The Ences

Tom boy or girly girl?

2012-01-27T08:00:00.000-08:00

Jan 22: We went over to Amy and Tyler's for a delicious dinner of ribs, scones and potatoes after church. While we were there I got a picture of Bailey hanging out on the floor watching everything going on around her. She is already comfortable in cheer jump positions....she sits in these positions a lot! Not sure if she will be into cheer/dance or sports. With a brother like Nate I am thinking she will be a tom boy because she will have to learn how to hold her own and be tuff! She loves playing with all his boy toys, but thats the only thing we have around! I am excited to see her grow and see what she takes interest in! Tom boy or girly girl? Doesn't matter to me! Whatever she does she will be great at! She is an Ence/Nelson after all :)

Yummy breakfast

2012-01-27T07:55:00.000-08:00

Jan 21st: It was saturday and we woke up and surprisingly didn't have anything going on that morning so I decide to make breakfast instead of just eating the usual cereal. I made cinnamon rolls and they were oh so yummy!

New Swing Set

2012-01-27T07:40:00.001-08:00

Jan 20th: Our friends Shawna and Jason gave us their playground set their son had outgrown! They are so awesome! It is perfect for Nate! He loves it!! It is nice to have something else for him to go outside and do in the backyard! He has played on it just about everyday since we have gotten it! The weather has been great the past few days. I love that we live in St. George and he can go outside in the middle of January and play in a short sleeve shirt with no shoes on! It was a warm afternoon and Bailey and I went out and enjoyed playing outside too.

Bailey loves her doggie

Later that afternoon I had a nerf gun war with my little superhero

That evening we went and watched Blake's basketball game. They are always so close and come down to the buzzer! PV won! Grandma was watching Josie and Dallin and was taking them to Mc Donalds after the game. They invited us to come along and of course Nate was so excited! When we got there I got a high chair for Bailey and then they all wanted to sit in one. So all 4 kids sat in the high chairs. It was kinda nice having them contained so they couldn't get up and leave until they were done eating :)

Going to the car wash

2012-01-27T07:23:00.000-08:00

Jan 19th: I took my disgustingly dirty car to get washed after dropping Nate off at preschool. I love to have a clean car and it has been a long time since I have gotten it washed inside and out! Skyler saw on twitter that they were having a 50% off all their car washes that day if you went in before 11. That is such a good deal! We got their best carwash that cleaned the car inside and out for $12! So great! It felt so nice getting into a squeaky clean car! Now hopefully it cab stay that way for awhile :)

My little Star

2012-01-26T21:16:00.000-08:00

Jan 17th: Nate was the star of the week at preschool this week! Every week they rotate who it is and it was finally Nate's turn and he was beyond excited! I loved seeing his little face light up when I told him it was his turn! They made an All About Me poster at the beginning of the school year and when they are the star it gets hung up for all the class to see. They get to be the leader for all activities and on Thursday they get to bring treats for everyone in their class. When I asked Nate what treat we should bring, without any hesitation he said chocolate chip cookies! He loves them!

Nate wearing his preschool shirt

Jan 18th: We made a store run and got all ingredients to make the chocolate chip cookies for his class. I think one of the things he likes most about the cookies and helping make them! He loves to help me in the kitchen! I really do need to get an apron for him, but I am not sure how his dad would respond to that :) He is a great helper and loves to pour all the ingredients in, stir the batter and plop it on the pan! He pretty much made them himself with a little assistance from me. Love baking with my little chef!

Everyday stuff

2012-01-23T16:52:00.000-08:00

Jan 15th: Being silly

Jan 16th: My morning routine. Wake up to snuggling with my kiddos, Dad gets home from basketball, morning kisses and breakfast

Park, Black Bear Diner, and Shakes oh my!

2012-01-18T22:28:00.000-08:00

Jan 14th: We never made it to the park the day before and Nate was begging to go! It wasn't as nice now, but I promised him we would go! We didn't go until the evening time so it was cold and starting to get dark. There were no other kids at the park, but that didn't stop Nate from having fun (at least before he started freezing to death!) He wanted Bailey to go down the slide with him. I told him she was still to little to go all the way down, but I would hold her and have her do the bottom half. She got to experience her first time on the slide :)

We went to Black Bear Diner for dinner. I have been wanting to try it for awhile now and we were finally able to go. It was pretty good, but I must say I wasn't satisfied until we got home and the boys made us yummy chocolate shakes! Nate loves making chocolate shakes with his Dad! It was the perfect ending to a great day!

For the love of reading

2012-01-18T22:12:00.000-08:00

Jan 13th: Nate loves going and checking out books from the library! He feels like he is getting a new toy or something every time we go! We haven't been in so long! We went on friday when we had nothing else going on and he checked out several books! He was so excited to get home and read them! It was a nice day and I asked him if he wanted to go to the park for a little bit before we went home to read his books and he said no lets go read the books and then go to the park. I couldn't believe it!

Its so fun being snuggled up on the couch reading him a story and discussing all his cute little questions and comments about the book! I love reading to him!

Oh so strong

2012-01-18T21:40:00.000-08:00

Jan 12th: We went to Costco a few weeks ago and one of their samples was kids vitamins. I have been meaning to get some for Nate so I was so glad they had some he could try before buying a huge bottle of them and him not even liking it! He loved them! They were the Gummy Vites and they pretty much taste like regular gummy bear candy! I told him he can only have 2 a day and that they will make him stronger. He got so excited! Everyday he reminds me to have him take them! After he eats them he always flexes his muscles so I can see that he just got stronger by eating them! Its so funny! I love that he loves them!

Nate asked Skyler why he had his finger taped and Skyler said it was so he could do the Master Shefoo (not sure how to spell it, but the guy from Kong Fu Panda) grip. He asked Nate if he wanted him to tape his finger and of course Nate wanted too! He thought it was the coolest thing ever! The bottom picture is of them doing their Master Shefoo fingers together for power :)

Going to the temple

2012-01-18T20:50:00.000-08:00

Jan 11th: Nate has been making Bailey laugh a lot lately. She pretty much laughs at everything he does! She already idolizes him and Nate loves that she thinks he is so funny!

While we were waiting for Skyler one night we were out down by the temple and Nate saw and it and said "Look Mom! The temple!" He always points it out every time he sees it and then he says thats were you get married! We had some time to spare so I asked him if he wanted to go see it and he excitedly said yes! We have walked around them temple grounds a few times with him before, but we have never taken him through the visitors center. I decided to take him through. I told him inside the building was a big statue of Jesus and he said can we go see it?? I said yes and he said thanks mom you are so nice! Ha ha! He promised me he would be good so we headed through the doors. In the first building they have pictures and a small replica of the temple. Nate loved it and thought the little temple was so cool! Then we went on to the main part of the visitors center to see the statue of Jesus. When we walked into the room he got the biggest smile on his face and said look mom there he is! Its the statue of Jesus. He was grinning ear to ear the whole time we were in there! Bailey was smiling too..I bet she knew exactly who he was already! The sister missionaries asked him if he want to hear it talked and of course he said yes! They played it and he thought it was so neat! We went out and walked around by the temple. It was such a wonderful evening with my babies! I wish Skyler would have been with us! He was a little disappointed we went without him!

Photo a day Challenge

2012-01-12T16:42:00.000-08:00

My mom took me out for lunch on Jan 2nd and told me she wanted to take pictures because she was doing the 365 day photo challenge. The challenge is you take at least one photo a day for a year! I thought that sound like a great idea especially since on of my new years resolutions is to be better about taking pictures and documenting them! So I am going to give it a try! So here is me catching up on the last twelve days and I will be up to date!! Yay! Lets home I can keep it that way! I am not sure I will have the time to upload a photo a day but I will at least do it every week and update the whole weeks worth of pictures!

Jan 1st: So mad I didn't take a picture of Nate in his church clothes for his first day a primary! Not off to a great start ha ha! Here is Dad and Bailey taking a sunday afternoon nap!

Jan 2nd: Since Skyler had the day off my mom and I could finally get together for her take me out for my birthday lunch without bringing the kids!

That night Skyler and I took the kids to Mc Donalds and Nate of course had a blast. Mc Donalds is definitely one of his favorite places! I think Bailey is starting to like it a lot too :)

Jan 3rd: Lucky Nate got to go to Mc Donalds again with his cousins Josie and Dallin! They came by for a visit in the morning and my house was a wreck, I hadn't showered, and Bailey desperately needed a nap! They hung out for a little while and then my awesome sister in law Amy took him to Mc Donalds with them so I could get in a shower and start on cleaning up the tornado that hit my house! Thank you again for helping me out! She took this picture of them at Mc Donalds eating ice cream!

Later that night I caught Nate on video acting like a Bull. He loves getting Bailey with his "horns." She laughs and laughs! I think it looks like it hurts, but she loves it!

Jan 4th: We put in our new entertainment center that Skyler's mom built for me for christmas. We originally were having it built for a sofa table to put behind our couch, but then we got to thinking that it would be a lot more convenient if it was in front of the couch where the kids play. If it was behind the couch there would be toys behind our living room and all over by the kitchen table. The only place to put it would be to use it as our entertainment center. So we made the switch. I am still trying to get used to it as the entertainment center! I miss the other one! This one opens up the space a lot more and it lets the extra chair we have fit in the room better, but now I feel that the wall and our house fill so bare! I need to think of a way to decorate around the TV. HELP! Any suggestions would be great!! This piece is fun and I like the color, but I feel like the other entertainment center went a lot better with our house and made it fill a lot nicer! So I am still deciding if I want to keep it as the entertainment center! There are a lot of pros and cons! I want to make new pillow covers and curtains and do something on the wall behind the TV and then I think I would like having it there a lot more! Here is a picture of the space...let me know if you have any ideas of how to decorate that wall!

Bailey enjoying it

Jan 5th: Skyler's basketball season at the Washington Rec Center started back up and we went to go watch him play. Nate usually likes to go play in the daycare for the first half of the game and then come out and watch him the second half. Skyler's team is TEAM D and the won the championship last season and hoping to do the same again!

After the game we came home and I fed Bailey dinner and then let her try some puffs. I have given he a few here and there, but she has never really been interested them until this night. She now enjoys them and it makes it nice that she can eat them when we are out and about!

Jan 6th: We didn't do a lot this day so I just took pictures of the kids at the store and later playing with Max and then wrestling with Dad! Please note the change in Nate's shirt. Right now he is in a phase where he always wants to change his shirt 2 to 3 times a day! It can be really annoying and it makes for a lot more laundry then necessary! Some days I fight it and other days when I am not in the mode I just let him.

Jan 7th: The boys started off the morning by going out and having a boys morning. They went to Black Bear (I may or may not have been upset with Skyler for taking Nate out to breakfast there when he knows I have been wanting to try it forever and haven't been yet) Nate told me he loved all the bears they had there. They then went to feed the horses and the place we are keeping them at just got some new pigs that Nate thought they were so cool! Bailey and I went out and had a little girls morning ourselves. We went and did some shopping. When everyone got home it was kinda a lazy afternoon. Bailey has been so funny lately and has been obsessed with her tongue! Every time you look at her and call her name she will stick out her tongue and start panting like a dog! Its so funny. I guess since she is at eye level with Buddy she is learning a lot from him on how to be a dog :) Every picture I took of her today she was sticking out her tongue. I got a short video clip of her acting like a dog too.

I was getting lots of loves from my babies and I loved it!! Love being a mom to these two munchkins!!

Jan 8th: My daily routine as a mom is bathing these two monkeys! Making sure teeth are brushed and they are ready for the day! Since Bailey has been able to sit up on her own for awhile now I started bathing her and Nate together. It makes things go a little faster and they have fun in the tub together.

Cute video of them when he didn't know I was recording

Jan 9th: There was such the prettiest sunset today. I made Nate run out into our backyard and take a picture with me. I am sad they turned out blurry!

Jan 10th: We took our dogs on a walk down to the park by our house. It is the first time we have been there together as a family. It was a nice night and a fun little family outing!

Sunbeam

2012-01-12T15:42:00.001-08:00

Nate had his first day in primary! He is no longer in nursery...he is a sunbeam! I can't believe it! I have a child who is old enough to be in primary! So crazy! I was really nervous about him not wanting to go and not wanting anything to do with primary because he is OBSESSED with nursery!! I have never met a child more excited to go to church/nursery! Anytime we had stake conference and he couldn't go to nursery he always had a big meltdown on the way home! After sacrament was over we started walking down to the primary room and we passed his nursery classroom and he started to pull on me wanting to go in. I reminded him that he is going to primary from now on because he is a big boy. I saw his friend Porter a few steps ahead of us and hurried and said look there is Porter! He is going to primary too! Nate agreed to go catch up to Porter! Thank goodness! We went into the primary room and walked up to the front and we had the boys sit down on the chairs. I stayed in there for a few minutes, but he was acting really good so I leaned down and kissed him and told him to have fun and to be a good boy and listen to his teacher! He said Ok mom, love you bye! And waved and I walked out. A few minutes later I walked by in the hallway and he was still sitting there being good so I went to class. About 20 minutes later Bailey was acting up so I took her out to feed her and I peeked in on Nate and they were doing head, shoulders, knees and toes and he was doing it like a good boy! I was so thrilled! I saw my Porters mom in the hall (she is in the primary presidency) and I asked her how Nate was doing. She said when she walked in they were both laying on the ground, but she said their teacher assured her that they had been really good the whole time, just right when she walked in they had started getting wiggly. When church was over and I went to get him from his class I asked his teacher (Sister Shaw) how he did and she said he did good. She said he was squirmy and wiggly, but that we have to remember it is there first time out of nursery so she expected that! She said he is going to do fine and reassured me not to worry!

