Sick Day

We're doing a whole lotta this today. Hanging out on the couch, in our jammies, feeling sick. Our family picked up some sort of stomach bug earlier in the week. I knew it was bad last night when Jonas refused to eat an Oreo. We've been fighting it off for the past few days, but today we are giving in. I declare it a sick day. We're gonna stay home, stay inside, and snuggle up hoping to start feeling better soon.

Changing Seasons

As the seasons change, I can't help but think of how symbolic it is of what is happening to our family right now. We are changing and entering into a new season of life.

• First off, we are settled. After being in our house for a year it just feels like HOME. Like I never want to leave. We have such a wonderful little home in a wonderful neighborhood--I am so blessed. After all those years of wanting and praying for a house and getting a "no" answer I can now see why. If we would have bought a home in Rexburg we never would have had the experiences we've been able to have since we left Idaho. Would have never met the people we've met or done some of things we've done. We never would have grown how we were supposed to. We would have been stuck.

• Secondly, its been a big turning point to have Carson go to school. Those of you who are closest to me know that this year is our "trial period" with public school. I'm not all that thrilled about the idea of my children being thrown into the public school system. I've taught there. Its a scary place and parents have no idea what is really going on with their kids. Believe me, I've seen it. If we decide it isn't for us then we will probably homeschool. I know, you've got a million reasons why homeschool is the wrong choice, and I've heard them all. But with new technology and a parent who is conscious about getting their child involved in extra curricular activities, I don't really see why it would be such a horrible thing. To think I could have my children at home with me, taught by me, and bonding with siblings makes me feel happy. We'll just have to wait and see how this school year unfolds...I may end up liking public school. After all, my own experience with public school was a positive one.

• Third on my list of changes would be me. Over the past {almost} 3 years since I graduated I've felt a little stuck in life. Now I love being home with my babies and wouldn't trade it for anything, but I think I've devoted my life to them and forgotten who I am. I've started to wake up over the past few months and do some things for me. One of those things has been to train for a 5K. I hate running. Have always hated it. So for me to go out and run is by itself is an accomplishment. I look at how far I've come in the past 6 weeks and it makes me smile. I can run more than three times the distance I could when I started. And now I've developed a love-hate relationship with running...rather than the hate-hate relationship I used to have. I hate how I hurt and how winded I feel when I am out doing it, but I absolutely love how good I feel afterwards. So hopefully I'll be able to do this 5K in the next 2 1/2 weeks...well, at least run part of it- I'm still not in good enough shape to run the whole thing- but I'm getting there.

The Scentsy Buddy

Its that time of year again when I am ordering in new Scentsy inventory for the Fall. On Tuesday I recieved a box with some of the new products in it. Carson was super excited because I had ordered in one of the new Scentsy Buddies. In fact, he had been waiting not-so-patiently for the UPS guy to get here. When our package finally arrived, he tore it open and got out the Buddy. Before I knew what was happening he had it out of thebox, had torn the tag off, and was unzipping the back of it to put the scent pak in. I was going to keep the Buddy in my inventory, but it looks like now I'll have to borrow him back from my son to show at my parties! Its nice to know my son shares my obsession with nice smelling things! Except now, my boys are fighting over Roarbert, so it looks like I might need to order in a few more Buddies...I'm thinking Mollie and Ribbert.

New Fragrance Foam (hand sanitizer) and a Scent Pak.

Kindergarten

Yesterday my little man started school. It was a bittersweet day. He was so excited and so ready to go, but me? Well, I wasn't ready to let him go. He is still such a little guy. In fact, he is going to be one of the youngest in his class.He was up bright and early and all ready to go an hour before we were supposed to leave. When we went back to go get him, he was sooo happy and ready to tell me all about his day. It will be different adjusting to this new schedule and phase in our life. School again. Everyday. Didn't we just get done doing this ourselves?

Mason

Time flies too quickly. I can hardly believe that my baby will be 9 months old on the 1st. He is growing and developing so well and has such a cute little personality. He is army crawling all over the house...usually trying to catch up with his brothers. He is such a precious little man and my one of my favorite things to do is to just hold him while he sleeps.

I snapped a few pictures of him out on the front yard the other day. Nothing special and nothing edited, but I like how they capture his little personality. I think Mason looks a lot more like Jeff than the other boys.

Don't you love his "Santa's Helper" jammies? That's what happens when you are the off season baby!

Okay, not a flattering picture, but I had to add it because it makes me laugh.

Oh how I love my little man!

Personalities

I attempted to snap a few quick pictures of my guys the other day. They all happened to be sitting in the chair with Carson trying to read to them. It was too cute so I pulled my camera out. Its so funny how you can see their personalities in the pictures. Please excuse the fact that Jonas has no pants on: trying to put pants on that boy is like trying to put pants on a full size dog...impossible.

This is the picture where Mason looks so happy to be sitting with his brothers and Carson is giving me a courtesy smile, because he hates that I take so many pictures...
Mason is still happy, Carson is still bored, and Jonas is starting to act silly...Jonas trying a new pose...
The blur... And my personal favorite: The Flash. Can you tell which one of my children is the goof off, which one is just happy to be there, and which one has "been there done that"?

Hospitals, Bugs, and Flooding, Oh My!

Have you ever just had one of those times when it seems like there is one major catastrophe after another? The past two weeks have been that way for us.

