Christmas

Ok, so I haven't posted anything about Christmas yet because I was hoping that I could get our camcorder footage downloaded cuz that was way better than the pictures we took, and for some reason, I figured out how to download the footage to the computer but I can get it uploaded to the blog so I guess we have to suffer with the camera images which we didn't have very many pictures. :( Christmas this year was so much fun. Maysie was a sleepy head and made us wait until 8:15 am to open presents, which seems like an eternity for me since I am so used to being up Christmas morning by 4:00 am. She was still groggy and a little grumpy so she made Rob carry her down the stairs. Once they turned the corner and she saw her gift from Santa (a rocking horse) she was so excited and squirmed to get down all the while saying neigh, neigh as loud as she could. :) She climbed down the rest of the stairs and ran over to the horse and started petting it and hugging it. Rob helped her get on, and she would just ride it with the biggest smile on her face. (sorry my pictures are out of order- but most of them are of the horse anyways...) After some of the excitement of seeing her fun present from Santa, we went threw our stockings and started opening all of the other presents that were left under the tree. Maysie raked in lots of toys this year which of course is like Heaven for a kid. After she opened up a toy, she made Rob unwrap it and get it in working condition. :)After she opened 4 presents or so, she just wanted to play with all of her new toys. To get her back on track, we let her open up her main present from Rob and I... we got her the baby doll set-up:a baby doll and stroller and a play-pen. Watching her reaction to this was hilarious. When she noticed that it was a doll, she started clapping her hands and yelling baby over and over again.... It was a priceless moment to witness. Rob and I had a great Christmas too. Rob finally installed the new Microwave that we got the day after Thanksgiving and gave it to me as a Christmas gift. (Our old microwave was looking like a red-neck one cuz it was falling apart... seriously, we had duct tape holding it together.) We also got some stuff for when we go camping: a grill, dutch oven, and a table and a lot of fun movies... :) Christmas afternoon, we went to Rob's mom's house for lunch, which ended up being dinner cuz somehow the turkey got turned off and took 2 and 1/2 hours longer to cook than what we were planning on... oops. It was super yummy and great company to be around. On Christmas Eve, we did the tradition of ordering Chinese food from China Star and then played games at Rob's mom's house with family. Maysie was in heaven playing with all the kids and we had a fun time just being around those we love. :) We sure do hope that this Christmas season was as wonderful in your home as it was in ours!

Now for the pictures:

Maysie in her doll play-pin thing. We keep telling her that she is too big for it and it is only for her baby dolls, but for some reason we keep finding her in it. :)























Finally getting the hang of opening presents... This is an ABC train thing that Rob bought for her eons ago.




















Riding her horse. Normally she has a huge smile but she kinda looks scared in this picture...



























Giving her horse a love when she is riding it...




















And this is her normal expression when she is riding her horse. :) Big smiles!

New Discoveries in the Nursery

Yesterday at church, I was helping out in the nursery. Maysie just turned 18 months a little over a week ago and is still getting used to the new routine, and since our ward definitely has no problem with the multiplying and replenishing the Earth commandment they could use another adult in there. Actually, I was planning on just staying there until I could sneak out without Maysie noticing but when I got there they asked if I could stay. Anyways, they have this toy there that is like a cash register of sorts that has one of those scanner paddle things (you know- for the big items on the bottom of the cart). Maysie was playing with the register part on the opposite side of the room from me when she noticed the attached scanner. She looked at that then promptly relocated herself and the toy right next to me. Once she was next to me, she put the scanner on my stomach and kept saying "oh, Baby. Wow!" I'm pretty sure that that was my sign that she has been with me to my Dr's visits a little too much if she sees a resemblance of a cash register toy and an ultrasound machine. I was trying to keep a strait face but it sure was hard and I ended up failing at the task, especially when all the other ladies there noticed what was going on and started laughing at the situation. :)

It's A What!

Yesterday, Rob and I went and had "the ultrasound" done. Dr. says IT'S A BOY! The baby tended to be a little shy at first and kept the cord in the way but finally he decided to show all, and there is no mistaking, it is definitely a boy. :) Both Rob and I had no idea what it really was. We kinda thought it was another girl considering all of Rob's siblings had 2 girls first thus far but I guess we broke the mold. We are so ecstatic now being thrown off of our rocker so to speak. Pretty much everyone thought that it was a boy but only a small handful of our friends. But if you go by what the family said.... well they were right the whole time. :) Now I can have lots of fun collecting cute little outfits and more manly blankets and stuff. Heaven only knows that if we re-use the ones we have, our son might have some issues later on if he was just surrounded by lots of pink and flowers and stuff! We couldn't get a really good profile pic with any of the ultrasounds that we have done so I wonder who he will look like. With Maysie we could tell that her forehead was a lot like Rob's and bingo, she is almost a spittin' image of her old man, just a female version. All we could really tell is that he has long legs (Obviously not from me, and he likes his hands either in his mouth or by his face... He is quite squirmy though but he does have a laid back feel to his persona where he constantly has his ankles crossed. :) Oh, how much I already love the little guy! Just thinking about him brings a smile to my face. Rob was hilarious at family prayer last night. He thanked Heavenly Father for finally sending us a boy - almost like we already had 7 girls and no boys. Ha Ha. By that simple statement in his prayer, I could tell he was so giddy with excitement.