I got a call from his teacher the next saturday morning and she asked me if I could teach her class on Sunday. She had a baby blessing to go to and she thought it was at 1, but it was at 11. I said yes and I was actually really excited so I could see first hand how Nate really acted! Sometimes I think people sugar coat it because they don't really want to tell someone there child was acting horrible! When we got to primary Nate sat down and was doing really good. Then him and his friends kept wanting to get up and switch seats or go see their moms so it was a battle trying to keep everyone in their seats, but Nate was really good about listening to me! If I told him to sit down he would and when it was singing time he paid attention and did all the actions. He wasn't perfect, but he did pretty good for being a really active 3 year old boy! They have the sunbeams split into 2 classes and both his friends Porter are in the other class, but his friend Jocylen is in his class so that is nice! When we split off into classes I just had him and 2 other cute little girls in my class. It was a lot of fun to teach them. They are all so cute and just like little sponges soaking everything in! The lesson was on Heavenly Father has a Body. I had them draw a picture of themselves and point out all there body parts on the picture. I explained to them that Heavenly Father has a body just like we do. They each had a sticker and I told them to put the sticker on the body part I said. Then we did Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. They colored in a picture of a girl or boy. Then I had them take turns telling/showing me things they can do with their body. We went over the first article of faith and I had them memorize the first line. It was a lot of fun! They all did so good!!

Slow down

2012-01-11T15:35:00.001-08:00

My kids just grow up way to fast and always want to act older than what they are! Bailey started pulling herself up on furniture and in her crib a few weeks ago and she is only 6 months! The first time I walked into her room and saw her standing up in her crib I about died! She is so tiny and I am not ready for her to be so grown up yet! Every time I go and get her out of her crib now she is standing up against it. Whenever Nate hears her cry he runs into her room and jumps up onto the rocking chair and will start talking or singing to her until I get in there. Its so cute and she loves it! The first couple weeks she started pulling herself up on things he would point to her and so excitedly say "Mom, look! She is standing up!" Then he would go over to her and say good job Bailey girl! Now that she can interact and play with him a little more he loves it and he has been obsessed with her! He is always wanting to go pick her up and play with her. He loves trying to "help her walk" I love that he is such a big helper with her and it's so cute to watch them play and laugh together!

Nate helping Bailey walk

I wrote Nate's name on his new art easel and he said he wanted to try writing it. After a couple times of him tracing the letters I wrote he could completely do it on his own! We need to work on making the letters all the same height and the correct way to write them because he likes to start from the bottom and go up on the N and A and on the E he sometimes draws the top line first instead of drawing the side line. I was pretty proud of him for picking it up on his own! He is one smart kid and he loves to learn and gets so excited when he can do new things! This is him writing his name for Dad the next morning. Today he told me the he wants to learn how to write all the letters! I told him we could practice on writing a different letter everyday so its not to overwhelming and we can learn how to write them all the right way!

6 month shoot

2012-01-11T15:22:00.003-08:00

Here are some pictures from Bailey's 6 month photo shoot. I don't have the cd of them yet so I don't have all of them...I just copied these ones off of the ones she posted on Facebook. Bailey was sick the week we took them so I wasn't sure how she would do getting her picture taken, but she did great! Way better experience then her newborn photo shoot ha ha! I had some christmas ones of Nate done on his first christmas so I wanted some of her too. So we took some christmas ones and then some regular ones. I love the way they turned out! Thanks so much Alyssa for taking them!

Christmas

2012-01-10T20:55:00.001-08:00

We spent the night over at Skyler's moms on Christmas Eve and we were woken up by santa himself! He came bright and early at 6am and walked into the room Nate and Bailey were sleeping in first! I was surprised, Nate actually let Santa hold him and carry him over to where his presents were! It was so fun! Bailey didn't cry either she just had a look of confusion on her face :) Once Santa left and we were all in the living room the kids took turns opening their presents starting with Dallin, then Nate, then Josie and then Bailey. There were a few times when they were really excited and kinda jumped the gun on their turn, but they all did awesome! It was such a great christmas morning and everyone got everything they wanted and more!! After we opened presents we went over to Skyler's grandma Ences for a christmas breakfast! It was delicious as always! Nate and Bailey got to pick out a teddy bear and she gave us all a little stocking with some Christmas money! After breakfast we went back to his moms house and took a nap and woke up in time for Justin's call home at 1! It was fun to talk to him over Skype! It made me miss talking to my brother a lot though! My family spent christmas up in Logan so they called him from my sisters house. We then went over and visited my grandparents for awhile and then headed back to his moms for dinner! We came home and went straight to bed after a really fun and long day!

The next morning we got up and packed and headed up to Bountiful to have christmas with Skyler's moms side of the family. The kids slept the majority of the way which was so nice!

Road trip!

We had a yummy dinner and played a game that was Adults vs Kids. I was a lot of fun! The next day we drove down to Provo were we had a little christmas with my family. We met them at Chilis for lunch and then headed to Amandas apartment for the afternoon to open presents and hang out! For dinner we went to Amandas mexican family and she made us tamales and they were so good! We left there about 9 and headed home. We stopped in Spanish Fork to see Bryce and Blaire and then made the long drive home! We didn't get home until 2:30am and we were so ready for bed! The kids did awesome all weekend!! We had so much going on and driving back forth and they really did so amazing especially on such little sleep! Now we are starting to get back to a schedule now that the holiday crazies are over! It was one great holiday season and even though I know its going to be crazy next year I am so looking forward to it!

Christmas Eve

2012-01-10T20:29:00.000-08:00

Finally getting around to posting about Christmas! We had such a fun and busy christmas this year! Christmas eve we went over to Skyler's moms house and made gingerbread houses, had hot chocolate and just had fun hanging out! The kids got to open a present from grandma and she gave them books of the Night Before Christmas and it was one where she recorder herself reading the story to them! It was so cool and will be such a treasure for them to have! They also opened their christmas PJs! I decide to be crafty and make Nate and Bailey pajama pants this year. I found a tutorial on interest that looked pretty easy so I gave it a try! They turned out really cute and I was so excited about them! After they opened them Nate put them on and was running around playing with his cousins and the next thing I know he has a gaping hole right down the seem along his butt! He had been running and stepped on it or something and it tore a hole in them! I was so sad! All my hard work went to waste :( I didn't even get a picture of him wearing them because I figured we would have a lot of them wearing them christmas morning. I ran home and got him a some pjs and when I got back I put Bailey in hers and immediately took a picture just in case ha ha! Hers did last and they looked cute on her! They were a little long, but really cute! I was glad that at least one of them worked out!

Ence family Christmas Party

2012-01-10T20:21:00.001-08:00

The monday before Christmas Skyler's grandma had her annual Ence christmas party! We had delicious pasta and pizza factory with some yummy desserts. We played christmas bingo and all the kids got prizes as they got bingo. Nate got a car/robot and Bailey got a little baby phone! They both loved their prizes!! Then they had the talent show. Skyler, Jesse and Blake played the songs on their phones again and everyone as always was very impressed! There were a lot of little kids singing and so Nate wanted to too! He sang Jingle bells, well he tried :) We apparently need to work on the lyrics because he didn't really know them, but we were so proud of him for doing it!! It was a fun a night!

Nate singing Jingle Bells

Fun at grandmas

2012-01-10T19:44:00.000-08:00

Since my sister Amanda couldn't come home for Christmas she came home two weeks before. We went over and hung out at my mom's house. Nate helped grandma make christmas treats and was spoiled by his aunts playing and chasing him around! We took pictures with our letter we were assigned for a group picture we were sending Ty for Christmas. We had a lot of fun spending the day at grandmas house!

Here is our Happy Holiday picture all put together

Buster the elf

2012-01-08T13:43:00.000-08:00

We got a special package under our tree a few weeks before christmas this year! We were out at a friends house and when we got home there was a present from Santa sitting under the tree! Nate was so excited! He opened it up and it was our elf! We had been talking about how Santa was gonna send us one to sit in our house and watch Nate and Bailey so santa knew if they were being naughty or nice. The present included a book that we read that told us all about our new elf! It told us we had to choose a name for him. Nate couldn't decide on one so Skyler picked the name Buster! The book also said he used christmas magic to fly back and forth to see santa each night and if you touch him he will lose his magic! Everyday when he returns from seeing santa he would be hiding in a new spot and it was a race to see who could find him first! Nate was so excited when he read that part! He couldn't wait to see where his elf would be in the morning! By the time christmas came he had been all over the house doing all sort of silly, mischievous and fun things! We found him hanging from the fan, chilling Nate's stocking, on the christmas tree, digging in presents, having a snowball fight with Nate's toys, climbing the chandelier, playing in Nate's room, hiding in our room and many other fun places! I wasn't great about taking pictures every morning of where he was, but I did get a few. This was such a fun new tradition and one of Nate's favorite things to do each day! We can't wait for Buster to be back next year!

The special delivery

A few places Buster was found

6 months

2011-12-30T08:45:00.000-08:00

Bailey turned 6 months on December 5th. That is the same day as her Grandpa Rick's birthday. It's kinda fun that she can share her half birthday on his birthday! She had her 6 month appointment on that day and she sure is a tiny little thing! She weighed 12lbs 6oz and was 23 3/4 in long. She is in the 5th percentile for weight and 10th percentile for height. She is so petite and dainty and I love it!! Even though she is little she is go getter and wants to be and act bigger than she is! She does a scoot/crawl and can get anywhere she wants to go and she does! She is into everything! No more little toys or papers can be on the floor because she immediately sticks everything in her mouth! Her favorite things are paper, magazines, napkins and my phone. When she sees any of those things she is a magnet to them! She started pulling herself up on furniture a couple weeks ago. Thankfully she hasn't started walking around on them yet! Every time I go to get her out of her crib she is standing up in it now. She looks so funny doing it because she is so tiny! I love her to pieces! She is always so happy!! She will smile at anyone who gives her attention! She loves her big brother Nate and loves it when he pays attention to her! She is funny when it comes to baby food. She prefers the veggies over the fruit...kinda weird! Her favorites are squash, sweet potatoes and carrots. She has never refused them! Sometimes she is good about eating bananas and other fruit medleys but she sometimes wants nothing to do with them! I have fed her oatmeal with mixed fruit out of two different jars and both times she has thrown up all night! She must be allergic to something in it. I am thinking its the wheat grain because that was just about the only difference between the oatmeal with mixed fruit and just mixed fruit. I have been scared to feed her anything else with wheat in it because its so sad to see her throw up and be so sick! She brings so much joy to our home and we love having her as apart of our family! I have been so blessed with the two sweetest kids and love them with all my heart!!

Bailey and Nate in the waiting room at her 6 month appointment

Bailey is in love with the dogs! Anytime she sees them she heads straight for them! Max stays outside all the time now except when it rains so here she is with him one day when it was raining.

Just hanging out

Oh Christmas Tree

2011-12-29T10:13:00.000-08:00

Setting up the tree

Decorating the tree

Making the No Sew Ruffle tree skirt I found on Pinterest. It was originally made on HGTV. You can find theirs and the directions here. I bought a cheap felt tree skirt for $4 and bought 4 yards of cheap solid fabric at $2 dollars a yard. Total cost of project was under $15 and I love it!!

The finished product

Hogle Zoo

2011-12-29T09:42:00.000-08:00

We spent Thanksgiving up in bountiful this year with Skyler's grandparents. It was actually at his Aunt Wendy's house. Nate had fun playing there with all their fun toys! They decorated the tables for cute and the food was delicious! The next day we went out shopping a little at Ikea and one toy store but we didn't get to much into black friday shopping! The day after that we took the kids to Hogle zoo for the first time! I think Nate was in heaven! He loves animals! He was so excited to go from cage to cage and see all the different Animals. He was a little disappointed that they didn't have any elephants, rhinos, bears, or lions there, but he loved seeing everything else! He also loved riding the train they had there! It was the perfect ending to a fun zoo trip!

Jubilee

2011-12-29T09:39:00.000-08:00

We went to the Jubilee of trees with Skyler's cousin Lex and his family. All the trees were so gorgeous! It was fun walking around and getting ideas and seeing all the different themes! Definitely want to go again next year!

Backyard

2011-12-29T09:21:00.000-08:00

We have lived in our house for about 2 and a half years and we have had a dirt backyard until just recently! We have been so blessed with family and friends helping make it possible for us to get our backyard in! Skyler cousin Lex helped us out a lot finding someone to donate the sod and get a good deal on curbing! After the curbing was put in. Lex, Nick, and Jed and their friend Brady came over and helped Skyler, Jesse and Russ put rock along the side of our house for a parking pad and then they installed the sprinkler system and laid down sod in our backyard. It is so nice looking out and seeing green grass instead of dirt!! We love having it done! Hopefully in the spring we can plant trees, bushes and flowers in the planter areas in the front and backyard! Thanks again for everyone who helped with it!!

