Take a walk with us

So you thought I'd never write again

2011-03-09T19:19:00.000-08:00

Well I had big plans of doing a really fun post on March 1st to mark the one year post of not blogging. Pretty impressive to not blog for one whole year. My week got busy(as the rest of my life has) and the post never happened but I really am going to try to blog again. Adding pictures to facebook is just so much easier because I don't have to write anything. I am a terrible writer.

So I was just going to pick a few highlights from the last 12 months and then move on to what is happening now.

March
Tyler turned 3 ~ I took Brandon skiing for the first time. ~ Went to Miley's(niece) baby blessing in Cedar City.
April
Found out that I was pregnant. ~ Went to Cedar again so Brandon could go to the Grand Canyon with my Dad. ~ Put on the Pinewood Derby. ~ I picked up Becca in Grand Junction and we went to Cedar again to play. ~ When I came home we painted and installed cabinets we bought from Habitat for Humanity.
May
We were able to take our family to the open house of the Gila Valley Temple. What a treasured experience!! We were still getting snow so Arizona was a nice break. ~ My mom and dad came to help us lay ALL the tile in our downstairs. ~ Allie had her first dance recital and was cute as ever! ~ I traveled to Boise to attend of funeral.
June
Had a ward Luau. ~ Bought a slip n slide(I loved it way more than the kids, the water just comes out ice cold in Colorado).
July
Our first campout of the summer! The kids had so much fun! ~ Went swimming in the ditch. ~ And of course went to all the rodeos!! ~ We went to 4th of July parades and Carnivals. ~ Haynie family Reunion at Brian Head and the Pratt Family Reunion. ~ Brandon's Dad and nephew Blake came to help us rebuild our outside stairs. ~ Star, Kendra and Saryn came to play and paint the new stairs. And we visited Rifle Gap waterfalls. ~ Alema's Eagle project of painting at the school that took WAY more hours than expected. My sisters helped with that too.
August
Me and the kids drove with my Mom to Arkansas to visit Tara. ~ We went on our second and last(sad) campout of the summer. Tyler caught his first fish!!! ~ Allie started Preschool at the public school so it felt like she was starting Kindergarten. She goes four days a week. ~ Built a sandbox for the kids. ~ FINALLY got carpet and we moved to our real room downstairs.
September
Had a friend rip out the asphalt driveway. ~ Brandon turned 28 and Allie turned 5. ~ Helaman and Maija came to help us re-do the kids room downstairs. We had to close in a door and put in a bigger window. And insulate the back wall of our house so we could be warm this winter. It worked!! ~ Painted kids room and moved them back in.
October
For Brandon's birthday we took a trip to NY to visit his mission and to see my sister in NJ and visit NYC. A MUCH needed vacation without kids. We loved it! My mom and dad kept the kids. Went to Cedar to pick up the kids ~ Our first snow and the kids had a blast sledding and playing in it. ~ Finished the deck project we started with Brandon's dad back in July. ~ Planted grass and built a rock path to our front door. ~ Had gravel delivered for our driveway. YEAH!! No mud this winter, well much less than before.
November
Brianna came to help me get organized!! What a blessing that was! ~ Brandon shot a bull elk. ~ The kids went hunting with Brandon and friends. They lasted the whole day! ~ Thanksgiving in Ft Thomas and attended Grandma Sanders Funeral. I love hearing all the stories at funerals. She was so neat!
December
Cut down our Christmas tree in a blizzard. Good thing because Kate was born three days later on December 13th. I was a 9 when I got to the hospital that was an hour from our house. ~ Trent turned to 2. ~ Brandon and I have been married for 6 years.
January
Coldest temps I have ever experienced! ~ Ice fishing derby. ~ Ward temple trip to Vernal.
February
Alema's Eagle Court of Honor. ~ Finally finished the Mud Room! We have been working on this since last June. ~ Kendra, Star and Brianna came to visit. And of course they painted for us. All the molding downstairs and my kitchen cabinets. Brandon had to fix and build a few doors but it is all done. No more missing/broken doors and they all match!
March
Had Kate's baby blessing with 32 people in attendance. SO much fun! We of course had to make Helaman work while he was here. Him and Brandon re-wired and hung new lights in the kitchen! Love them! The kitchen was SO dark!! ~ Our cousins came from AZ to see us for the first time since we moved to CO. ~ Tyler just turned 4. ~ Brandon and I the past couple of days have been laying tile in the kitchen. So we are without stove, sink and dishwasher. It is looking so good though. Good thing we kept the laundry tub because that is where I have been doing my dishes.

WOW!! Really sorry this got SO long!! I was just going to pick a couple of things from each month. As it turns out there were SO many things going on every month that I could not choose between all of them. Love you all and I will post some pictures soon.

A wagon ride!

2010-03-01T16:10:00.000-08:00

So things have not been all smiles the way it shows in the last pic but we are doing really good. We forced him on a wagon ride outside the hospital so he could remember what real life is like and get him some motivation to get up and moving. He did pretty good. He kept trying to lay down in the wagon as we were trying to make him sit up. He was a trooper! I accidentally took a really long way, we kept running into stairs and ended up walking half way around the hospital to find a ramp. LOL

So Brandon did a little tractor digging dance around the hospital and that is the first smile I have seen since I got back on Sunday afternoon. I went back to Meeker to get Allie and Trent and then my mom and dad came to grand junction to see Tyler and to pick them up. So they went back to Cedar and we will go get them this weekend.

Appendicitis it is!

2010-02-27T10:48:00.000-08:00

Well I am feeling about like the worst mom in the world right now. Tyler's appendix ruptured and he had surgery last night at about 11:30pm. I was just certain everything was fine. And I was dead wrong. He has done amazing with the exception of a few times the nurses have had to stick him twice because they didn't get it on the first try. His cry has changed and it is starting to make me sad. It is not the scream anymore but just the calm "mom, please don't let them do this anymore." He has started to lose his little voice. Surgery went really well and the surgeon feels like he was able to get everything out that was infectious. So he is already drinking clear liquids and keeping them down. Good signs! Hopefully we will be out of here in no time for Tyler's sake. I have been telling him since Tuesday that I was just taking him to get fixed. And now here we are Saturday still being poked and getting "fixed". Thanks for all you thoughts and prayers.

Appendicitis or not?

2010-02-24T19:05:00.000-08:00

Well Tyler was throwing up on Monday morning and then was running a fever and then last night started complaining of his tummy hurting. He would really let us touch him or move him. After almost no sleep last night we decided to take him in to the doctor first thing in the morning. He was screaming so hysterically that he was all better when we got there and all the nurses thought he was screaming in pain that they rushed us off to the ER. So I spent the morning in the ER with him. From touching him he seemed to be more sensitive on the right side then any other place and all his other symptoms were pointing toward that. The nurses and doctor were so accommodating to me and my wants for Tyler. It was great! I think my best medical experience yet. I am a little anti doctors because I never have good experiences with them. Anyway, they got an ultra sound tech to come so that they would not HAVE to do a ct scan. Which would have been A LOT more traumatic for an already worked up little boy. They had drawn his blood and his blood count came back regular and so they went ahead with just an ultra sound. They are not as clear with appendicitis but wanted to try the easiest first. The tech thought for sure that the appendix was enlarged and we contacted two surgeons. Both said because of the count they would not rely on the ultra sound. One wanted to keep us overnight hooked to an IV(NOT gonna happen!) and luckily the doctor knew that Tyler had been asking when he could leave since we got there and talked to the surgeon about us just going home and coming back. Thank you for her. That would have been miserable!!! So we are home and Tyler is just laying on the couch, still complaining of stomach pain at times but I am hoping he is bright and chipper in the morning so that we don't even have to do the blood draw.

After we were home he said, "mom, thanks for taking me to the doctor." This is after I held him down while the squeezed his finger for 10min trying to get his blood. What a sweetheart! Here is a pic of the babe.

Fun Treat!

2010-01-27T18:44:00.000-08:00

Allie and Tyler found these at the store today and I said "sure, why not?" well I am glad I did. They are so fun, not a big mess, not that much sugar, cheap and easy. They have chocolate and strawberry. They are little BB shaped flavored balls inside they straw and each end is "sewn off" so as you drink it flavors your milk without the BBs coming through the end of the straw. Sorry the pictures are a disaster, I took them with my webcam because I am lazy. Anyway, just thought I would share. My kids LOVED them and thought they were so cool.

two posts in one week!

2010-01-17T09:20:00.000-08:00

So I had mentioned that my mom and dad took Allie and Tyler for a couple of weeks. My parents are amazing people!! My kids came home having learned many wonderful new things. I took them down while Brandon was gone to a training. We got to see Brandon's Mom and sister and her precious new baby(i have no pictures). I went back to CO. Then we came to Cedar on Christmas Eve after Brandon got off of work. We worked as hard as we could to get as much done as possible while Allie and Tyler were with them. I went through just about every room and area of my house and cleaned and organized! It feels so good!!! I finally know where everything is and gave most everything a place. I really needed that time to get back on top of things. Brandon was able to mud and tape and build Allie and Tyler a closet. It was so fun to organize the closet and put things away where they were actually going to stay and not just be there until they had a new place.

Trent did really good until about the last 3 days. At first we could tell that he was just LOVING the attention. Brandon and me all to himself. He just ate it up! And then he started to get bored with us. By the time we left on Thurs he was pretty much done with us and ready for some fun.

Christmas Eve was SO great! We did the Nativity with all the kids acting the parts. Of course the youngest kids always steal the show. Trent and Kaige were the dang cutest Shepherds. Allie was an Angel and Tyler was a Wiseman. He had "golden" in his gift box for baby Jesus.

Also I found this awesome tractor lego set for Tyler. I knew he would love it so much even if he is a little young for it. We spent hours and hours putting all the tractors and farm together so it would be all ready to play with the next morning. It stayed together for all of about 5min. I think we may just superglue the set so we don't have to keep rebuilding.

Christmas was CHAOS and so much fun. 17 people all opening presents together and 5 of them little kids. Every gift they open they want it out of the box to play. We had a lot of fun!

We stayed in Cedar and played for a few days and then drove to AZ. That was the longest drive!! We left early(5am) thinking we could get there early but because of weather and other events we did not get there until 5 30 after more than 12hrs in the car. Not fun! AZ was so fun! It was a nice break from the cold. The kids spent so much time outside. It was great! We got to see cousins, play in cotton seed(never done that before, very cool!), see old friends and relax.

Also Brandon and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary! We have celebrated 4 out of five in Ft Thomas even though we have never lived there. I think we need to make a plan for this next year to be somewhere different. We love Ft Thomas but I think I am ready to do something really extraordinary for our anniversary. I cannot believe that it has been 5 yrs. Not that that is really all that long but it seems shorter than that. It has been so great! I love Brandon so much! I love how he takes care of ALL of our needs and really surpasses my expectations.

After coming home from all the traveling I feel like we have been able to enjoy life a little more and really appreciate everything that we have been blessed with. It was a nice, needed break! I love my Savior and have enjoyed the Christmas season celebrating his life and teaching my kids about His life. It was great to be gone from our house and not feel guilty that we weren't working on it because we couldn't. We just spent time with our kids and friends and family. I love Allie, Tyler and Trent! They are so forgiving and fun to be with!

Here are some pictures: These are really not in very good order at all but it is taking too long already so just try make it all make sense. They are mostly Ft Thomas first and Cedar City last.

Nephew Blake and Tyler. The whole 3hrs we were there Tyler NEVER left his side!! So cute!

Brandon jumping off cotton seed

Me and Allie jumping off the cotton seedpoor allie LOLand the landing, not that we really ever left the ground.