Yesterday was Rob's "Over the Hill" birthday. Yep the big 40 so that is a main part of why we chose to do the ultrasound yesterday. I think that where it is a boy it was just the icing on the cake for his birthday. (He was hoping so bad for a boy when Maysie was born, but you know, although he wouldn't change it for the world. - yep she's got him totally wrapped up all around her tiny little pinkie toe!) Since Rob is determined that he is going to live to be 120 years old, he wouldn't let me really do much cuz being 40 isn't considered to be over the hill for him. LOL, I think that he is in denial that he is that old. :) We just had some of his family over to play cards last night but the real sha-bang is going to be this weekend!

Going Private!

I was just looking at the traffic feed on the blog and discovered people checking it out from far away lands and countries on which I have no clue to anyone that live there nor would even be visiting there. Because of this, I feel like I need to make my blog private. So on Monday, December 7th I'll make the switch to make it private. If you want an invite to continue to read my families blog, just e-mail me or post me a comment and I'll send the link. Thanks!

Copy Cat and an Update

I have been completely technology AWOL for it seems like forever.... Seriously, who feels like playing on the computer when your either sick to your stomach or when you type, you get shooting pains up you arm.... (For some reason my bad wrist, the one that I have had tons of problems with since I broke it in Volleyball practice in the 8th grade, is flaring up again... I loose my grip on things easily and have came close to dropping Maysie a few times when I am holding her with that arm... - yikes. So I have taken to wearing my lovely, well actually ugly brown brace to help strengthen my wrist and help it not give out so easily. Some people think that I am encountering that Pregnancy carpal tunnel thing but I'm not completely sure yet....) Anyways, I am still alive and kickin'. I keep waiting for the morning sickness to fade but no luck yet... for some reason brushing my teeth and opening the fridge haunt me and tend to be the main triggers of my queasiness. Rob is completely convinced that it is all in my head, but I assure him, I wouldn't fake the sickness practically every morning for days on end... I would have given up long before now. So anyways, the other morning, I think it was on Tuesday if I remember right, I was sick yet again thanks to the fridge. (Can't someone invent a way to keep milk cold without having to put it in the fridge? I would invest in alot of stock right now. :) ) While I was in the bathroom leaning over the toilet, Maysie comes in and of course starts to cry. For some reason she is always terrified when I gag. When I finished, I flushed the toilet then proceeded to the sink so I could wash out my mouth and wash my hands. When I was drying off my hands, I looked at Maysie and she was on her hands and knees over her little potty training potty spitting into it. I guess she has watched me one to many times - or she was just trying to sympathize with me. :)

So, everything else is going good. Busy, yes, but good. Thanksgiving was better than I anticipated, (It was at my brother and sister-in-laws house and having even 60 people crammed into a house didn't sound very appealing to me and I didn't look forward to going at all.) We have so much to be thankful for this year... Maysie is growing by leaps and bounds and is too smart for her own good- or maybe for me :), we have another baby on the way which we were not anticipating but am very much excited for, everyone in our family is blessed with excellent health this last year, and so much more that I would be here all day just listing our blessings.

Halloween

Growing up, I remember asking my mom why there was a special day for Mom's and Dad's but not for the kids. Her reply was that Halloween was the holiday set aside for the kids, which I am sure was the first thing that came to her mind that's answer would satisfy my question... So, for Halloween this year we took Maysie trick-or-treating to our neighbors- just our culdasac and the culdasac that is right behind ours since we always combine the block parties and all since Halloween is for the kids, and Maysie is now a little kid and not a baby anymore. :) At first she didn't quite know what to think about it... Well lets face it, she didn't like the first house at all until she got some candy thanks to the annoying witch decoration that starts talking when someone gets close to it... (When you hear this thing going off constantly, it gets annoying - believe me). When we got to the next house, and she got some more candy, boy oh, boy, she discovered that she really liked to go trick-or-treating. She was practically running to all the other houses too bad us mean parents wouldn't let go of her hand or she would have visited a whole lot more homes before we could catch up to her. She was so funny holding her little candy bucket up at the door steps and baaing (or barking if there happened to be a dog at the house.) whenever the door was opened. I guess that saying trick-or-treat is a little too complicated to say still :) Everyone loved her little lamb costume! What can I say, she is quite a catch - especially when she is dressed up in a cute little costume that has a fun texture to it that makes anyone want to reach out and touch it.... :) Next year will be even funner when she can really talk, and jump into the spirit of things... After we got back home and was handing out candy to the other anxious trick-or-treater's that visited our house, Maysie would reach into our candy bowl and gab a piece of candy and hurry and put it into her own candy bucket... I think she wasn't done trick-or-treating by the time Rob and I was ready to go home... :) Now she has quite the loot of sweets, that I am sure her dad and I get to enjoy more than she will although we did allocate all the M&M's and the suckers to Maysie to eat.

Mary Had A Little Lamb...

