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Shopping at City Creek

To start off, I have to say that I have an amazing husband. Seriously.  In June I turned 29, and he made it the best birthday ever for me. For the longest time I'd told him that my 19th birthday had been my favorite. Clear back in '03 when we were dating, he'd surprised me by coming to my parent's house (I was home on summer break from college) and decorated my bedroom while I was out on a morning walk with a friend.  He had made me a bedside table (that is still in our room today, ironically, on his side of the bed) and then he took me to Downata Hot Springs for the day. It had always been my favorite birthday, until this year.

This year my birthday was on a Monday, and Sunday night I was kind of dreading that he had to go to work. I told him that I would probably take the kids to Thanksgiving Point or swimming for the day so we could do something fun for my birthday. He told me that would be a good way to spend the day and then when he got home he'd make me dinner and we'd have family over for a little party.  The next morning my alarm went off at 7:00 (when Jeff is supposed to start work) and when I went to roll over to shut it off, I noticed Jeff's arm was still around me.  I immediately panicked and yelled at him that he had slept in and was late for work. He shouted, "Surprise! I took the day off!" but in my groggy state I was still a little confused and asked, "You mean you don't have to go to work?" He then got up, made me breakfast in bed, and took care of the kids so I could have a relaxing morning getting ready.  Then we headed into Salt Lake so I could go shopping for a birthday present.

I was on the hunt for new bedding as ours was getting quite old.  We first stopped in to Target to look around, and I found a beautiful pin tuck comforter, but I'd had my heart set on a pin tuck comforter from West Elm, so I passed it up.  Jeff bought me two shirts and then we headed off to grab some lunch at Cafe Rio.

Umm, Pork Barbacoa Salad for my birthday lunch?? Perfect!

After lunch we headed to my SIL's house to drop our kids off for a few hours. We went over to City Creek so I could hit up West Elm and drool over all their cute stuff.

I seriously love West Elm.

  In the end, I decided to go with the Target bedding since its price point also allowed me to get new sheets. An awful picture of the bedding, but you get the idea.  Next up on the list is a new bed, or headboard...Christmas maybe?

After a full day of shopping and feeling spoiled, we came home and Jeff cooked me the most delicious ribs for dinner. I love that man.

 Then his family came over for cake and ice cream and my SIL made these super cute cupcakes.

Jonas and Mason snuggling in the new bedding with me.  Love these guys a "million-gillion".

For my birthday I had also gotten money from several people and I saved it up to fund our board and batten project. You can read about it on my other blog here. Overall, it was a spectacular day and I am so thankful for my wonderful husband and little boys who made it so great.

A Lego Star Wars Party

Since Jonas turned 5 this year, he had his first "friends" birthday party.  We planned it for the first part of June, since his birthday was Memorial Day weekend and we figured everyone would be out of town.  He chose the theme of Lego Star Wars.

The kids enjoyed lightsaber training (using lightsabers to keep a bunch of balloons from touching the ground), rescuing Han Solo from carbonite (I froze Lego Han Solo in ice and they had to chip him out), battling Storm Troopers (they had to shoot paper Storm Troopers with Nerf guns), using the Force to build a starship (I gave them a box of random Legos and told them they had 10 minutes to create a star ship). 

We ended the party with cake, presents, and watching Lego Star Wars the Empire Strikes Out.

Every one also got to pose with our Luke Skywalker stand up.

It was a great, short, simple and sweet party.  The only thing that would have made it better was if Jeff hadn't had to work that Saturday.  It was kind of crazy to juggle my four boys plus five more!

Porter-man Turns One

Yep, I'm just a little slow on blogging. On January 3rd, Porter had his First Birthday. We celebrated by having a birthday party with our family.  He was spoiled rotten, but mainly received clothes and shoes, at my request. I had just moved him into 12-18 month clothing and realized that after three boys, the clothing was pretty sad looking. Plus we were on toy overload from Christmas and I couldn't possibly think of any toy he needed. 