Tyler in the seed

All the kids in a hole in the stack of cotton seed.

Allie climbing the cotton seed

Tyler

Family pic taken with self timer. THe best we could do.

So tender!! Tyler really took to Brandon's grandma. She is not all that sweet at this age but he just loved and she loved him. He even climbed on her lap the next day to watch TV and she was fine with that. He asked her to help him open his new toy from G and G Sanders.

Abby(old roomies little girl) and Trent

Allie (we decided to take some pics with my NEW camera and because Ft Thomas has so many fun places.)
Trent

Hilarious!! The kids came around the corner with these and were doing a little Potato Head Parade. My cousin Chelsey's kids.

Me, Tyler and Trent jumping in Ft THomas. Trent LOVES jumping!

Trent drove this paint roller ALL over Ft THomas. It was very cute!

Allie on the pig at Hog Hollar

wagon ride with cousin Talon

Christmas dinner

cuteness

Making(mostly eating) gingerbread houses with Aunts before we got there to my moms.

Allie with new Barbie scooter and some barbie boots Becca found at the thrift store.

Trent LOVES this toy!!

Tyler/workerman

Cute aprons my mom made all of us

Tyler with his lego set

Allie finding her jewelry she wanted SOOOOO bad!!! She did not believe that Santas elves would know how to make jewelry like Target. SHe said, "well maybe they just buyed it there."

Nativity
Angel
Wisemen with their "golden"
Shephard

Trent and Tyler matching clothes from Aunt Tara

Allie baking her first cupcakes. She LOVES this!!

Tyler helping paint my moms wall for Christmas
Painting crew
cutest little family, new little nephew born 16th of december
family photo minus Brandon who wanted to get out of his Sunday clothes
my little bro Bryson(15) trying on the pants that Brandon gave him because they were so big he could not keep them on.

Me and Kendra T-shirts and Sunday skirts

Bryson sporting Tyler's new work hat. The mic works and the is a little speaker on top, it is SO fun!!
Tyler and Rebecca

A much needed update!

2010-01-15T18:51:00.000-08:00

For some reason my text won't move back up to the top of the page so all the pictures are first and the post last. Also I meant to have my pictures go from oldest to newest and I did it backwards. Oh Well!

After we cut down our Christmas tree

Waiting while we found the perfect tree

We finally found the perfect tree. Every year Brandon and I hike around looking for the PERFECT tree. So this year we had no snow pants, the snow was almost up to the kids waste and it was getting dark. We should have just cut the first one we saw but no true to character we had to hike ALL around looking for the perfect one! Notice Allie and Tyler SCREAMING they are so cold and could really care less if they even have a Christmas tree at this point and I am sure I am holding Trent and he is screaming as well. The best part was that Brandon cut down the tree and then drug it to the truck and then I ran the best I could through the deep snow carrying Trent back to the truck while Allie and Tyler just stood there crying waiting for us to come back for them. They would not walk! So Brandon ran back for them and carried both of them half way and then I ran back to meet him and carried Tyler back. Needless to say this will be a memorable tree cutting! I think my ankles were frozen for the next hour and that was with the floor heat on them the whole ride home.

Trent HAS to do whatever they are doing!

Love this Face!

Trent's cute smile! (I am trying to make up for the lack of pictures he has)

Eating snow after sledding

Allie and Tyler

Brandon

Getting a ride

Sledding

and the crash

Trying to get at least one pic of all 3. My kids will not take pics together!!! I really think I have maybe 5 in the year Trent has been born.

Allie wore this when she was a baby. I wasn't sure if it fit and I told Brandon to put it on him and at that point we were already 15min late to the party so he had to wear it wedgie or not!

Ballerina

Tyler was Tigger! Not because he wanted to but because we were given the costume. He did love it though.

Ten months and already climbing. Now he can get all the way on top of my kitchen table. I have never had a climber before.

Trent started walking at about ten months

a little fall photo shoot and this the ONLY one out of about 150 photos

Helping paint the bathroom

Allie and her princess castle cake

cake beaters for breakfast! it was her bday!

Brandon's bday!

Tyler and Rylan in Ft Thomas

Sword fighting in Ft Thomas

roasting hot dogs

she doesn't really know of she likes the bunny

riding Cheyenne

playdough with cousins

Roasting Marshmellows

Trent to a dive off his camping chair

playing in the tent

Brandon and Allie napping after our long morning hike

Well, Brandon has been gone since last Sunday morning and I thought for sure while he was gone I would update the blog during the hours after the kids go to bed and before I go to bed. So he should be home in about 5 hours and I figured I better start blogging or else I am never going to get updated. I mostly like to share pictures because I am not a good writer but then the pictures take so long to choose from and upload that I never get started. So here it goes.

The last thing I posted about was 4th of July. LOL We managed to squeeze in one camping trip at the end of July. We froze! And we were sad that was the only one we were able to do. Our house owns us! Don't asks us to do anything or be anywhere because we will most likely tell you we have something planned for working on the house. In September we had a trip planned for Ft Thomas and it just so happened my grandma passed away and her funeral was the same weekend. What an amazing Lady! That is one of the reasons I will forever be grateful that I moved to Safford, AZ, to get to know her better! The trip was fun but too crazy! I wanted to spend ALL my time with both families and that was impossible. We celebrated Allie and Brandon's birthdays and don't have many pictures but we had a lot of fun! We had A LOT of Allie's friends over on her bday and decorated cupcakes. There were probably about 25 people including adults. It was a PARTY! We have a few Halloween pictures but not very good ones. We took them with our video camera because the other camera had dead batteries, so they are taken without flash.(same as Allie and Brandons bday pics) Life just got so busy from the time my grandma passed away until about the middle of Dec when I sent Allie and Tyler to stay with my mom for 2 weeks. I LOVE my mom!!! She SAVED me! There were too many things that I was behind on trying to do everything with the house and church and 3 little kids with no room or closet. It was just crazy! Anyway, we are feeling good about everything and feel very blessed EVERY day!

Parade

2009-09-01T20:52:00.000-07:00

I had to share this because I got a good laugh. Meeker Sanitations float. We're #1 and #2! haha

More July 4th

2009-09-01T20:47:00.000-07:00

Allie insisted on wearing these boots that are oh, 5 sizes TOO big!

The parade

Allie would run out to get the candy and Tyler would eat it.

Yep, Brandon and I are the only ones looking!

Happy fourth of July!

2009-09-01T20:30:00.000-07:00

I am just realizing that I did not post any of our fourth of July pictures. We had SO much fun!! Meeker goes all out for the celebration. The parade was long and they threw tons of candy. They had events going on all day and the rodeo at night. And a big concert every year. This year was Tracy Lawrence. We got a baby-sitter and went on our own. Big deal for us, we are so lazy about getting baby-sitters. I loved the concert! Not that I am a huge fan or anything but the whole set up was just like a concert in the park. No assigned seating, everybody taking their turn at the front. It was great! And even better, the tickets for all events the whole weekend were just $35 a person. 3 rodeos and a concert and more. You are all invited to come next year. Allie was so precious, she would light up and get all excited when they would play the national anthem and the flag would run out around the arena. I think she got her excitement from me. That is really one of my favorite parts of the rodeo. I am proud to be an american.

I don't know what it is about my 3 kids but I can NEVER get them ALL looking at the camera. I thought these were funny to share because we tried SO many times!!

cowboy up!

Just some good times!

2009-08-05T20:27:00.000-07:00

Tyler with is gloves and hat. He insisted on wearing them. This is Trent's hat from the hospital.

I guess he had an idea in mind because then he started playing football. His helmet and gloves.

Tyler saw Brandon having fun with the neckless and decided to join him. Sunday afternoons always seem to bring out the best in us. Sitting around all afternoon together.

Trent is so big!! I realized that I have not really posted anything about him since he started rolling over. He has not stopped since then. He is trying to catch up to Allie and Tyler. Not too long after he started rolling, he was "crawling" getting himself anywhere he wanted to go. Soon after that he started real crawling only to move right on to pulling himself up on things. All of this in a short 6 and 1/2 months. He is 7 and 1/2 months now and continues to get better at moving around and getting into things. I ALREADY have to make sure my bathroom door is closed. I found him standing up holding the toilet the other day. Way too soon to be worrying about that. He is so fun! I call him the life of the party. He wants to be anywhere and everywhere Allie and Tyler are. He just sits and laughs as he watches them play. When we put the kids to bed sometimes Trent is not quite ready yet because of a late nap but he wants to be in there playing with them. We say good night, close the door, set Trent down to play and the next thing we know we hear laughing in the bedroom. He crawls in there and stands at the edge of Tyler's bed(picture) and just laughs. So stinkin' cute but hard to get Allie and Tyler to go to sleep when he keeps on crawling in there. Allie can get him to laugh SO hard! I don't know why it is that kids have the magic touch with babies. Allie is more funny to him than any of the rest of us. Trent also LOVES food. When he sees it and he is ready to eat he screams for it and gets all crazy. He wants a bite of whatever it is that you have. We have been having so much fun! We mostly play and then work a little.

Tiny Tumblers

2009-08-05T14:08:00.000-07:00

This class was at our Rec Center and we had so much fun. I left Trent with friends and went with Allie and Tyler. It was fun to do something with the two of them. Allie ate it up. She followed all the directions and took learning it all very seriously.

Allie on the balance beam

Allie's log rolls

Tyler's embarrassed face doing the balance beam

This is the "mailbox", everyone's favorite part of the obstacle course. Tyler's too! He would skip everything and go straight to the mailbox every time.

Clean House

2009-08-04T20:22:00.001-07:00

So these are the pictures I was trying to post when I was not allowed any more pictures. I figured out that it is linked to my picasa albums and I had a bunch of videos on there for my mom and dad. So I deleted some of those and we are good to go. Brandon was so embarrassed that I posted those pictures of our dirty house. He thought our house looked nicer before we moved in because at least it was clean. So the next day, ironically, I had the entire upstairs clean at the same time and I so I was going to take new pictures to post. Something and happened and before I knew it I was already making a PB&J for somebody and the kitchen was dirty again. So I cleaned up that mess and instantly took pictures. So here is the clean house. And for any of you that know me, my living room has already be re-arranged twice since this picture. But oh well.

Dinner talk

2009-08-04T19:46:00.000-07:00

Brandon thinks this is gross and I think it is funny so I am posting about it.

Tyler is done eating dinner and playing. Allie and I are still eating. He announces that he is "pooping for a while, mom." I say ok just like every other time he tells me. He feels that I always need to be informed. Since he is always telling me I have been trying to talk him into going to the toilet but he refuses!

Allie says a few minutes later, "Mom, that would be so easy to just poop in a diaper." What?
"ya mom, you wouldn't even have to go into the bathroom you could just poop."

It was so funny the tone of voice and look on her face like why has nobody thought of this great idea that I just thought of.

Tyler's Horse

2009-07-19T17:49:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to post more pictures but my blog has too many and i am not allowed any more. So now I have to go through and delete which is making me not really want to post at all.

Anyway, I am sitting at the computer and Tyler just came over telling me that his horse is drinking milk from his body. He has his horse underneath his shirt. haha So I thought I would start a post. Earlier I was going to take a picture of him and this horse because he has been attatched to it all day. He started out just riding it around. Also, I forgot to mention that it is a little stuffed horse that is about 8inches big. So he squeezes it between his legs and tries to run. Then he started having a "rodeo" with himself and kept getting bucked off his horse. And just before he started feeding his horse he was running around with a piece of paper(that was his flag) in his hand while riding his horse around the "arena"

We LOVE rodeos!!

