THIS is crazy

Here is a crazy story and Jimmy and I are still wondering how things like this happen to us. Warning: this is a long story and it has nothing to do with Nathan so if you're only interested in him, you can stop reading now. But if you're interested in a very strange story, keep reading. So we have had some problems with our downstairs neighbors off and on during the year that they've lived there. They are college students and keep later hours than we do and have been rather loud on occasion, mostly late at night, including waking us, and guests, up multiple nights at 3 and 4am. We've gone down there (well, not at 3am but at 11pm or so) a few times and asked them to turn the music down, we've written them a couple of notes because we honestly didn't think they realized how much we could hear them. The last note we wrote (last of two) was at the end of April after they'd woken me up (Jimmy was out of town) after midnight two nights in a row. We offered our phone number because we thought that was neighborly, and we asked for theirs. We also went to the apartment manager to ask if we're being reasonable (she said yes). We never heard anything from them.

Fast forward to last night (Saturday, May 26). They left us (and some other apartments) a note on Friday saying that they were having a graduation party from 5-9ish just so we'd know ahead of time about the noise. They were loud, but we dealt with it until 11 (which is an hour past quiet hours) at which point Jimmy went down to ask them to be quiet because all of our windows and doors were closed and we still couldn't hear the movie we were watching. They were nice enough and got quiet when the party ended at 11:30. This morning (Sunday) at 9:15 they started blasting their music. I couldn't read or concentrate on anything even with the windows and doors closed (which was unfortunate because it was kind of stuffy) so I went down to ask them if they'd keep the music down. Here's the conversation:
K: why?
me: because it's loud upstairs, even with the doors and windows closed.
k: no i won't turn it down because it's not quiet hours (*note* the lease says that you can't have your music that loud at ANY time)
me: well it was quiet hours last night when you were loud at 11:30.
k: i apologize for that but you knew in advance about that and it was a celebration and i'm not going to turn down my music because it's not quiet hours.
me: ok, well we'll just have to call R (the manager).

So I called the manager and left a voicemail and while I was at church we got a call back from them saying to call immediately when we got home to talk about it. Before we could do that the dad of the girl downstairs (who is probably our parents' age, so kind of intimidating) came up and started in on us, big time. He said that they felt harassed and threatened by us and that we were never to come downstairs and talk to them that we could take our complaints directly to the manager or proper authorities (which I pointed out is the police at 3am when they wake us up), that he takes care of his children and that he pays for that apartment and we pay for ours and we can't tell anyone else what they can or cannot do in their apartment. Maybe we're not cut out for apartment life and that we should save up for a house. We didn't really get a word in edgewise, but Jimmy was able to say that we had no intention of harassing, we just thought it'd be easier to work out our differences ourselves instead of going over their heads to the manager.

But then we did go to the assistant manager because we were definitely threatened by this man. We went over everything from beginning to end, including giving her copies of the letters we've written them. She said that they would get a formal letter on Tuesday which outlines that there has been a complaint and that the process is as follows: they get the first letter, upon the 2nd complaint they get a "3 day cure or quit" letter which says that if they don't clear it up in 3 days and find a way to solve the problem, if there's another complaint (any time after the 2nd letter) they get a third letter which is a 60-day order to vacate. Ok, we were happy.

A couple of hours later Jimmy got a call from the apartment complex on his cell phone saying that when the manager (R) had come in, the assistant manager (D) had told her the whole story. R was furious because their dad, who's not a resident, had harassed us. She called the girls and said they had to come in on Wednesday to go over the terms of the lease because by their dad coming down, they'd violated the lease. They went in today instead of waiting, got into a screaming match with the manager, and were told by the manager that they were not to speak to us at all and if they (the management) gets even one notice from us (or anyone else, I guess) that they've been loud they will get no warnings, just an order to vacate.

This is surreal. We're normal people and things like this don't happen to normal people. And most of it went down in just a matter of hours. Like I said, this is crazy.

Wearing Food

I know you have seen that Nathan likes blueberries, but have I mentioned just how much he likes them? Seems like not only are they good for eating,
they're also a good shampoo,
and moisturizer.
And of course now that he's crawling everywhere, he's also being very mischievous. At least he's cute while he's doing it. :)

My Little Garden

Well, my first tomato is ripe and I picked it this afternoon. I'll wait until Jimmy gets home to enjoy it. I'm very excited about my little tomato garden that's on the balcony. There are over 50 tomatoes right now on three plants! Two are regular tomato plants (2nd picture) and one is a cherry tomato plant (last picture) and there are two cherry tomatoes that will be ripe probably tomorrow. If I had known they would do so well I would have exchanged one tomato plant for something else, maybe cucumber. Now I really want a yard!

On The Go

Well, I now have an official crawler on my hands. Yes, Nathan finally took his first few "steps" in the past couple of days and now I can't turn around while he's awake. He's not super fast yet, but he's getting there. I just bought a couple of baby gates today. We're also going to have to lower the crib tonight because when he told me this morning that he was ready to be up and at 'em, I came into his room and there he was, sitting up in the crib. My little baby is all too quickly turning into a toddler! Pictures coming soon...for now, proofreading.

Our Little Visitor

This weekend (Thursday morning-Saturday late afternoon) Jimmy and I had the opportunity to babysit for my friend V while she took her husband to Las Vegas for his birthday. Originally V's in-laws were supposed to keep the little one, but they got sick so we offered to keep him. The two boys were so cute together. :) Nathan tended so wake up before V's baby and so once the other baby would wake up and I'd bring him out to where Nathan was, he'd get a huge smile and start grunting and growling and making all of the sounds he makes when he's really excited. Here are some pictures of their fun together, and then one of Nathan because I like to document his every move. ;)

Having a snack,
sharing,
and starting a band.
It was really fun to have him around and it made me have a little more confidence in my mothering ability since I successfully (however you define that...) kept TWO babies for three days. :) Here's the one of Nathan...of course he had a little help creating this look.

CHOMP!

So for all of you who think that Nathan is too cute for words and therefore probably doesn't do anything wrong, here's a story for you. Yesterday I was talking to some Mormon missionaries by the door and Nathan was getting a little irritated that he wasn't part of the conversation. I picked him up and continued talking and then he bit my shoulder! He's got seven SHARP teeth so it really hurt (I still have a mark). Then he laughed about it! If ever I was wondering I am now convinced that children don't have to be taught to be naughty.

The First Pictures

Nathan is being very generous with his nap this morning so I had a few minutes to upload some pictures. The first three are kind of random. Here he is really enjoying some blueberries...

reading a magazine...
and "helping" with laundry.
Here are a couple from our trip to Bakersfield to visit his great-grandparents in early April. Nathan is getting a ride on great-grandma's walker.

Ok, that's all the patience I have for now. I'll put more up when I take them :)

The Little One

So I had decided I would give up on blogging (yes, after just one post) because I was thinking "How do people start reading a person's blog?" It seems to be that to just go about saying "You should read my blog," is akin to saying "I have so many thoughts that are so important to everyone's life I just had to get them out there, to the masses, as effectively as possible." That would require quite the inflated ego. Not that I lack in the ego department, but I don't think everything I have to say is all that exciting.

But then I thought that maybe it would be a nice way to keep updates on Nathan readily available to his family, all of whom are too far away. So that is my new mission. I will try to post pictures and updates about Nathan more regularly than I send out photos so that you don't have to wait for me--you can just come here and get them yourself. And if you see something you'd like me to email you, I'd be more than happy to do that also.

Hope you enjoy :)
Of course, the photo posting starts later...