Last Saturday was Rob's families annual Halloween party. Of course this isn't complete unless you dress of for the occasion - especially the little tykes... For some reason, this year almost all of the adults were a little bit ba-hum-bug and I think there was a grand total of 6 that actually dressed up. Normally we all dress up, much to Rob's dismay (He totally hates it, but will do it to please me but our compromise is that it has to be a mellow costume where he won't look ridiculous -his words, not mine...) Well with me feeling already like a good year blimp, totally opted out of the whole dressing up, needless to say, I don't have too many of my costumes that fit me right now which really made Rob happy to the fact that if I wasn't dressing up, then he wouldn't have to go in costume...
We got Maysie in her costume about an hour early so we could take a few pictures of her being all cuteness and all. So here is a few of our favorites for your pure enjoyment! Funny thing is, is once we went outside, Maysie started Baaing like a sheep... She totally knows how to play the part! :)

Just An Update

I finally went to the Dr. today and got the pregnancy confirmed! Hooray! Much to my mothers sorrow, there is only one baby growing inside of me, (Thank Heavens). She was practically convinced that I was going to have twins when she saw me last week. :) Everything looks great and the baby looks to be as active as Maysie was and/or is... Constantly kicking and punching who knows what throughout the ultrasound. :) The heartbeat appears to be very strong too. That is always comforting to know. She gave me a due date of May 19th which puts me at 10 weeks along. So here is a sneak peek of our new bundle of joy!!!












As for the rest of things... I have been feeling way better with this pregnancy than I was with Maysie. I haven't been too sick, a little nauseous yes, but at least able to keep food and water down. I tend to only suffer from the minor pregnancy symptoms... Fatigue, and headaches. I am so lucky! Rob has been busy doing winter fill, which means he goes to Montana to get a load and bring back to one of the local refineries so he is gone basically every other night. He was lucky enough to have just enough time to lay over here at home to go with me to my appointment today. :) Yea! This schedule of his will probably go on for 3 or 4 months with occasional breaks when the weather is really bad. Maysie is growing and learning with leaps and bounds. It seems like every day she adds one new word to her vocabulary and her new favorite saying is NO! NO! She would rather play with the kids then chill with the adults and is not quite as clingy to mom and dad. Finally, I thought that that day couldn't come soon enough. :)

Family of Four

As you can probably guess by the title, Rob and I are preggo with baby #2. We have known for a few weeks and we have been trying to be patient and not tell anyone until after I go to the Dr and get it confirmed but I couldn't get in until the end of the month... and we just can't keep it a secret any longer, so you get to find out before we go see Nancie, (Our Dr.-well actually she's an LPN but it's all the same to me). We also were trying to wait until Rob got back from his trip to Cali and Nevada so we could tell the family together. (Seriously, I think his family thinks I am dying or something cuz they can tell I haven't been feeling good the last few weeks. I told them it was just a really bad migraine which started as the truth and I have had many headaches since but they don't know the real reason of why I am getting these.) I kinda think that I am due in the middle of May, but this is a totally uneducated hypothesis. I am sure that when I go to the Dr's, Nancie will do an ultrasound and give us a better idea. This totally came as a shocker to us since we figured it would probably take another 3 years like it did the first time since my body seems to have a mind of it's own and acts completely abnormal 95% of the time yet we are getting excited about our new arrival. So far things have been going ok, I am just getting to the yucky stage where instead of nausea 24/7 I actually get the 5 minutes of relief once I flush my breakfast, lunch or dinner down the toilet... (Seriously, why do they call it morning sickness, when you are actually sick the whole day, and even most the night?) And Hello Heartburn... I'm pretty sure that is all courtesy of the acid from the human volcano that has inhabbited my body. I have also quickly discovered that I don't have the energy like I used too. When I was preggo with Maysie, I just had to worry about going to work 3 days a week and then I knew that I could take some time to recuperate in the middle of the week to keep up my energy, but with this one I don't get that luxury. You don't ever get a break from being mom all day, although, I have slacked off in the homemaking department, (There are many days my home looks like a tornado has hit it lately.) Maysie wears me out pretty early in the day especially since I have been battling parenthood solo since I have found out about the baby (with the exception of the 16 hours Rob was home earlier this week, yet most of that was in the middle of the night). Rob got home today from the road and will actually be able to be home for a few days, or so they say, so hopefully my energy will increase with the extra help. :) As for the food cravings: I crave banana's (I know total Kodak moment since I can't stand the yellow fruit) and Mexican food.... Yumm, makes me hungry just thinking about it. So far there are not any food aversions, yet it is still pretty early in my delicate state... I am sure that their will be a list sooner or later. :) So stay tuned for further details.

Proper Manners

I just had the shock of my life while at scouts tonight. We had a yummy spaghetti dinner complete with all the fixin's and had Elizabeth Wiler, (a mother of one of our scouters -not to mention the fact that she is seriously like a wonder-woman homemaker) come in and teach the boys about proper etticut (sp?) and table manners. I was kinda expecting the whole ordeal to be somewhat disastrous considering it was a bunch of hyper-active 8 year old boys who think boy scouts is like Chucky Cheeses, and every week is pretty chaotic, but believe it or not, these boys were sporting some pretty amazing manners. She showed them the proper way to set the table and explained that you always serve on the left and take away from the right (umm, I didn't know that - did you?). One thing she emphasized was that you have to have a conversation going, but never talk about yourself unless asked by someone else and don't talk while your mouth is full and never direct a question to someone who has a mouth full of food. It was hilarious seeing what questions the boys would bring up next. They were trying so hard to be on their best behavior and like they were eating somewhere super fancy that they completely changed there vocabulary to the best of there ability to accommodate the situation. Some of the questions I overheard, was: Are you playing any sports this season? What is your favorite video game to play? Do you like orange juice or apple juice better? Let me tell you, I learned alot more about some of these boys. The whole atmasphere that was created made you feel like you were in the nicest restaurant you have ever been in and you were dressed up for like the prom or something, yet here we were with 8 year olds as our company and instead of fancy ball gowns, we were all in our frumpy scout shirts. I was completely impressed how they would all take turns and try and serve each other when they wanted seconds on something. Like one boy wanted more water, and after he filled up his cup, he walked around the table to see if he could fill up others cups if they wanted him too.... never mind the fact that almost all of the boys at that point had cups that were still pretty full. :) I couldn't believe the manners that was preformed tonight. I wish that I had a video camera so we could show each of the parents what angels they have for there children not to mention that when my kids get bigger they can learn these amazing manners too. I mean, I teach the basic manners but I have no idea about what to do in 5 star places. In those situations I normally get nervous and do the wrong thing... So, just so you know, it is not impossible to teach amazing manners to an 8 year old. :)

Flatter Than Flat!