First stitches!

2011-12-29T08:48:00.000-08:00

Nate got stitches for the first time a month ago. I have to say we ended up going a lot longer then I thought we would without getting them! If you know Nate he is fearless and there have been some close calls! The funny thing is he wasn't even doing anything dangerous ha ha! We were bringing Alena (my sister) home from babysitting my kids one night and I had to go to the bathroom really bad! I asked Nate if he wanted to run in for a minute and say hi to grandma while I went to the bathroom. Of course he did! He got out of the car and was running up my moms porch stairs and tripped and fell. He got a big deep gouge on the edge of his chin. We cleaned it up as much as we could but the blood was just flowing so we put some gauze and a big bandied over it and headed to the ER. We got there about 10 and I knew it was going to be a long night because I could tell Nate was so tired! When we got there he was really good about letting the nurses take his blood pressure and vitals. Then we headed back to a room and he was good until they started ripping the bandaid we had put on off. I guess it was really sticky and it didn't want to come off! He was freaking out!! Once the doctor looked at it she said he definitely needed stitches because it was so deep! She said we should probably sedate him considering how much he just freaked out when she took the bandaid off. It was late and he was tired and already on edge! I was ok with it at first, but then she started explaining that he wouldn't wake up from it for about 2-3 hours after giving it to him and I just had this awful feeling about it! I asked if there was anyway we could just try to do it with out sedating him first and she looked at me like I was crazy so I agreed to let them do it. They left the room to go get the things they needed. Apparently I was tired and emotional too because I just started to cry. We said a family prayer, but I still didn't feel good about the situation. He ended up falling asleep because by now it was 11:30pm and we had been waiting in the room for an hour for them to come back with the things they needed to put the stitches in! He was completely zonked out! I asked Skyler if he cared if I asked them to try to give him the stitches now while he was sleeping instead of sedating him. He said go for it. So I walked out found the nurse and asked them if we could please try it without sedating him now that he was asleep. They told me he would wake up once they started things and would probably freak out, but we could hold him down. I said thats fine. I can handle him freaking out for a little bit rather then be sedated for a few hours! So they got there things and came in right away. They wrapped him up to help hold him down and when they started working on the wound he woke up. Poor guy did start freaking out! He was saying some of the funniest things but it was really sad to see him so upset!! I wish I would have recorded it because I can't remember everything he was saying, but he had us all cracking up, but feeling so bad for him at the same time! It took them about 15 minutes to stitch him all up. He got two rows of stitches, but I am not sure how many total he ended up getting. I think it was about 10 though. Once it was over they gave him stickers and we took him to the store to get a car because he made it through it. It was such an answer to my prayers that we were able to give him the stitches without sedating him!

New Park

2011-12-29T08:35:00.000-08:00

They just built a new park down by our house. It has a big beautiful pond and lots of grass to run around and play on. There are soccer fields and a playground going in behind the pond, but they haven't finished those yet. My friend invited us to go down to the pond to fish with them. It was a beautiful day and the park isn't very far so we decided to walk down. I loaded up Bailey in the stroller and Nate hopped on his bike. He loved riding his bike all the way to the park! It was such a fun day! We were there for a few hours and the kids loved it! They ended up catching a fish! Nate was hesitant to go near it at first, but once it was dead he was fine :)

Halloween

2011-11-29T19:53:00.000-08:00

It's weird writing about halloween when thanksgiving already passed and I just finished putting up my christmas decorations, but I want to get it all on my blog! Thankfully Nate was not sick anymore when it was halloween day! He was so excited to go out and go trick or treating! We had a neighborhood potluck that night and then we all dispersed once it started getting dark and went trick or treating. I brought Mummy wrapped hot dogs and they were a definite crowd pleaser! We had a great halloween and the kids looked oh so cute in their costumes if I do say so myself :)

Sick day

2011-11-02T19:42:00.000-07:00

Nate was sick last week with a really bad cough and he had his preschool halloween party on thursday. He had been looking forward to it all week and was so excited to dress up in his costume! He woke up coughing up his lungs and it broke my heart that I had to tell him he wasn't going to be able to go to preschool since he was sick! When Nate asked if it was time to go to preschool Skyler told him that instead of dressing up to go to preschool that he should dress up in his costume and come up to his office to go trick or treating with dad at the office. Nate loves going to daddy's work! He immediately said ok and was really excited! So glad that didn't turn out into a long blowout! Great idea Skyler! Skyler left for work and went and bought candy and told the offices around him about Nate and they all were so nice to help out and make Nate feel better about not being able to go to his party! We got to the office around noon and when we walked in Skyler came up and gave us all a big hug and then he asked Nate if he was ready to trick or treat. Of course he was! He went and knocked on the door of skyler's coworker, Russ, and when he opened it he said trick or treat! He got some candy and Russ gave him one of his golfballs he knew Nate loved! I kinda got teary eyed watching this. It was so nice of Skyler and everyone to do this for him! It made his and my day so much better! He then went to the office across the hall and trick or treated! Skyler also picked up a pizza and had it there for us to eat lunch with him. It was a great afternoon!

Backyard fun

2011-11-02T19:27:00.000-07:00

One advantage to have a dirt backyard is being able to dig it up and make a fire pit whenever we want :) Skyler had some left over marshmallows from the deer hunt and had the fun idea of roasting mallows in the backyard one nice evening for a fun treat! We all hopped on the Ranger and went for a ride down to the river by our house and collected some fire wood. We came back and built the fire and roasted our marshmallows! They were so yummy! I love fun spontaneous nights like these with my family. My pictures are really bad again because it was night time, but you can kinda see whats going on in a blurry way :)

Pumpkin Patch

2011-11-02T19:14:00.000-07:00

The monday before Halloween we went with some of our friends to Staheli Farms for FHE. They have a ton of fun activities for kids, a corn maze, pumpkin patch and a petting zoo. We didn't go until 7 so it was already getting dark so non of my pictures turned out good at all :( We had so much fun! The kids played on the bounce trampoline thing, we watched the pig races, they went in the petting zoo, played on the slides, played tether ball and we went on a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch. The kids all found the pumpkin they wanted. Lucky for us Nate wanted a small one he could lift up. So Skyler didn't have to haul a big one like one of the other dads did ha ha! Plus it was cheap! We ate dinner there and let the kids play some more and headed home about 9. It was our first time going out there and it was great!

Outdoors

2011-11-02T18:51:00.000-07:00

We love playing outside, especially lately!! The weather has been so nice! It's just now starting to get cold and I am glad we were able to have the warm weather until now! For the last few weeks we have spent a lot of time on our front lawn watching Nate ride his bike up and done the sidewalk of our street. He is finally able to reach the pedals good and he can go so fast! About a month and half ago was the first time he could really reach the pedals and go and now there is no stopping him! A few weeks ago we were out talking to our neighbors and there little boy said I just saw Nate turn the corner down there and pointed to the end of the street that turns to go out on to the main (and really busy!) road behind our house! I was like are you sure? I had just saw him right next to us a few seconds before that! Skyler went down after him and when he got to him he was riding along the sidewalk on the main road! Good thing Skyler went and not me because I probably would have panicked! He had made it about 6 houses down on the back side of our house! So scary!! Skyler asked him what he was doing and he said "I am just riding my bike dad!" As if it wasn't a big deal! In all fairness we had never told him to not go that way because he had just barely started riding his bike and we never thought he would. We should never underestimate that kid! Crazy boy!

Enjoying the outdoors

Deer Hunt

2011-11-02T18:38:00.000-07:00

It has always been a tradition for Skyler to go on the deer hunt with his Dad ever since he was a little boy. This year was the first year he could not go with his Dad because of his passing last year. He started the tradition he once did with his Dad with Nate. I know it was really special for the both of them and it's something Nate has been looking forward to ever since Skyler told him he would take him at the beginning of October. They didn't end up getting a deer, but I know there were some great memories made! As Skyler says "It's called a deer hunt...not a deer kill!"

Carnival

2011-11-02T17:46:00.000-07:00

We went to the Horizon Elementary School Carnival and Nate had a Blast!! I thought a lot of games might be over his head, but he could play all of them! His favorites were pumpkin bowling, angry birds (balls thrown at empty soda pop bottles), the bounce house, and the cupcake walk! When he went to do the pumpkin bowling he was behind a kid who was probably 8 and then it was his turn they told him to scoot up but he didn't want to he want to try it from the "big kid" line. He rolled the pumpkin and knocked down all the pins on his first try!! Everyone was so impressed! He did the cupcake walk and won a cupcake on his third try...he was so excited! They also were selling Durango's Salad and I bought one and had $2 left so I just bought 2 raffle tickets with the money I had left over and we ended up winning a basket! It was so exciting...I never win! We won the movie basket :) As we were leaving the Carnival Nate said "that was so fun...I love the carnival!" I have always loved Carnivals too. My elementary school always threw the funnest carnival and it brought back a lot of great memories!!

Nate fun

2011-10-30T21:34:00.001-07:00

Picture #1: Nate is a funny boy and makes me laugh a lot! You often find him wearing a cape or having his sword and gun tucked into his pants!

Picture #2: He is in a playgroup with 3 little boys from our neighborhood and we take turns every wednesday having all the boys over to play at our house from 10-12:30! So 3 weeks out of the month I get an extra 2 and 1/2 hours of me and Bailey time (or just me time because Bailey is usually napping!). It's kind nice to be able to have an extra day to get some stuff done around the house or run errands with only one kid! It's amazing what can be done with only one child at the house! I also love having his friends over once a month. It's fun to hear them play together!

The other pictures are of Nate holding a frog that him and his dad found down by the river when they went on an adventure ride on the Ranger! He was so excited to come home and show me the picture dad took of him holding it!

Eating Solids

2011-10-30T20:41:00.000-07:00

At Bailey's 4 month appointment the Dr. said we could start feeding her solids. I waited a few weeks and then decided to give it a try. She did pretty good with it. She definitely got more out and around her mouth than in! Now she has been eating them for a little over a week and she does really good. She will open her mouth when she sees the spoon coming. She always tries to grab the spoon and feed herself too. I fed her green beans the other day and she hated them! When I put them in her mouth she would pull the funniest face and then do a shiver and spit it out! So funny! I should have video taped it, but I didn't. I started feeding her squash next and she has been really liking that!

The first feeding

Later that day we went and cheered on Jesse as he played football in the DSC game. Then we went over to my mom's house for a bit to see Aunt Alena's new hair color (so pretty!).

4 month look alike!

2011-10-28T18:52:00.000-07:00

Bailey turned 4 months back on Oct 5th (yes it's no surprise I am behind on blogging again!) At her appointment she was 11lbs 2 oz and 23in long. She is in the 10th percentile for height and weight. Much like her brother she is a very active baby!! She doesn't like to sit still! She is always squirming and rolling around. She is getting to big to fast!! She loves to stand rather then sit in my lap and you can tell she just wants to jump out of my hands and go play! She is always so happy and will smile for anyone that gives her attention. She is such a joy to have in our home and we all sure do love our baby girl!

I took pictures of Nate in the nude in front of a blue blanket back when he was 4 months and I wanted to do the same with Bailey and compare and see how much they look alike. They definitely pull some of the same expressions and it makes them look so much alike! I think in a few of the pictures they look very similar! There is no question they are siblings :) It's funny, I think Bailey looks a little bigger and chunkier in these pictures than Nate, but at Nate's 4 month appt. he weighed 14lbs 4oz and was 25.5in long. So he was like 3lbs bigger and 2.5in longer yet she looks like the bigger one to me!

Cousins

2011-10-23T17:05:00.000-07:00

Nate loves all his cousins and is lucky that some of them live so close! We had Josie and Dallin over the other day and they were having so much fun playing! Dallin is in love with Bailey and kept asking to hold her! It was so cute! Then when I told them I wanted to take a picture of all 4 of them Josie and Dallin where arguing who got to hold Bailey. I told them that she was just going to sit between them on the couch. They were fine with that but as soon as I sat her down Dallin reached over and put his arm around her! Adorable! Love these kiddos!

Grandparents

2011-10-23T16:58:00.000-07:00

My Dad texted me one day and said "I asked mom why it has been awhile (it had only been like a week) since I have seen my grand babies and she didn't have a good reason so you should bring them over" I was at a football game so couldn't at the time, but they ended up coming over to our house the next day. This is Nate showing Grandma and Grandpa all his artwork from preschool.

Siblings

2011-10-23T15:59:00.000-07:00

I just love when Nate takes a moment out of his time and notices Bailey! He is always so cute with her when he does!! He wishes so badly she could play with him more so she often gets ignored when he realizes she can play like he wants her to. Here are just some everyday pictures of the two of them over the last few weeks that are completely candid! I had just walked in the room and randomly found him holding her hand, setting up all his toys for her to "play with" and then one day I asked him to hold her for me why I was folding clothes. He started singing to her and kissing her and trying to make her smile so I quickly grabbed the camera and started taking some pictures before he noticed!

Bailey's Baby Nursery

2011-10-07T22:01:00.000-07:00

I finally finished! She is now able to enjoy her nursery! All the hard work paid off and I am so happy with the way it turned out!! It is pretty much exactly what I envisioned!