More house pictures

2009-06-29T16:16:00.001-07:00

The kids room and hallway before

the kids room and closet and hall. you can barely see the stairs in the bottom left.

the kids room taken from the stairs

Before the paint and the old wall of built in shelving

New green paint. I am running out of places to store things. You will notice Brandons tool shelf is the rocking chair. And my clothes are hanging on the outside of the closet because the closet has too many things in it to use the closet hanger.

Kitchen before

Kitchen after. Never mind the mess. That is one of the reasons it has taken me so long to post because i never have a clean kitchen. It usually gets cleaned right before I dirty it. So here is my new dirty kitchen. Sort of. We still are painting the cupboards and a new backsplash and more.

We bought a house!

2009-06-29T14:36:00.000-07:00

This is old news to a lot of you but there might still be some of you that don't know. We bought a fixer-upper. We are all living in the upstairs(678sf) while we finish the downstairs. We have 4 beds and 4 dressers in the one room upstairs. It is really exciting and lots of work. We are so grateful for all of the Lord's guidance in getting this house. It was a lot of work to get this house bought. We started before we left to OK and thought we were going to move in right when we got back. We ran into every single problem you could think of. And probably some you didn't even know about. I saw this house for sale when we first got here and wanted nothing to do with it. You could not even see the yard, it was full of junk! Besides that even if the junk was all gone it was still the UGLIEST house. I said to Brandon, "I don't care how cheap that house is, I already know I do not want to buy it." hahaha So when I felt good about making an offer on the house I knew everything was going to work out. It just took a couple of months and a lot of emotional days of "yes, you can get the house", "no, you can't get the house." Anyway, I don't know if that even all makes sense but we are so busy working on the house and having such fun working together on projects. It is great hang out time with Brandon(since we rarely go on dates). So here are some pictures of our progress thus far.

The house entrance is up the porch stairs and then you would walk right into the fridge when you opened the door. The door actually didn't open all the way. So we moved our front door to downstairs. The kitchen, living room, one bedroom and bathroom are upstairs. There was one room downstairs and a bathroom. The laundry area was out in what used to be a garage and the rest was open space.

Front of the house before

Front of the house after we took out the shed

New font door and windows. This isn't the best picture but the only one I have.

This is the doorway to the old bathroom. It has two stairs to enter it because they added it after the house was built and there was not any plumbing for it. Really wierd!!

Tearing out DS bedroom closet to make a new bathroom door.

After the closet was gone. To the right of the picture you can barely see where the old stairs and door were.

New bathroom door

You can see the edge of the new bathroom door and also where new sheetrock is hung where the old bathroom door was. And this is the new entry hall. The first door to the right(you can just see the hinges) is the kids room and the next door on the right is our new room.

Allie is now a boy

2009-06-28T18:04:00.000-07:00

dog poop

2009-06-27T12:51:00.000-07:00

Tyler has become quite the handy man with all this construction going on around here. He has really taken a liking to tools. He was constantly asking for Brandon's hammer. If the answer was no he would cry for the next 45min. He would not give up. So we went to Sutherlands to pick up some things for the house and they had little 3oz hammers on their dollar isle. So we got one for Allie and one for Tyler. We were getting ready to do some demo on the house and so I told Allie and Tyler to go find their hammers to helps us. They each came back with a hammer. Allie showed us hers and then says, "but look at Tyler's his is brown."(it had been left out in the rain) Then Tyler says, "A dog pooped on it." Don't know where he came up with that idea.

Time to leave Oklahoma...

2009-04-02T08:26:00.000-07:00

So I made breakfast this morning because we all slept too late to get it from downstairs. Sad since that is obviously the easiest. I was serving Allie her second pancake and stepped on something on the way to her plate. I looked down to see a pancake stuck to the bottom of my foot. GROSS! I said "Allie I just stepped on something." she says "oh ya, I dropped that pancake." I ask "then why did you not pick it up." she tells me "well, the maids are coming."

Unbelievable! I think we are all going to be in for a shock when we get home. Including me!

Trent's blessing!

2009-03-26T21:15:00.000-07:00

It is a good thing wal mart did not have a smaller size in that suit because I would have bought it. This one fit perfectly!

We had somewhere between 25 and 30 people come to see us!! It was SOOOOO fun! We fed them all at our little townhouse after church. We had enough food and almost enough chairs. The food was what I was mostly worried about.

The blessing was very sweet. I felt many tender mercies throughout the day. I know my Heavenly Father loves me.

One year older and wiser.....or so he thinks

2009-03-26T09:08:00.000-07:00

Tyler seems to act so much older than he is. I cannot believe that he is only two. He has always been my little communicator. Even when he could not talk, he could tell me everything that was going on with just hand actions and pointing. He still HAS to tell me everything. He won't stop letting me know until I acknowledge him. One of my favorite recent phrases is "I can't want to!" He has been learning more and more words/phrases, they are starting to all mix together. hahaha

We had such a fun weekend. We celebrated while everyone was here for Trent's blessing. What a party!! Tyler's reaction to all the presents was so great! He just has these eyes that light up his whole face and this great smile to go with it.

Love the faces. This is a little backhoe tractor.

This is the first time he saw his football cake.

And his basketball hoop. He was so excited for that!!

His horse flashlight.

He has been LOVING monster and trucks and already LOVED tractors. We found a monster tractor!!

roll over rover!

2009-03-25T19:37:00.000-07:00

never mind me talking in the background, I missed it but the camera saw it.

red rover, red rover, Trent can roll over!

2009-03-24T20:27:00.000-07:00

So today I went to pick up Trent when he woke up from his nap and he was on his back. He sleeps on his stomach. So I took pictures of him on his back of his first time rolling over. I didn't really think that he had the hang of it yet. I picked him up and took him into the other room to feed him and when he was done I laid him on the floor again. I looked away for about 15sec and looked back at him and he was on his back again. I kept trying to video it and of course he wouldn't do it. Then I would come back and he would be rolled over again. Anyway, I finally got it on video. And he is all over the place, even scooting.

Never mind that he is busting out of his pj's. He is weighing in 14.14. Only that was 3 weeks ago.

Tyler is SO fun!

2009-03-09T17:03:00.000-07:00

I still need to post Tyler's bday but that might take some time. In the mean time here is a funny moment. He got a basketball hoop for his bday.

I am finishing up everything for dinner and told the kids that it would be ready soon to come eat. Brandon and I are talking about our days and Tyler out of nowhere says,

"not eating dinner mom."

"what, you are not eating dinner?"

"playing basetball." as he takes a shot

swish, ball goes in

Brandon and I are just laughing but keep watching him and everything he shoots is going in. So we decide to start taking stats. He went 13 for 20. We were impressed.
not eating dinner mom

FAMILY!

2009-02-25T12:00:00.000-08:00

We got to visit my family over the long weekend. It was SOOOOO fun! I am so excited to be living SO close(7hrs)! That is the closest I have lived since I got married. And we already get to see them again this next weekend and the next weekend. good times!

Allie is so fun to watch play with my dad. Most of you know my dads sillyness. Allie takes him completely serious. Especially if you call her ANYTHING besides Allie. She only has one name and it is Allie and nothing else.

Tyler had FUN wrestling Parker. It is a good thing Trent is already twice the size that Tyler was when Tyler was his age. He is going to need to grow quickly because Tyler is just dying for someone to wrestle with him.

Trent is so fun and is getting over his sensitive stomach. He is getting used to the fact that I am not very good at eliminating foods from my diet and he is starting to tolerate almost everything I eat. As long as I don't over do it on the sugar. He talks and smiles so much. He will sleep 6 or so hours at time, I just haven't figured out yet how to get him sleeping for that long while I am already asleep. But we are almost there.

I do have to showcase a picture by Allie. She refuses to draw. Every time I ask her she says "I don't know how." I tell her "It does not have to be perfect just how you think it is, like draw a circle for a head." Very upset she answers back, "Yes, it does have to be perfect!!" Which is why I am so proud of this picture. This is the craft we did after story time at the library and she did this all on her own. She came to show me that she had drawn a sky and flowers and apples on her tree. Yeah!! Hopefully this will inspire her that she can draw and it does not have to look EXACTLY right.

Ok so now I have taken so long to finish this post that it is a little out dated but oh well.

Oh Allie

2009-02-18T18:56:00.000-08:00

So we had the missionaries over the other night to give a lesson and Allie was not wanting to sit down. We gave her the choice of bed or sit down and listen. She reluctantly decided to listen. We started to say a prayer and Allie started climbing over the top of Brandon. He was saying the prayer so I grabbed her and pulled her back towards me. She was upset that I pulled on her and she turned to me and said, "mom, you are ruining my life!" It was all I could do to not bust up laughing during the middle of the prayer. We all got a good kick out of it after the prayer was over.

Allie talking to Kendra this past weekend.

"Allie, what happened?"

"Someone broke my heart!"

"Who broke your heart?"

"Tyler did."

I wasn't there but I guess Tyler had fallen on her and she felt like he broke her heart.

Some photos of the last couple of months

2009-02-10T21:06:00.000-08:00

Well most of our snow melted so we decided to make ice cream, I think allie decided that the ice cream tasted a little better than snow

Tyler concurs

Trent's new best friend. Trent likes to have long conversations with Mr. Tiger who apparrently is very funny.

snow anyone?

Allie and Tyler loved building (and hugging) the snowman. Allie made one of the three main snowman body parts all by herself, can you guess which one?

This was a great day to build a snowman because it was the first warmer day since the last snow so you had the snow but the temperature was nice outside.

Allie was very proud of her "spice tower". (Most of her toys were still in boxes)

Tyler thought he wanted to wear a dress until he put it on and than he came to his senses and cried until it was off of him. good boy.

This is our hotel that we stayed at in downtown Denver. It had valet parking which we were unaware of until we pulled in with our van that was a disaster from the move. pretty embarrassing.

Their first colorado snow angels

This was a sunday afternoon photoshoot featuring Trent and Tyler sporting matching pajamas supplied by Becca

Trent was very intrigued by the camera on our way home from Denver, he made some very funny faces. We are finding out that Trent is a very smiley baby

We jumped off of the picinic table into this large pile of leaves in Ft. Thomas. Some of us chickened out about going head first.

Allie, Tlyler and their cousins Talon and Kenton had a blast throwing leaves up in the air over and over and over....This picture is so cool because we were able to catch the leaves while they were still in the air.

I am NEVER going to be able to catch up!

2009-02-09T13:30:00.001-08:00

Well, mostly Kendra keeps bugging me about updating the blog and I like to think that some of you others are wanting an update as well. WOW!!! I never knew life could get as crazy as it did. Brandon and I were discussing events after we got to Meeker and this is pretty much how it went.

December 5th- NRCS calls to tell us that they want us in Meeker the beginning of January. (Luckily, Brandon thinks things through and says not until the middle of January because I was having a baby. I was so excited I wanted to leave right then.)

The next week- This was finals week. All the while trying to find a place to live in Meeker, which is nearly impossible. Because of the oil and gas companies they don't have a lot and what there is is VERY expensive.

December 13th- Brandon's graduation and we had Brandon's parents and brother with his wife come over for the day.

December 16th- My mom arrives. She drive down the new van we bought from my dad.

December 17th- At 2:30am I decide that I am in labor but don't want to go to the hospital until the very last second. Then at 5:30 decide that I am done waiting for things to progress and I just want to get to the hospital and have a baby. Later that day we have Trent and he takes a LONG(compared to my previous labors) time getting here because he is posterior, which can make labor go slower.

December 18th- Come home from the hospital.

December 19th- My mom drives to Albuquerque to fly home.

December 20th- Go to El Paso to pick up Becca (my sister) and to see some friends who are visiting from Houston. They used to be at NMSU with us and in our ward.

