The McDowell Madness

First Day of School

2011-12-27T20:09:00.000-08:00

Cody's first day of Pre-School. We both love that we goes to school now. :-)

Caden off to 5th grade. Next year....middle school. I'm so not ready for that.

Cooper set to head off to first day of Kindergarten. Luckily he has LOVED school!

And that's it for now. I was thinking I might try and do a bunch of posts to make up for not posting anything this past year, but now I remember one of the reasons I quit blogging. It takes so stinkin long to upload pictures that I can't stand it. :) At least I got one post in for 2011.

I'm back..at least a little

2011-01-18T20:10:00.000-08:00

After a long break from the blogging world, I think I'm ready to come back at least a little. I have many reasons for stopping blogging, but I decided to try and post a little for all of our family and friends that live miles away. We don't see you very often so I know it's nice to see pictures of our kids as they're growing and have a peek into their lives. Here's hoping I'll be able to keep this up!

I believe I added about 6 or 7 new posts so scroll down!

The Zoo

2011-01-17T19:06:00.000-08:00

One of our other outings during the break was to the zoo. We went with our friends, Jenkins and Wagstaff's again with a couple of Jenkin's neighbors joining us as well. It was a great day for the zoo because it was warm and overcast so the animals were very active. Here's a few pictures from the day.

Christmas Morning

2011-01-12T21:20:00.000-08:00

Here's some pictures from Christmas morning. We had a great Christmas and love that we were able to spend it at home!

We got a new t.v from Jeremy's parents. We love it!! Look at the post opening present mess, I had to take a picture of that.

After opening presents we set up all the gifts, played all the new games, hung out in pjs for a good chunk of the day, watched some movies on our new t.v and then I made an easy but yummy dinner. We had a great time hanging out as a family!

Christmas Eve

2011-01-12T21:01:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful Christmas! It was so much fun being home Christmas morning as we have pretty much traveled every Christmas we've been married. On Christmas Eve we went to our friend, the Jenkins, house and the Wagstaffs also came over. We had amazing food, acted out the nativity, played one other Christmas game, and then Santa's elves left one present for each child out on the doorstep. It would've been perfect except that Jeremy and Cody weren't there. Earlier in the day we went bowling with our same friends, Wagstaffs and Jenkins, and as soon as we got home Cody threw up. Then he started a fever and by the evening was absolutely miserable. The last time we were in Texas for Christmas we were going to the Jenkins again and Cooper got incredibly sick and had to stay home. That time I stayed home alone so I figured this time Jeremy could take a turn. We missed them both, but we brought Jeremy home some great food! Hopefully next year everyone will be well!

I had to take a picture of my "hot cocoa" cupcakes. I thought they were pretty cute!

I realized later that we only took pictures of the navity and none with the adults. Oh well...that seemed to be the theme of Christmas break. The 3 us went bowling, to the trains, the zoo, spent Christmas Eve together and didn't take any pictures with adults this whole time. You can see me and Carrie in this one so I guess that counts a little. :)

Train Exhibit Display

2011-01-10T20:44:00.000-08:00

Another fun Christmas outing we took was heading down to the local train display exhibit. We went with my friend Carrie and her two cute kids. It was neat, but definetly crowded! I guess that's what you get when you go just 3 days before Christmas. We had a fun day and we always love hanging with our friends!!

Christmas lights wagon ride

2011-01-10T20:25:00.000-08:00

My friend, Stephanie, proposed we rent a wagon together and ride through this incredible neighborhood filled with lights. It was so fun!! We started the night with breakfast for dinner at our house (yum), then the kids changed into jammies and us and 4 other families headed out for an hour long wagon ride. I hope we make this a tradition every year!!

Thanksgiving in Colorado

2011-01-10T20:10:00.000-08:00

We went to Colorado this year for Thanksgiving. All my family was there. We had a great time! It was a little crazy when all of us together, but fun to all be together. I guess the only day I took pictures was on the last day at my neice, Chelsea's, birthday party. Kim and Brett rented out their clubhouse for the day and we were able to just hang out, play wii on the giant movie screen, watch football, eat food, and play volleyball outside. It was a lot of fun and their clubhouse was very nice. What a great perk to living in their neighborhood! We miss all you guys and can't wait till the next time we all get together!

Church history trip

2010-08-09T21:13:00.000-07:00

This July we went took a road trip of the church history sites. We started the trip in Independence, MO and went to the LDS visitor center there. From there we traveled to Liberty Jail. This was great and a very spiritual experience. Next was a stop in Far West and then on to the Valley of Adam-Adihamon (sp?). I loved both of these places because they are in the middle of nowhere so it's easy to picture the early saints walking around these areas. The Valley was beautiful and there were so many walking trails. If we'd known we would've planned more time just to hike around and explore.

Our final stop was Nauvoo,IL. Here we met up with the rest of Jeremy's family to see the Nauvoo pageant and have a small family reunion. Nauvoo was so much fun and there was so much to do! I was pleasantly surprised. We spent 3 days there and we could've easily spent more. It was great to be with all of Jeremy's family. Unfortunately we don't all get together too often. My kids had a blast spending time with their cousins and it was fun to catch up with everyone. I wish we all lived closer.

