Jaicees (sorry guys) So that was good. We were able to stop at the Timpanogas temple to see the sealing of a family I worked with and one of the Elders from my mission, which was sweet. The first minor kink in the plans came when we stopped at the Melting Pot in Salt Lake, which is apparently more popular than we thought cuz they were booked solid and we didn't think to make a reservation. However, I must say the Olive Garden was a most EXCELLENT substitute, and that I plan on ordering the chicken and shrimp carbonara from now on.

We finished the LONG drive past Rexburgh and into Montana. During the last exhausted leg of our journey we managed to get pulled over for speeding (emma was being VERY distracting =), run over a cat, and get lost in West Yellowstone before we pulled into our cabin very late. We lounged in our quaint lil' cabin all of Sunday and then tried to explore the park on Monday. Upon approaching the entrance, the signs clearly indicated "No Wheeled Vehicles Allowed Beyond This Point" even though there was a plainly paved and painted road emerging from the melting snow. We stopped in town to ask how to get in the park only to be told "You Don't. It's closed till April." Okay, so that's kind of a major kink in the plans. So we simply enjoyed the town's local dines, the bear and wolf reserve, some rented movies and books... but mostly we just enjoyed eachother's company. ;D

After the open house in Moab, it was back to reality. Our house currently looks like the aftermath of a tornado in the Home/Appliances section of Walmart. We've got one more month of school, name change, financial aid, taxes, SCHOOL...

It's just marital bliss!

It's the final countdown...

2010-02-26T11:32:00.000-07:00

Two weeks from today, the sun will rise on our new life together as husband and wife.
YEAH BABY!!!

A peaceful relaxing weekend? Depends on how you look at it...

2010-02-02T08:54:00.000-07:00

It all started when Emma's parents bought us a mattress for our new apartment. Its a lovely little place, actually the basement of a house, but quite quaint. We've got a nice big yard with an outdoor fireplace, and a HUGE garden in the back with an antique tractor to run (reminds me of home)! So anyway, our first furnishings were the queen bed and a free rug, "a wedding gift to you from Rocky Mountain Furniture!;D" Emma is to live there for the next month, and I for the last two weeks before we are Wed.

After moving in Saturday morning, My roommate Zach and I headed out to help one of our ward members unstuck his truck from the bottom of a canyon. It was the result of not following spiritual promptings according to his talk the Sunday before last. Anyway we started at noon with about 20 strapping young men, pushing, grunting and shoving in the snow and mud as hard as they could and let me tell you, we pushed that thing forward at the screaming pace of exactly one foot per hour. To make an excruciatingly long story short, one broken come-along, a 9,000 pound winch and 6 hours later we had successfully given Alice (the truck) back her freedom at the mere expense of our backs and the feeling in our faces and digits.

Meanwhile, Emma was stoically continuing in her current role as preemptive breadwinner for us. Yay for bread! Love ya hon. ;)

Sunday we enjoyed a family fast, church, and breaking the family fast at Mom Hulet's house with hamburgers and baked potatoes which were G-E-W-D GEWD! Yus indeed. I also received a call from my landlord telling me he had been able to miraculously sell my contract in the middle of the semester after all and that I would need to move out the next day. While I would no longer have to pay an extra $275 until the end of the semester, I was now homeless. Hooray? I negotiated my way into an empty room in my current house for just another month, keeping me from taking over Emma's old room in the Sunshine House.

As the evening started wrapping up we began loading Emma's car with gifts from the bridal shower to unload at our apartment. Now you would think I would've learned what not to do to prevent getting stuck anywhere after my experience Saturday, but being the manly man I am, It takes more than an experience like that to learn me anything. I was certain that I could escape the untouched snow NEXT to the driveway when I drove twenty feet into it. Why not park in the driveway? I blame Emma for turning my brain to mush whenever I'm around her.

After killing the car trying to unstuck it, waiting for it to unflood after trying to restart it, some failed watercolor experiments ("It's wetter than a dog... that's wet!"), and some more pushing and grunting (and LOTS of praying) we were headed back to Cedar a bit later than originally anticipated, and EXTREMELY tired.

Monday consisted of early work for both of us (I finally got a job cleaning at the college) me frantically emptying my room, and Emma frantically finishing homework. We decided to make ourselves sick at the end of the day by halfing a large five-buck Pizza and some Raspberry Lemonade. Mmmmm.

Life sure has its ups and downs, doesn't it?

Engagement Pictures=D

2010-01-25T11:56:00.000-07:00

Here are some of our most favorite engagement pictures. Brandi took these pictures at the St. George Opera House. It was really fun. If you are wondering why we are screaming in the picture of us wading our feet. Its because the water was FREEZING!!

Our first Post!

2009-12-31T14:27:00.000-07:00

So Emma and I decided to start a blog! This is my first attempt, and it will be an adventure to see how it all turns out. It's New Years Eve and Emma and her mother Susan are furiously attempting to pound out a list of invitation recepients. For those of you who have done this, you'll understand when I say the frustration is palpable. To the untrained eye it might even appear that I'm playing on the computer while they are hard at work, but such an idea is of course absurd... I'm dutifully fulfilling my assignment to stay outta the way. So there.

Wedding preparations are consuming our lives right now, and the beginning of a new semester is imminent. I finally have some leads on part time work, and we're (by this I of course mean me) trying to get better at budgeting and thrift so as not to be too destitute when we start out. (pray for us... hard)

We spent the holidays here in Parowan with Emma's family, and enjoyed jumping between her Dad and brothers' and mom's homes all Christmas. I even got to be a wise guy... I mean wiseman at the annual Hulet Christmas Eve Nativity Reenactment, a great honor to be bestowed upon a newcomer such as myself.

Other than that, we're great! (but keep praying for us... seriously.)
We love you all!