Jake and Amanda Tesch Family

Maxwell Adams Tesch

2009-05-05T17:04:00.000-07:00

On Monday April 27th 2009 our little Maxwell was born. We have all been anticipating his arrival with excitement, and are so grateful that everything went so smoothly. He was 6 lbs 6 ounces and 18 inches long. Probably the most memorable thing that we witnessed was when Dad brought Davis into meet little Max. He climbed up on the bed and, without saying a word, leaned over and kissed his new little brother and gave him the most tender hug; it was very touching! Welcome to the world Max! We love you!

Blessed Beyond Measure

2009-01-28T14:26:00.000-08:00

A story to promote faith:
About three weeks ago, for family night, Jake and I decided to take an hour and evaluate our lives and make goals for the year, and also to see what needed changing, etc. Jake had been talking about maybe getting a new job that would make more money for us to be able to buy our house, and we didn't have any leads, or any idea of what else he could do. But we both knew that something would come up if it was right.

I said to him, "We have been so blessed this last year, it's like I want to do everything right to keep them coming!" We then decided that the only commandment in our lives that we aren't that great at keeping is the law of the fast. Since I can't fast during pregnancy, I decided that I would "fast" by giving up watching TV for a week, like a "TV fast", and then the following Sunday, Jake would fast for the both of us. Jake decided to TV fast with me, which was really nice of him because our nightly ritual is to watch Seinfeld and Leno. :) So we played games instead (which was really much more fun than watching TV).

That Thursday, only three days later, a friend of Jake's randomly contacted him at Toyota, asked him if he was happy there, and offered him a job at his dealership where he would have the immediate potential to make double what he was making at Toyota. Needless to say, we knew that this came straight from heaven, and Jake started his new job the following Monday, one week from the day we had our family night, and one day after our special fast. Not only will Jake be blessed materially with this new job, but his new boss is a really great LDS guy, and so are all of his co-workers. He's not surrounded by all of the dirty talk and cursing like he was at Toyota. After his first week there, he told me that he felt freer, like his spirit could finally breathe! We feel blessed beyond measure, and because of our efforts in 2008 to take our spirituality to another level by reading, praying, and studying more, I know that all of these things are coming to us from a loving Heavenly Father, who desires to reward us for our faithful efforts.

I just want all of you to know that I know that whatever good happens to us in our lives is not a product of anything that WE have done. God is just waiting to pour down blessings, but he can't do it until we show him that we will reward HIM by our faithfulness. This gospel means everything to me, and without it, I would be left to my own strength and my own meagre knowledge, such dull and lightless tools when compared the strength and knowledge of the Father. I am just grateful that I have the gospel and can daily reap the rewards of life, because I know WHAT LIFE IS ALL ABOUT -- and that knowledge is the only reason why I can be happy and grateful, even though I don't nearly have everything that I want :) Anyway, I just wanted to share that story with you, which really sheds some light on what's going on in our lives. We are just so grateful. And this year is going to bring so many wonderful things to our family. I am so excited!

Davis' New Bed

2009-01-07T16:47:00.000-08:00

Our second priority with Davis before the baby comes was getting him to sleep in a toddler bed. I was gearing up for failure, and night after night of having to tell him to go back to his bed. To my pleasant surprise, Davis has slept in his bed for almost two weeks and hasn't tried to get out even once. He loves his ABC quilt and new dots pillow, and he has made the change so easy for us. He is such a little angel. Really, every night I lay him down I realize, "I didn't even have to get mad at him for one thing today." He is so pleasant, and so afraid of punishment of any kind, that he just submits like a champ! I feel so blessed and lucky to have him.

Here's our little angel asleep in his new bed:

Happy New Year 2009

2009-01-07T16:07:00.000-08:00

As some of you may know, my family, the Adams side, has our biggest party of the year on New Years' Eve. We have a fabulous dinner with prime rib, crab, shrimp, and appetizers galore. This year was no different. My mom makes up different games each year, and it's always a boys against girls competition. This year we played pass the orange, but with girls against boys, it added a hilarious twist! Here are Jack and Jake getting a little too close for comfort . . .

My dad and Kevin in an awkward hug . . .

