Family pics are here!!

YAY!! My Family pics are here! So excited!! THANKS MELISSA. WE LOVE THEM!!

Halloween

New Family Pics

I will be posting new family pics soon! For now, you can get a sneak peak here! ;o)

Dom's First Day of Preschool!!

Life is a highway! ;o)

We have been having a fantastic time now that we are more settled in to the new place. We were able to head out to Colorado last weekend for a get away to visit some relatives! It was a ton of fun. The cousins adored time together! Here's a few pics for your viewing pleasure.

There are so many more... but I'm feeling kind of lazy today! ;o) We also have had some new milestones with Colton.. so for those of you who haven't already seen this one... here's a little video.

What's in a word.. entry numbero uno!

Mom: Oh so am I a princess?
Dom: You don't like being a princess.
Mom: What do I like being?
Dom: You like being my mom!

LOVE IT!

Hooray for a healthy 4th of July!

Last year Damon, Jaydin and Dominic spent the 4th up at the property with Nana and Papa. Darin and I were also camping... at Primary Childrens Hospital. Here are some pics from exactly a year ago.

Last year Colton was SO sick.... still in "critical condition" and we weren't sure how things we going to turn out. He had spent 4 days on a vent and would spend another 2 on it... and 2 more days in the hospital before we were able to take him home. This 10 day hospital stay was the scariest time of my life. We missed our boys but couldn't stand to leave our "Cole-Bug". We are so grateful for the beautiful boy he is now. He is strong and healthy and ADORED by all.
Colton LOVES playing in the back yard with his brothers. We keep saying we need to get him a swing, but he holds on to the swing SO WELL and loves to have his brothers push him!

Colton's first birthday. I really need to edit the red eye... but... not today!

We love our boys and are so grateful that Colton is here with us this year! We've also decided that since he missed the property last year, we are going to head up there and have a family campout tonight! This will be the first year I have been fit enough to really take some amazing hikes and see amazing things. Can't wait!!! Watch for pics!

A Hiking We Will Go!

I woke up early this morning after a restless night! (Too much caffeine too late in the day!) Darin looked up at me briefly and I let him know I was going for a run. He half grunted and rolled back over. While running I was thinking about what we should do for the day. My dad and I had gone on a hike a couple days ago with Damon and my nephew Alex... so when I got home I announced to Darin that we would be going on the same hike as a family! Darin seemed pretty excited about it. I wasn't sure how Dominic would do, but I knew the other boys would do well. It ended up being a beautiful drive threw the A.F. canyon and a 3.6 mile hike with 4 boys in tow. Damon and Jaydin were total troopers and had no trouble making the trek. Colton also did a fantastic job of staying in the hiking backpack and saying "hi" to people as we passed by them on our quest to the waterfall. Dominic hiked in the whole way to the waterfall but umm... was not quite as easy to get OUT. Darin ended up carrying him on his shoulders for a good 2/3 of the way back. (It was "HOT" and uphill most of the way back!) It was a lot of fun and we can't wait to do some more hikes very soon. Darin has still yet to hike up to the "Y" so soon... very soon... he will know the pain... that is the Y! ;o)

Damon & Jaydin playing in the stream at the bottom of the falls.

Just after eating some PB&J

Standing in front of the falls. The waterfall is so powerful that you are literally standing in a perma-wet zone. LOVE the feel of the mist against my face!!

I wish I knew what this waterfall was called? I'm going to guess it's called Stewart's Cascade... that's what the sign says. ;o)

Father/Son Campout

Darin took the 3 oldest boys on the father son campout. They all reported it was a good time. I asked Damon if dad was cranky and he said "only when he realized we didn't have any tent poles!" OY! I got totally blamed for that one. I was the last one to fold up the tent and while the poles were NEXT to the tent... they weren't in the bag. Luckily.. Darin is an amazing problem solver... this is what he came up with!

It was pretty funny to hear the bishop (AKA our landlord) tell the story. It was something like... "we were setting up our tents when we heard a bunch of swearing coming from the parking lot. We raced over to find that YOU had stolen Darin's tent poles!" He had several offers of tents from people who had brought extras (WTH?) but alas... he stuck to his amazing design and the boys didn't complain of being cold or anything!! I sent the camera up with them and they came back with these few pics. Here are a couple of my 3 oldest boys all together!! LOVE IT!!