So if you missed the post I did to the start of the room click here and check it out! It started as a completely blank normal off white bedroom. With the help of my AMAZING mother-in-law, we painted the top and bottom half of the room and then installed all the moldings! I then wallpapered the inside of the picture frame molding on the bottom half of the room with a black and white damask wallpaper. And that's where we left off on the last post :)

Once the walls were all painted, molded, and wallpapered I moved all the furniture into the room. Once again my AMAZING mother-in-law helped me out! She painted all the furniture black for me. I don't have before pictures of the furniture :( But I promise they look a hundred times better. The dresser used to be white, the crib and rocking chair were brown. She recovered the rocking chair from a brown suede upholstery to the cute pink!

My WONDERFUL mother had the crib bedding custom made for me as my gift. I went and picked out the pattern and fabric I wanted. I thank Laurie Steiner for doing such a great job on it! I love it!

I then set out on a hunt to find vintage looking frames to make a gallery wall. The big oval frame with the letter in it is from Ikea (best store ever!) My sweet husband surprised me with it one day because I told him I really wanted it! I think it makes the perfect statement piece! The rest of the frames and mirrors I found at garage sales and Thrift stores (I didn't pay more than $3 for any of the frames, except the one from Ikea). It took a few weeks to find them all, but after I got a pretty good collection I spray painted them all black. I went into her room laid them out on the floor and came up with an arrangement I liked. I then traced all the frames out on wrapping paper and parchment paper and hung them all up on the wall in the same arrangement I had laying on the floor. Once the papers looked how I wanted it to, I marked on them where the nail hole should go and started hanging them all up!

I had a print credit from vinylizeit.com and they were so good to work with me on what I wanted! I told them what it was I wanted and they sent me a few proofs of different fonts and sizes and this is the design we came up with!

I really wanted a chandelier for Bailey's room, but they are so expensive! Seeing how everything in her room is DIY. Why shouldn't the chandelier be? I can't afford a new one so I started looking for one I could up-cycle. I found one on craigslist from $20! I got some black spray paint and my awesome sister-in-law, Alyssa, found the crystals at Tai Pan (6 for $8). So my chandelier ended up being roughly $30 compared to the $200 ones at the store! I think it's perfect!

I wanted a nightstand in her room that I would be able to put next to the crib. I had some old barstools that used to be in our kitchen that I decided I could make into a cute nightstand. My wonderful mother had some black and white polka dot fabric she let me have and I covered the barstool with the fabric...so easy! Just used fabric, spray adhesive and exacto knife! Cost= free!

I needed a cute lamp to go on the nightstand I made. My mother-in-law had an old lamp she let me have and I recovered the lamp shade in the same polka-dot fabric I had left over from the night stand. I made a ribbon flower out of ribbon and string I already had! So cost of this cute lamp was also free!

My sister-in-law, Amy, made this cute banner for my baby shower and I loved it so much I had to use it in her room!

I made these tissue paper pom-pom balls to go above the nightstand.

So that's all the components that went into her room! Thanks to all my wonderful family for their help!! I was able to create my vision of this chic space and the best part is, is it was for very little amount of $$!!

The finished product...one chic baby nursery for my sweet baby girl Bailey!

Walking into the room

Right Corner

Crib

Middle Corner

Right Side

Left Side

Gallery Wall

Panoramic View

Linking up to these great parties!
Design Dazzle, French Country Cottage, a' la mode, tatertots & jello, A Glimpse Inside

All caught up

2011-09-25T16:11:00.000-07:00

With 15 posts in the last week this post will officially catch me up to date on my blogging! Woo hoo! Last week on Sept. 15th we went to the Rodeo. It is something we have done every year and has become our little tradition. The first picture Skyler and I ever took together was at the rodeo 5 years ago! Who knew then that 5 years later we would be taken the same picture and adding 2 kids to it :) I wouldn't want it any other way! Love my family of 4!

Then 2006:

Now 2011:

A few days ago I was sitting on the couch talking and playing with Bailey and she started laughing. Skyler got a little bit of it on video.

My 2 favorite

2011-09-22T20:16:00.000-07:00

My 2 favorite boys in the whole world!

Don't you love Nate's cowboy boots...or should I saw cowgirl ;)

Nate's new favorite thing

2011-09-22T18:15:00.000-07:00

Nate's new favorite thing is his booster seat for the car! I have to say it's one of my new favorite things too. I asked his doctor at Bailey's appointment when it was ok for me to move him to a booster seat from a forward facing carseat and he told me that as soon as he met the height and weight requirements he could sit in one. One day he was out with Grandma Tammy and he came home and showed me the new booster seat and a matching car (and cookies and chocolate milk!) Grandma had bought him. He was so excited!! Grandma said he picked out what booster seat he wanted and it was one with flames on it just like his new hot wheels car! He definitely met the height and weight requirements (he was about 4 lbs and 4 inches taller then what he had to be). It makes traveling so nice, especially when we transfer the seats between mine and Skyler's car! It is one more thing that reminds me how grown up he is and that makes me sad sometimes!

My little Super Hero

2011-09-21T12:30:00.000-07:00

Nate loves acting like a super hero. He is always asking me to tie blankets around his neck for a cape. Well the other day he discovered my nursing cover makes a great cape (I need to make him his very own cape...its on my long list of things to do and make!) He had his super hero goggles on which I guess give him extra powers! Love that kid!

Labor Day

2011-09-21T07:30:00.000-07:00

Every labor day Skyler's Dads side of the family gets together at Skyler's Grandmas cabin in Pine Valley. It was a little drizzly, but the weather was nice and cool! The days festivities included a blow up slide, a rock climbing wall, a real fishing pond, a prize fishing pond, a water gun fight and a catered lunch with Veyo Pies for dessert! It's always a ton of fun, but this year definitely had a different feeling with Rick not being there! He has always been the life of the party and he was truly missed!

Nate was so excited to fish when we got there, but then Kaden caught one and he saw the fish flopping on the ground and he changed his mind real quick! He didn't want anything to do with the fish after that!

Nate wanted to climb the rock wall and wanted to do it over and over again. Every time he did it he climbed a little higher and then the last time. He loved swinging and hanging on the cable!

Then it was dads turn

Nate cheered him on
And he made it to the top!
Skyler's brother Blake challenged his mom and she proved to him that she could climb to the top!
Grandma and Bailey
The prize fishing pond! Nate got a kaleidoscope and a boomerang frisbee!
Once it had stopped raining the kids played on the bounce slide!
Skyler and Tyler wanted to join in on the fun!
Then it was game time! They played a water gun game. Everyone pinned a postcard with an Alka-Seltzer on it to their back and everyone tried to squirt everyone else's. Whoever had the most of their Alka-Seltzer still left at the end of the game won money!

Nate kept squirting skyler when he was trying to refill his water gun! It was so funny!

The kids had fun and were zonked out the second we headed home!

3 Months...oh my!

2011-09-20T22:13:00.000-07:00

Bailey is growing up so fast! She turned 3 months on Sept. 5th. She is learning a doing new things all the time! She has lost the newborn look and looks like an older baby. She loves playing on her play-mat. She will lay their for 30 minutes to a hour observing, tugging, pulling, grabing and playing with all the toys.

She loves when she gets attention and is full of smiles when she does! She is loves talk and cue...its the cutest!!

She loves to stand and prefers it over sitting. Her legs are so strong! She rolled over from her stomach to her back for the first time on Sunday Sept. 11th and now she does it a few times a day! I love seeing her do new things, but I know its only a matter of time until she is all grown up! I have a feeling she is going to be a lot like Nate! Even though she can't walk and crawl she is constantly squirming and kicking and wanting to be on the go! Some might think I'm crazy because I am kinda hoping she is just like Nate because I am already used to parenting a busy on the go kid! What I don't know if I could ever get used to is someone full of drama, attitude, and high maintenance! I am sure I am bound to have to experience it all though because that would be my weakness! I love my two kids more than anything and I am so glad I have been blessed to be their mom!!

Look how much she has grown in 2 months!

Fun with Friends

2011-09-20T19:51:00.000-07:00

The same day as Nate's first day of preschool we had Nate's friend porter over to play because his mom just had his new baby brother! We picked Porter up after Nate got out of preschool and headed over to McDonalds to play and eat! The boys had so much fun! We were there for almost 2 hours!

When we got home they wanted to play in Nate's swimming pool he got for his birthday. We got their suits on and they headed out for some fun in the sun! Nate's cousins (aka his best friends) came over to play too while their mom was out of town. They got their while Porter and Nate were outside swimming. Of course they wanted to join the fun so I got some of Nate's swimsuits for them to wear! I didn't have a girl swim suit for Josie so I had to improvise (Sorry Amy!)...I think it worked out ok though :)

After a few hours playing outside they came inside and it was time for naps. I was a little skeptic that all 4 kids would go down for a nap, but they did! It was a miracle! I didn't get a picture of Porter and sleeping, but he was zonked at too! Bailey and I got some one on one time in! It was such a fun day for Nate! He loves playing friends!

The next week we had Josie and Dallin over again while their parents were out of town and we had tons of fun. We built a fun tent for them in Nate's room and they played and ate in there for awhile. They could slide down into the tent and they would do that over and over again! Josie has loved Bailey since day one and always wants to hold her! She is so cute! She is gonna be such a good helper for her mom when her new little sister/brother gets here! Dallin never really has shown to much interest in Bailey, but for some reason that day he was by her side the majority of the day! He kept trying to hand her toys and play with her and talk to her...it was cute!

Preschool

2011-09-20T18:56:00.000-07:00

Nate's first day of Preschool was on 8/23. He goes to Watch Me Grow Preschool and his teacher is Miss Julie. I can't believe he is already old enough to go! Where has the time gone?! Before I know it he will be starting kindergarten! Some tears were definitely shed when I dropped him off! There may or may not have been a few his 2nd day too when he walked up to the door and went into school all by himself like a big boy! He was so excited to go and he wasn't let down! He had a blast!! Everyday he wakes up and asks if it is preschool day. He goes every Tuesday and Thursday from 9-11. It has been so nice for me! I get so much more done with only one kid at home! It's also nice to have some one on one time with Bailey! She is growing up so fast and its nice to have that! On Nate's first day they made lion masks and when the parents came to pick up their kids they held their masks up to their faced and roared...it was super cute!! Nate told me his teacher had read them a story about lions and thats why they made the masks. Everyday he comes home with a new project he has made and he always wants to hang them up on the fridge when he gets home. I am going to make him a magnet board or some kind of art display (getting some ideas off Pinterest) to hang in the hall way to put all his artwork on. My fridge can't hold it all! He likes the idea of having his own artwork gallery so I am going to have to get one that as soon as I finish Baileys room! I am so close to being done! Hopefully in the next 2 or 3 days it will be done and pictures will be up for you to see!

Football time

2011-09-19T14:50:00.001-07:00

It's football season!! This is a busy time of year for us this year! Skyler started coaching football at Pine View High School. He coaches the freshman team which his little brother blake plays on. It's been fun for him to get out there, help with the boys and be apart of the program! We go to watch Blake play on thursdays in the freshman and JV games, the varsity on fridays and Skyler's brother Jesse plays on Saturdays with the Dixie State College team. So we have 3 days of football games and the kids love it! Nate always gets excited to go and Bailey is always so good! Even though the crowds and band are loud she normally sleeps half the game and the other half she is entertain by all the noise and colors! Heres to a good season of football for both PVHS and Dixie State College!

Skyler and Blake's first PVHS football game of the season 8/19 (for some reason on here the arrows are off...its not like that on the actual picture. Blake is #48 and Skyler is the one with the arrow on his head :)

love

2011-09-19T12:59:00.000-07:00

Cousins

2011-09-18T22:31:00.000-07:00

The day after the blessing my sister, her husband and kids were heading back home to Logan. My mom wanted to get pictures of all her 4 grandkids together so before they left we did a quick (or maybe not so quick) photo session. I stole these pictures off my sisters blog so I didn't have to go through the 100 we took to pick out the best ones :) Thanks for doing the work Angela!

Bailey's Baby Blessing

2011-09-18T22:08:00.000-07:00

We blessed Bailey at church on August 7th. We were so fortune to have so many family and friends there! We thank those that were able to make the trip down and missed the ones that couldn't make it! Skyler gave a beautiful blessing and it was such a special day!! I always love spending time with our family and friends and it so nice to have them apart of our lives. We love you all!

2 months

2011-09-18T21:47:00.000-07:00

Bailey turned 2 months on August 5th! She had her doctors appointment that day and the doctor said she was doing great! She was 9lbs 3oz and 21.5 inches long! She is full a smiles! I captured her first one on camera the day she turned 2 months! Even though she had to get shots at that doctors appointment she was still my happy little girl! She even showed the doctor her cute smile a couple of times! She has been seeing Dr. Brian and I love him! He is so good with both my kids!

Bailey and Nate on the day she turned 2 months

The shots did wear her out though! Love snuggling my baby!

