Bragging Rights

I'm one proud mamma tonight. That's because Carson, who just turned four, learned how to ride his bike without training wheels! He's been asking Jeff to take the training wheels off since he got his bike for his birthday and today we finally decided to. He learned very quickly, but it didn't come without some mishaps...

Don't worry it sounds worse than it was! He came away without even a scratch...but he broke off his front reflector.

My perfectionist son thinks he didn't do a good job because he crashed a few times, but his daddy and I sure are proud!

Family Update

So I was updating our side bar and decided to just go ahead and do a post on what our family has been doing. I'll apologize now because it'll probably be long!

Carson is going through this "I am four and can do what I want stage". I guess its time for us to loosen the apron strings a little and give him some more freedom. He likes to run off and do things his way...which is prompting us to deeply consider biting the bullet and paying the extra money to install a fence at our house because he literally would just run off if I said go play outside. He is still afraid of monsters, but from what I hear, its normal at this age. He has recently started liking Trasnsformers, however, I will not let him watch the movies. He's recently had a growth spurt and is outgrowing his 4T clothes and headed into 5T. I've been working with him on writing letters this summer and he's doing pretty good. He gets so excited when he learns a new one.

Jonas has turned into a toddler. He climbs on EVERYTHING! I can hardly leave the room for two seconds and he'll find something to get up on. His new thing is to climb up on the back of the couch and sit against the wall...and laugh at me when I tell him to get down. He also love, love, loves to wrestle! He attacks Carson anytime he can. Jonas will also wrestle with anything that comes in his path. He has fallen in love with Thomas. When he wants to talk about or play with trains he will come up to you and go "t,t,t" making the T sound. He's also talking a lot and the other day Jeff and I swear he said Carson. He likes to say "I go", "hot", and "dada". Which, by the way, he has done a 180 and become a complete daddy's boy! But that's okay because Carson has become a Mommy's boy so its all good.

Our third little boy is a busy body. He's always moving around in my tummy and kicking me...it reminds me a lot of when I was prego with Carson. At 23 weeks I think I've had stronger kicks from him than I ever had from Jonas. I'm kind of worried he'll be all tangled up in his umbilical cord like Carson was. As for now, they have tentatively scheduled my c-section for December 7th. Jeff and I have been struggling to find a name for him...I'm sure it will come to us...eventually.

Jeff is still working on the City Creek Project in downtown Salt Lake. I think he likes doing layout/survey a lot more than carpentry as it gives him more of a chance to use skills he learned in college. He has been working a lot lately, sometimes pulling 15 hour days. He is constantly dreaming about landscaping our yard, and I think that he will eventually get back into landscaping, as it is his true passion. He's had a lot of fun at the pool this summer with Carson teaching him how to dive for rings.

As for me, I am currently staying at home...which those of you who do stay at home know it isn't all that easy some days. I've been getting lots of migraines latley, which my doctor thinks are triggered by pregnancy hormones. I googled it and I think I get a rare type of migraine called "migraine with aura" because before my headaches start I get visual disturbances (an aura) and can hardly see what I am doing. Needless to say, I haven't wanted to drive too far from home as I never know when they are going to strike. My doctor has put me on some meds which seem to help. Anyways, I'm already getting started on my Christmas list since I will be incapacitated come December 7th. I'm way excited to get moved into our house and to start decorating!

So that's what our family has been doing...what about your family?

Shine in '09

This past week I attended Scentsy's 2009 Convention, which was conveniently (well, for me!) held in Salt Lake City at the Salt Palace. What an awesome company! Between the company and my director I received over $400 in giveaways...I felt like I was on the Oprah show for two days!

Some off the cool stuff I receieved are: 5 warmers-including a commemorative "Shine in '09" warmer, new full-size warmer, a mid-size warmer (new this fall), a DIY warmer (also a new product this fall), and a new plug-in. I also got a travel tin (a new product coming out this fall), new room spray, all my fall catalogs, all my fall testers in both party and basket tester size, one scentsy bar in a new scent, two t-shirts and two bags. My awesome director also gave me a super cute bag full of (I'm guessing) $100 in stuff including a watch, wallet, and tons of Scentsy goodies.

In addition we there were several fun announcements like Scentsy is going to be available in Canada and we are getting super cute, new intereactive websites starting September 1st.

The owners of the company are absolutley inspiring. The convention was centered around helping individuals become the best they can be. Here are some quotes that I loved:

"Don't wait for things to get better; be better"

"Don't let people who've given up on their dreams give you doubts about yours."

"Life is not a dress rehersal, you don't get a second chance."

"Don't wait until youget to a point in your life where you look back and say what if"

"It takes courage, not confidence to succeed in anything."

"When we are outwardly focused our world grows; when we are inwardly focused our world shrinks."

"Happiness comes when we rid our life of entitlement and live a life of gratitude."

{Maria and I hanging out in General Session}

{Main stage with Orville and Heidi...the company's owners}

{Cirque de Beserque... a circus Scentsy held for consultants and their families...Carson had fun golfing}

Almost There

Our house is so close to being done! All they have left to do is tear out this horrible landscaping they did (long story, but as you know Jeff has a degree in landscape design and called them and said that putting large, sharp boulders all over our side and backyard wasn't going to work for us); put in the sprinkler system, and sod. Thursday we are doing our final walk through and then next Tuesday or Wednesday (depending on when underwriting gets done) we will be closing and moving in! We've had so many compliments from family and neighbors telling us they really like the colors we picked out...I happen to agree!

{Front Steps}

{garage door}

{painted front door and house numbers}

{appliances and blinds installed}

So now its off to a busy week of packing...wish me luck...