Yesterday afternoon, Rob and I took a drive around town to do a few errands... One of the first places Rob wanted to go was to a place that buys junk, literally, so he could get rid of some scrap metal and stuff that he has been packing around for who knows how many years and he has finally decided to part with the unwanted. Hurray for me since I am tired of all the junk getting piled up by the side of our house. He is making room for our new 4-wheeler trailer that we should be able to pick up sometime in October. Anyways, while we went to the scrap yard which I consider and gross, smelly, icky place that is just about equivalent to a city dump, we must of ran over something with our pickup because low and behold, as soon as we were accelerating to get onto the freeway, Rob could feel the truck pulling in one direction like the tire was loosing air. He told me to stick my head out the window to see if the tire was low... Yum, yeah, not happening. For one thing, I was wearing my glasses and I knew if I stuck my head out they would fly off my face and get broken even more, and there is no way I would chance that since this is the better of my 2 pairs of glasses since Maysie has broken both pairs already... (Never underestimate the ability of a toddler!) For another thing, if I took off my glasses, I wouldn't be able to see much especially since we were going at least 50 mph. at this point so you know if I stuck my head out, my squishy cheeks would be flapping in the wind and my eyes would naturally try to close. So after a minute or so, Rob finally pulled over to see if the tire was flat. Yep, sure enough, it was flatter than flat. I have come to the conclusion that it is so much easier to change a flat on a car than a pickup. Why you ask? For starters, in a car, your jack and spare tire are normally located in the trunk of the vehicle. Yeah, for a pickup... Not so. The spare tire is rigged up under the truck and the only way to get to it is by turning off the car, taking the keys, and unlocking something that is right above the licence plate. Then in order to get the tire down, you have to have the crank for the jack all hooked up so it looks like some giant tent pole and you have to crank the tire down. It reminds me of a jack-in-the-box toy and your just waiting for that clown to pop out. Oh, yeah, I forgot to add, that in order to get the jack out, you have to take everything out of the back seat of the truck, (yeah, like undo the car seat and try to throw it into the front seat, which isn't the easiest of tasks especially with the Latch system on the car seats and the fact that we have a jumbo sized car seat at that! (It looked the most comfortable when we bought it, plus, she can fit into it until she is 100 pounds which lets face it, she'll be long out of a car seat by that point so virtually, this will be the only car seat she needs) So after waking up a sleepy child so we can conveniently relocate the car seat for the time being, we finally could get the spare tire out. I'm so glad that Rob is on the ball cuz he had 2 extra jacks besides the el cheapo jack that comes with the pickup. (If we only had that, it would of taken forever to get the tire changed.) Once we got the flat tire off, some guy who can hardly speak English stopped and asked if we needed help. Super nice of him, but by this point, we had everything under control so we just sent him on his way. And then once we got it changed and we were just trying to put everything away again and rearrange all the things on the inside of the car... a Incident Management dude came up behind us and asked if he could help. Um, that would have been so nice like 45 before, but better late than never. :) Finally, we were on our way to our next stop on our errands, which of course was conveniently added when we got our flat tire. Yep, you guessed it, Les Schwab was our next stop. Thank heavens that our tire wasn't ruined and we could just have a flat repair and since we had such a nice guy fix it, he didn't charge us for it. I knew I liked that place. We were expecting to pay since these tires are the ones that came with the truck and we hadn't had to buy replacement ones yet. So Les Schwab, you have our business forever. Finally, we could continue on with the rest of our journey, which basically was to the grocery store to check out the case lot sale and then to home... yep so very boring. Maybe it was a good thing to get a flat to liven up our day!

Farmington Canyon

Yesterday, Rob and I went on a date of some sorts, to go 4-wheeling up Farmington Canyon in the mountains right above Lagoon. We were lucky enough to have my MIL baby-sit Maysie for us. I guess that is one awesome advantage of living so close to her: Free Babysitting! There was a group of us going on our little excursion so we took my brother-in-law Joseph (he is the one that lives with us) along with us in our pickup. We met Rob's brother Elden and his two boys and also Rob's other brother Kent and his wife Kim at the gas station so we could drive caravan style to the canyon.

Rob and Joe chattin' when we stopped to play on the hills.