December 23rd- Brandon's parents and sister came to see Trent.

December 25th- Christmas!

December 26th- El Paso Zoo

December 27th- White Sands National Park

December 28th- Take Becca to El Paso to fly home.

December 31st- Get to have our friends that we saw the previous week in El Paso actually stay with us so we can visit more. We miss them SO much! And it is our anniversary. We all went to dinner.

January 1st- Good thing our friends were still staying with us because they helped us get started packing and find boxes. That was needed help.

January 2nd- We left to visit Brandon's family in Ft Thomas for the weekend. And Brandon, Trent and I went onto Phoenix with Brandon's sister to take her to a Suns game. We had her name for Christmas.

January 4th- Came home from Ft Thomas.

January 5th- Brandon went to work and tried to fix our broken truck while I packed.

January 7th- Found out the truck was still broken after Brandon had missed work and helping pack to fix it. And it will cost an additional $800 to the $200 Brandon had already spent.

January 9th- I had to go to a final dentist appointment because he was in the middle of fixing one of my teeth and it had to be done before I moved. This dentist was famous for keeping me there for 3 hours at a time. Luckily this time I had Trent for a reason that I had to be out of there to get home to feed my baby. It only took half the time it usually did.

January 10th- Pick up U-Haul trailers and we started loading them. In between trying to visit with all our friends one last time before we moved. We found out so fast and it was during the holidays that we had too many people to see with no time.

January 11th- Brandon's brother and wife come to help us finish loading up and drive our trailers to CO. We BARELY fit everything! We had to hold stuff back as we closed the trailer doors, plus we had the van packed up to the middle seat to where you could not even see out, plus the back of our truck and the seat of our truck, plus Austin's truck(in the bed and in the cab). Thank you to them and all of the people in our ward and other friends who watched our kids and helped pack. We would NEVER have been able to do all of this without them.

January 12th- We drove to Farmington to try to get us about half way to Meeker.

January 13th- We drove into Meeker at about 6:30pm and unloaded. I called the bishop here for some help and it was a good thing because we would have all gone to bed hungry. With their help it took us until almost 8pm and you could not see any of the floors in our house. I did not know how we were going to fit it all. We got ourselves together and left for dinner. All to find that nothing in Meeker was open anymore. Gas stations, the one fast food place-Pizza Hut, the steakhouse, the ma and pa hamburger place, all of them closed. We were all so hungry, luckily we found a little Italian restaurant that was open until 9pm and it was about 8:30.

January 14th- Brandon woke up to find that our shower was broken when he went to get in. It won't switch from a bath to a shower. He tries for about 30min to get the spicket up and finally showers with a trickle and water still coming from the faucet below. We had to take out trailers to Rifle(about 45min south) and get groceries. And talk to Altell because we had no phone service. I did not even know our physical address because it is not on our townhouse. I had to call Brianna and Kendra(sisters) while I was in Rifle and just tell them that it is on 12th St on the right, look for our cars.

January 15th- We tried to get things set up for Brianna and Kendra so we could leave to Denver. Brianna and Kendra got here around 10am. They found our cars and luckily Brandon was outside when they pulled up and they did not have to knock on all the doors. We left for Denver in the afternoon and made it in time for me to take a real shower at our hotel and then head to the Suns game.

I will stop there even though there is way more to add. Brandon is a way better writer and so I will leave the rest up to him. I just wanted to get the little things written down for myself to remember. This all happened in just a little more than one month. That is why I was feeling crazy busy. I have pictures to add as well. I will do that later.

Merry Christmas!

2009-01-08T12:08:00.001-08:00

This is late but I was waiting until I could get a picture with the whole family. Thanks to Becca, we were able to pull it off. (barely) We went on just about the coldest day Las Cruces has seen. There was snow all over the tops of the white sand hills. We almost didn't get into the park because of the icy roads inside the park. Tyler was crying in all the pictures except this one because he had fallen asleep on the way over and was not quite ready to wake up. Poor Trent was screaming as well because it was SO cold out there and the wind was blowing. At least we got our family picture at white sands before we moved. We had been wanting to do this since we moved to Las Cruces only we didn't feel like we could drag anyone(besides family) 45 min to take our picture. So it is not the perfect picture but it is better than none at all.

We wish everyone a late Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We have been so blessed this year! I have read many letters from other friends and family that all say the same thing. It is amazing how the Lord takes care of ALL of us. I know He loves us.

Well, I better get back to packing since I only have 3 days left and my house looks like I haven't even started. We love you all!

More about Meeker

2008-12-28T17:25:00.000-08:00

We are planning on officially leaving Las Cruces on January 13th. This date may change depending on the weather. Here is a view of the town of Meeker. We are excited to have the river running through town. Both Canon City and Steamboat springs had rivers that ran through the middle of town and were great for cheap summer entertainment.

Trent Stephen Sanders

2008-12-18T21:50:00.000-08:00

December 17, 2008
1:18pm
9.1oz
21 in

Allie holding her "new brand baby"

You can see Tyler holding the football. He got that for Trent to play with him.

YEAH!

2008-12-13T17:47:00.000-08:00

Meeker, Colorado

2008-12-06T13:55:00.000-08:00

There is probably not anybody that has heard of this place but you will know it now because that is where we are moving. YEAH! It is so fun to finally know and way sooner than we expected. They want us to start on the 4th or 18th of January. It will most likely be the 18th since we still have to graduate and have a baby and find a place to live up there. It is going to be a fun December. I will write more when I know more

Happy Halloween!

2008-11-03T20:01:00.000-08:00

Somebody had given me this great skirt in a bag of hand-me-down clothes and I thought, what a perfect Halloween costume. The best is the back where the ruffle gathers up in the center and has a BIG white bow. Allie had a great time being a cowgirl. She was so proud of her boots. They are about 3 sizes too big. When I got that skirt and saw that it was an easy Halloween costume I was trying to think of something easy to go along with it for Tyler. I am all for the simple and no cost. So I thought we will do him as an Indian. Luckily, it was still a few weeks before Halloween that I realized Brandon practically grew up on the the Indian Reservation and an Indian is not something you really dress up as. haha We had a good laugh about that. Anyway, I am grateful for this batman mask that I have in my dress up box. I remembered Tyler loves it and constantly asks me to put it on. Only he growls at you once he is wearing it. I don't think he realizes Batman is a "good guy" Thanks to my friend who had a cape and belt, I just bought some new underwear(that Allie can use) and the iron on transfer paper. He thought he was SOOOO cool! He walked around the house saying "batman" all night. I just wish you could all hear the voice he uses. It was so great!

I got Allie a hat at the dollar store and thought I should get Tyler one while I am here and they are only a dollar. He soon wanted to only wear the cowboy hat. It has been a great investment. Every time he puts it on he thinks he needs to go ride his horse(a bouncing horse that my grandma had from when I was little) and he will spend a good 15 to 20 min riding.

Picking and carving pumpkins

2008-11-03T19:41:00.000-08:00

You can tell Allie wasn't so sure about touching the "guts" and we never could get Tyler to.

A few pictures

2008-11-03T16:53:00.000-08:00

After many sleepless nights with Tyler teething we finally learned that the only thing to keep him from crying in the middle of the night is football. Not a popsicle, not ice cream, not anything. He will accept other sports but football is by far his favorite. He now asks almost every day to watch it on TV and this is one of the times we agreed. It was quite funny because Tyler had taken Allie's chair and Brandon and I told her that she should not be worried about "that" chair because they are all the same. A few seconds later Brandon said to Allie "Allie, I can't see." She turned to him with her hands on her hips and said "well, your just going to have to deal with it!" I just busted up laughing. She was obviously a little put out that we did not care to help her get her chair back because this was completly out of character for her.

Tyler brought this out from the playroom and told me "bye!" He walked over to the door and told me "daddy, backpack." So this is his backpack and he is taking it to school like his daddy.

Allie had to barrow some underwear from her friend and Tyler has just discovered that the underwear have tractors on them. He would yell at her every time she moved and he couldn't see the tractors anymore.

This does not look comfortable.

Part 2 of September Birthdays

2008-11-03T13:20:00.000-08:00

I was too tired to post the other day with Brandon's birthday so here are Allie's birthday pictures. If you ask her she is 3 "more" old. It is very cute!

We started out early. At Brandon's house they got to open presents at breakfast. So we did a few presents at breakfast. This is her opening her package from g and g Haynie. She saw the card and her eyes lit up as she said "It's perfect!" It is an Ariel card. Then she opened it and was so stunned she closed it. The card started singing "under the sea," she was NOT expecting that.
She wanted spray whip cream for breakfast with some waffles on the side.

Allie is telling us to be quiet so her baby can sleep in her new crib. A little project I gave Brandon for her birthday. I think he is hoping I will run out of ideas of things I want him to make.

The Party! My friend Cody helped me with the cake. She had made one for her son over the summer and Allie saw the picture and requested a caterpillar cake for her birthday. Cody did almost all of it. She did a great job!! Allie LOVED it!

Tyler is using the biggest spoon we have to eat his ice cream and loving it!

We saved the Mr Potato Head for that night. She had played with one at our reunion over the summer and loved it. Brandon and I were probably more excited to give it to her than she was to receive it. Her reaction was great! As soon as she saw it she yelled. "It's a Mr Potato Head!"

You can see she was pretty proud. She had a GREAT day! It was so fun to spoil her the whole day. She had quite a few people call her and she loved the attention. When I would call her to come to the phone she would say, "Ok mom, I am coming" as though she was very important and was ready to take another phone call.

September Birthdays!!

2008-10-26T20:01:00.000-07:00

I know that this is so late but I was waiting to get a picture from Brandon's mom before I posted. Hopefully you will appreciate the wait. This was a much requested cake at Brandon's house growing up. Allie and Tyler had a great time making it for him. Here he is enjoying the same cake 24 years later.

He said that he loved the taste of the m&m's on his cake just as much as he did "back then." We had a lot of plans fall through, as usual. Poor Brandon's birthday is always the week after school starts and that is ALWAYS so CRAZY for us. Anyway, he did not even have any presents to open and after many attempts to find a baby-sitter I gave and ordered take-out from Texas Roadhouse. One of his favorites. That ended up being a lot more fun anyway to celebrate with Allie and Tyler. Also, Allie was so excited to bring her Dad "a mi-steak!" She was not confused when we first bought it but by the time we made it home and gave it to him it was no longer called a "steak," it was a "mi-steak." To this day(even though we have reminded her of the real name), she loves mi-steak just like her dad.

Pictures!

2008-09-23T11:09:00.000-07:00

Allie LOVED this!!! We are going to have to find a way to buy a little four-wheeler. It will probably be about the same time the she outgrows a little four-wheeler and needs a regular size. I was actually impressed with her skills. She is a little or maybe a lot uncoordinated but she handled it really well.

Tyler always has to be cooking with me. He says, "I see, I see!" until you lift him up. Sometimes it is helpful.

Other times it is not.

Helping dad with the green chili's. As you can tell from the picture on the side she thought they taste quite good. We had to stop her from taking a bite out of everyone that she peeled the skin off of.

Is Clifford appropriate for church? Allie had outgrown her Sunday shoes but I had not had a chance to replace them yet. I was trying to find something decent for her to wear this Sunday morning and had her trying on a couple different pairs of sandles. I kept telling her that I didn't like any of them because they did not look nice enough. So she would take them off. I finally said, "I don't know what you are going to wear, Allie."

We were trying to figure all this out while I was curling my hair. She left the room and came back a few minutes later. "How about these, mom?" I just had to laugh. Luckily she wasn't really set on the idea and she was willing to take them off and try something else.