Fun Family Night

2011-09-18T21:29:00.001-07:00

It's always fun doing stuff together as a family! A few months ago we borrowed Skyler's grandmas 4-wheeler and went 4-wheeling down the river by our house. We were out driving down the river and I remembered we had to go feed the horses at Skyler's moms old house and I asked skyler if there was a way down to his mom's house along the river (knowing that the river ran close to her house too) He said he thought so, so we decided to give it a try. Little did I realize how far away that would be on a 4-wheeler! It ended up being about a 2 and a half hour ride there and back, but it was a lot of fun! We had a few trial and error routes, but we did make it! One of the pictures shows the mud we got all over us! Nate loved it! We washed off in the river and Nate decide it would be fun to jump in so he of course got soaking wet, but that was ok (after all it was summer time in st. george!) We were quite the load on that 4-wheeler! Skyler drove with Nate sitting in front of him and me on the back with Bailey in a backpack sling thing on the front of me. There were a few times skyler had to walk through the river to make sure it wasn't to deep to drive the 4-wheeler through with all of us on it. Our dog Max came with us and was a trooper! He ran the whole way there and half the way back until he finally let us put him up on the front of the 4-wheeler. I am sure once he was up there he thought why did I not ride up here the whole time! It was a fun family night full of great memories! Love nights like those!!

Nate being Nate

2011-09-18T21:14:00.000-07:00

I personally think the shirt tucked into your underwear is a good look...just saying ;)

Cookin up a storm

2011-09-18T10:11:00.000-07:00

Nate loves helping me cook dinner or make treats. Everyday he climbs up on the counter and asks if he can help me make things. Sometimes I love it, but sometimes it makes me nervous because he wants to be the one to stir things in boiling water and put things in the oven and he gets upset when I tell him he can't! He knows that he can't be near the stove or oven so now he settles for helping be prepare the meal and then I put it in the oven.

Here he is helping me make braided pizza

And another night we made Peanut Butter Cup Brownies

I found both of these recipes on Pinterest and they were so yummy!! I have actually made quite a few recipes off Pinterest and they all have been big hits in my family!! What have I made?? Here is the list of yumminess! (if you want the recipes they are all on my Pinterest boards...if you are not on Pinterest yet and would like an invite leave your email and I will send you one! I have to worn you though...Pinterest can be really addicting!)

Dinners...

Crockpot Italian Chicken (a lot of people serve it over rice, but we like it over pasta)
Honey Lime Chicken Enchiladas
Garlic Chicken Bowtie Pasta (I made this for bunco and just about every person asked for the recipe...it was delicious!)
Creamy Chicken Taquitos (I made them with leftover roast beef and they were so yummy!)
Mexican Dorito Casserole

Sticky fingers (Taste exactly like wingers sticky fingers!)
Chicken cordon bleu sandwich (easy and delicious!)
Desserts:

Golden Graham S'more Bars
Twix Brownies
Cheesecake Cookie dough bars

Sopapilla Cheesecake

Frosted Banana Cookies (taste like banana bread with a yummy frosting...if you like banana bread I think you will love these!)

I always feel like I make the same dinners over and over so now every week I pick at least one meal to make off my Pinterest Recipe board. On this weeks menu...

Chicken Roll-ups. It is made with crescent rolls, cream cheese, chicken, shredded cheese, and a few other things (how could it not be good?)

S'more Cookie Bars...cant wait to try these! They look so yummy!

Pearly Whites

2011-09-14T19:41:00.000-07:00

Nate finally had his first trip to the dentist on July 20th. He went to Children's Dental which is really close to our house. They have the cutest waiting area!! Nate had a blast playing as he waited his turn to see the dentist. When it was his turn they had him go through the little kids door which he thought was so cool because it was just his size! The dentist's assistants sat him in a chair and looked at his teeth. He did so good, but then they tried to get an X-ray of the inside of his mouth and he freaked out! I always hate this part at the dentist too! Unfortunately this made him want to leave and go home right then and he hadn't even seen the dentist yet! They brought him back to the room where they had dentist chairs on looking up at the ceiling with tv's playing movies on the ceiling. He laid down and put the head phones on to watch the movie, but then looked over and saw the dentist working on the kids mouth next to him. Nate got nervous and sat up and started to cry. The assistants moved us into another room (I guess they didn't want nate freaking out the other kids ha ha!). The dentist came in and we had to hold him down while the dentist looked at his teeth. Pretty much the whole time he was screaming and finally toward the end he calmed down realizing the dentist was just looking at his teeth. The dentist then brushed them with his magic toothpaste (I have to say it was magic because Nate's teething were sparkling white after the dentist brushed his teeth!) The dentist said Nate's teethed looked great and he had no cavities! Yea! He also couldn't believe he was a thumb sucker! He said he wouldn't have known that by looking at his teeth which made me really relieved!! Nate got a balloon, a new toothbrush, and a book when he left. Oh and really white teeth too!!

Lesson learned

2011-09-14T18:30:00.000-07:00

Back on July 19th (yes trying still trying to catch up on blogging!) we had a fun visit to the doctors office. Ok so it wasn't so fun at the time, but its definitely something we look back on and laugh at! It all started when I was putting Nate down for a nap. I am lucky enough to have a 3 year old that still takes a 1 1/2-2 hr nap everyday! His nap started the same way it does everyday, I laid him down kissed him good night and went out on the couch to fold some laundry. After about 5 minutes I hear Nate crying. I said Nate whats the matter (kinda annoyed because I really just wanted him to go to sleep) and he said something, but I couldn't hear what he was saying. I told him to come out and talk to me. He came out of his room and I asked him again what the matter was. He then proceeded to tell me he stuck a bead up his nose! I repeated this back to him to make sure I understood what he was telling me and he said yes! I looked up his nose and I didn't see anything! I asked him if he is sure he stuck it up is nose and if he was sure that it was still in there. He said yes my nose hurts really bad mom there is a bead in there! I took another look and still couldn't see anything! He had stopped crying at this point and I held one side of his nostril and had him blow to see if we could blow it out. He blew and I didn't see anything come out but he said that his nose felt better. I told him to blow a few more times and I still didn't see anything come out. He told me that it came out and his nose felt better. I thought ok it must have come out and I just don't see it anywhere or maybe it had come out right after he put it in his nose and it was never actually stuck he just thought it was in his nose because it hurt when he stuck it in. So I sent him back to his bed to take his nap.

He slept for 3 hours which was awesome, but then he woke up screaming that his nose hurt again! He said the bead is still in there! I took a look again and still didn't see it, but I thought it was weird that he woke up crying that hard. I called Skyler and told him the situation and he told me to take him to the doctors office and he would meet me over there because he was just getting off work. We got to the doctors office at 6 and saw an on call doctor that Skyler ended up knowing. We told the doctor what happened and he laughed and said Nate was the 3rd kid that week that stuck something up his nose (and it was a tuesday!). I was so glad I wasn't the only one with a child that stuck something up his nose!! I was so embarrassed to go to the doctors office and tell them what happened, but I guess they get it quite often! The doctor was really good and nice to Nate! Nate was so good about letting the doctor look up his nose with the light but he freaked out when they brought in "the sharp things" (that really weren't sharp). The doctor let him hold and touch them to show him that they weren't sharp and they wouldn't hurt. Nate didn't care though...he had already had his mind made up that this was going to hurt and skyler had to hold him down as the doctor used the tool to get the bead out. It was a weird shaped bead so the doctor wasn't sure if he would be able to get it out! It took a few tries with a few different tools, but after about 10 minutes he got it out! Glad we didn't have to do surgery to get it out! I don't think Nate will be sticking anything up his nose ever again (or at least for a long time :)

Pray for Taleah Stevenson!

2011-08-31T10:30:00.000-07:00

Taleah is the 2 1/2 year old daughter of our long time friends Scott and Tosha(Orr) Stevenson. She has recently been diagnosed with Leukemia and is currently undergoing treatments. I can't stop thinking about their family and makes me sick to my stomach thinking what their family must be feeling and going through. I can't even imagine something like that happening to one of my children! I wish there was something more I could do for them to help them through this time, but all anyone really can do is pray. So please keep their family in your prayers!!

I pray God will give them strength and comfort as he did for our family when Skyler's Dad passed. I know he will be with them 100% of the way! I pray Taleah will have a healthy recovery and that they will all become stronger because of this!

It's a long journey and an expensive one...there is also a way to donate if you are able, any amount is greatly appreciated. Go to her website to read her story and see sweet pictures of this little angel, and there is the option to donate to help them with any and all upcoming costs.

We love you Steveson family!!

The start to Bailey's baby room

2011-08-28T17:39:00.000-07:00

I owe a big thank to my mother-in-law for helping me create my vision for Bailey's room! I told her what I wanted and she helped me install all the moldings! We started working on the nursery May 30th...I had Bailey June 5th ha ha (I am very last minute I know!) It started out as your basic blank room canvas (forgot to take a pic but you can just imagine)

WARNING: All pictures are horrible quality! My camera was lost at the time so I had to use my the camera on my horrible phone!! It looks better in person, but you get the idea :)

Day 1: I taped off the floor and painted the baseboards white. I drew a line around the bottom half of the room where I wanted the chair rail to go and she cut the moldings for me. I painted the bottom half of the room white while she painted the bedroom door and the moldings.

Day 2: We installed the chair rail!

Then I painted the top half of the room pink while she cut the picture frame moldings for the bottom half of the room (I wish I would have taken more pictures of us actually doing it!) She nail gunned them in place where we had marked that I wanted them to go.

Day 3: We put paper on the floor and she used her spray painter to paint the picture frame moldings and added another coat of pink to the top half of the wall.

At the end of day 3 we were done with painting and constructing! Here it is after we cleaned everything out of the room

I was then waiting for the wallpaper I ordered to put inside the picture frame molding. I had Bailey 2 weeks and a half weeks early so the room got put on hold. I started on it again on June 14th.

Here is a sneak peak of me putting up the wallpaper in the bottom half of the room... (I cropped myself out because I had just woken up and the kids were sleeping so I hurried in and did a few squares while I could before I got ready for the day so I looked gross!)

To see the finished baby nursery click here!

Linking up with Design Dazzle

Baby Announcements

2011-08-23T17:36:00.000-07:00

So I went online to different websites to find baby announcements for Bailey and most the ones I liked cost a fortune!! I am talking like $75+ for 25 announcements!! The are CRAZY to think I am going to pay that much!! So I decided I would make my own! Here are a few I made for Bailey...by the way it cost me like $10 to print 25 5x7 at Costco. They were pretty easy to make just took some time, but I had so much fun playing around with them! Totally worth the savings!

Bailey's baby blessing announcement

Linking up with Design Dazzle

Church

2011-08-22T21:35:00.000-07:00

Bailey's first time going to church was when she was 6 weeks old on June 17th. She looked so cute in her pink dress. I had to teach young women's that day and I was so nervous about how she would do and she was great!

Round 2

2011-08-22T16:38:00.000-07:00

We did a round 2 of baby pictures of Bailey because I wanted to get some of her and Nate and we wanted to try a get a few more good ones of Bailey. She was about a month and a half here and you can tell she was really starting to fill out compared to round 1 of her newborn pictures!

Family Night

2011-08-22T16:30:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we had FHE at the Washington County Community Center. Nate absolutely loves it there! From the water slides to the dumping buckets of water to the lazy river it is such a blast! Its always great when we have a fun family night! Love spending time with my 3 best friends!

Goodbye

2011-08-20T08:35:00.000-07:00

Over the 4th of July weekend we spent our time saying goodbye to Skyler's parents cabin up on cedar mountain. We had a great time, but it was so sad saying goodbye! Looking at the pictures we took and knowing it was the last time making memories at the cabins makes me really sad! Some of my very best memories were made up on that mountain! We went up there every July 4th and July 24th and then a few other times throughout the year. It was weird not being up there July 24th. That's Skyler's birthday and every year since we have been married we have been there! My sister-in-law said it best...there are still so many memories to make, just have to find a new spot!

Thanks

2011-08-18T12:16:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the makers of the Boppy! It has made my life a little easier! She could sit comfortably on the bathroom counter while I get ready, on my kitchen counter while I eat and on the washing machine while I fold laundry. Now she is starting to get so big and wanting to squirm and roll out of it so I don't use it as much anymore :( It was definitely awesome for the few months I used it!

Meeting cousin Kylee

2011-08-11T20:23:00.000-07:00

The first time Kylee met Bailey it was love at first site!! She is still infatuated with her!! It's so adorable!! Bailey was 3 weeks old the first time they met. We often caught Kylee lifting up the carseat cover to look at her and if you asked her if she wanted to see or hold the baby the answer was always an excited head nod!! I think Angela needs to have another baby very soon ;) Kylee will be such a great big sister one day!! Until then she can come love on my baby anytime!!

Brotherly Love

2011-08-11T20:09:00.000-07:00

Back when Bailey was about 2 weeks she was swinging in her swing and I went and took a quick shower. When I got out, I found that Nate helped decorate her swing a little more...apparently he thought his toys would be more fun to look at then the butterflies!! Bailey didn't seem to mind :)

Kiss kiss kiss

2011-08-11T20:00:00.001-07:00

Bailey 11 days old

Swim Lessons

2011-08-11T19:38:00.000-07:00

Nate took his first ever swim lessons back in June! He sure does love the water!! He did really well!! He didn't end up passing the class because he wouldn't ever float on his back on his own :) When it came to kicking and moving his arms he was amazing! He learned how to go under water and grab the rings on the bottom of the pool and he loved doing this! Kinda weird he had no problem going under water, but he got scared laying on the water when he was able to breathe ha ha! Silly boy!! We are so proud of Nate, he did so well at his swim lessons and has come really far! Here are some pictures from his first day (they are horrible quality because my phone doesn't take the best pictures!)

