We are Officially Olympians

Brendan, Cruz, and I are officially living in Olympia now. We had our doubts if it was really going to happen (as many of you know last year we were suppose to move to Maple Valley, and things fell apart the day we were suppose to move. I guess it wasn't suppose to happen). There is so much to recap on.

The Wednesday before the move I went out to dessert with a few of my friends. It was so fun having a last get together before I left. I already miss you guys. I pray that I can find as fun of a group of girls in my new ward.
My mom was nice enough to come up, from Portland, the day before the big move and helped me finish cleaning and packing. I don't know what I would have done without her there. Cruz was a sweetheart with all of the chaos going on at our home. He just slept and played all day.

We had finished packing everything up at about three and the ward wasn't coming to help us move until six. So we decided to get a jump start on packing up the truck. We should have waited and gotten all of the big stuff in first. We got about half of the boxes and the couch in and the truck was still very empty. When a few guys from the ward came we told them that we really didn't need to pack up that high and so we didn't. Lets just say we barely fit everything in the truck (and we had a 22 footer) and we had to stuff Brendan's truck to the rim. But, we still had to leave a couple of things behind. My mom didn't have a very comfortable ride down to Olympia, we had to pack around her.

Brendan, Cruz, and I said good-bye to our home of 2 1/2 years and we were off to Olympia.
Being the procrastinators that we are, we weren't able to get any help from the ward to move us in on the Olympia side. On the way down my mom called my older brother Jeff, knowing that he was driving down from Bellingham to go to Portland, to see where he was. Thank goodness for family!! He just happened to be seven miles ahead of us and at 9pm, he, his pregnant wife, and two kids stopped to help us move in. My sister-in-law is awesome, she is an example of who I need to be more like. Jeff wanted to keep driving so he could get his girls to bed (of course an excuse so he wouldn't have to help, I would do the same thing), but Susan said, "No, they're family and they need our help!" It only took a little over an hour, but we were so thankful for their help.

This past week has been an awesome week for work. It is sad to admit it but I think this is the first week in 2+ years that Brendan has spent the full week working away from our home office. It was awesome and we are really excited to see how well we will do here in our new Pillar To Post Territory.

Cruz is now eating big boy food. Yaaa!!! I really wanted to wait until he was six months, but the boy has decided that he doesn't want to take a bottle and since I still work two days a week, we needed to figure out a substitute for one meal a day. The other meal I will just have to come home to feed him during my lunch. He caught on really quickly. I was feeding him tonight and all of a sudden he figured out to open his mouth when the spoon was in front of him. After that he was actually swallowing most of his food. Such a smart boy.

An even bigger ya is that Cruz is sleeping through the night! Before Cruz was consistently waking up at about 1am and 3am to feed, so I knew he wasn't hungry, his little clock was just stuck. We gave him a few nights to adjust to his new room and four nights ago I let him cry it out. It took one night of crying and the past three nights I have only heard him once for just a few minutes. Knock on wood that it continues. It is so refreshing to get a full nights sleep. I have almost forgotten what it felt like.

Well as you can see this is only a small sample of our past few weeks..... but we are happy and life is good..... Sorry there aren't more Cruz pictures.

Life Can Change in an Instant

It is amazing how quickly life can change. There has been so much that has happened in three weeks it almost feels like it should be an eternity. Last week Cruz learned to roll over. Brendan and I have been waiting for this day for about a month now, because Cruz has been struggling so hard to roll over. Then like that he did it. After he made it over once, it was like he had been doing it since he was born. I think my payment for having such a good baby is that he is going to be a little mover that will never stop. You can already tell he is trying to work those little legs so he can crawl.

This is one of Cruz's first attempts to roll over:


Not to successful.

Here is an actual success, to bad it is a week after he learned to do it:


Now he is a rolling over fool!! Once I lie him down, he is already on his stomach.



The biggest change that has happened over the past three weeks is that the Marchant's are moving!! In past three weeks we have sold our business and have bought a new Pillar To Post franchise in the great area of Olympia, WA. Well, actually an old business, we bought an existing franchise that has been running in Olympia area for the past eight years. Along with the county Olympia is located in, we were able to purchase three other counties.

If you had asked us four weeks ago about buying this we would have said, "HECK NO!!!". We were so happy with where we are currently at and didn't want to have to start all over again. What made us change our minds? A number or reasons, but I believe we were really guided to make this move. As we negotiated and looked farther into things, everything just made sense of why we should be doing this. What is amazing is that I feel so good about this change, even excited. Usually the thought of change stresses and scares me to death. I hate change!!

As sad as we are to be leaving Issaquah and all of our friends, we are so excited to start this new adventure in our lives. Short term it is going to be tough to really get this up and running again, (the guy we bought it from hasn't been working his territory for the past year), but the long term benefits far out way the hard work we are going to have to put in. Our projected move date is about June 20th and we still haven't found a place to live. Ahhh, we have so much to do!!!

4 Month Check-Up Results

Cruz had his 4 month check up this past week and his a growing, healthy boy. All except for he is getting a flat spot on the left side of his head, so we have to work on that so it doesn't get any worse.