After we got the canyon, everyone unloaded their 4-wheelers. Rob gave me a quick lesson on operating this "mean machine" and we took off up the mountain. At first, I was driving like a granny and only going about 15 miles an hour but before we were 1/4 of the way up I was feeling more comfortable and was hitting speeds of 25 mph or so. I was totally rockin' it! :) We drove about 8 miles or so when we stopped at fork in the road and took a break. We didn't know if we wanted to go up towards the pond that is there or if we wanted to go up to some towers at the top of the mountain. The wind was blowing a little bit and my contacts were irritating my eyes so bad so I was glad that we could stop for a few minutes so I could put some eye drops in my eyes. Kim was nice enough to let me use her sunglasses which helped keep a lot of the dust out of my eyes. After shootin the breeze for a few minutes we decided to go up to the towers that were on the very top of the mountain, so we were off again. We drove a few more miles and stopped at a maintenance building something or other where they had a few hills to go on and little trials the would take you around some trees. I wasn't too confident about my ATV skills yet so I jumped on the back of Rob's 4-wheeler and we played on the hills for a few times and then tried out a few of those little trails. After everyone grew board with that we continued up the mountain. We only went another mile or so before we stopped again at a bigger opening with a lot more hills on it. This time I did the hills myself! :) Yep, a certified dare devil now! J/K. We hung out there for about 30 minutes and then we took off again. We were almost to the top now. About 5 minutes after we took off, we passed about 6-7 cows that were probably a little bit lost. They were just following the road and was probably coming from over by Morgan we were guessing. So if anyone is missing some cow's in that area.... you better go check the top of the mountain! The views were magnificent up there. We were on the backbone of the mountain so you could look one way and see the Morgan area and then you just turn you head the other direction and you see Layton and the Great Salt Lake with a whole panaramic view of Antelope Island. It isn't very often when you can get a view of the whole island at the same time. The closer we got the top of the mountain the rougher the road got. Obviously very few cars could get up there so the trail was really rocky and rough. When we got to the turnoff for the towers, it looked super steep so we chose not to venture up there. Joe, Kent and Kim went up there though. They found out that those towers are for the airplanes. They look like a giant golf ball on the very top of the mountain and for years I wondered what exactly it was. Now the mystery is solved. :) While the others went up to the towers, Elden, Kaden, Kash, Rob and I hiked up the hill and looked down on the valley below. Rob taught Kaden and Kash to throw the rocks... Boys! They were having so much fun. After the others came back down the hill, we climbed up to the very top of the mountain which wasn't too far away. Where you end up, you look right over the Morgan area. It was so pretty and green! The view was absolutely breathtaking.

Rob hiking up the hill from the trail to go scope out the fantastic views of the Great Salt Lake

A scenic view looking off towards the Park City area... You couldn't see park city, but you could see that reservoir that is right by there although you can't see it in this picture.

Throwing Rocks!

After reminiscing the gorgeous views for a while, we could hear every ones stomachs grumbling and we decide to head back down so we could eat lunch. The plan was to go to Chuck-A-Rama afterwards. About a mile into my journey down the mountain a little grass hopper hopped onto my 4-wheeler and caught a ride most of the way down the mountain. I wanted to get a picture, but I knew if I stopped then it would probably hop off before I could get my camera out and snap a photo of it. It was pretty funny watching this insect though. It would hold on and scramble for better footing then it would jump to the front of the 4-wheeler and sit under the rack for a while and then it would go back and sit by the seat... You could almost hear it thinking. That for sure was something you probably wouldn't experience very often. Surprisingly enough, it didn't really take that long to get down off the mountain....

When we got back to the pickup, we were all filthy dirty and a little sun burnt. When I took off the sun glasses to give back to Kim, my face looked like a raccoon. I had dirt all over my face. It looked so funny that Rob had to get a picture of me...

I had dirt all over my face and my clothes and my hands were almost black! After using our ice cold drinking water to clean up, we loaded up the 4-wheelers and took off to "The Chuck" where I could clean up much better and actually use some soap and warm water! I had so much fun on my first real adventure of 4-wheeling. We are already talking about trying to go again within the next few weeks. I wonder why we didn't get these toys much sooner, like when we first got married???

Gum Luvin'

I have my hands full I tell you... Look at the surprises I got from my adorable daughter today! She got into the diaper bag and pulled out my gum. Hummm... I think she has already done this before but never to this extent. I had to take a few pictures so I can laugh about it later but right now, I want to just pull my hair out!

I think she had some difficulty opening the gum package cuz it got ripped into half... I think she really like the gum because almost all the pieces were sampled and had little bites taken out of them. :)

Just getting ready to shove another piece of gun into her mouth!

Now she is trying to open up yet another piece.... She must really love that Mint Pomegranate taste! Her mouth is getting full of gum at this point, so after I took this picture, I chased her down and made her empty it and then I cleaned up the rest of the mess. So note to self: Must buy more gum when at the grocery store next! :)

New Toys = Fun Toys

Earlier this week, Rob and I went on a spending/ shopping spree... You know since it was Labor Day and all, there were tonz of sales everywhere... Too bad what we bought was not on sale for Labor Day, although it was a fairly decent price. We are now the proud owners of 2, yes TWO, Honda Rubicon 5-wheelers. Some might say we splurged, and I agree we probably did, but my philosophy is that Rob would be missing out cuz he would have to stay home since we only had one machine. HA! HA! Actually I have only been 4-wheeling a handful of times in my life and have only been a passenger on them so I have absolutely no idea how to even drive them. So more than likely Rob would have all the fun cuz you know if we only got one, he would be the only one on it 98 % of the time since I have a major disadvantage compared to all of his experiences. I for one am ready and willing to learn how to drive these machines and don't want to miss out at all because of my driving ATV incapability. So we got 2 so I would have my very own. This way we can go together. So here is a picture of Rob driving my 4-wheeler right when we got home and he is unloading it. Since they are new, we had to wait a few days for them to put them together so we just barely picked them up yesterday morning... Don't worry, I haven't been holding out on ya. :)'













I think that Maysie is more interested on trying to drive than in getting her picture taken... What can I say, she learns young but I am pretty sure she is having lots of help from her Daddy! LOL.