And my niece Jessica and I just couldn't get the orange passed! It kept falling down! We lost this game because of it.

We win some and lose some, but every year we lose the "Fear Factor" game. My mom and dad put out paper plates with hard-to-eat foods underneath paper bowls to conceal the food, and we line up and see who can get through their plates the fastest. With bigger mouths and little need for chewing, the brothers-in-law always dominate. In this one, Ashlee is scarfing down pork rinds -- no hands allowed.

THe second to last plate, which was my sister Amy's had Kipper snacks, which are like sardines. Here is a shot of the plate after she jumped back away from it. My sister Alli is in the pink, and Amy is nowhere in sight.Alli came to the rescue though, and tried to scarf down the nasty things, but she ended up gagging and spitting them out. The boys won yet another year. I caught a picture of Amy just as she said, "There is no way I was going to eat that."My brother in law Greg also puts together a slideshow of all the family's pictures of the entire year. Each family submits 75-100 pictures and he puts them all to music. It is such a fun tradition, especially when we don't get to see April, Alli and Angie very often.

Emily and Jessica are so cute with Davis. They spend a lot of time with him when we're together as family. It is so neat that they love him and he loves them so much.

So, that was our party. We had so much fun. The holidays disappeared from us so quickly! I wasn't ready for them to be over! But I guess they will come again, as they always do. We love you, our friends and family!

Our Christmas n' stuff

2008-12-29T16:32:00.000-08:00

So, I don't quite know where to start, or even what to say, but we had a wonderful November, and really BUSY but fun December. Since I've started working for my dad a few days a week, it seems like the time is literally flying by, and I can't catch up on anything! But we were still able to enjoy the season, no matter how fast it came and went. We saw the Temple Square lights with the youth in our ward, and we took Davis along. It was really cold!

We went to the VoiceMale Christmas Concert with our friends Wilson and Kelly. It was so nice of them to invite us!
We went to the Eclipse Christmas concert two days later. James Case, our good friend and "Super Bass" is the bass in their group. Davis loved it. Here he is playing in the hall during the intermission:
Jake had his 26th Birthday! Woo Hoo! Davis "helped" me blow up balloons before Jake woke up, and all day long he would say, "Happy Birthday Daddy!" and give him kisses. It was so darling. It was very fitting that Jake turned 26, and that we blew up 26 balloons, because that is EXACTLY the number of letters in the alphabet! Each balloon received a letter, a number, and two or more words of items that begin with each letter. We had them in our family room for a week. :) They were Davis' best friends for a while. He had a blast popping them with a nail, too.

I didn't have any birthday candles . . .It was more like an ice cream cookie than an ice cream cake, but it tasted really good.

We got a new tree:

This made me laugh: Davis was crying, and told him to make the saddest face possible, then I took a picture of himAnd then I showed him the picture, and this is what he did:

Davis met Santa for the very first time. We had been telling him, "okay, Davis, when you see Santa, you can tell him what you want for Christmas and he'll bring it to you." When he first laid eyes on Santa, a huge smile crept up on his face. It was like he really understood what Santa was going to do for him. Santa was mingling with the kids before he made his way to his chair, and we went over to him and gave him a high five. Then, under his breath, Davis said, "ABC books." Santa didn't hear, but it made me laugh so hard.
On Christmas Eve, Grandma and Grandpa Tesch gave Davis a Giant dry erase writing/coloring book. It was a huge hit!Santa left our house so beautiful on Christmas morning. He gave Davis a brand new big boy Corvette bed, complete with a handmade ABC quilt, ABC books, ABC puzzles, fake food, a singing snowman from JoAnns, :) and some clothes. He was ecstatic. He played all day long. And then we spent the evening with the Freis, the Zauggs, and my parents for a yummy turkey dinner.Christmas also brought a ton of snow. It was beautiful. The next day we played outside and made a snowman. The snow was terrible for a snowman, so we had to "build" a snowman like a sand castle. It was still really fun.
Davis liked to lick the snowman. He licks everything these days. Click to enlarge. His face is hilarious. And also notice, if you can in this picture, that I can't button up my coat anymore :)As you can see, we have been having fun every moment we have together. Now the fam is in town and gearing up for the new year. We miss Angie like crazy, but know that we'll get to see her soon, too.