Weight: 15 Lbs (50-75%)
Height: 25 inches (50%)
Head Circumference: 41 cm (25%)

Fun in Portland

I am such a procrastinator!!! Its taken me a week to post this. Last weekend Brendan, Cruz and I drove down to Portland to go see the family. It was a lot of fun. Brendan went out on an inspection with one of my brother's on Friday so me and my mom got to hang out a good part of the day doing girl stuff. These t-shirts are the result of me and my mom hanging out alone. They are so cute. The turtle wraps around the back as well.

Caden, Cruz, & Jack (these three are going to be trouble makers)

Saturday morning we went and watched my six-year-old neice, Gillian's softball game. She is going to be an amazing softball player. It was so cute watching them run around. They were still trying to figure out the game, so there wasn't a whole lot of rhyme or reason to what happened. But, it was still fun.



That afternoon the fam got together for dinner. We had fun talking and laughing.

Thats me rushing to Cruz's rescue, because if little Caden can get his hands on you he pinches and will not let go.



We also had our first unofficial family photo shoot after church.

Brendan always has to go check out the waterfall and fishes.

Cruz has become such a good traveler. He slept the whole entire car ride home. What a sweetie.


Here are a couple of extra pics for the Marchant clan.

My New Favorite Website

Has anyone heard of Etsy.com? Well, I am now obsessed with it. It is kind of a spin off of Ebay, but almost everything sold on it is handmade, and there is no bidding. Anyone can get on it and sell what they wish. I love scrolling from page to page looking at baby/kid stuff. There are a lot of really cute ideas out there that you can easily make yourself. It has really gotten me in touch with my crafty side. I recently made a appliqué onesie. When you think of appliqué I always thought of my grandmas quilts, but you can do so many cute things on onesies or t-shirts using the same process. This was my first attempt at appliqué, so it it is still a work in progress. Etsy has so many cute ideas that I want to steal, now I just have decide where I want to begin.



So Cruz likes to get into fights with himself. The two scratches on his nose look way better now, but the scratch on his temple is huge. He had blood on his sheet, he scratched himself so good. No he didn't punch himself in the eye, it is red because he is tired.

I am a big believer in swaddling so Cruz has never had a chance to scratch himself when he slept. But, now he is getting a lot more coordinated with his arms, so I decided I would start wrapping him with one arm out and see how he did. Also because recently he has been a little Houdini and brakes free every night around four in the morning. For the most part he has done really well at having an arm free while he sleeps, and hasn't been waking himself up, even when he gouges his face. After he gets used to the one arm being free at night, I'll let the other one loose too.

I Thought it is Suppose to be Spring?

What a week. We went from last Saturday being 80 degrees, to today there being an inch of snow on the ground (and still snowing as I write this). What is up with that? I think Al Gore is full of crap with all of this global warming stuff. Because it certainly isn't warming up around here. I want it to be sunny out. Cruz and I need to get out of the house. At least last Saturday we took full advantage of the sun. Brendan, Cruz, and I went and walked around the Arboretum by University of Washington. It was the perfect time to do it as well because all of the trees were blossoming. Cruz got to enjoy his first real bits of sunshine as well. The Arboretum is definitely somewhere we are going to go again.

Cruz loves his stroller

This story might be a little embarrassing for Brendan, but it is to funny not to tell. As many of you know Cruz's crib is right next to our bed. Well, the other night I had just put him down for the night (and he was already sound asleep) and Brendan and I were just finishing our prayer's when Brendan farts. Cruz starts laughing in his sleep, so Brendan farts again and Cruz laughs even more and then Brendan farted again and Cruz laughs again. Brendan was all out of farts so he tried to make a fart nose with his mouth and that just wouldn't cut it for Cruz, he didn't think it was as funny as the real thing. Brendan and I were trying so hard to muffle our laughter, I had tears running down my cheeks. All I can say is Cruz is all boy. What am I going to do? I'm out numbered two to one.

Here is a little video for anyone who might be interested (mostly the grandparents, aunts and uncles) of Cruz laughing. We have been trying so hard to get this little guy to laugh and this is one of the first times we have been truly successful (or let me say I was truly successful. Brendan has always been able to get Cruz to smile and talk more then me). I guess he only thinks farting is funny. Please excuse our pile of diapers in the background and don't laugh at how much of a dork I am. P.S. he only really laughs till about 50 seconds, after that its just me making a fool of myself.

April Showers.........When will it end?

Well another week has come and gone. Wow time sure flies fast. This is going to be a quick post with some more pictures of Cruz. (Really is there anything else we can blog about?) We had 3 full days of sun this week, it was so nice to get some vitamin D in our systems. The rain doesnt really bother us much any more but it has been a long winter and we are ready for warm weather and Sun.

Cruz is growing so fast. He is smiling more and occasionally we will get a little laugh out of him. He must have had a really funny dream the other night because at 2 in the morning he started laughing, and laughing.


Quick plug for a great photographer. Our friend Angie Penrose took Cruz's newborn pictures. (along time a go but we finally ordered the pictures, we are great procrastinators) She did a great job. So if anyone is looking for an excellent photographer look her up...angiepenrose.blogspot.com


Tatem's birthday was on Thursday (Last week). I made dinner and it was really good. It was my first time to make baby back ribs, I thought they would be harder, but all I did was throw them in the crock pot with seasoning rub, and then bbq sauce the last hour. We also had to have the traditional Costco Chocolate cake. It has become a Tatem birthday tradition. We always seem to be eating it for the next 3 weeks or so because it is so big. Other than that her birthday was really low key... Well Happy Birthday Tatem, I Love you..