So yesterday was the last day of school. My dad had IM'd me earlier in the day and asked if wanted to go hike the "Y". I'd never done it and figured it wouldn't kill me. We were planning on going earlier but didn't end up going until around 11. So up the mountain we went with all 4 boys, my dad and his brother Mike. I had no idea what I was in for. My boys did fantastic. No fighting, no whining, no begging to die. They were seriously amazing. They enjoyed the little wildlife we saw along the way. Mostly lizards and butterflies and one rattlesnake. Dominic actually hiked up about 1/4 of the way and then enjoyed being carried up the rest of the way by his grandpa and Uncle Mike. (Mike carried him about 1/2 the way and I didn't get a picture!!!) Dominic also walked the whole way down. Anyway... here are some pics of our adventure. It was so much fun. Thanks uncle Mike and Dad for letting us crash your hike. Next time, I'm going when it's a little cooler outside and maybe after it's rained so the trail isn't so slick!

Uncle Mike and his rock. He hiked to the "Y" with some other missionairies when he was at the MTC and so, he takes a pic with this rock everytime he comes to town.

All 4 boys stopped by Mikes rock.

Sitting on the "Y"

View from the top.

Uncle Mike and Dom. They were so cute together!

We did it!!

I carried Cole up about 2/3 of the way in this. Dad carried him up the rest. Aren't they cute?

Dom with Grandpa!

Happy Birthday Boys!

Saturday was the big SHABANG! It went off pretty easily although I was a little stressed and it did get down to the wire. We rented the pavilion up at the park and although I was told city soccer would be over before the party started, competition league tryouts were just beginning as our party arrived. We even had to have the registration people for the league move all their equipment so we could use the pavilion! It was a little crazy.. but the kids had a whole lot of fun playing in the water!! I'm SO glad that the big party is over with. One less thing to worry about this month!
It was so fun to have so much family there. I'm way disappointed that I forgot my camera!! My SIL took some pics so maybe I will try to get some from her. AHH!! I could kick myself.
Darin's oldest brother wasn't able to make it to the party Saturday. (Seriously they have 5 kids and 4 of them play soccer, lacrosse, etc... I can't even imagine how they manage to make it to all the events.. I am going nutso with 2 kids in activities.) They were really bummed that they couldn't make it and so they invited us up for a little party at their house last night. We had so much fun roasting hotdogs and brats over the fire pit and eating yummy salads. AND... they made this gorgeous gumball cake for the boys!

SO CUTE!!! They all devoured the cake and we had A LOT of fun hanging out with them. We realized as we were nearing their house that we had not been up there in WAY TOO LONG! When they first moved here we would go up there frequently and we always had a lot of fun. SOOO... we promise to make it up there more often. We also got to watch a video of them doing the "IFLY" in Ogden. It's this WAY COOL machine that makes you feel like you are skydiving! Can't wait to go on a double date with Mark and Dianne and do some flying!
Thanks to everyone who helped me survive this week. I even managed to run a 5k on Saturday morning at Thanksgiving point! We are SO grateful to have such amazing families and friends. THANKS! :o)

Happy Birthday Damon

So today is Damon's 9th Birthday!!! We are having a big party this afternoon for all 3 of the older boys at the park up the street. I'll take lots of pics but for now.. for your viewing pleasure, here is a picture of Damon with his friend Bryson. They built this fantastic fort and his mom was nice enough to take a pic and send it to me. What do you think?

Mother's Day Card by Jaydin

My cousin-in-law posted her card from her daughter so I thought this would be fun! It is a fill-in-the-blank card so the red words are what preceded the blank!

My Mom is Special

My Mom is special because she's nice and osum.
I like it when my Mom is happy and hving fun.
My Mom can do many things! I think she's best at hving fun and playing.
My Mom has a pretty smile! I like to make her smile by helping her and watching my bruthers.
My Mom is as pretty as a butterfly and flawers.
My Mom is smart! She even knows that she is the best of all.
Signed Jaydin Date 05/07/09

I'm so excited to have a child with my ability to flatter people! ;o)

Colton is Crawling!!

I admit that Colton has taken his time to learn to crawl, pull himself up etc... he is no where near walking which I am SO okay with. I think that his trip to Primary Children's Hospital at just 4 weeks old changed me. And I hold him ALOT!! Thus... the reason why he is a little bit behind his brothers when it comes to milestones at certain ages! Oh well. He is super smart and already has a couple of very recognizable words and one sign. ;o) Here's a little video of our little guy crawling!