Las Cruces

2008-09-20T19:24:00.000-07:00

We made it back home and we are so grateful to be back. Life has been SOOOO crazy! I feel like I can finally have a good reason for not doing my dishes every night. All the other times I have just wanted to think I was that busy but really I just didn't want to do them. Now every night I have been going to bed so tired and having done so many things only to think I still have so much to get done tomorrow. I like the feeling. It feels good to get so much done every day.

Brandon started school and that is pretty much life consuming. It always amazes me when we start a new semester after a break that school really does take over our lives. I feel like when we are not in school that I just remembering wrong and that it can't really take up that much time but it DOES! We only have this one left and we are so EXCITED!!!

To prove that we really have done nothing since we got back I was trying to see what pictures I had taken to see if maybe I had just forgotten the things we had done. I then realized that I have not even put any onto the computer since got back in the middle of August. That is how few I have taken. My memory card used to fill up every week or so. We have used the apartment pool quite a few times but I always forgot to take my camera out with me. It just closed yesterday and now I have no pictures. Oh Well! Allie and Tyler have both gotten so much more brave over the few weeks we have been going regularly. It has been fun to see them both and to see Allie's excitement of learning a new "trick" every time we would go.

I do have a few pictures to post but need to let Brandon write a paper so I will have to post them later.

Advice from Allie

2008-08-11T08:52:00.000-07:00

We were at the grocery store the other night trying to decide on cereal and Allie was pushed up against the coffee in the shopping cart. While we were trying to decide she suggested that we buy some of "this." I told her that is coffee and we don't drink coffee. She of course asks me why and I tell her because it is not good for us. She then asks, "why? because it makes us cough." Brandon and I just laughed. Everything is so simple to them.

Independence Day!

2008-07-29T15:08:00.000-07:00

So for those of you that have seen the old claymation Rudolph movie, with the snowman narrator that scoots around, this will be funny. Otherwise it might not make sense. We went camping over the 4th and so I wanted to bring some kind of our own celebration so that Allie would know it was the 4th of July and what that means. I was going to buy some little flags and talk to her about America and then I saw red, white, and blue bead necklesses and thought that would be much more fun. So I gave her the beads and told her a little about why we celebrate the 4th and I was reviewing it with her this last Saturday when we were on our way to our ward Pioneer Day celebration. I was reminding her that it was America's birthday and that we also called it "Independence Day." She looked at me and thought for a moment then says, "ya, like Kerby." Brandon and I sat there for a minute confused and the I realized she was talking about the elf from Rudolph. "I'm in-de-pen-dent!" As he leaves Santa's workshop. Brandon and I got a good laugh out of that.

As for our camping, it was VERY fun! We went with another family in our ward who has two kids and their oldest is only 3 days older than Allie. They are pretty good friends most of the time. We found the ideal camping spot with the exception of cow droppings. It had been rainy and so we didn't have any bugs. And it was a mostly grassy meadow surrounded by trees which kept the kids in the general area. It was perfect. Kenadee and Allie thought the cow manure was SO fascinating and consequently Tyler wanted to be invovled only Tyler didn't understand that you don't get in it. The girls would sit there and stare at it and say how gross it was and Tyler would walk over to see what "it" was and then get in it. We had a couple different incidents and even the girls curiousity got the best of them and they played in it as well. They were at least using sticks but it still ended up on all of there clothes and hands. I really wish I had taken pictures before we got them undressed. Tyler was covered in it the first time he got into it and I did not think to take a picture until after he was all clean. Oh well!

We went fishing at a lake that was near by and we found a great beach for the kids to play at. They played for hours. That was nice because sometimes fishing ends up feeling like baby-sitting while your spouse fishes. We did not have any luck catching anything besides a crawdad.

Here are some pictures from the weekend.

cow pie that they got in

the campsite, don't mind that I am in the picture

WEDGIE!

A few catch up pictures

2008-07-25T21:18:00.000-07:00

We have been playing trying to get in all the fishing and camping we can before we go back to Las Cruces. Brandon has it all planned to use up every weekend with either camping or fishing. Good thing we all like it.

Father's Day breakfast. Anyone care for o.j. from a sauce pan. I left most of my kitchen stuff in Las Cruces for the summer. That was the only other container I could come up with.

You can barely see the little dots if you look really close. We did not have our camera with us when it happened so we took this when we got home. Allie was stuck by a cactus while we were hiking down to Grape Creek. We are still not really sure how it happened. We did not even know it had happened until about 10 min after the fact. I noticed that she kept bending down to rub her leg so I went over to look at what she was doing. That is when I noticed all the cactus needles. There were a good 30. She was fine until we had to start pulling all of them out. We did find the culprit on our hike back up, it was pretty hidden in betweeen rocks.

Allie and Tyler and I and my sister Becca drove to Utah to attend the sealing of my foster brothers to my aunt and uncle that adopted them. That was such a great experience. Families should and can be together forever. I am SOOOO grateful for the Temple and the blessings it brings to our families. I know that if I do my best I will be with my family forever. How neat it was to see those boys that came from such a hard life become an eternal family with my aunt and uncle. The older one Devin was just baptized and is so excited to be a member of the church. You can see his little testimony growing so quickly.

All of my family minus my parents and one brother and his wife. We are at the Strawberry Days Rodeo in Pleasant Grove Utah. I forget how much I LOVE a GOOD rodeo. We had SOOOOO much fun!!! Allie and Tyler were every bit as excited as I was. Allie's favorite was the bull riding, surprisingly. She was also VERY cute cheering the cowgirls in as they rounded their last barrel. Tyler just couldn't get enough of it. He just sat there and took it all in.

I drove home from Utah on my own and what is supposed to be a 9hr trip took 12hrs and 11 stops. Some of the stops were just to pick up a pacifier that could not be reached while driving. Overall I think we did good. And we would do it again. Of course we would rather have Brandon if we can.

This is a picture from our hike to Helen Falls in Colorado Springs. It was very pretty and a very kid friendly hike. Which was good for me too, we had not planned on hiking and I was in a skirt and flip-flops. The falls were MUCH bigger but this was the only picture we got.

I did already talk about Tyler starting to talk but this is a picture of him saying ball. Probably is first real word. He holds his lips in a complete circle. He is still not using that many of his words for communicating but we are working on that. He will usually point and make noises then if you tell him to say what he wants, he will say it.

A baby!

2008-07-21T19:52:00.000-07:00

So I talked about having a baby in my last post but I have realized that I have never announced that I was having a baby. I guess it is because I just feel funny announcing it to the world on my blog. I would rather it be word of mouth or somthing. Anyway, I am due December 15th. The Monday after finals week, Brandon's graduation and soon after those events should be a move to Colorado. We wanted to test ouselves. hahaha

Long time!!!

2008-07-14T12:43:00.000-07:00

Every time I sit down to post I take to long to figure out what I am doing or my pictures won't work and then somebody wakes up or needs something. Consequently I never finish what I started. Also, Brandon and I spoke in church this last week and that consumed my week.

We are still having fun! Tyler has started talking. He will say just about whatever you tell him as long as he is in his talking mood. It started a couple of Sundays ago in sunday school. We are in the cultural hall where there are basketball standards on the ceiling. He kept pointing and grunting and every time I would tell him "basketball." Slowly he would add one syllable every time he would try to say it and by the end of sunday school he was saying, "ba ba ball." He was so proud of himself because of course we made a big deal about. He will say tractor alot and one of the most comical has been when he woke up poopy. I told him to say I pooped. He smiled and said, "I poop." It was very cute! He is mostly communicating with sign language. Although, he does usually say more and thank you as he does the sign. Allie has been loving that he is learning and she is "helping" teach him. He of course performs for her more than us.

Allie is getting so smart. Everyday she surprises us with something she knows that we didn't realize she knew. She felt the baby kick today and she went crazy yelling, "my baby! my baby!" and kissed my stomach. She just knows it is a girl and she is going to help me take care of her. She reminds me of that constantly. I am sure I will be all for the help. Brandon and I both think that it is a boy. She wanted to do something in church since Brandon and I had been telling her all week that we could not play while we were writing our talks. I started practicing "I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ" with her using the Church music website. She had it down perfect. She sang it in the microphone before sacrament meeting but during sacrament she whispered the first few words and then quit. I had to finish out the song myself. Oh well! Maybe next time. One of our favorite mispronounced words is computer. We must use the computer a lot because she is always finding things to use as her "computer". She will come tell me, " Mom, I am working on my poo-geter."

I hope to get some pictures posted but we will see.

Royal Gorge Route Railroad

2008-06-14T14:56:00.000-07:00

The goats at the petting zoo!

2008-06-14T14:47:00.000-07:00

These pictures had to have their own collage because they were so fun. Tyler and Allie could not get enough of the goats. I think we were in there for a good half an hour. Allie is the best. Look at her bending over in all the goats faces.

The Royal Gorge Bridge

2008-06-14T14:01:00.000-07:00

This is the largest free standing bridge in the country. You can walk across and they even let you drive across. We were on the bridge walking when people were driving and it feels pretty shakey. You can also feel the bridge moving when the wind blows. This is at the bottom by the Arkansas River that is in the gorge. They have an incline car that you ride down the side of the cliff.

Tyler and me at the bottom of the incline tracks. We had to cut off the very top to get us in the picture.

View from tram on your way down. You can barely see the river.

We got WAY more that we expected! We went on the 31st because I had read in a magazine early that week that it was 1/2price to Freemont County residents in May. We both got in for $23 and the kids were free. That is what is nice about living somewhere for only a summer. You feel like you have to take advantage of it while you live there. It makes you a little more willing to spend money. Anyway, we thought that you just got to see the bridge. We knew there were other attractions but did not know until we got there that they were all included in the ticket. Allie looked at Brandon and I at one point and said, "I am having fun guys!" And we did. We rode a carousel, visited their petting zoo, rode burros, rode the incline car, rode the ariel tram across the canyon and ate a very yummy funnel cake. Those things are SOOOO good!

The ariel tram.

Brandon, Allie and Tyler on the bridge by the AZ flag. They have all the states represented.

Allie on Priscilla. Sorry about how far away the picture is. I was with Tyler.

Tyler on Nellie. He loved the ride.

Fish for dinner!(at least for Allie)

2008-06-11T18:13:00.000-07:00

Allie caught her first fish ever and thought it was SO great! I was grateful because she has been begging to go fishing since we drove into CO. It took a while to get a license and time to go. I was sick the first weekend we were here so then we had to wait a week. Anyway, by the time we went I don't think she believed us that we were really going to go. I am glad she caught something because for those of you that have been fishing you know how it is to WAIT. Unless you are with people you really like, fishing can be pretty boring. (sorry to those that disagree)

Allie was fun to watch during all the action. She was a little bit nervous while the fish was flopping everywhere but cracking up every time it jumped from Brandon's hands. Once Brandon got the hook out she watched him gut the fish just fascinated by it all. Brandon was acting like the fish was talking to her so she talked to the fish the rest of the evening. While the fish waited on the stringer she just sat there saying, "hello, fish. are you swimming?" just rambling on and on about nothing. Then as we were leaving Brandon was carrying the fish and she says, "hey fish, we are going to eat you." Not one bit bothered by that. Then when we got home he cut the head off and Allie was right up there trying to see what he was doing. After the head was off she looks and it and says, "hello, mr head." We basically just laughed the whole night long at everything she had to say. She was quite proud of herself telling people that only she caught a fish and not dad. It was all really fun.