Bailey Newborn photo shoot

2011-07-31T06:54:00.000-07:00

We had these newborn pictures of Bailey done 8 days after she was born...I wish we would have done it in the first couple days so she would have slept more. She pretty much cried the whole time, but the photographer was still able to get some good pictures. The pictures were taken by Alyssa Ence Photography...thanks Alyssa!!

We ended up doing another photo shoot of Bailey when she was about a month old so I will post them as soon as I get the cd.

The big brother

2011-07-29T13:31:00.000-07:00

Nate is such a great big brother!! He has adjusted so well to having a new member of the family! He is so good and sweet with her and it just melts my heart every time he interacts with her! He has had a few moments when he has gotten frustrated with me because he wants me to play with him or lay down with him at night while I am trying to feed Bailey, but 95% of the time he is ok with waiting or with me reading him a story until I can do what he wants me to. He does hate when she cries and always get so worried! Anytime we are in the car and she is crying and he knows there is nothing I can do about it he does this...

(horrible quality picture...I took it on my phone, I held it up while driving so its really blurry so if you can't tell what he is doing he is plugging his ears ha ha!

Nate loves to play in tents...here is one Skyler made. He loved it and was mad when we had to take it down

Nate also loves to play at splash pads! This is him and his 2 older buddies playing

A few firsts during Baileys first week of life!

2011-07-28T17:35:00.000-07:00

Baileys first bath at home

Baileys first doctor appointment...5 days old. She dropped a few oz. weighing in at 5lbs 11oz. She was the same height at 19.5 inches long. Doctor said she was doing great!

Waiting in the waiting room
Nurse taking measurements
Dr. Brian making sure she is doing good

First time in her swing that my visiting teacher (Sister Willets) gave us!! So nice!!

First time meeting her cousin Josie! Josie was and still is absolutely smitten by Bailey! She always wants to her hold...it's so cute! She now wants her mom (who is pregnant...yay!) to have a baby girl and name her Bailey :) Her mom is in big trouble if this baby is not a girl! When I asked Josie "what if your mom has a baby boy" she replied I already have a brother...I need a baby sister! Ha ha too cute!!

When I asked Nate to come take a picture with them this is what I got...

Cuteness

2011-07-22T21:58:00.000-07:00

3 days old
4 days old

Coming home!

2011-07-22T20:39:00.000-07:00

The day after having Bailey we were both doing great and decided we were ready to bring our precious baby girl home. So after we both got cleared we got dressed and headed home about 11:30 Monday morning. We put her in her car seat and she was so tiny she didnt even fit! You can sorta tell from the picture that she was so small, but it really doesnt do her justice!

We couldnt find the newborn head part to the car seat we used for Nate so we had to use a towel as a substitute for the first few days

When we got home Nate got to hold Bailey for the first time! It was love at first sight and he didnt want to stop!
Giving Bailey kisses

Nate couldnt get enough of her and kept asking to hold her all day long (excuse the kool-aid around Nate's mouth in the next few pics :)

Then it was time for some much need sleep for Bailey! It takes a lot of work to come into this crazy world!!

Skyler let me get some rest while he watched the kiddos. When I woke up this is how I found the 3 of them. Too cute! Glad Skyler managed to get some sleep too :)

The next day we made sure Nate got some one on one time with us too! So we played baseball (one of his very favorite things!) with him while Bailey slept!

Nate taking a break from baseball to hold his baby sister

I love this picture of Skyler with the kids and I am so sad its bad quality!

That sums up the first 2 days of being home! I didnt take to many pictures the 2nd day of being home because I was pretty much resting all day long thanks to my mom and mother in law! My mom took Nate all day and Tammy cleaned my house and did my laundry! I am so blessed to have the mom and mother in law I do!

Welcome Bailey!

2011-06-22T21:34:00.000-07:00

I have so much that I wanted to blog about from over the last 2 months, but I dont think I will ever get updated! So instead of trying to play catch up, as much as I hate to do it, I am just going to skip them and try to start fresh and just be better!

I cant believe its already been 2 and a half weeks since Bailey has been born!! I wish time would just slow down! She is already growing up way to fast! It seems she is already losing that newborn look and it makes me sad! So I have had many requests of people wanting me to tell my labor story so here it goes (it may be TMI for many of you so skip this next section if you dont care to know all the details :)

Pregnancy/Labor Story

So this pregnancy has been way different from my first one and since the beginning my due date was constantly changing. The first due date I was given according to my period was June 24th. About a month after I finding out I was pregnant I started bleeding really bad and heavy and I thought I was possibly miscarrying so I went to the ER. They checked me out, but they told me I hadn't miscarried yet, but it was very possible that I might. They weren't sure why I was bleeding so much, but there was nothing they could do for me so they sent me home to be on bed rest until monday when I could go into my doctor. They did an ultrasound and according to the measurements of the baby they said I was due June 15th. So I went into my doctor first thing monday morning and he gave me an ultrasound and according to his ultrasound I was due June 16th. He said that I still hadnt miscarried, and I was bleeding because my placenta was starting to rupture. He said its really rare and he has only seen that a few times, but there was actually another lady that had the same problem at that same time that they were monitoring. He said mine was a lot smaller then hers and he thought that the baby would be ok, but there was still a chance I could miscarry. He started having me come in weekly to get checked and make sure things were ok. I bleed heavy for almost 2 months, but luckily everything went back to normal and my pregnancy was no longer abnormal (thank goodness!) At my 20 week appt we went in to have an ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby and the little stinker was not wanting to fully corporate. First he said it was 60% a girl and then he kept trying to get her to turn to see all angles to make sure, but she was being quite stubborn. By the end of the appt he told he was 80% sure, but he sounded pretty hesitant about that! He told me according to the measurements I was due June 16th and since the original due date was June 24th he was going to give me the final due date of June 18th. I was excited that my due date got moved up, but not so excited that we werent 100% sure if the baby was a girl! So he said that we could do another ultrasound later and see if we could find out for sure. 2 months later I went back in for the ultrasound where we got the message that it was for sure a girl! We were so excited!! At this point I only had 2 months left until I was due! Lots of things were going on in the last few months of my pregnancy and the last trimester flew by so fast!! Before I knew it, it was June 4th and that was a day I had been looking forward too because my sister in law and friends threw me a shower. I went to my shower feeling great! My sister in law decorated everything so cute!!

Shower pics...I dont have all the pictures from the shower, but here are a few...

So many friends and family came and I tons of great stuff!! After opening all the presents we were all just sitting there talking and they were asking me how I was feeling. I was like I am feeling good and we were talking about different things to do to go into labor, but I was like I tried them all with Nate and i was 5 days late with him so I was going to worry about doing anything. We also talked about water breaking and I said how weird I thought that would be (I was induced with Nate so I didnt have that experience the first time). That night we were over at my moms playing games because my sisters were leaving back home the next day. Skyler had been up north at coaching 7 on 7 and got back into town at about 10. Usually we stay up until 1 playing games, but I was so tired and I told skyler at about 1130 I was ready to go home. We came home and I went straight to bed! Skyler was in the bathroom and then he came out to come get in bed and shut the door and I was just about asleep when he shut it. It was kinda loud when he shut it and it scared me and I woke up startled. I thought I had peed my pants a little bit because when he shut it I felt some liquid coming out! I was like Skyler! You scared me! You made me pee my pants a little! And he started laughing. I said its either pee or my watering breaking (I was totally just kidding about it being my water breaking though! We were just talking about how weird it would be if my water broke at my moms house an hour earlier.) He laughed again and said it better not be your water breaking I am too tired to take you to the hospital (he had been out in the sun all day coaching!) and I was like I know seriously! I am way to tired to be having a baby right now! We said our goodnights and went to sleep. At about 130 I woke up to more wetness under me! I was so confused! It wasnt a ton, but I was like why do I keep peeeing my pants! I didnt think it was my water breaking because in the movies it always seemed liked a big amount of gushing water came out. I was so annoyed because I was so tired! I got up and changed put a towel down on the bed and feel back asleep! 30 minutes later I woke up again to wetness! At this point I was like my water must be breaking! There is no way I peed my pants 3 times in 3hrs! I shook skyler and said babe I think my water is breaking and we might need to go to the hospital. He mumbled ok and rolled over and feel asleep!! I realized I didnt even have a bag packed or anything ready for the hospital so I decided to pack a bag and get dressed and then I would wake him back up if any more liquid came out. As I was getting an outfit for the baby to wear home more water started coming out! I went back and woke Skyler up more forcefully this time. I said Skyler my water broke and we need to go to the hospital! He popped up and said What?! Are you serious? I laughed and said no I am just dressed and ready to go because I thought it would be fun to trick you at 3 in the morning! He was like are you sure your water broke? I was like yes I am sure, but I am not in any pain or having any contractions. He was like call you mom make sure that we need to go into the hospital even though you arent have contractions. I called my mom and she answered all chipper are you in labor? I laughed and said I think my water broke, but I am not having any contractions...is that normal? She said it was and I asked her if I should go to the hospital even though I wasnt. She said I needed to go in because you can get an infection once your water breaks if you wait to long. I told skyler and he was not excited at all about this news! He called his mom to come stay with Nate while we went to the hospital. We got to the hospital at about 4am.

I felt weird walking into the hospital because I felt great! I was in zero pain! I told them my water broke but I wasnt in pain and they said ok lets have you checked. They said yep your water broke but its weird that it did because you are only dilated to a 2 and half! They said we are going to keep you here and start you some pitocin do get your contractions going.

They didnt end up giving me any until about 730 and about 30 minutes later I started to feel some contractions. At about 10:30 I got an epidural (which I loved :) It made the whole experience a lot more enjoyable! My mom and sisters got there about noon. At about 1230 they checked me and told me I was getting close and we called Skys mom and told her to head over. When her and Nate got there she brought Nate in to come see us. He was pretty concerned seeing all the wires hooked to me and he didnt like seeing me like that!

So they went back to the waiting room and she checked me again at 1 and said ok we are really close I am going to call in the doctor. She came in about 5 minutes later and said he would be in in about 20 minutes! I started getting so excited and anxious! I started feeling quite a bit a pressure and was getting the urge to push! Nate was born at 1:32pm and I thought it would be cool if she was born around the same time (it would make it easier to remember!) The doctor got there about 1:33 so I knew it would be at the same time :( I was nervous about how the pushing would go because I was so tired! I had gotten a total of an hour of sleep that night! I was hoping I had enough in me to push that baby out fast! I started pushing at 1:35 and 11 minutes later Bailey made her entrance into the world! It would have been sooner then that but her umbilical cord was wrapped around her so I had to push her out a little at a time while the doctor had to keep the cord from wrapping around her neck. Half way through he had to cut the umbilical cord before she was all the way out! She then came out and she was crying as much as they wanted her to at first and the one nurse started telling the other to call down to the ICU. The doctor then told them to clear out her throat out more and after a second she started crying pretty good. I got so scared at first, but was so relieved when they said everything was ok and she was completely healthy! She was born at 1:46 and weighed 6lbs 2ozs and was 19.5in long. She couldnt have been more perfect!

Dad got to hold her first while they were stitching me back up and then it was finally my turn!

What an amazing thing that is! There is more amazing then holding your baby for the first time! It was most definitely love at first sight!! She was absolutely perfect and I couldn't wait for Nate to come in and meet his new baby sister!! I was nervous how he would act or if he would even care. Grandma carried him in and we showed him his sister and I believe it was love at first sight for him too! He said Hi to her and kissed her. It was the most amazing thing to see! I couldn't help but tear up! Looking at daddy holding Bailey and Nate kissing was most amazing experience! Words cant explain the feeling I had! I was overtaken with love for those 3 people that mean the world to me and I think I got a slight glimpse of how much love our father in heaven must have for us! I am so thankful for Bailey and joy she has brought into our home! I am so lucky to have her and Nate for children! I have been so blessed!!!

After everyone got a turn holding her and then they gave her her first bath and got her all nice and clean!

After everyone left it was mommy and Bailey time!

We were both exhausted!

Then it was up to room we were to stay in for the night!

Then it was Daddy and Bailey time!

That was pretty much the first day of life for Bailey! I will most more pictures soon of the days following!!

She's Home!!

2011-05-25T20:08:00.000-07:00

My sister made it home from serving an honorable mission in Paraguay!!

She has actually been home for 6 weeks now (thats how behind I am on blogging!). She looks more beautiful then ever and its been so nice having her back home! She came home on April 15th. We all met at the St. George Airport about 30 minutes before her plane was to arrive. Here are the 3 little ones when we first got there.

Notice the toys already in their hands, needless to say there was a lot of waiting around! The kids entertained themselves by eating pez...

and playing with cars...

Everyone else just talked, making sure to keep an eye on the window at all times wanting to be the first to see the plane arrive!

Then we finally saw the plane land!

Then we saw Amanda getting off the plane! This is a classic mom crying face. I LOVE it because it's her happy-cry face :) and I can just feel the love she has for Amanda. My sister snapped this right when she saw Amanda through the glass for the first time.

You don't see my dad in any of these "waiting" pictures because he flew to Salt Lake to surprise Amanda! (She flew into SLC first and then from SL to SG).