Why having an almost 3 year old who talks so well, isn't always the greatest thing!

Remember when we were little and we made up all sorts of fantastic words for songs... like the place in france where the ..... or batmobile, broke it's wheel? Well... now there are new and even more outrageous words to those little innocent songs. My boys have this rendition of "Joy to the World", and they must sing it often enough that Dominic has learned it. Occasionally I will catch him singing it and this morning I decided to record it. Watch the video and I'll type the words to follow.....

Joy to the world, that Barney's dead. I BBQ-d his head. Don't worry 'bout the body, I flushed it down the potty. And round and round it goes.....

Yeah... really, our kids our singing this song at elementary schools across the nation... it's pretty catchy don't you think?

Happy Birthday Papa!

Today is Darin's dad's birthday! He is 59 and as far as we know.. he is in the Philippines and hopefully enjoying a beautiful day now. I tried to e-mail this. .. hopefully one way or another he will get to see it!

Happy birthday DAD! We love you and already miss you so much. Hope you are enjoying your little tropical paradise and drinking something fruity with an umbrella in it! ;o)

Achieving a goal!

The last 3 months have been SO exciting for our family. We've endured illness after illness, loss of hours which equals a huge pay cut, our oh-so-amazing Nana & Papa leaving for a year and a half, teething, potty training, the list goes on and on. Amidst all of this, I have been consistently dropping lbs. the good ol' fashioned way: eating less, moving more. It's fascinating that this concept ACTUALLY WORKS! I have lost 30 lbs since January 5th and I plan to continue on this path until I reach my goal.
One of my goals in this journey has been to run a 5k. I used to be quite the little runner and I really thought the possibility of actually doing it was MUCH farther out... a few more months away. I was talking to some girls who told me how they ran a 5k and it inspired me to make that goal a priority. I guess I thought it was unachievable until all the weight was off, but they let me know that I could TOTALLY do it!
Today I DID IT!! I ran 3.1 miles without stopping. I now have a starting point and a time to beat next time... and there will be MANY next times. My next goal is to run a 10k, but I don't anticipate doing that until the fall. For now I'll stick to the shorter distances. ;o)

Holy Geeze! Our house is full of germies!

So.. lets see. 2 weeks ago, I had strep. I did my ten days of antibiotics. BLAH! Then on Saturday we took Jaydin to the instacare and they confirmed (with a swab) that he had the flu. YUCKY!! Yesterday Darin went to the Dr. where he learned he had pneumonia. Today, I took Colton in because he obviously didn't feel well, and he had this crazy weird, untreatable rash on his bottom region. The Dr. told me that babies can get "rectal strep" and sure enough, the rash and everything else is STREP! So he said I could bring in any other kids and have them swabbed. Damon seems to be feeling fine, and Jaydin was negative on Saturday but I did bring Dom in because he has had this horrible cough and a fever off and on and GUESS WHAT?!?!? STREP!! I decided to double check, could I get strep AGAIN!? (Because I've been feeling pretty crappy!) He told me it's possible and swabbed me and .... go figure... POSITIVE! So now 4 of the 6 of us are on antibiotics. I might end up taking Jaydin tomorrow to be swabbed again if his cough doesn't go away.
The moral of this story. Stay away from my house! We are a bunch of sickies! Guess I need to break out all the disinfectant stuff. SHEESH! I think we have had our fill of illnesses for the next 5 years, thank you very much!

Interview

So, I've heard back about one of the 3 jobs I applied for. I have an interview on Thursday at UVRMC. It's a secretary position on the weekends... which would work VERY well with our schedules! :o)

Strep

So... I hate being sick. Seriously.. it makes me SO MAD!! I also hate going to the Dr. and avoid it at all costs. So Tuesday night I started to feel some swelling, tenderness in the glands at the back of my throat. I was annoyed but hoped it was allergies with Utah deciding to change seasons every other day. I got in the shower to wash green streaks out of my hair.. (THANKS JESS) and then took each of my little guys and washed out their green faux hawks! When i got out of the shower this overwhelming chaos hit my head like a ton of bricks. I laid down and couldn't move. My head was throbbing... I KNEW I had a fever. I asked D for some Ibuprofen and took some. I seriously didn't even brush my hair after I got out of the shower. I just crawled in my bed and contemplated my nearing death. I KNEW I had strep. It always hits me like this. So DEBILITATING.