I attempted to make him a monster cake, but we all know how awesome my cake decorating skills are, and part of the monster's head fell off. So the top of his head was flat, but I'm pretty sure Porter didn't care because he loved getting to eat cake. As you can tell from the pictures, Jonas was right there in all of the action helping Porter open presents.  These two have such a special bond and Jonas is Porter's protector.  I can't tell you how many times Jonas has probably saved Porter's life by pulling something out of his mouth or shutting the basement door so he doesn't fall down. Porter absolutely adores Jonas and gets a big smile on his face when Jonas plays with him.

So thankful for this sweet baby boy. He is becoming such a Daddy's boy and likes to follow Jeff around the house.  He gets heartbroken and throws himself on the ground crying when Dad leaves the room without him.

My Three Year Old

Our little Mason monster turned three clear back in December.  We had a fun filled day with Grandma and Grandpa Larsen coming to visit, going shopping at Scheel's, and a birthday party that evening. Mason is obsessed with the color blue right now.  When I asked him what kind of a party he wanted the only answer I got was "blue".  Here's what he ended up with.

Last summer Mason fell in love with our neighbor's Cozy Coupe.  About a month before Mason's birthday, a friend called me and told me that Toys R' Us had them on sale that day only for $39...a steal if you've ever priced out Cozy Coupes.  So I went over to Walmart and price matched it, and within a few hours of the phone call I had it all tucked away in a corner of my garage.  The night before Mason's birthday, Jeff and my step-dad put it together, and when Mason came out of his room in the morning, he was so excited!

Mason really is a joy to have in our home.  He has such an enthusiasm for life. He is also our Type A personality. He is a control freak.  He is often heard bossing around Jonas, and Jonas obeys because he is such an easy going kid. We butt heads sometimes because he thinks that he's the boss. I can definitely see him being a great leader one day. He is also such a Momma's Boy.  He often wants me to lay by him in bed after I read him bedtime stories.  About 20 times a day he comes up to me and says, "I want you to hold me."  So I give him a big hug and tell him that I love him. Also, he doesn't like it when I get stern with him and tells me, "Just be nice to me.  I want you to be nice." He tries so hard to be independent and doesn't like it when I try to help him.  Often he will be saying a blessing on the food, and stop because he doesn't know what to say.  So Jeff or I will try to prompt him and he'll yell out "I don't need help!" He will go quiet again and then finally demand "Help me!" We do this scenario at least once a day.

At his 3 year check-up he was:
Weight: 28.5 lbs   20th percentile.  (Wahoo! He's moved up from the 10th!)
Height: 36 3/4 inches    30th percentile

He's a lot smaller than Carson and Jonas were at three, but he's staying on his own curve and finally gaining weight.

My Little Man is Seven

I can't believe that my little man is another year older! For this little boy, it was a day that started out early.  To accommodate Daddy working the night shift, we celebrated when he arrived home in the morning.  He surprised us all and showed up with a dozen doughnuts and a gallon of chocolate milk. We then opened a few presents and sent Daddy off to bed.

Carson spent a few hours doing his favorite thing: building Legos!  Then it was off to watch a 3-D movie at the Museum of Ancient Life...my first attempt at taking all four little ones to a movie by myself...and we survived! 

We got home from the movie in time to have some birthday cupcakes with Daddy and open the rest of Carson's presents before Daddy had to rush off to work again.

Later in the week we had Carson's real birthday party with family and friends.  We chose to show a movie in the back yard and have a 'Night at the Movies' theme.

Grandpa Larry paid for Carson to take archery lessons as a birthday present.  Carson loved it! 

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Ever since we moved into our house, I've struggled with what to put on this wall. This picture has hung here for the past 2 1/2 years and before I repainted there was also a vinyl quote above it. A few months ago I decided that I wanted to do a gallery wall here. I fell in love with the look of the whimsical frames and talked Jeff into making some for me. After a week of hard work, Jeff made me these frames for my birthday (the black ones were purchased at Hobby Lobby, but he made the others). I think I will eventually re-hang the frames so they are closer together and I want to add a canvas print.