Tyler was just as in to it. He was right there by Brandon's side the whole time. Staying as close as possible. He didn't really care about the pole before until he realized what it was for then he WOULDN'T put it down. He was kicking and screaming when I had to take it so we could leave. At least Brandon will have some fishing buddies. He just needs to teach them how to fly fish. I would even do that it looks like much more fun.

Allie was even willing to eat her fish that she caught. Not me!! She didn't have a pleased look on her face when she took her first bite but she said she liked it and if you ask her today she still says she likes fish. She only took a few bites and then started playing with the little bones.

Photo Journal

2008-06-09T13:16:00.001-07:00

Well, I have not come up with a creative way of doing my photo journal and now I have days and days of pictures so I have just decided to do a photo journal blog. I will put a link to the side. Enjoy! I have had a lot of fun taking these pictures. I have missed a couple of days but it is fun to try and think of a picture that will most describe your day.

Albuquerque Zoo and Aquarium

2008-06-09T12:50:00.000-07:00

Allie walking in the doors to the Aquarium. I love that face! The aquarium was so neat, I have never been to one before. You almost feel like you are swimming with the fish.

Tyler trying to climb in with the zebras.

Allie and I with the Polar Bear.

Allie chose this shirt to wear because it has orange stripes like a tiger. So we had to take a picture with the tiger, only it was in the farthest corner of the cage and so you can barely see it.

I kept trying to get a good picture of this giant floor to ceiling tank but it was the end of the day and Allie was done taking pictures. Tyler wouldn't even go near it because of the big fish. So this about the best picture we got with the shark swimming away.

Ft Thomas

2008-06-09T12:17:00.000-07:00

Well it is time to play catch up. We have been doing so many things that there it a lot to catch up on. We went to Ft Thomas the weekend before we left to see Brandon's family. There is something funny about Ft Thomas that just attracts kids and they NEVER want to sleep, eat or leave. They LOVE this place! Allie and Tyler played around the clock as long as we would let them. The second they woke up in the morning they were at the door begging for us to say, "yes, you can go outside." They really enjoyed themselves!

Allie playing in the mud puddle they created from dumping the dogs water.

Allie and Tyler riding Cheyenne. This is Allie's first time riding with a smile on her face and Tyler's first ride ever. Brandon said Tyler LOVED it and was laughing the whole time.

Kenton and Darion using the hand cart to carry away branches that grandpa cut from the tree.

Allie was SOOO excited for "bbq" that she sat and waited for it to be all done while helping grandpa with the spices. When we sat down to eat dinner she wanted a hot dog and "bbq". haha I don't think she even knew what bbq was.

Tyler enjoying the mud puddle with his motorcycle.

Allie and Talon washing off! That took a while!

Yawning while shoveling, yet still not willing to go inside and lay down.

no internet!

2008-05-30T19:13:00.001-07:00

we are and the companies are slow on internet so we are going to finally get it on the 5th of June. YEAH! It is amazing how you get hooked to something so easy. Anyway we will post then. We are still doing good!

Made it!

2008-05-25T16:49:00.000-07:00

We made it to Colorado but we are just using a internet connection at the park so I will write more later.

FINALS!

2008-05-12T08:40:00.000-07:00

We are all so excited finals are over! YEAH!!! That was a pretty rough two weeks around our house. I think we saw Brandon for maybe an hour or two each day and even then we had to meet him on campus some of those days just so we could see him. All his hard work paid off. He is getting 4 A's and 1 B. The B he is happy but disappointed with because of some group projects that other members in the group got D's on but at least it averaged out to a B and not a C. Anyway, I am going to brag about him for a mintue because I am proud of all his hard work and determination to do well. He had a few graduating classmates tell him that the a some of the courses he was enrolled in this semester were extremely hard and to just be grateful if you even get a C in them. That was at the beginning of the semester and he of course was worried that that would really be the case. One of them he finished with a 98.3 in the class. I don't know the other numbers from the other classes but they were all A's. I guess it is good that they stressed him out in the beginning because he expected to have to work really hard. He has always been this worried about school. When he was 4 he remembers his friend talking about his preschool and he went to his mom all stressed that she had forgotten to sign him up and his friend was learning all these things and now he was going to be behind because he had been missing out on all these days he was supposed to be at school. Really funny! I wish I cared that much about school. All of our kids need to get his feelings about school not mine.

Mother's Day!

2008-05-11T19:38:00.000-07:00

It is almost the end and what a GREAT day!! I got to start out with breakfast in bed. I only share this because the whole thing is quite comical. Allie came and joined us some time in the night and when Tyler decided at 5am that he was not sleeping in his bed anymore I decided I was not sharing my queen size bed with two kids and Brandon. I made Allie go back to her bed and then hoped Tyler would just snuggle up, go back to sleep and be moved out of the way so I could sleep next to Brandon again. Tyler had another plan. He would not settle down and Brandon finally got up with him to feed him some cereal, thinking hunger was maybe his problem. We were all back in bed around 6am and I was thinking, why is it already getting light outside? Brandon has just finished finals and we were looking forward to our first day of "sleeping in" So Tyler never did calm down and Allie eventually joined us again. Basically we had all been up since 5am and just tried to pretend like it wasn't really happening. Brandon had already planned a breakfast in bed for me with Allie so I stayed in bed, although Tyler still wanted to stay with me. As you can imagine I should have just gotten up. They brought me stuffed french toast(SOOOOOO good!!) and of course as soon as I took a bite Allie and Tyler were right by my side saying, "I want some, I want some, I want some!" Brandon was pretty frustrated with how the whole thing worked out and I just had to laugh and say this is a TRUE Mother's Day. And then I told him how I usually wait to eat lunch until after I put them to bed for a nap because I do enjoy eating a meal that is warm and that I am not sharing at least once a day. All in alll I loved every second of it, except maybe Tyler's early wake up call.

Allie had a few things from nursury to give me after church and she was SO excited and proud. This past week I kept telling her that we were going to the store to get a present for our grandmas for mother's day and she would tell me every time, "Not a present for them, a present for you! You da MOM!" It was very cute. She won't even be the "mom" to her dolls because I am the mom.

The last thing I wanted to share is that I LOVED our sacrament meeting today. The talks were such great reminders to me of how important it is to be a mom. And even better how awesome it is to be a mom. I sat there feeling extremely grateful for the blessing of motherhood. I find SO much joy in my everyday life and responsibilities(except maybe whining about the dishes occasionally). I live in an apartment complex with mostly single moms. I often see them gearing up to drop their kids at day care and go off to work. While I am loading up to go to story time at the library, or play group at the park, or the children's museum at the mall, or to a friends house to play. I am SO blessed and very grateful for my kids and ALL the time I get to spend with them and that I don't have to go to work. I really do enjoy being a mom and have renewed energy(which I need sometimes as a mom) to be a better mom and do more for my kids and be a better example. I will look forward to this day not because I am showered with gifts and given a "day off" but because I will be reminded of all the reason I should be grateful that I even get to be a mom. I love you all mother dears and hope that you enjoyed your day! I am sure I have learned something from each of you that has helped me to be a better mom.

Photo Journal

2008-05-03T17:18:00.000-07:00

I am copying this from a friends blog and think that whom ever wants to should join in. It seems like I take pictures fairly often but the more I think about it they are always of events. It will be fun to journal life as is and not just the big things we do. Although, for those that join in we have even less days than she says because she posted this a few days ago. Let's get started.

I’ve been inspired by other bloggers who have issued themselves (and others) the challenge of capturing a minimum of one photo each day to visually “journal” 2008. For most of them it’s referred to as Project 365 but since I’m late to the game, I have only 245 days left this year to account for ,thus Project 245. (That’s according to an online source, I would have no idea how many days remain otherwise!)
So to all you fellow bloggers out there, are you up for the challenge? It doesn’t have to be a photo of anything exceptional. Just capture life as it is that day…. messy, wonderful, exciting or mundane. The reward will be certainly be reviewing and remembering each day years from now.

I haven't decided how I am going to journal them but she started a seperate blog for the "photo project" I think that is a good idea and might copy that as well.

Have fun with it! I know my life is pretty crazy at times.

Tyler is ONE!

2008-04-29T19:58:00.001-07:00

Since I talked about my birthday it is about time I blogged Tyler's. I have been waiting to get all the pictures off our old computer and I asked a very generous friend to help. I am so grateful he knew how because I would have spent MANY hours transferring by jump drive. Thanks Hans! Tyler's prro birthday was passed by because it was on a Monday beginning with a week full of tests and papers for Brandon. Then when we finallt celebrated it was rushed so that we could do it before Brandon's sister Ginger and boys left to go back home. We didn't do any gifts, just cake. When we did do gifts he could have cared less. Although, he has enjoyed playing with what he got. He loved the cake! As you can tell he just dug right in and wanted more after his piece was gone. That kid can eat. I would say he eats as much as me and Allie put together. He is ALWAYS hungry! Thanks everyone who gave gifts to him. We love you!!

Birthdays!

2008-04-29T19:33:00.000-07:00

I love birthdays and I wanted to tell everyone thanks for making mine special! Brandon always manages to surprise me and I don't know how he does it. Every year I think there is no way this year there are so many things going on. He hasn't had a chance or something(like a mandatory feild trip) is scheduled. So he got out of his feild trip after talking with his professor and spent the WHOLE day with me. We haven't seen any of those days in a while. We went out to breakfast and shopped in El Paso and then a surprise baby-sitter watched our kids while we went out to dinner. It was such a great day!! Then a late surprise but a great one. He ordered me a print from Jared Barnes Art (check it out he is amazing!!). I believe it is called True Disciples. I LOVE it!! It is Christ talking with children. It is so inspiring. I told Brandon about it so long ago that I hadn't even remembered that I wanted it. I was surprised! Thanks to you also, Jared and LeAnn! Also, I went out to lunch with some friends today and for those that know me I am not one to enjoy the spotlight but I had a great time. We even all brought our kids. They did really well! Six, 2-4yr olds and 4 infants, plus twin 2 month old boys. It was a lot of fun! Anyway, thanks again to everyone. I love you all!

Here is what we have been up to...

2008-04-16T21:30:00.000-07:00

We walked to Goodwill to drop some stuff off and came home with a two drawer file cabinet. This was the only way to get it and Allie home.

Uh Oh!!! Yogurt, he had just dropped his bowl on the floor.

Reading with dad. I was holding Tyler and he was reaching, crying for his dad(NEVER happens). He had a book in his hand and ONLY wanted dad to read it to him. He sat there for almost 15 minutes just "reading". Another thing that never happens.

TRICKS!

Joseph Smith

2008-04-09T19:44:00.000-07:00

A couple Sundays ago a girl in our ward shared her testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith. Probably the most powerful testimony I have ever heard of the prophet. She is only a junior in high school. She started out telling a story about her friend that she was on the phone with one night. He told her that he had just finished watching a documentary about our church. She asked him what he thought and he told her that that would be the reason he would NEVER join the church. She said to him "oh really, why is that?" He told her because Joseph Smith was a con-man. She has heard this said before but never with so much hate. She felt many things and wasn't sure what to say. Before she disagreed she thought to be fair she would look at things from his perspective. Then all the things she knew of the prophet Joseph Smith bore witness to her that he was wrong. In tears she said, "How could he say that? I know of no man that would go through mutiple tar and featherings just for money." I wish I could put you all in the moment as she continued to share the truthfulness of the prophet Joseph Smith and how wrong that boy was to call him a con-man. You could feel the love she has for the prophet and how much she respects and admires him. It was a very neat moment for me. Brandon told me the same thing when we got home from church. I want to add my tesimony of the prophet Joseph Smith. I know he is a prophet of God. I know that he sacrificed much for the gospel to be here today. I have a testimony of the priesthood and that through the prophet Joseph it was restored. I have a tesitmony of eternal families and I am so grateful for mine. I know that I can be with Brandon and my kids forever and nothing makes me happier. The temple is such a sacred place and I desire to go there often and feel of the spirit there. Also to recieve counsel and blessings. I have a testimony of scripture study and the power of prayer. I have been studying the New Testament and feel like I am walking right beside my Savior as I read the stories of Him being with the people and apostles. He has helped me through many trials and I have felt him right there with me. I have a testimony of our new prophet Pres Monson and feel blessed to have a prophet to receive counsel from. When we listen to him we can only improve ourselve more! I say things things in the name of my Savior Jesus Christ. Amen

Boy Underwear?