So Wednesday morning Damon comes in my room. I tell him I'm sick.. I can't... he gets Colton out of bed and plays with the boys until he has to go to school. I asked him to make sure the baby gate was up so Colton couldn't fall down the stairs. I'm laying in my bed, thinking about sending out an SOS via text message but not able to complete thoughts when the phone rings 4 times. Dominic comes in my room and tells me Justin is coming. (I asked Justin about the conversation, he says Dominic answered the phone and when Justin asked to talk to me, Dom told him I was sick and in my bed.) So a few minutes later in walk two of my brothers. They were stopping in to get golf clubs that D said they could borrow. Justin comes in my room and I tell him, I'm dieing. I can't get up. I need help. Charlie gets me some ibuprofen, while Justin goes around changing Colton, feeding him AND getting a hold of his wife, Jessica. He decides to stay with me and take care of the boys until she can get here.

So Jessica gets here, picks up my house, brings me some liquid to drink, reminds me to call the Dr. Offers to go get me anything I might need AND spends 3 hours or so at my house and then took my little guys to her house so I could go to the Dr. (she had to be home when HER OWN kids got home from school). At this point, I've taken Tylenol and Ibuprofen and I can at least MOVE. My fever is gone... and I set my alarm so I'll wake up for my appointment.

So after a few minutes and a rapid strep test, my doc tells me that.... I HAVE STREP!! Seriously, I love my Dr. but it is so annoying to pay money to have him tell me what I already know! So.. I'm taking Amoxicillin and tylenol and ibuprofen so I can continue to sort of function. Hopefully by tomorrow I will be feeling tons better. For now, we are out of baby food and Darin will have to go to the store this evening.

So... I want to pour out my gratitude for a minute. I don't know what I would have done yesterday if my brother's and Jessica hadn't been so willing to help me! THANK YOU!!!! I love having my family close for SO many reasons, but yesterday reminded me of just how blessed we are to have each other.

I LOVE YOU GUYS!! THANKS FOR RESCUING ME!!

Jobs

So for now, it seems that Darin has work. He will only be working 32 hours a week though... but WOW we are grateful he has work.

Today I applied for a few jobs. Of course I am applying at the hospital because health care is just sort of WHO I AM. :o) We'll see if anything happens with this. I would love to do medical transcription for the hospital! I love data entry and would be very excited to be able to work from home. (And thanks to being addicteed to AOL as a 14 year old... I type 80+ words per minute!) There are also a couple of secretary type jobs I've applied for that have needs on the weekends... which would be perfect for us! I'll keep people posted. My guess is that in this economy, jobs like these will have lots of OVERQUALIFIED applicants. Hmm... I guess whatever will be will be! :o)

Helpless

So the ONLY part about being a stay at home mom that is really hard is not contributing financially. Here we are in the midst of this recession that has mostly effected the trades in our state and our only source of income is IN THE TRADES!! This week Darin has only had enough work for about half of his normal 40 hour work week. Next week... we don't even know if he'll have work. Because we live off only his income, unemployment would not even come CLOSE to supporting us (and seriously, we don't need hand outs from the stupid government! There is enough people EXPECTING it in this country. We like being self-sufficient.) and THERE IS NO WORK TO BE FOUND!! It's not like he could go out and get a job with a different company which means... he could go work at wal-mart or something for less than half of what he makes. Honestly, with what jobs are available, we couldn't even make his income if BOTH OF US were working FULL TIME!!! But it might come to that. Working opposite shifts just to make ends meet. It seriously BREAKS MY HEART!!! We might just both end up working at the hospital, meanwhile I will be missing my children and my husband.

It's hard times and I know we need to just do what needs to be done to live. It's so frustrating that Darin has dedicated 4 years of school and 7 years of work to a career that is obsolete. So NOW WHAT? I just don't even want to think about what the future holds, but I also can't just not worry about it because it could be staring us in the face TOMORROW!! And then what?

Chocolate cookies! YUM!

We were at my mom's yesterday and she had these 100 calorie packs of cookies. I figured it couldnt' kill him right? So maybe the shirt is doomed... but LOVE these pics!