Doesn't it look like so much fun? And have you ever seen a white 4-wheeler before? Neither Rob, nor I have seen one before we got to Steadman's (the place we bought them at) and they had one sitting out side right before you walk inside. I think they look pretty rad if you ask me. Rob's 4-wheeler is exactly like mine except we put a snow plow on his so he can shovel our humongo driveway this winter the easy/fun way instead of using all the manual labor. :) The plow can be removed really easy so when it is off, like right now, it looks exactly like mine. I keep telling him that I am going to girl-i-fy mine a little bit so we can tell them apart. No, I won't ruin it by putting a hot pink feather boa around rack things, I just want to use my cricket machine and make some sort of vinyl something or other to put on there unless I find a cool sticker for cheaper. Tomorrow were going up to Ogden Canyon with some of Rob's family to test out our new toys. I am sure we will have a heck of a lot of fun! Oh, yeah! I'm getting excited.

Lots'a Regatta

Last night for scouts we had a Rain Gutter Regatta Derby. I seriously had no idea what a Rain Gutter Regatta was cuz I am pretty sure that a lot of scout troops don't do one of these. But after a month or so of planning this fine event, I quickly found out that it is just like the Pinewood Derby but instead of racing cars that they made, they race boats. Yep, it is just as competitive as the Pinewood Derby although, since it was held outside our scoreboard was not as high tech like the Pinewood Derby was. (I don't think anyone wanted to try and clean up all the puddles of water on a carpeted floor when the whole ordeal was over) :)

A Scouter just finishing his race

In the middle of racing.

Taking their positions...

Getting some assistance since there boat's kept turning sideways... I think they finally got it fixed before the races were over.

Getting ready to race. Do you see our not so high tech score board in the background? :)

Before they started to race they had to choose if they wanted to use a straw to help blow or if they just wanted to blow the boat down the gutter. Some claimed that the boats would go faster when the straw was used, but I think that some of the boy's had good air pressure without the use of a straw! LOL :) The awards were similar to the ones that they made of the Pinewood Derby except that they were plastic instead of wood. Since no one goes home empty handed, some of the awards were titled, "Ship-Wreaked", "Last Boat Standing", "Hurricane Alley", "Drift-Wood", etc. Brother Scott gets pretty creative with the different names.











Our awards.

All the boats looked really cool and each one of the boys did a really good job making and racing them. I found it interesting how each boat really reflected the boy's personalities. Some of the sails were decorated with stickers while others were hand drawn. The designs ranged from all out Americana complete with Lego men, to Dinosaurs, to a Pirate theme... I couldn't get good pictures of all the boats since they had to lay down on the table so you'll just have to imagine the handy work of an 8-11 year old boys. At the end our winners were finally determined. Good job Boys!















The winners posing for a picture with their boats with there victorious smiles spread across there faces.



Since the Regatta was held outside in the Bowery, Maysie had a hay-day running around in the grass. Rob was chasing her from one end to the other just trying to catch her to come watch the boats race but she didn't really want to watch them. I was the Ready, Set, Go announcer so I couldn't go chase her. I am so glad that Rob was able to go cuz I know that I wouldn't have been able to keep track of Maysie when I was busy with everything else.... So this is normally what Maysie looked like when I saw her... Running away as fast as she could!












This picture makes me laugh cuz of Maysie's face. She is screaming because Rob went and got her for a picture and she just wants to run away and not sit still... :)

Idaho!

For Labor Day weekend, we went to my brothers house in Rigby, Idaho for may multiple family gatherings. We have been planning this all summer long - at least - to make sure everyone in the family could go. The first family gathering, was for my nephew Bryson's baptism on Saturday. I can't believe that he is already 8 years old. It was a really special day and a neat experience to witness. Everyone in my family was there: my mom, oldest sister Diana and her family, my other sister Sandi and her family, and of course my brother Shawn and his family and it wouldn't be a party that we were at if I didn't mention my little family too. :) I think that the last time my whole family was together was when Maysie was blessed and we were only together for a few hours, although, we were missing my nephew Bryson then since he opted to go to his other cousins house instead of enduing the long car ride to my house, so really this was the first time in a really long time where everyone and there spouses and all offspring were in tow and able to meet together. After the baptism, we had a yummy BBQ and all the kids ran around and played for a long time. Rob took Maysie outside a few times to jump on the trampoline. That was seriously fun to watch. He is such a great dad! Maysie had a ball and I am pretty sure Rob got a great exercise workout in while entertaining Maysie at the same time. :) Maysie took to playing a lot with my nephew Culter which took me by surprise. I figured that she would play with my niece Presley more but she didn't. She did however love playing with the dolls and the baby stroller with Presley, and she totally dug the rocking horse. I am pretty sure that these items are towards the top of her Christmas list this year because whenever these toys are available anywhere, she has to play with them. :)