2008-04-04T14:40:00.000-07:00

Yeah!!! Allie is potty trained. I finally decided I wanted to do it. I have been avoiding it. I did not want to worry about running to toilets and where ever we are at not having a toilet and taking Tyler in with me. I was just not too thrilled with the idea. Anyway, Brandon and I were starting a new budget and I realized diapers were costing a little more than I thought, so I asked her last Saturday and she said she wanted to wear underwear. She stayed dry the whole day, only I was always taking her to the bathroom. I was a little worried about how trained she really was. Sunday and Monday were ok. Only a few accidents each day and she usually said she had to pee after she started and then would wait to get to the toilet to finish. Which I thought that is better than not acknowledging it. Since then she has been pretty much trained. I am laughing at myself because I finally got Tyler to sleep through the night and now I have to wake up Allie to take her to the bathroom. She can't make it otherwise. I don't want to do diapers at night. I would just rather it be all or nothing. Plus Allie feels like she is in trouble if she has to go back to wearing a diaper, even just at night. So I already had some underwear that were given to me but I thought it would be fun for her to pick out some of her own. Well, they only make boy thomas the train, mickey mouse and cars. All her favorites. So we have boy cars underwear that she loves!!!

MOOOOOO!!

2008-03-30T20:27:00.000-07:00

So yesterday we went hiking and on our way to the mountains we passed by some cow corrals. Tyler was asleep and Allie thought that she needed to wake him up. So to distract her from waking him up I said, "Allie, look at the cows." We kept pointing out which direction they were and telling her to look. I looked back to see if she was looking the right way and there is Tyler wide awake, leaning over Allie as far as his carseat straps will let him desperately looking for the cows. He must have heard the word in his sleep and knew he could not miss out on cows. He has been this way from the day he was born. LOVES animals and goes crazy every time we see them. It was cute! So then we thought lets try to get him to say mooo. After a lot of coaching and Allie's help he finally did it. Except he does with his lips pursed together so it sounds like a humming or spitting cow. We were trying to make him laugh while we were taking pictures and so we were all mooing. Tyler joined us.

Can't read the story

2008-03-27T20:12:00.000-07:00

Sorry it took me SOOOO long to even figure out how to get this drawing, I spent forever on, to post and now you can't read the story. Oh well!

I am also realizing that I never said he was on his bike. I wasn't going to tell the whole story on the picture I drew but it ended up that way and I probably left out lots of other details as well.

The red is curb and raised above the sidewalk Brandon was on. The sidewalk slants down into the curb because it starts to ramp as it turns 90 degrees right and then 90 degrees left. The street light went out (this is at 5:30am and it is pitch black still) to recharge right before he got to the intersection so he could not see that he was heading straight for curb and sidewalk until he was almost flying. He landed about mid intersection. I bought him a helmet because I found out it is illegal to not have one in New Mexico and he won’t wear it. He said as he was flying one of the things he thought of was that he needed to keep his head up so that it would not hit the ground. Yah, maybe he will wear it now. He got himself up and realized that he could not really move his arm. He tried calling me about 15 times before I called him back. While he was waiting a Mexican came out of his house that was on the corner and Brandon tried asking for help only he kept saying “no speak english.” Hahaha Oh Las Cruces! Anyway, we were all still sound asleep and my phone was ringing in my dream. I woke the kids up and we went to get him and we came home. Brandon wasn’t thinking that he needed to go to the ER. He finally agreed and we dropped Allie and Tyler off at a friends and went. We were there for SOOO many hours and are grateful that it is not worse than what it is. He has a fractured clavicle and a type II shoulder separation. When the nurse and I took Brandons shirt off we thought his arm was falling off. They were talking about IV’s and popping it in place and all sorts of things that were scaring Brandon. He HATES needles. He did end up with a tetanus shot. And he said it didn’t even hurt. I tried to tell him that IV’s really aren’t that bad. So we are happy with what it is but wish there was nothing. I now have a 4th person to get up and get dressed in the morning. He is really trying to do everything on his own but there are A LOT of things you just can’t do with one arm. Especially when you even move the one it sends sharp pains. If anyone cares this site explains it well. http://orthopedics.about.com/cs/shouldersurgery/a/separation.htm

Spring "break"!

2008-03-27T10:52:00.000-07:00

Little Ceasars!

2008-03-06T20:41:00.000-08:00

You know you live right across the street from Little Caesars $5 pizza when Allie says in her prayers at night "thank you for pizza." haha I love to listen to little kids pray when everything is so simple and they know exactly what they are grateful for. She has been very grateful for many things lately. She is always telling me "oh, thank you so much mom!" One of the times is when I was cleaning up all the toys and another when we had just gotten a bunch of books from the library. Love her! It is scary how much they are learning ALL the time. I find her saying things to Tyler that I know she has heard before. I find that I am more patient will Allie than Tyler because it seems that Tyler just walks around trying to cause trouble where Allie really just tries to do what is right. Anyway, I was grateful when I heard her say to Tyler, "no, thanks Tyler" as she is taking the dishwasher soap away from him and putting it back in the cupboard. It is these moments that remind me to never lose patience.

Tyler is walking!

2008-03-05T11:19:00.001-08:00

He finally trusts himself that he can walk. He has been taking more and more steps everyday and as of Sunday I would say he is walking. He still crawls sometimes but he thinks he is so cool that he can walk. He just walks aroung with a BIG smile on his face. He has to pull himself up on something because he can't stand on his own but I see him pulling up to stand and then walking a while to something he can use to help he turn around and then back to where he started. He will go in circles for minutes at a time. He thinks he is great!

We had our blind friend over for dinner on Sunday and as usual Allie and Tyler are fascinated with his guide pole. So we decided to play limbo. Allie loved it and Tyler was walking everywhere to get in on any action he could. I was impressed with how Allie picked it up. The first few times she start out tipping her head back and then lean forward as soon as she saw the pole. We have tried playing again and she can only bend her neck, we are trying to get her to bend her back as well to see if she can go a little lower. It is fun to teach y our kids the games you have played a million times, enough to where you are almost bored with them and to have them get so excited about it. I have forgotten about so many games too. I need go to an elementary school recess or something.

My many names.....

2008-03-03T13:24:00.000-08:00

So I have many names besides just mom. Allie is constantly re-naming me. I am Annie(Little Einsteins), Goofy(mickey mouse club house), Ruby(Ruby and Max), Quido(cars), Pat(Handy Manny), Mr. Barkerville(Pound Puppies Book), Pooh(Tiger and Pooh) and I think the last and most recent is Jaguar(go Diego). It is really quite funny when she gets into her roles because she won't even answer to Allie. And she will only call me by whoever I am. Embarressing that she has seen this many shows but at least she is acting them out instead of watching them. Our stoller is her new "Rocketship". She will sit in it for a good amount of time pretending like she is on a mission. She is always Leo. The Pound Puppies names are funny because Brandon and I are both Barkerville and he is the most serious in the club. Allie is of course Cooler, his name explains all. And Tyler is Scrounger, pretty fitting. So I wonder when she chooses who we are if she is really thinking about it. She is consistent with who I am depending on the series. I only change roles occasionally. And along these lines she was telling me something the other day and I could not understand what she was trying to tell me. Brandon was home and so I told her to tell him to see of he could understand. He finally guessed it and she had been trying to tell me that I was Quido(luigi's pit guy in Cars). When Brandon finally guessed it she looked and me and said "ya, mom that what I talkin bout!" We could not help but laugh.

New Rendition

2008-02-23T13:45:00.000-08:00

So at the playground today some kids were trying to gather a group to play toilet tag. I was curious to see what that meant. Well it is freeze tag, only when you get frozen you have to be "flushed" with the arm you are holding out to be unfroze. haha! good times!

Brandon and Me

2008-02-19T13:14:00.000-08:00

I've been tagged!

What is your husbands full name? Brandon Tyler Sanders

How long have you been married? 3 years

Who eats more sweets? me

Who said I love you first? me, but Brandon thinks he did

How old is he? 25

Who is taller? Brandon

Who is smarter? I am pretty sure Brandon is

Who can sing better? I enjoy it more but I am not saying I am better

Who does the laundry? me

Who pays the bills? both of us, I guess it depends on who is feeling like watching all of our money disappear

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? It depends on what house we were living in and how I have the room arranged(it changes often), I just pick the side I want(usually closest to the door) and put Brandon on the other.

Who mows the lawn? I hope the day comes soon that we have a lawn

Who cooks dinner? Me, and Brandon when he is home(almost never) or has something in mind

Who drives? Always Brandon when we are together

Who is more stubborn? probably me

Who kissed who first? Brandon kissed me

Who asked who out? Brandon wanted to date me and I told him no thanks and then when I decided I wanted to I had to ask him

Who has more siblings? me

Who wears the pants? it depends who has a stranger opinion on the matter

Happy Valentine's

2008-02-15T12:46:00.000-08:00

I was trying to make valentine cookies with Allie and Tyler yesterday morning but I could not find the right sugar cookie recipe. That one is so good I did not want to try another one. I finally found it and Allie had gone to a friends and Tyler was sleeping. So I made cookies by myself. I went to pick up Allie and we took the cookies to Brandon when we went to meet him for lunch. That was a rare treat. We meet by the sheep on campus only it was SOOOO windy(and they were having a class) that we weren't able to get out and look at them for very long. Allie and Tyler were upset. I don' have any pictures since I made the cookies myself and Brandon and I did not give anything to Allie and Tyler. We figured they don't know what is going on.

For the evening I mades plans to take the kids to a girl in our ward. She was willing to watch them at her house so that I could surprise Brandon with dinner. Well he was surprised and there was no dinner. My afternoon got a little crazy because Tyler and Allie were not wanting to take a nap. I was going to make orange chicken(a copycat recipe from Panda Express, so good!) and we had only made it one other time and it is kind of a lot of work. Anyway, Brandon got to help me make dinner instead. It was still so worth it. I recommend it. It was so fun to be able to talk about our days without any other things going on. Allie and Tyler are usually just as excited to see him as I am only they throw bigger fits than I do so I get left out. So we made dinner and ate. And I still find it interesting(though I have always felt this way and just not made it happen) how much difference a date night makes in your week. I love to hang out with Brandon. It is like when you are in high school and you are looking forward to hanging out with your best friend over the weekend. I am not very good with my words but I really love the way it makes me feel.

Precious

2008-02-13T16:56:00.000-08:00

It is so fun to watch Allie and Tyler together. For the most part Allie loves to take care of him. If I have ever say anything about him hurting she instantly walks over to give him a kiss where ever it is needed. Also, when one or the other wakes up Allie HAS to give Tyler a hug. It is part of her day. So Tyler has been standing since around Christmas time. He can bounce, dance and clap all while standing perfectly balanced yet he refuses to take a step. Yesterday we were coming home from the playground and I had the idea to hold one of Tyler's hands and have Allie hold the other one. We walked home from the playground that way and Tyler LOVED it! So last night Tyler starting taking steps in between Brandon and me. He was so proud of himself. We got the camera too late and he was worn out but hopefully we will catch it next time. So today while we were walking home from the playground I had Allie take Tyler's hand again and every time she would let go he would reach for her hand and not continue walking until they were holding hands. He was laughing almost the whole way home. He learned that because she kept letting go to hold tight. She could not get him to let go once we got in the door. I had to pry his hand off of hers. I just love watching Tyler reach to hold Allie's hand. I think it is precious.(he could care less that I was holding the other hand, as long as he had Allie's)

Frosty!