Then amanda started walking through the first door! We all started clapping and cheering because she could see us at this point!

Of course mom was the first to hug her!

Then we all took turns hugging her (except Nate...he wanted nothing to do with her! He wouldnt even go near her and say hi!) After she said hi to all her family and friends we took a few group pictures...the family...

friends...

Nate finally warmed up to Amanda after about 20 minutes and now a days he is obsessed with her! He always asks for her now! He is going to be really sad when she goes back up to live in Provo this weekend! I am sad this picture is blurry because I think its so cute!

We then went back to my parents house and tried to get a picture of the kids wearing their welcome home shirts with Amanda and this is the best we could do...Kylee-not at all interested in Amanda, or taking pictures. Tyler-in L.O.V.E.. Nate-grinning and bearing it so he can go back to playing with his car.

Welcome home Amanda!

Check out this tan line!

I was finally able to get a picture of Nate giving Amanda a kiss to welcome her home...it was while she was getting ready to go eat dinner

We went and ate at Iceberg for dinner because Texas Roadhouse (and all other restaurants had a 2 hr wait!)

Amanda has adjusted back to non-missionary life really well! She still says all prayers in spanish and will occasionally talk in spanglish. We have had so much fun over the last 6 weeks of her being home! I am sad she is moving back up to Provo to live this weekend! At least I can talk to her on the phone when I want and drive up and see if her if I wanted too! I know Nate is going to miss her like crazy! Like I said he is totally obsessed with her these days!!

I am so behind on blogging and I had every intention of catching up tonight, but this post has already taken me an hour and a half and I am so tired! Hopefully I can post the rest (or at least more) tomorrow! Adios!!

Happy Birthday Nate!

2011-04-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

My little boy turned 3 yesterday and I still cant believe it!! Time flies by way to fast! This birthday was pretty hard for me! I found myself tearing up quite a bit yesterday (I am going to blame it on the pregnancy hormones :) I feel like once someone turns three they are really starting to grow up! There are so many things they can start doing at 3 that start them on the path to really becoming a big kid! Nate will start preschool and playing sports now that he is 3 and those are things that he will continue to do for a long time! It is a bitter sweet thing for me! I am excited to see him learn and grow and develop talents in many things, but how can he already be starting preschool and playing sports! Those are big kid activities! Maybe I feel this way because its been just me and him and I havent had another child yet. Maybe I would feel differently if I already had a baby to baby! That is coming soon enough though!

Nate is so funny! There is not a day that goes by that he doesnt make me smile and laugh! He is so full of life and wants to know everything! He is constantly asking me what things are and how they work and to let him try and do things. He is always wanting to help (which sometimes is not helpful), but I love it!! I know he is going to be such a good big brother! He is so smart and surprises with different things he says and I just look at him and ask him how he is getting so smart! A few months ago we were driving and Nate said "Look the moon!" and I was like yep the moon is out tonight and he said "Yeah, its a crescent moon!" What?! How did he know that? I dont think I learned what a crescent moon was until 5th grade! He has the best memory of any little kid I know! He is so good at playing memory games and matching things! He is practically ready for kindergarten! He knows all his letters and can count to 20! The main thing we need to work on is staying still!! He is constantly on the go and has been since the day he was born! At times it is very tiring especially being pregnant, but I wouldnt have it any other way! He has such determination and gets frustrated when he cant do something he wants to do! I love the little boy he is becoming and I am such a proud mom! I am so lucky to have been blessed with such an amazing child! I love him more then anything and cant imagine life without him! He brings so much joy into our home! He has such a good and kind spirit! He hates when I get mad at him and if I ever say what you did made mommy really sad he will give me a hug and a kiss and say no mommy happy now! Its sometimes hard to say mad at him! He is just so dang cute! I appreciate him being patient with me because I know I havent been the best mom in the world and everyday I am learning and trying to become a great one! I wish time would slow down a little bit, but I know it wont so I am trying to enjoy every second of him growing up! There are only a few more months left where it will just be Nate and I at home during the day and I find that all I want to do is play with him and not waste time cleaning and doing pointless things. I pray that I can still find the time once the baby is born to just have Nate and mommy time everyday even if its just for a little bit! I love that Nate is my son and couldnt be more proud of him and who he is! I love you Nate! Happy 3rd birthday!

On his birthday we woke him up by singing him happy birthday! It was so funny! He was so cute and got so giggly! Then when he came out into the family room he saw all his presents from us as well as a bunch of balloons surrounding them! We got him a new bike, an inflatable pool, a big blue ball, and a hot wheels car. He was so excited and wanted to play with everything right away! The weather has been so nice here lately, but of course on his birthday it was cold and rainy! He wanted to badly to ride his bike and play in the pool, but weather did not permit. We let him ride the bike in the house for a little bit on the wood floor and he loved it! After that I asked him what he wanted for his birthday breakfast and I told him I would make him french toast or waffles or pancakes, but he said he just wanted cereal so that was easy enough! We then went over to Grandmas to get my hair done and he played around at grandmas house. Then his other Grandma took him to lunch to Mc Donalds where he got a chicken nugget happy meal and a new fun toy! He played for about an hour and then we were leaving Grandma got him an ice cream cone...yummy! We then went home and he took a short nap. When he woke up we went and picked up his cousin Josie and went to one of his favorite places...jumping jacks! His friend Jayz met us there and the 3 of them played there for 2 hours!! The probably wouldnt have left so good, but we were going to Pirate Island Pizza for dinner and they were excited for that! Lots of family and friends came there and he had so much fun eating pizza and playing in the little arcade and playground! His actual birthday party is going to be next week and he cant wait for that! We decided to wait and do is party a week later because my sister comes home from her mission in 6 days and so all of my family will be here and wanted to be at the party! His party is going to be sports themed and he is so excited! He told me the other day... "Everyone is going to be at my party and eat my cake and sing happy birthday to nate!" It was the cutest thing! I didnt get very good pictures yesterday of his birthday because my camera is lost and so I could only use the camera on my phone which isnt good. So most of the pictures turned out blurry and only took some when we were at jumping jacks...I was so mad I couldnt find my camera because I have been trying to be better at taking pictures! Hopefully I will find it by his party day!

Making progress!!

2011-04-09T19:44:00.000-07:00

One thing I regret about doing when we built are house is deciding to do the landscaping ourselves! Its not hard to do, but finding the time and money to do it has been the issue! Last spring/summer we were able to get some grass and a few bushes in the planter area, but we weren't able to afford or have the time do anything else. Now that's its spring again and the weather is starting to warm up we want to get going again on some landscaping for the backyard and I am crossing my fingers to add at least a few more things to the front yard (that might me wishful thinking :) Well here is some exciting news! We started on the backyard!! Our backyard is pretty big and we just had a little slab of a concrete patio right outside the door. We decided to extend it out and make the patio area bigger. Skyler and one of our neighbors set a date to pour the patio, but sadly it ended up not being a great day weather wise! They started working on the patio about 7:30 am and they started pouring concrete about 9. At about 9:30 it started raining :( I was worried that it was going to completely ruin everything, but it had set up enough that it didnt! I guess you can pour concrete in the rain it just takes triple the amount of time! They were planning on being done with the patio by 11am, but since the rain put a damper on things they didnt end up getting done until about 4pm!! Needless to say I am so grateful to all the people who helped Skyler do it! I know it was probably so miserable! They did such a great job! Its so nice! I cant wait to get a patio set! We want to build a cover over the patio too, but thats probably going to have to wait until after we put in the sprinkler system and grass in backyard! Its so nice to have made some progress in the backyard! They had poured that patio saturday and on monday we were able to grill up some burgers on our new patio and enjoy the nice weather for FHE. I look forward to many more fun nights out on our patio! I took some pictures of them working on the patio in the rain, but my camera is lost so I only have these pics off Skylers phone for now.

Age doesn't matter

2011-04-09T19:05:00.000-07:00

The age of a friend doesn't matter to Nate. He is always one who is up for playing with anyone and everyone! Whenever we go to the park he usually always tries to make friends with the kids that are older them him! Just the other day we went to the park and there were some school kids there on a field trip I guess and they were all playing on the playground and running around in the field. They were probably 5th graders, but Nate didnt have a problem with that. He went right up to one and they instantly became buds. It was so funny to watch! After about 20 minutes of playing with him, his new friend was called over by some of his buddies to come play football in the field with a bunch of other 5th graders. The kid said ok and went over to play. Nate started to follow him, but I called him over and told him he couldnt go play with him anymore that he was playing with his other friends and they were doing big kid games. Nate got so sad! He wanted so badly to go play with them!

One of Nate's best friends is Jayz Estridge. His family is in our ward and lives around the street from us. He is an only child and just turned 7. Our family is really good friends with them and we hang out a ton with them. Jayz and Nate have practically become brothers! Nate always gets so excited when we tell him he gets to play with Jayz. You would think Jayz would not playing with someone 4 years younger then him, but he is so good with Nate! They play so good together! Nate was invited to Jayz's birthday party last weekend. Jayz had 8 friends there that were all 6 or 7 and then there was Nate! It was so funny! Jayz's mom got a video game on the go truck to come for the party. It was really cool! It had 2 video screens on the outside of the truck to play wii games on and then there were 6 more screens on the inside to play xbox games. Nate is still a little young to fully understand how to play video games, but he did try and play mario cart on the wii. You can really just hand him a wheel and he thinks he is playing. He had fun trying to play the games with the big kids! He also loved eating the cake! It was a baseball cake and he told me that he wanted a baseball cake for his birthday party (So thats when I decided to make Nate's party a sports themed party). They also had a pinata! Nate LOVES pinatas! Is there anything better then hitting something and until candy comes out?? He also told me he wants a pinata at his party too! Going to Jayz party made him so excited for his own birthday coming up! To bad he has to wait a week after his birthday for his party ha ha!

I cant wait!

2011-03-22T08:27:00.000-07:00

My sister comes home from her mission in about 3 weeks!! I am so excited!! She just sent home an email with pictures for the first time ever since she has been out and it made me so excited to see her! Lucky her, she is super tan because its the end of summer for her! I hope these next few weeks go by super fast! I miss her so much and family gatherings just aren't the same without her! It will be nice to have her home for a little bit before she goes off to college!

Any Luck?

2011-03-17T20:49:00.000-07:00

We had such a fun St. Patrick's day today even though we didn't have any luck catching the leprechaun playing tricks at our house! I cant believe how much Nate got into this year! It was so cute watching him each time he found something that turned green and going and checking the trap to see if the leprechaun was there or had eaten any gold.

It all started with Nate and I sleeping in until 10am this morning (the leprechaun must have cast a spell on us to stay asleep, because that never happens!) Once we got up we discovered the leprechaun had visited the trap we made, but used his magic powers to escape leaving behind some empty candy wrappers from the pot of gold on our trap (forgot to take a picture of this, but I videoed it when he had done it again in the afternoon). Then Nate helped me make french toast for breakfast and that silly leprechaun left behind green residue in our batter turning our french toast green! Surprisingly it still tasted so yummy! I poured Nate a glass of milk to go along with his french toast and he noticed the leprechaun left behind green residue in his cup too! He stirred it up and his milk was green! He was watching some TV while eating breakfast when Grandma called and said the Leprechaun had come to her house too and left them some gold chocolate candy! He immediately wanted to go over there, but I said he had to take a bath and get dressed before we could go. He got in the bath and turned around to play with his toys and noticed once again green residue! He splished and he splashed mixing it into the water and his bath water of course turned green! He thought this was so fun! Once he got out and got dressed he noticed the Leprechaun had visited our trap again!

When we went into Nate's room tonight to get ready for bed he noticed the Leprechaun had left him a little present on his pillow! Chocolate gold coins!! The perfect ending to a fun day! We hope yall had a great St. Patrick's Day too!!

Oh so nice!

2011-03-14T09:02:00.000-07:00

The weather last weekend was so nice!! We couldnt get enough of being outdoors! From thursday to saturday we pretty much lived outside! It was in the 70's and it was perfect. Not sweltering hot, but warm enough to wear shorts! It makes me so excited for summer! I love nothing more then going to the park and having a picnic while soaking in the sun and watching Nate play. Nate loves playing baseball right now and its nice to actually go outside and play instead of playing indoors! He is getting to good to be hitting the ball indoors! Saturday morning I went garage sale shopping and when I got home Nate was helping Skyler outside pulling weeds! He loved it...it was so cute! Skyler would pull the weed and then he would pick it up and put it over in the big pile. He then helped Skyler put them all in the trash can. I videoed him doing this, but we put them on Skylers computer so I cant post them today. Here are a few pictures from off my phone of some of the things we did this past weekend.