On Saturday night, Rachelle, Mom, Maysie, Rob and I went to the Eastern Idaho State Fair. This is the "FAIR" to go to in all of Eastern Idaho and really the only "FAIR" I remember growing up. It probably is as big or maybe even bigger than the Utah State Fair in my eyes, although, the nice thing about the Fair in Idaho is that it is way cheaper. It is only $5.00 per adult to get in instead of the $8.00 I think it is for the Utah State Fair and the parking is way cheaper. We lucked out since Rob was driving and he can parallel park uoober good. We were able to park right across the street from the entrance! Seriously, I think that is the best parking spot I have ever had in my life for a fair and it will probably be the best one for the rest of my life. How lucky were we! Maysie loved the animals especially the cows and the horses. We walked around the exhibits for the most part of our excursion. The quilts were really cool and there was one especially that was phenomenal. Someone took a family photo and made a quilt using 1 inch squares to look like it. It was defiantly unique. We thought that it should have won a 1st place ribbon instead of a 4th place since it was complex but it looked so cool especially if you stood back a few feet away and looked at it. There was so many cool pictures both painted and with photography that I liked too. It is interesting how each artist has their own specialty in which they completely excel at. The 4-H buildings had lots of fun projects submitted. They had everything from scrapbooking, sewing, herbs, and painting. My niece Sierra made a skirt for her 4-H project and we were able to see it there. That is pretty impressive to me that at 10 years old they can actually make clothes where you wouldn't be afraid to wear out in public. Here I am 26 years old and I'm not so confident on my sewing capabilities especially with a pattern, although I know enough to get by. I always wanted to be in 4-H when I was younger just so I could learn some of these neat tasks but instead I settled for my 8th grade home-ec class where we made blankets, bags and boxer shorts (which by the way never got finished even though I wore them... Stupid elastic waistband!) :)

On Sunday we woke up and went to church in my brothers ward. Maysie just cracks me up. She was so shy around everyone but basically Rob and me and then when we got to Relief Society she was making friends with practically every lady that happened to sit in the near vicinity of me and my mom. Seriously, she would take her books to them, and her toys, and her cup then she would get them and then find an new person to share them with. My mom thought that it was very interesting how if she instigated it herself she can be quite a friendly little girl but if she is "forced" into the situation BEWARE cuz she can throw major fits! During Sunday School, Maysie again cracked me up. She discovered my mom's pursed and since she was already board of being quiet with Rob and I, she explored all the unknown treasures hidden inside of the bag of my mom's. She pulled out ever item that was contained within and made a huge mess on the floor. I mean ever item. Every credit card every piece of gum, you name it, it was probably laying on that floor. I guess it would be a good thing if my mom was looking to clean out her wallet and all the extra junk in her purse! :)

After Church, we went to my aunt and uncles house for lunch. Which leads us to reason number 2 to have a family gathering. We were having a surprise birthday party for my Grandma's 80th birthday. She actually turned 80 on the 28th of August but since that was only like a week ago, we were able to celebrate it on this 3 day weekend with the whole family gathered around. All of my aunts and uncles were there along with most of my cousins too. It has been years since I have seen some of my cousins - literally, I think some of them the last time I saw them was at my wedding almost 5 years ago - so it was really cool to see them again! It was great just being able to be around basically the whole lot of my family especially since we are not able to see each other very often. We were able to take what seemed like a gazillion family photos although I forgot to bring my camera to the party so I am relying on all the others to forward some of them to me. Hint! Hint! Otherwise I would of posted a few pictures but I am pretty sure that most of the people who read this blog were already there, so they probalby don't need the pictures to remind them of what they did this weekend! :)

That was basically the extent of our busy, eventful, fun family-packed 3 day weekend. Although it was so much fun being with my side of the family for a holiday, nothing beats coming home and being able to relax in your own home!