One morning about a week and a half ago Jonas broke out in a rash. By that night his hands and feet had swollen up and were bright red and shiny. He kept saying his feet were hot and started crying uncontrollably. After 4 1/2 hours of me trying everything I could think of to calm him down, I took him into the ER at Riverton (unfortunately, it was 1:30 in the morning so this was my only option). After 3 1/2 hours at the hospital (and Jonas screaming the entire time), the doctor finally came in and said he had no idea what was going on and he was going to ambulance Jonas up to Primary Children's. I signed a waiver and transported him myself.

We were at Primary Children's for almost 5 hours. None of the doctors could figure out what was wrong with him and he just kept screaming. They did blood tests and x-rays and had 5 different doctors looks at him. They finally decided that it might be a disease called HSP and sent him home with a high power anti-inflammatory/pain reliever. We were told to take him back into our pediatrician the next day. To make a long story short, the ped thought it was something else and I think that no one really knows what was wrong. All of the skin is now falling off of of his feet and it is quite gross.

And the this past week has also been quite...fun. Carson woke up Tuesday morning with bites all over his legs and we saw a little brown bug by his bed and killed it. Since there has been an outbreak of bed bugs here in Utah (GROSS, I know) I called Terminix and had them come do a free inspection. He couldn't find any signs of bed bugs, but said that it might have been a stray one that came in. We ended up having them spray our whole house just to make sure that if it was a bed bug, that the eggs were killed. I'd rather pay now for them to do it to avoid a future infestation.

After we got back from the dentists office on Wednesday, we had a flash flood. The rain came down so hard, I've never seen it rain like that! And the lightning was so close, in fact several houses in our ward were struck. I had to get Mason to the ped for a check up and before I left, I ran downstairs to check our window wells to make sure we weren't flooded. They looked just fine and the storm had stopped, so I headed out. Jeff ended up beating me home and called me to tell me our basement had flooded. I was flabbergasted because I had checked just before I left and the storm had already stopped. It turns out that while I was gone the ground around our house got so saturated that it created a sink hole and the water and mud came in underneath the window well and in through our window.

Within minutes of me calling a neighbor to get an extra Shop-Vac, we had five guys down in our basement working on getting the water cleaned up. That same neighbor took all of my boys over to her house and another neighbor offered to bring us in dinner! It also happened that we caught the superintendent (of our home builder) as he was driving by, and he had a burm created behind our house so it wouldn't flood again. We were truly watched out for, and I feel so grateful to be in such an amazing neighborhood!

Its been a crazy few weeks around here, and I sure am hoping that this next week brings some good news. A pay raise would be nice. Or for us to get our truck sold. A girl can dream, right?

Teeth, Teeth, Teeth

It looks like the tooth fairy will be making a stop at our house tonight. Carson's loose tooth finally fell out. Ironically, right after we got home from his first dental appointment. I had run downstairs to change some laundry and when I came up Carson said, "Mommy, I was trying to get my new toothbrush out and something chipped." I looked and he was holding his tooth in his hand. The doctor had just informed us that Carson had not one, but two loose teeth in the front. Also, he has four cavities that need filled. And then there is Jonas...whose molar is so far decayed that they are sending him into a pediatric dentist. The dentist we saw today thinks that his tooth may have been malformed from the beginning and that is why it has almost decayed away after a year. Oh my boys and their horrible teeth! They get them from their father. I've only had two cavities my whole life. Maybe Mason will get my teeth. I'm crossing my fingers.

The Fun Yard

About 9 o'clock this morning Carson started yelling, "Mommy there's a big truck out front and a guy bringing us a huge box!" I looked out to see the poor FedEx man hauling a ginormous box to our front step. Carson raced to the door and opened it in time for the FedEx guy to tell me, "Good luck with that, it weighs 140 pounds." So what was in the box? A trampoline from Grandpa and Grandma Birch. So we now officially have the fun yard on the block. Between our teeter totter, climbing dome, sandbox, and trampoline we have it all. And in case that wasn't enough we could pull out the swimming pool and slip 'n' slide or let you take a cruise in Carson's Gator. We have been extremely blessed and I don't think our boys could want {or need} any more toys!

As soon as the trampoline was put together the boys tested it out. Before long the neighbors were over wanting to jump as well. Looks like I had better stock up on Popsicles for all of the new patrons my backyard will soon be hosting.Even Mason got to bounce a little...with Mommy holding him, of course. Thank you so much Grandpa! We all love our new toy! Oh, and thank you Daddy for putting it together so quickly!

Anniversary

The 30th was our 6th wedding anniversary. We went up to Salt Lake and had dinner on top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. The view was beautiful and the food was pretty good too. It was so nice just to have a meal together where we weren't worrying about the kids or trying to keep a child in their seat. Date nights seem like they have been pretty rare latley, so we cherish them more when they come. After dinner we sat in one of the observation areas for awhile just relaxing and enjoying some time together. Since Jeff has always said our wedding cake was the best he had ever had, I had my mom contact the lady who made our cake and she made us a little "anniversary cake". My intention was to have it look like a miniature of our wedding cake, but there were several bumps in the road and it ended up looking like this......instead of this. We had taffy bubbles on our wedding cake and it was going to be an extra $20 just for the bubbles...I couldn't justify spending that, so we settled on polka dots. Secondly, our wedding cake had fondant on it, but this one ended up in buttercream. Oh well, it still tasted yummy!

While at dinner, Jeff and I talked about some of our favorite things that have happened over the past six years. At the top of the list was our sweet little boys. Life would be so dull with out them! Family really is what its all about. I feel so blessed that we've been able to create this little family over the past six years. And I am so very grateful that we got married at the right place and at the right time...to the right person.