2009 is going to be full of new experiences for us . . . a new baby, new goals, school for Jake, potty training :), more remodeling (hopefully), and who knows what else! We are so excited to see what the new year brings to us. This past year was filled with blessings big and small -- yet even the small ones seem big sometimes. Our love to all of you, our friends and family, and a hope for good things to come your way this year.

COLDPLAY November

2008-12-27T16:01:00.001-08:00

It was a great day for me when we saw COLDPLAY live in concert. They are my fav, and it was the awesomest! :) The lighting, the music, the videography, the sound, the whole experience was just amazing, and they put on the most entertaining show. They sang all of my favorite songs, plus some, and it was just the best (nacho libre style). I've been wanting to post these pics for forever, since the concert was just after Thanksgiving, but I'm just now getting to it. So, hope you enjoy the pics. They do absolutely no justice to the real thing . . .

"Look at the stars, look how they shine for you, and all the things
you do. And they were all yellow."

We were on the front row of the upper bowl in the Energy Solutions Arena. We had really good seats for the price. And if you can tell, you can't really see the band on the stage, because there is so much backlighting, but the whole show was taped, showing all the band members up close as they sang. It was really different, but I loved it because you felt like you could actually see them up close.

"If you ever feel neglected
If you think that all is lost
Well, I'll be counting up my demons, yeah,
Hoping that everything's not lost."

What are you saying, Davis?

2008-11-19T10:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Davis was trying to tell me something that he wanted and I couldn't figure out what he was trying to say. It sounded like "shawwk", and he kept saying it over and over again. I kept saying "what are you saying, Davis? Straw? (he had dropped his straw outside on the ground just a minute before)" And he said, "No, shawwk" I asked, "shark?" And he said "NO, shawwk." So I asked him, "Can you spell it for me?" He said, "um . . . S . . . no, . . . C . . H . . A . . L . . K!" Ohhhh, chalk! I squealed with delight at my darling boy, and gave him a huge hug and a kiss. I couldn't believe that he actually could spell what he wanted. We wrote the alphabet outside with his sidewalk chalk for the next hour. :)

Da Jazz

2008-11-09T16:09:00.000-08:00

On Friday, Jake and I went on an $800 date for free! :) One of Jake's managers at work gave him two tickets to the Jazz game. But these weren't any nosebleed tickets, these were Tony Divino's personal VIP tickets. So before the game, we were able to go into the basement of the Energy Solutions Arena and have a delicious pot roast dinner, complete with salad buffet and dessert table. At halftime we went back down and had nachos and drinks, and stuffed ourselves to the brim, but it was so much fun. Not to mention that we were on the SECOND ROW and could basically hear the players talking trash to each other. We felt so spoiled, and it was so much fun.

This is how close we were to the court.

We like Kyle Korver. We like Okur the best, but I couldn't get a really good picture of him.

Here we are after the game. This peeper in the background was watching us like a hawk to make sure we didn't go out on the court, which we had already attempted. :)

Halloween 2008

2008-11-08T14:51:00.000-08:00

Davis was Alphapig for Halloween this year. It's quite fitting, since he's the alphabet king, and he loved singing the ABC's and "building" the ABC's with his hammer. Part of his costume was a yellow plastic hard hat, and he wanted me to write the alphabet all over it.

Alphapig to the Rescue!

Davis hated carving pumpkins. So did Jake. But they smiled for my picture anyway.