Stickers, Candy and the Potty Dance

I decided to give in and start potty training Maysie thanks to a plethora of people giving me advice and the reassurance that indeed she was ready to do it... I have been wondering about it for a while, but I just had to grip onto the fact that my little girl isn't as little as I want her to be anymore. Sniff! Sniff! I started on Friday equipped with a total of 6 pairs of panties. Umm yeah, I learned really quick that 6 pairs is not enough unless you plan on doing laundry every day. I seriously feel like I have been living in the bathroom. I have to take her in there basically every 15-20 minutes just to have her sit on the potty for at least a minute. But at least I am seeing some results so it is worth it. I just won't be able to go anywhere, or do anything really until we both get this thing figured out! :) The first day went pretty good, and I was excited that she did so good, especially in the morning. I didn't plan it all too well because I didn't have much in means of motivation for her. When I finally decided to commit to this adventure I googled anything and everything about potty training. One of the ideas on there was to keep a log with everything you do along with the times it was done so after a few days you can see if there are any patterns forming. So I armed myself with a notebook and pen and am diligently trying my best to write everything down. Another thing I did to improvise, is make a sticker chart, but I soon discovered that she doesn't really care about stickers on a piece of paper... I also tried to hype her up by doing the potty dance every time she was successful in her attempts, this basically just makes me look foolish but it does make Maysie smile although I am sure she is probably thinking how nutty her mom is. I couldn't think of any solution to really motivate her but of course CHOCOLATE, and I didn't have any around. Rob isn't to psyched about rewarding her with sugar but all of the other ideas people have offered seemed like they would work great if she was older but right now there is no way that she would understand the concept, ie. : pennies, fruit, stickers, prizes from the dollar store... I like the penny idea but I know that Maysie has no idea what the penny is and would just try and eat the darn thing which isn't exactly the idea I have of her trying to save money. The fruit just seems like it isn't special enough since we encourage her to eat as many fruits and veggies as much as possible and if it is going to be a reward, then by-golly it should be something that they don't have very often and the prizes just seems like it will get expensive after a while. Yep, I think that Chocolate is the best solution: we don't let her have it very often, she knows what it is and she loves it (She is a girl through and through), and a package of M&M's is way cheaper than the dollar store prizes. Now all I have to do is convince Rob, that one M&M is not going to hurt her every time she uses the bathroom! By the time 3:30 came around, she had only 2 accidents but had at least used the potty. Once Rob got home, which was around 4:00 the potty training went right outside the window because Maysie was too excited to see Rob and didn't want to spend anytime away from him even to use the potty. Needless to say, we ran out of panties basically so she got put into her pj's a little bit early which includes a diaper since I am definitely not ready to start that feat yet. The next morning, one of the first things I did was made a trip to Wal-Mart to buy more panties. I let Maysie pick out a package and I got a few more of the training pants which is what we were already using. I think we now have enough pairs to get us by for 2-3 days strait without having to do laundry. I also picked up a package of M&M's and figured that I would convince Rob that it really is a great motivator. After we got home, Maysie was like a potty queen and only had 2 wet accidents all day and 2 poopy ones which is to be expected since it always takes longer to get a kid to poop in the toilet. She actually used the el bano 8 times yesterday! See it's all about the Chocolate. I'm telling you! We are still using the sticker chart but once she fill out a whole row, we will go get her prize from the dollar store and I still do the potty dance to try and show my enthusiasm of her success although I am sure she is just laughing hysterically inside that precious little body of hers. Today was a much harder day to potty train since she had to spend 1/2 her day in a diaper because of church (Give me a few weeks and I'll attempt the pantie thing there but I want her to get the concept down first). When we got home she was totally ready for a nap so I just kept her in a diaper to prevent any accidents while she was sleeping. We were able to add 2 more stickers onto the chart and we only went through 2 pairs of underwear but it was hard to keep her interesting on sitting on the toilet for more than 10 seconds so I am sure that we would have had lots more accidents if we had to do it without the help of the diaper. All in all, I am really quite surprised that she is doing so good especially since she is young to be potty trained! If the rest of the week goes this good then I will feel like this potty training thing is a whole lot easier than what I thought it would be, but maybe I shouldn't speak so soon! :)

Brooklynn Update

I know some of you are curious about how my niece Brooklynn is doing... Well I am happy to report that she has made almost a full recovery now. She is now up walking around, (the blisters on her feet popped last week and revealed a few small burns that was hiding behind the blister, but it wasn't really that big of a deal). I saw her last night and she was running around and playing with Maysie - her best friend. She actually had clothes on this time which if they are able to put clothes on then you know she is almost all healed up. I heard that they actually took her outside for a while yesterday to let her play and get some fresh air... :) All the bandages are removed now except for around her stomach and on her right arm, but the one on her arm is only on to prevent her from damaging the new skin with all the itching she has (I guess she tries to scratch it and it causes it to bleed and scab over). Her stomach is doing so much better too. She only has one small spot that is trying to heal up, but most of it looks really good. I can't believe that it has only been 3 weeks tomorrow since the accident happened and she is already almost as good as new... This truly is a miracle that has happened to our family and we really do thank everyone for all of their thoughts and prayers.

Oops!

So we have this family rule, well it is more or less a concern for Rob instead of me since I don't have this problem... but if we get pulled over and get a ticket for speeding then we have to pay the other person the money equivalent to the price of the ticket or buy a complete outfit equipped with shoes. Since I have know Rob he has been pulled over enough times to have to use 2 hands to count it all. He tends to have a little bit more of a lead foot than I do. Every time he has been pulled over before he gets off with just a warning (We blame it on his concealed weapons permit - for some reason when cops see that he has one, they respect him more or something and let him off... ) We had a family rule similar to this when I was growing up except that if we got a ticket then we couldn't drive the car until the ticket and my mom was paid, so I figured I would instill it in our family once I saw this pattern of his... Hey, who knows, it will either save us lots of money for raised insurance bills or it will make a nicely stocked closet. :) Well the other day, Rob was driving all around Nevada, (Seriously, it was like lets make sure we go as far North, South, East and West as we can go in this state) and somewhere in the middle of nowhere he gets pulled over for speeding. According to the cop he was going 10-15 miles over the speed limit but according to Rob, it was maybe 5-8 miles over.... Needless to say, he got his first ticket in quite a few years. Can you believe this stupid thing is $177.00? That is ridiculous. (This is easy for me to say since I have never, let me repeat that NEVER been pulled over in my life - knock on wood - therefore I have never had any reason to receive a ticket... - tis why this family rule is more of a concern for Rob than me) I never knew that tickets cost so much. I know that there are so many tickets being given out every day --- Why are we in such an huge economic crisis then???? Our Government should have plenty of money with prices like these! (I just noticed that maybe we are in a economic crisis because everyone is poor from paying tickets with prices like these! :) ) When Rob told me this news, I started laughing so hard... I then promptly, and sweetly reminded him of our little family rule and the little luv-bucket that he is can't seem to remember this deal... He is trying to say that it was only for our kids, yet I don't think I would of brought the whole thing up since when I mentioned the idea we didn't even have kids yet. Duh! I think he liked the idea only when it is in his favor, but then it turned out to bite him in the rump! Ha Ha. Now I just get to wait to collect my loot! Darn I should have followed the rest of my Mom's rule cuz this may take a while to collect it...