For my birthday, we had family over for dinner and cake.  My sweet husband and boys made me this pink tank cake.  I loved it!

Jonas' Birthday...and a Long Story

 Jonas' birthday was May 26 and he turned 4 years old!  (I brought my DSLR camera, but unfortunately forgot the SD card, so thank heavens my iPhone takes somewhat decent pictures or I would have no record of his special day!)  For his "dinosaur birthday" as he called it, he got a dinosaur cake, a giant dinosaur from Aunt Alese and Uncle Shane, a bag full of dinosaurs from Grandpa and Grandma Birch, a dinosaur piggy bank and dinosaur Legos from Grandma and Grandpa Larsen, and a dinosaur puzzle from Grandpa Butler. And perhaps his favorite present: a dinosaur apron that Grandma Larsen made him and spatulas to go with it! Jonas loves to help me bake and was so excited that he now had an apron his size and with dinosaurs on it. He wears it almost everyday now and is always asking me if its time to make bread or cookies.

He spent his actual birthday in Rexburg celebrating with Jeff's side of the family.  He had fun playing with cousins and opening presents.  He also spent a day celebrating with Grandma and Grandpa Larsen and another day celebrating with Grandpa Butler.  By the time we left I think we all were done with birthday parties!

At Grandpa Birch's house...

Putting together a dinosaur puzzle at Grandpa Butler's house.

Playing on Grandpa Butler's new trike in his shop.  The boys absolutely loved it!

Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures at Grandma Larsen's house, but here is a picture of the boys playing in the water table she bought Jonas.  This picture was taken less than an hour after we got back from Idaho.  After everything was unloaded from the van, the boys talked Jeff into putting it together so they could play with it.

I don't think I've mentioned it on here, but around the time Porter was born, Jonas was having some issues going to the bathroom.  Like peeing every ten minutes.  And no, I am not kidding.  One day I wrote down everytime he went and the longest he could hold it was 20 minutes.  His problems started right before Christmas.  I remember being out shopping and he had to pee when we went into the store, when we left the store, and as soon as we got out to the van he had to pee again.  It was crazy! He was worse than I was at nine months pregnant! The problem was somewhat overlooked in the rush of the holiday season and then the birth of Porter. 

When Porter was a few weeks old, I had finally had enough of it, and took Jonas to the doctor.  I was a little freaked out that he had diabetes, but both his urine and blood tests came back normal.  They did an x-ray and told me that he was constipated and it was putting pressure on his bladder and causing him to pee all of the time.  So we did a two week routine of ex-lax and miralax to flush him out.  It seemed to work a little bit... now he was peeing every half hour to 45 minutes.  Better, but I still knew something was wrong.  I took him in again and they did another x-ray and said he still wasn't all the way cleaned out.  So again we tried to get him flushed out.

  It was now March and he started complaining of really bad stomach pains.  Like laying on the floor screaming. "Mommy help me!" pains.  Then he started throwing up.  After about four days, I took him to the doctor and they couldn't figure out what was wrong. They did another x-ray and he was cleaned out. The doctor thouroughly looked him over and told me that he couldn't rule out appendicitis, but he didn't think he had it.  I went home from that appointment, and listened to Jonas scream all evening and all through the night that his tummy hurt.  I called back to the doctor's office in the morning and the nurse talked to the doctor.  He told me to take Jonas straight to the ER at Primary Children's because there was a good chance it was appendicitis.  There was my little boy, curled up in a ball on my living room floor, pale, and screaming, "Mommy, please make it stop!" And he was still having problems peeing all the time.  I was so frustrated that this problem had gone on this long and my little boy still had no relief.  In the end, we spent the day at Primary's, got no answers, and were told to go home and wait it out.  In a follow up appointment with our Ped, he finally determined that Jonas had an over active bladder, and put him on medicine to control it.  It worked wonders! He finally was regulated and his stomach pains went away.  He's been off the medicine for two months now and is still using the bathroom normally.  We are praying that his bladder has been "re-set" (as the doctor phrased it) and he'll have no further problems.