The End of an Era

2008-11-03T13:15:00.001-08:00

Well, Jake and I have been talking, and we realized that we would like 3 things to happen with Davis before the baby comes . . . bye-bye binky, potty training, and sleeping in a big boy bed. With about 6 months left in the pregnancy, we thought we should start now, waiting a couple of months between each major change. So, it's bye-bye binky. I have been anticipating the agony that Davis will suffer without his beloved companion -- he's slept with a binky since he was born, and I had no clue what his reaction would be. My friend Michelle told me what she had done with her 18 month old, and I hoped that it would work with Davis. So the other night, I chopped off the nippies from his two favorite binkies. We went into his bedroom to get jammies on, and he said, "Binky go?" He was looking in his bed, because that's where we keep it. But it wasn't there :) So I said, "Let's go look in your cupboard." I pulled out one of the binkies. And it looked really weird. I said, "Oh no! What happened to this binky? I think it got broken!" He looked so confused, but still wanted to try it out, so he put it in his mouth and realized that there wasn't anything to grasp onto. He said, "New binky." So I pulled out the other one. "Wow, Davis, this one's broken too!" He took that one and tried it. He had such a confused, weirded out look on his face; I stifled a laugh and said, "What should we do with it? Do you want to just hold it?" He said, "Frow away." So we went to the garbage can and he threw his best little buddies in the trash. It ripped our hearts out! Jake was standing nearby at this point, and said later that he really felt so sad for the poor kid. Davis asked for a new binky, but we said, "Davis, we don't have another binky for you." We went into his room, got ready for bed, and he asked for it one more time as we laid him down. "Davis, we don't have another binky for you. You'll just have to sleep with your sheepy." We left and closed the door, and he fell RIGHT TO SLEEP and SLEPT THE WHOLE NIGHT! We were amazed, and thought it was a fluke, but the same thing happened last night, too! And for his nap today, he said, "Binky broken?" I just had to tell him that his binky was still broken in the garbage, and he went right to sleep. No tears, no whines, just total acceptance! I am SOOOO glad that I didn't have to deal with sleepless nights and a suffering, totally traumatized boy! But even Jake and I were sad to part with the binky. It was a game with the three of us . . . stealing it from each other and laughing so hard. It was the best way to get Davis tired, and he loved it. He LOVED his binky. But so long, dear friend. We seem to be doing just fine without you! :)

"D-I-S-H-O-P-"

2008-09-24T09:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my dayoff, and as usual, we spent the morning cleaning the house. Davis pretty much kept busy playing with his ABC letters the whole time. We were just finishing the living room and Davis started spelling a word, and we just caught the last of the letters, s-h-o-p. We thought he was trying to spell dish soap, and Amanda said, "Oh, are you trying to spell dish soap?" And Davis said, "yes." Then he said, "Tootsie Roll!" We thought, "What the heck is he trying to say?" Then we told him to spell it again. " D-I-S-H-O-P," he spelled. Then I remembered on Sunday the BISHOP gave Davis a Tootsie Roll sucker. I said, "Are you trying to spell Bishop?" he said, "No, DISHOP." I tried telling him that it's Bishop with a B, but he insisted that it was Dishop with a D. He even sounded it out for me, "DUH- DUH- DISHOP." He is so funny! He is so fun to have in our family!

Davis Spells us stories . . .

2008-09-22T15:45:00.000-07:00

Davis, as most of you know, is our little alphabet prodigy. I don't know why, and I don't know how, but for some reason our little boy has been obsessed with the alphabet for almost a year now. And since he practices the alphabet everyday, he can spell, read (some), and write the alphabet. The other day, we were picking Daddy up from work, our daily ritual, and the second Jake gets in the car, Davis starts spouting off these letters . . . "N . . . A . . . T . . . U. . . R . . . A . . . L. . . F . . . O . . . O . . . D . . . S" Since there were so many letters he was saying, we really had to concentrate on what he was spelling. So by the end, I recognized "FOODS" and knew that he was telling his Daddy that we stopped at Good Earth (Natural Foods) to get some raspberries. Sometimes he's even a little smarter than we are . . . at two years old! Go figure.

Busy August

2008-09-03T13:41:00.000-07:00

We had a long and fun-filled August. Davis had his birthday, we went camping twice, went out with the Steogers on their boat, and pretty much just enjoyed being done with the house. Our kitchen project is about 99% finished, and that last 1% is really hard to get around to! Davis is talking a lot now, and can say just about anything. It's really nice that he can talk now instead of just scream. :) He and Jane have become the best of friends, and they play together so well. But Joshua is his favorite kid. He makes Davis laugh so hard. One thing that Davis does that is (kinda) funny, whenever we are listening to music in the car, and if one of us turns down the music, Davis has a complete meltdown. He's our Radio Nazi.