Our two trips to San Diego in 2011

So believe it or not it has been another year and I am barely posting. Oooops!! So you will love the only reason I am posting is because Shutterfly asked if I wanted to share my book I just finished on a blog and I thought, hey I mind as well since I just spent over 24hrs working on it. Quick way to update and I could get two things done at once. yeah!!

Anyway, we were able to go to San Diego with Brandon's family last June and Sea World had a special to upgrade your tickets to a Annual Pass(exp in Dec) for FREE! Who doesn't love free? So we upgraded and planned to go at least 2 more times:) I should say I planned to go at least 2 more times. Brandon, the logical one, said we can only go once more in the next 6 months. OK so he was right. We had a great time both times and even better the second time Tara had moved back to CA. So we were privileged to stay with her in November when we went. Hope you enjoy!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Photo books are the perfect gift for any occasion.

So you thought I'd never write again

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!

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!

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?

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!

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!

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