Lagoon

A day well spent at Lagoon for the Jacobsen company party...what's better than free tickets?! The only downside was that Jeff had to work (I know, weird he would have to work during a company party), so we made lemonade out of lemons and I took my sister in law and her boys along. A fun filled day...and according to Carson "this is my best life ever!" I think I'm going to have an amusement park junkie on my hands, this kid LOVES rides! We'll be "bouncing back" next week for only $9, and hopefully Daddy will be able to come along too...and hopefully we'll hit the beach next time.

Home

A plethora of house posts lately, I know, but we're just so excited we have to share! Here's what they've done so far this week:

• finally moved the giant dumpster out of the way so I could get a good picture of the house.
• installed all of our lighting--interior and exterior--you can see the coach lights on the front of the house
• installed carpet
• installed counter tops, sinks, and toilets.
• all light sockets/outlets covered

I'm loving my light fixture in the dining room!

So thankful that we paid extra to install can lights instead of fluorescent.

The guys just had to relax on the new carpet.

When we walked in the front door Carson exclaimed in one of the happiest voices, "Mommy, its closer to being our home! Its our new home!" He loves the house...there are NO monsters there and he will go anywhere, even in the basement, by himself. He told me that he loves it so much that he isn't going to pee on the carpet and ruin it.

I FINALLY decided on a paint color tonight--I think having all the flooring in and the counter tops helped immensely. Last night I was up way too late unable to sleep and it finally came to me how I want our house to look...so I'm tossing out the darker colors I was going to go with and going for something more bright and cheery.

I can't explain to you how thankful we are for this house. It already feels like home, more so than our apartment ever has. None of us wanted to come back to the apartment tonight. I don't know how to describe it other than this house is where we need to be. Tonight it felt like "us" again...this past year has been difficult because we've never truly felt at home or felt like we were in a place that clicked with us.

And now we are going to have that again-a place where we belong.

The Lion and the Dragon

In going through some stuff today(I'm in de-junk and get ready to move mode) we found the old Halloween costumes, and the boys just had to dress up!

My sad, teething little lion.

My fierce dragon.

Who has been acting more like a monkey than a dragon lately.

Stone & Stucco

23 days till we close! I am soooo happy with the color and stone we chose! It seems like most of our neighbors have brown houses and stone, so it'll be nice to be different. Its time for me to get sorting through things and de-junk so we don't move a bunch of stuff we don't need. Then its time to start rounding up the boxes and packing away non essentials. With visitors (so excited to see some of you guys coming into town!), Scentsy Convention, a trip to Idaho to collect some of our stuff, and moving this sure is going to be a busy month! I am so excited that we are FINALLY going to have a house!

Keeping it Real

I was inspired last night (as I was blog hopping) by this girl's blog. In it she said that she didn't want her blog to be this glossy to-good-to-be-true tail of her life. She wanted to keep it real...to post about her families successes and trials. I want my blog to be that. Since this is our family's form of a "family history", I want people to later look back on it and see that we were real. That our lives weren't picture perfect and we had trials to overcome. I also don't want our blog to just be a travel log...we did this or we did that. So with this in mind, I'm going to "keep it real" today.

We've been struggling with Carson. I'm just not sure what to do anymore. He has been peeing on the floor....a lot. At first it started out in his bedroom, but now he's doing it in the hallway. I feel like we've tried everything we can think of doing! We've talked to him, made him scrub it up every time he does it, let him know that that is not tolerated in our house...talked to him about how he is ruining the carpet and its important to take care of things. One morning I even made him get down on the floor and smell it to show him how gross it was. He did it again last night and we made him sleep in the bathroom.

This problem is going hand in hand with another...a fear of monsters. A really, really, intense fear of monster. Its gotten so bad that he won't even walk down the hallway or go to his room in the middle of the day because he thinks he's going to be attacked. We've set up multiple night lights but he still won't go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. To make things more complicated, he'll get up and go get food out of the kitchen in the middle of the night and then go back to his room and pee on the floor. Its frustrating and I know something is really wrong. I don't know what to do. On one hand I know he's struggling with something, but on the other hand I can't let him do it anymore. It has to stop. Please understand that I am worried more about my son than my carpet! I'm not sure if he's upset about moving or about another baby or both. He told me one day he does it because "sometimes boys just want to be bad". He's also told me he does it because he doesn't like it here and he just wants to go back to Rexburg and play with TyLee.

Last night Jeff gave him a blessing and blessed him to overcome whatever is troubling him. The hard part with a little child is that he can't vocalize his feelings very well. Each time he gives us some different excuse. We've been patient and understanding, yet firm. Do I put a little potty in his room, or is that just enabling him? I keep thinking that I need to get to the root of the problem, not just do something superficial. Is this just a phase little boys go through or is it something more serious? Is he just testing his boundaries or trying to get attention? He doesn't handle change very well and I wonder if moving again is really that hard on him...or if having another brother is really that challenging.

What do you think? Any advice at all for me?

5 Years Ago...

So many fun memories from 5 years ago! Can't believe that its been half a decade since I married my best friend. Sorry for the picture overload I had too much fun reminiscing!

One of two bridal showers...

The perfect wedding...

The cake...

The car...our car that became a drivable sundae with toilet paper on top. I wonder if Jeff is still mad about this as he carried a grudge for quite awhile. No cute window paints for us, just caramel, whipped cream, chocolate, and strawberry syrup...and of course the toilet paper to make it real annoying.

The Honeymoon in Vegas, where Jeff won this giant bear and we had to figure out how to get it home on the plane. We still have this bear in the boys' room, I just can't part with it.

Then coming home to a mountain of presents in our first little apartment.

And making that little apartment go from this...

to home.

I'm so thankful I married Jeff in the right place at the right time. Its been an amazing 5 years and I can't wait to see what the future holds!