2008-02-09T12:14:00.000-08:00

Christmas is not over at our house. Allie came in the kitchen while I was making dinner and "hey yook mom, I posty(frosty)!" She had a scoop from a can of formula in her mouth like it was her pipe. haha I am not sure if that was good or bad. I am not sure what the bottle on her arm has to do with but that was part of the frosty costume.

Oh and the cars shirt was given to us by someone and I have rarely been able to get her to take it off since. The funny thing to me is that Luigi is her favorite. She gets a big grin every time he comes on the screen. I am embarressed that she loves it that much but when you are sick for 5 days and all you do is lay on the couch watching cars, I guess that is what happens.

Broken Laptop

2008-02-09T11:49:00.001-08:00

Well I had some really great pictures to post except our laptop is not working and they are on there. Luckily we had a backup so I can at least still get on the computer. Anyway, we had fun in AZ. We were all tired of it though, too much here and there. Allie kept asking when we were going home. haha That was so hard to have Brandon gone that long. We were all ready for it to be over. I don't know how my mom did that for so many years with my dad traveling and 8 kids. CRAZY! I think I am a bigger whiner than my mom. Anyway, that was fun and now it has been like Brandon is basically gone because he has been trying to catch up in all of his classes. We see him for a couple of hours every day. Oh yeah, that just reminded me that Tyler started fevering exactly like Allie had 3weeks ago. Luckily I already had stuff from the health food store to use that were from Allie. He only fevered 3 days rather than 5. Thankfully because he whines way more than Allie. I just had to hold him for 3 days. Hopefully after this week things will get back to normal.

The only way we made it through the last 30min of our trip was with fudge dipped granola bars. Tyler was having the time of his life. I think he was pretty happy that that was the only thing I could come up with. Chocolate was EVERYWHERE! Days later every time I would pull him out of his carseat granola bar would come with him.

Our Moments..

2008-01-24T14:58:00.000-08:00

I know that I have already posted a lot today but I am still trying to play catch up from being gone for a few weeks. I know I still have not posted any from disneyland and I am working on putting that in a slide show because there are a lot of pictures. Anyway, these are some pictures that I thought were fun. Allie is trying SO hard to get her ma- net(magnet) from under the fridge. I told her she would need something little to fit under the fridge to sweep it out. She came up with her toy butter knife.

These are hilarious. I cannot explain Tyler's frustration as he was trying to crawl around with this magna-doodle. He would NOT let go of the pen that is attatched to it. I did not get a good picture of his face because he kept looking back to see why it was not coming. He tried it a couple more times after that but lately he has given up on it. You can barely see his mad squinted eyes.

Christmas Break Projects

2008-01-24T13:46:00.000-08:00

We actually got most of our Christmas break projects done this year. Since during school we hardly see eachother there is noway we can think of doing projects. Anyway, we finished Allie's kitchen that we gave her for Christmas, that was unfinished and we made one of the two toy boxes we cut out. I should say mostly Brandon, Allie and I helped paint.

I had to put this one on here because of her tongue. I love it! We copied this toy box from a magazine because when I saw it I thought that is the ideal toy box.

We were given this old over the toilet cupboard and I did not know what to do with it but I did not want to throw it away. So this is what we came up with. We took our before picture a little late but you can pretty much tell what it looked like before.

Our Week!

2008-01-24T12:48:00.000-08:00

This has pretty much been our last week and a half. I have never had sick kids and I am grateful that I haven't. That was a long week. Tyler started it off by throwing up about two weeks ago. Luckily it was only two days and I was always able to see it coming, which made clean up easy. He was feeling great by Sunday and then Allie started fevering Monday night. Her fever was over 103 under her arm. It would come down when I gave her medicine but it would shoot right back up as soon as the medicine wore off. The doctors office told me to let her fever for two days on Tylenol and Motrin and then bring her in Thursday if she is still fevering. The doctors offices are SO busy here, you can never get in. We ended up in the ER Wednesday night because she was having a hard time breathing and her heart was beating really fast. That was the only thing open and sure enough we were there for 4 hours. We were all alseep when they finally told us we could go home. We left with early stages of pneumonia and ear infections. Friday was the first day she didn't fever and then she fevered that night and Saturday was the first day without any fevers. She laid on the couch the whole week and watched cars over and over. I am SO thankful that is over. At least it was Allie and not Tyler because for the two days Tyler was sick I could do nothing but hold him. Allie is a lot less of a complainer. She just took care of herself. She still says her ears have never hurt. She is a tough little girl.

Marriage is what brings us together today...

2008-01-16T16:02:00.000-08:00

Helaman and Majia's wedding was very fun! They were sealed in the same room as Brandon and I.

CHEESE!

Haircut!

2008-01-16T15:17:00.000-08:00

I knew that it was eventually going to happen it was just a matter of when. She watches me cut her hair and Tyler's hair and her dads hair. Well Brandon and I were ignoring her(in her mind) one night and she came out with scizzors saying"cut hair mom, cut hair." She had her head hung to an angle and the scizzors going into her hair above her ear. I grabbed them and said "only Mom cuts hair." She just stands there and looks at me. Then a few minutes later I realize there is a piece that is hanging longer than the rest. So I started running my fingers through it and she had already cut! Oh well!

I guess I got lucky though, the only way you can tell is if I put gel on it to make it stick out. Somehow she only cut the underneath hairs.

old!

2008-01-16T14:59:00.000-08:00

Does Brandon look as young as Bryson?

So Brandon's goal in life is for people to think he is as old as he is. At least once a week someone tells him, now way you can't be 25 or what you have two kids. He does not like looking like a teenager. He keeps thinking he needs to change the way he dresses but the other day he went out with the Elders in his church clothes and was telling some inactive members they were visiting that he had been in Disneyland the previous week. They just stared at him really confused and so he started thinking he said something backwards. The Elders caught on and said "oh he is not a missionary, he is a member if the ward and he has two kids." They were shocked! Then one of the Elders agreed with them saying that the first Sunday Brandon stood up to teach Elders Quorum he thought they were having a priest teach Elders Quorum. But the best one is later on that week on the playground in our complex we were playing frisbee and Allie and Tyler were hanging out on the grass by us. There were two 8 or 9 yr olds playing soccer next to us and Brandon overheard them discussing whether or not we were the kids parents. They eventually asked us and they said "no way, you don't look like a mom and dad! Especially not him, he looks like a teenager!" We got a good laugh out of that one, at least I did. I guess he is never going to look old enough.

SNOW!!

2008-01-10T20:41:00.000-08:00

We had been talking to Allie about the snow for so long we were SO excited that it snowed while we were in Utah. Allie thought it was pretty neat! She never really wanted to come in from playing in it.

Getting all dressed up!

Snow Angels!

Christmas

2008-01-09T19:50:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone, I know I am a little late posting Christmas but I have been trying to post the video of Allie telling the Christmas story. So every time I sit down to post I think this time it will work and for whatever reason the video will not post. I have tried many different ways. Oh well! We celebrated Christmas early since we were headed to Utah for Helaman's wedding. It was fun! We had quite the time keeping Allie in the playroom while we set everything up. She kept trying to come out and peek at her surprise.

We made Allie a Kitchen out of an old bathroom shelf but because we left to Utah earlier than we had planned doesn't have all the details yet. When we finish it I will post a before and after picture. She has been waiting for one of these strollers for SO long. Thanks, Grandma Sanders! Tyler really could have cared less about any of it. Allie kept taking over everything so he really didn't have the chance to get in on it. He got a dump truck and LOVES it! He is totally all about the boy stuff. He pushes it around and makes noise already. He is lots of fun and going to be lots of trouble. He just smiles when he knows he is going to do somthing he is not supposed to. Anyway, that has nothing to do with Christmas.

El Paso Zoo

2007-12-17T20:39:00.000-08:00

We had a great time at the El Paso Zoo besides the fact that it was one of the coldest days we have had this winter. We have still been wearing shorts every now and then. I would have to say they both LOVED the Sea Lion show, probably because that is where we saw the most movement. Allie spotted out the Tiger and had to show Brandon where it was. She had a great time.

Decorated Tree!

2007-12-12T21:19:00.000-08:00

Allie and I had a great time decorating the tree. I did the lights and Allie hung a few ornaments. Surprisingly, Tyler tried to pull the lights on the tree last night for the first time. It has already been up for almost two weeks.

Cutting down a tree...

2007-12-12T21:02:00.000-08:00

We decided to cut down our own tree this year. Something I have loved doing with my family every year at Thanksgiving except I have not been home for Thanksgiving since 2002. Pretty crazy!! I am just glad I overheard people talking about it and that the permits are sold at Wal Mart for $5. We had to drive about an hour and a half but it was worth it. Once we got up there it was SO cold. It made it nice that we found our tree right to the side of the road. Not the paved road but one in the middle of the woods. Anyway, we were hoping for snow but it was all melted except a few piles. Tyler slept through the whole experience and that worked out great because by the time I would have had him bundled up the tree would have been loaded and us back on our way. Allie thought it was great and really felt important loading her top end of the tree. I LOVE real trees! It makes it feel more like Christmas!

Hanging up Christmas Lights!

2007-12-12T20:06:00.001-08:00

There is not much Christmas light hanging going on in these photos because I was outside doing it myself. I had given Tyler a SMALL amount of cheerios and wanted to hurry and get the rest of the lights hung. The next thing I knew Allie was telling me that Tyler needed more cheerios and so she helped him. Thanks Allie!

Tyler Laughing!

2007-11-02T14:23:00.000-07:00

Just a fun movie! Watch Allie jump it is hilarious!

Playing at the Park!

2007-10-14T21:11:00.000-07:00

Allie is riding her horse at the Park!

Tyler is SO happy. He is almost always smiling.

Allie singing "swing, swong, swing, swong" (I think
I go that from you dad)

Just us having FUN!

2007-10-12T13:28:00.000-07:00

It is so fun because so many different times during the day I find Allie making Tyler laugh so much and just playing with him. They both had one end of this neckless in their mouth and they were just laughing at eachother.

These pant legs are so wide Brandon never can seem to help her get only one leg in each hole.

Jammie time!

Tyler LOVES to play on Allie's bed rail. He sits there every night while we read to Allie before she goes to bed. He will pull himself up and down and shake the rail back and forth. He has a great time!

Old Tyler!

2007-10-08T09:19:00.000-07:00

Allie always steals the show but here is a good

one of Tyler. He is getting so old!!

Birthday #2!!

2007-10-07T20:39:00.000-07:00

This is Allie's pig cake. It was quite terrible morning and
we were making the cake last minute because we had both
been gone all weekend, anyway, we were quite excited
about how it turned out. She enjoyed it too. Mostly the Milk Duds!

Allie loves jumping! I brought her card to her from
G and G Haynie and she opened it while she was
relaxing in her trampolene. When Brandon came
home she was telling all about it. The money and
the pony and it was from Grandpa Haynie. It
was very cute!

Here she is opening Becca's card. I wanted to see
her face when she saw Mickey Mouse and then
she covered it with the card so you get the before
shot. She was trying so hard to learn how to show
that she was two like Mickey Mouse did on the
front of the card.