Picnic at the park
Riding the cow at grandmas house
Playing in the tree house at grandmas house with daddy! He loved being lowered down from the tree house to the ground in the basket! He wanted dad to have a turn riding in it. He told him he would catch him. To bad dad is to big to fit in the basket (and scared of heights ;)

Nate is always such a good helper! He loves helping me around the house by putting clothes away, matching and pairing up the socks, handing me the pillows while I make the bed, unloading the dishwasher, and rinsing his dishes after he eats. I am thinking about making him a chore chart because he is always so excited to help and I think he would love putting a sticker or a checkmark on his chart for completing a chore! He is entering even more of an independent stage and sometimes it really drives me crazy! He wants to do EVERYTHING himself, from climbing in and buckling his own car seat to mixing up his own chocolate milk! Everything we do takes triple the amount of time, so if we are in a hurry to do anything its a nightmare! I have a love/hate relationship with the fact that he is growing up so much! I love seeing him learn and accomplish new things, but sometimes it makes me really sad that he is already big enough to do certain things. He turns 3 in less then a month and I cant believe it! Where has 3 years gone?! Knowing me the next time I blog will be then. I say this all this time, but I need to be better about taking more pictures! We do so many fun things and I never capture the moment...maybe one day!

Valentines

2011-02-15T17:34:00.000-08:00

Valentines started off as a great morning and ended even better! Nate helped me make heart shaped waffles for Skyler and we all sat down and ate breakfast. Unfortunately I didnt take any pictures of any of the festivities we did until night time and I am really regretting it right now! Why am I so horrible at that?!

Nate and I played Valentines picture bingo and he loved that! I showed him pictures and he would find the match on his game sheet. He is HUGE into matching things right now! He loves memory games and having to find the matches! The other day he helped me with the laundry by finding to matching socks and then I would fold them together! He is so smart and I have a feeling he is going to have a photographic memory just like his daddy and I am so grateful for that!!

That afternoon we went to deliver Valentines cards Nate made for his Grandmas and then we went and watched Skyler play in flag football games. Skylers team won both and they are the only undefeated team right now! After the games I went and picked up Durangos and ate it as we watched the movie How to Train a Dragon. It started getting late and Skyler said he had a surprise for me. We loaded up in the car and drove to Skyline Pond (which is the pond where Skyler purposed to me at :) Nate loved seeing all the ducks! It was so fun to go to the pond...we havent been there in awhile! He then told me to look and he had Nate hand me my wedding ring which he got sautered(sp?) together for me and cleaned! It looked like a brand new ring! It was so cute that he brought me back to the same place he had first gave me the ring to give it to me again! I love my 2 boys more than anything and it was so fun to spend the whole night with both my boys!!

Very Rarely

2011-01-13T20:33:00.001-08:00

Very rarely do we get snow in St. George (which I am 100% ok with!) and if we do, it very very rarely sticks to the ground! Last week we woke up to a yard full of snow (it is the most snow I have ever seen here!) Nate loves the snow and had played in it a few times already this winter when we went up north so he was so excited to see it at our house! When he woke up I said Nate go look outside. He ran over to the back door and said SNOW!! so excitedly! It was so cute! He then said I am going to go put on my snow boots! He had just woken up and gone potty so he was only in his underwear. He started heading out the door looking like this...

I then said Nate you might want to put on something else to because its cold outside! He said ok and ran in his room and he came out looking like this...

I then realized I would need to dress him! So we got him somewhat bundled up and he was able to go out and enjoy playing in the snow in his very own backyard!

He built his very first snowman all by himself!! I told him how to do it and he went to it!

I think he did such a great job!! He was so proud of it!! (as was I!)

Not to shabby for a 2 year old :) Love him to pieces!!

Calling all Procrastinators!

2010-12-09T08:22:00.000-08:00

I am so excited to do christmas cards this year! We just got our family pictures back and I have been looking around for cute christmas cards to put them on! While searching I discoveredshutterfly's cards and they are so cute!!! I will for sure be printing mine from their site! My sister recently got me hooked onto Shutterfly and I have already created so many projects! It is so easy to use! If you are anything like me, which hopefully you are not, you are a not on-the-ball person. Here I am on December 8th with only 2 christmas presents boughten out of the 50 I need and no christmas cards ordered! Well if you have NOT already ordered your Christmas cards here is the one time us procrastinators can catch a break!

When you sign up for a Shutterfly account you get 50 FREE 4x6 prints! And if you are a blogger you need to check out their 2010 Holiday Card Promotion! You can receive 50 FREE Holiday Cards! They have such a great selection with over 800 cards to choose from! They are foldable or stationary! I guarantee you will be able to find the perfect one to go with your family picture!

Here are a few examples from their adorable selection...

You could go elegant

or something sweet

or put reasons why you loved 2010

Or put multiple pictures from throughout the year

CLICK HERE to get your 50 FREE HOLIDAY CARDS!

Eventful week

2010-11-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

FYI--This is a long long post about my father-in-laws accident and beginning stages of recovery. If you already know the story or dont care to read it scroll down and you can see pictures and a video of Nate on Halloween.

It all started monday morning when Skyler, his dad and brother Blake were out on the deer hunt. My morning was a usual monday morning. My friend had dropped off her daughter that I babysit during the week and we were building blocks when my phone rang. It was Skyler's mom. I assumed she was calling to see if I wanted to go do something with her and my sister in law while the boys were out hunting. I answered the phone and she asked if I had talked to skyler that morning and I was like no why? She said well there has been an accident. My heart dropped and I said oh my gosh what happened! She began to cry and said Rick (skylers dad) had been hurt. Her son Blake had called her and said the horse fell on dad and life-flight was on its way to get him and bring him to the hospital. She told me she was heading over to the hospital and I told her I wanted to go but I was babysitting my friends little girl so I couldnt. I began to cry because I really wanted to be there but there was no way I was going to bring 2 kids 2 and under to the hospital to wait around. She said she would call me when she found out anything else. In tears I hung up the phone and went over to Nate and said grandpa got hurt can you help me say a prayer for him. He said yes and we prayed for him. Thats all I felt I could really do since I couldnt be at the hospital. Then a minute later my phone rang again and it was my mom. Skyler had hurt both his wrists a couple nights previous and we werent sure if they were sprained or broken so she was calling to see how he was doing. I said well skyler is doing fine, but I just got a call from his mom that rick has been in a horse accident and is being life-flighted to the hospital. She immediately said let me come over and watch the kids so you can go over to the hospital and be with the family. I was so thankful and knew at that instant that heavenly father had prompted my mom to call me at that moment so that I would be able to go over to the hospital because I wanted to be there more than anything. I didnt want to call and ask her to come watch them but when she called me and offered it was the greatest blessing! Once my mom got to my house I went over to the hospital.

To make a long morning short we found out he had broke his pelvis bone and needed surgery, but the saint george hospital was not able to treat his kind of injury. He was life-flighted to the Salt Lake City Intermountain Medical Center where he was put in the ICU where they could keep a good eye on him. My mother and sister in law drove up to salt lake that day so they could be with him. Blake and Jesse had school and skyler needed to stay and run the office so we decided we would all go up that weekend to visit him.

Tuesday morning a woke up really sick. I was sick all day and woke up still sick on Wednesday. I called the doctor and the soonest they could get me in was friday morning and it wasnt even with my regular doctor but I didnt care! I wanted to get in and get medicine so I could go up to salt lake that weekend. Friday I woke up feeling a little better but still sick. I went to the doctor and she prescribed me medicine and when I got home I took it and instantly felt so much better! There again was another great blessing!

Meanwhile during the week Rick had to wait until thursday to have the surgery because they had to wait for some internal bleeding to stop and it did. It was a 6 hour long surgery! The doctor said surgery went really well. He had broken his pelvis in 4 places and broke his sacrum. He had multiple plates and screws put in him and he has a exterior fixation rod on the outside of his stomach to hold his pelvis together (he says he has a built in QB towel holder now :) The exterior rod will be moved in 6 weeks, but the plates and screws will stay in him for life. The doctor said he can put weight on his right leg, but no weight on his left leg for 2 months! The physical therapist said his injury is the hardest to come back from, but the doctor gave him a 100% recovery prediction so we know he will make it through this! He should be coming home weds or thursday this week. They will transfer him from the salt lake hospital to a saint george rehab center in an ambulance. He will have to stay at the rehab center for 2-3 weeks until he can pull himself up and get out of bed by himself. It will be nice to have him back in saint george so we can go and visit him more often! He has a long road of recovery but we know he will make it through this! We appreciate all the love, support and prayers everyone has given Rick and our family! Keep them coming as the recovery process is just beginning!

Since we were up in Salt Lake for halloween we packed nates costume and decided we would take him trick or treating up there. He loved it despite the fact that is was raining and cold! I was glad I bought him a costume that was able to keep him warm! He was a dinosaur for halloween and he LOVED his costume! He was so excited when we put it on (I wish I would have video taped it!) Once he got his costume on he was running around Skyler's grandmas house roaring at everyone! It was so cute! He had been watching cartoons all week where different characters were going trick or treating and he was so excited to go.

After we put him in the hospital we went over to the hospital to show grandpa rick his costume. He wasnt being a great sport at the hospital...he was to anxious to go trick or treating! Skyler and I left the hospital and brought him back to skylers grandmas where we were going to go trick or treating. Unfortunately it was still raining but that didnt stop us! We busted out the umbrellas and headed down the street!

He ran up to the first door with Skyler and said trick or treat and they gave him a candy and ran back to me so excited and said look mommy as he opened his bag to show me the treat. Skylers grandpa game with us as we took him door to door. It was a lot of fun watching him go up to each house and say trick or treat! He was always so polite and remembered to say thank you! Although I think in the video skyler told him to say it, but at the majority of the houses he said it on his own! After we would get done with one house he would say lets go to another house! We went to 20+ houses and I was afraid he was going to be so sad when were done, but when we ended back up at skylers grandmas house he said grandmas house! I was like yep we are all done and we made it back to grandmas...should we go sow her all the treats you got? He was like yeah! He was so excited to show her his trick or treat bag with all the goodies he got! We dumped it out in front of her fire place and he admired all this treats! Even though halloween isnt how i thought it was going to be with nate trick treating by himself with just skyler and I and great grandpa it turned out to be a lot of fun and nate really enjoyed it!

Here are a few pictures and a video of our weekend. (I didnt take any at the hospital...I didnt think Rick would want pictures of him at the hospital...I know I wouldnt!)

On our way up to Salt Lake we got a flat tire as we were passing Parawon and we didnt have a spare! There were no shops open anywhere close to us nor were there any car rental places open! Luckly there was an off ramp some what close to us where would could drive the car slowly to a gas station. We tried pumping it with air but the tire was too flat and would not pump up at all! Jesse called one of his friends who drove up skylers truck while his wife drove up their car. He dropped of skylers truck to us and then him and his wife drove back home. Thats a good friend! (We were an hour away!) Here is a picture of us chillin at the gas station waiting for his friend to drive up skylers truck.

Blakes birthday was on thursday and since his dad was in the hospital and his mom was up in salt lake with his dad he didnt get much of a birthday celebration this year (just dinner with skyler and jesse). We celebrated his birthday at the hospital on saturday when we were all there. One of his presents was a unicycle. Here are some pics of skyler and blake trying it out...

Great Grandpa helped entertain nate while the boys were messing on the unicycle. He brought out the blower and nate loved playing with it and blowing the leaves!

Great Grandpa showing nate how to do it

Nate doing it all by himself

Nate trick or treating

Here are a few pictures of Nate in his costume...the pictures arent the greatest quality cuz my camera was dead :( I might take some more tomorrow with him in his costume to try and get some good ones cuz he looks so cute in it :)

This is what happens...

2010-10-14T10:21:00.000-07:00

When Nate helps me make treats for daddy :)

The Craft Bug

2010-10-05T13:42:00.000-07:00

I LOVE doing crafts and lately I cant get enough of them! I have found so many I want to do and now its just trying to find the time (and money) to do them ALL! They are all budget friendly crafts, but with all the crafts I want to do even budget friendly crafts can add up fast :) I have made it a goal to try and make at least one a week. Some will hardly take anytime to make and some could take me awhile! I have a definite lack of decorations for all the holidays coming up so thats what most of my crafts will be focused on for the next couple months. The last two weeks I made these 2 crafts...

#1 Halloween Wreath

I found this wreath at the DI for $5 and spray painted it black

Got the skeleton, trick or treat sign, spider, spider web and bag of spiders and bats at the dollar store for $1 each

Total cost to make wreath and do the spider web outside my house--$6!

#2 Fall Topiary (I actually made 2 of them)

Bought fall leaf bushes at Michaels on sale for 99 cents! Cut them up and stuck them into a styrofoam ball from the dollar store

Got the flower pot at the DI for $1

Final Product...a $7 topiary!

These are some crafts I found on blogs that I like that I will use as inspiration for upcoming crafts!!

Rodeo

2010-09-19T15:26:00.000-07:00

This was Skyler and I's 4th year to go to the Lion's Dixie Round-up (aka Rodeo). The Rodeo was one of our very first dates. Skyler probably doesnt remember this, but the first picture we ever took together was at the Rodeo. It has been a fun tradition for us to go every year! This year Skyler's Grandma bought us tickets to go and we thank her so much! We had a great time! Nate was so excited all day to go to the rodeo. He loves seeing horses and cows and when we told him that we were going to see them at the rodeo thats all he could talk about all day! Although he got antsy at times he really loved being there! Unfortunately Nate has outgrown his cowboy boots and he was sad he couldn't wear them! He loved his boots and we are going to have to get him some new ones so he can be a cowboy just like his daddy!

Nate loved waving to all the rodeo princesses as the rode by on their horses!

As we were leaving they had this race car sitting out on display and nate immediately ran over to it! He loves race cars! He was mad when we told him he could get in it!