It was a great spiritually uplifting experience and I plan to do it again when my children are older and can appreciate it more. I'd highly recommend this trip to anyone!

At Carthage Jail

The whole gang in front of the Nauvoo Temple.

Nauvoo Temple. This was a beautiful temple.

Liberty Jail again

Playing all the pioneer games in old Nauvoo

Valley Adam-on-Dihomand

Far West

Visitor Center in Independence,MO

We left our camera at home so we bought a inexpensive camera in Independence. For some reason many of the pics turned out blurry and I'm still not sure why. Bummer since many of the pics are ruined . Oh well. It was still a great trip!

8 New Posts!

2010-04-24T20:52:00.001-07:00

Currently I'm the Laurel advisor and this week and last week the lessons have been on family history and journaling. I've been feeling like a slacker so I decided to upload and post many of the pictures on my camera dating back to Christmas. I wrote very little about these events, but I figure at least now I have them on record, with some kind of dates, and saved on a safe place....the internet. If there's a fire or flood, they'll still be there. Plus, I plan to one day copy my blog into a book.

So Enjoy! There's 8 new posts to look at so don't forget to scroll down.

Easter Morning

2010-04-24T20:43:00.000-07:00

We didn't take many pictures for Easter morning...this is all we got, but it was a good Easter. Jeremy has been flying every Easter since we moved to Texas so it was wonderful to have him home for a change. The Easter Bunny came, we had a yummy breakfast of scones, watched conference, flew our new kites from the E.B. and had our friends, the Jenkins, over for Easter dinner. It was a nice and relaxing Easter.

Cooper's Easter Party at School

2010-04-24T20:32:00.000-07:00

Cooper's teacher- Miss Peggy

Cooper's been having a great year in preschool and since I didn't take any pictures at any of his early school parties, I decided to take a few at this one. Cooper's best buddies at school this year are Jacob (in the pic above) and Ryan. We've enjoyed the school and I've loved that it runs until 2:30!

Cooper started Soccer

2010-04-24T20:29:00.000-07:00

This is Cooper's first season playing soccer. He loves it and has been having a blast. He's recently scored his first goal! Yeah! His team is the Tigers.

First Pinewood Derby

2010-04-24T20:22:00.000-07:00

We had our first Pinewood Derby experience. It was a lot of fun. Caden didn't win overall, but we didn't come in last either. We don't know his exact placing, but he seemed to finish somewhere in the middle. Maybe next year we'll be able to figure out how to improve and go faster.

Spring Break- Heritage Museum & the Lake

2010-04-24T20:18:00.000-07:00

Record Snowfall in Texas

2010-04-24T20:16:00.000-07:00

This was a record. I believe we had about a foot of snow. It was fun to be able to play in it and I think it even lasted 2 days before all melting.

Christmas in Colorado

2010-04-24T20:10:00.000-07:00

Update

2010-03-31T21:41:00.000-07:00

I know I don't really blog or read blogs much anymore, but I decided to check some of my friends and families blogs tonight. I decided that I needed to make some kind of updated post. I'm not going to try to go back to and catch up on blogging, but I thought a good recap might be in order.

Thanksgiving: My parents came to Texas and I made my first complete turkey dinner. I'd never actually prepared a turkey before so I was excited to learn and check this off of my to do list.

December sometime: Ran my first half marathon in downtown Dallas. I ran a 9 1/2 min. pace so that had me finish in just over 2 hrs or is it just under 2 hours. Yikes! I can't remember. That's the problem with not writing things down. At least I can look it up. It was fun, but a little painful. I felt like I was going to puke after I finished. I was proud of my accomplishment, but don't train for a half marathon if you want to loose weight. I acutally gained a couple pounds while training! Ahh!!

Christmas: Spent in Colorado with my family. We had a great time. All my family was there which made it extra special.

New Years: Spent it at our good friends, the Jenkins, house with a few other families. Jeremy was flying so we missed him, but we a great time hanging out with everyone else.

January: Jeremy gets officially furloughed (temporarily laid off) from Net Jets. I plan to write more about this soon, but I'm afraid I'll be too tired to write anymore about it tonight. Jeremy started really promoting and trying to grow his tax and bookkeeping business.
Our ward also split. Mixed emotions: happy because I do like smaller wards; sad because all my friends are in the other ward. Luckily, I've already made some fun friends in my new ward. I got put in as Laurel advisor which is also really fun.

February: Can't remember much. I'm sure we had a good Valentine's Day. I started teaching swim lessons a couple nights a week and the boys started taking lessons. Tax season in full swing now...playtime with Jeremy is over. ( We had a lot of fun there for awhile. I must say I enjoy having him home everynight.) Cooper started playing soccer. He loves it and I love watching all these little boys play.

March: Taxes...taxes..taxes = work, stress, and no fun for Jeremy. (Feeling very blessed that we have so much work however.) The boys and I have had a good month though. We had a great spring Break just staying here locally. Highlights of the week: the beach at the Lake ( I may even have some pics from this that I may post), some spring cleaning (highlight for me at least. The boys didn't mind it too much), and the circus. I've been spending lots of time getting swim lessons set up for the summer and I'm definetly starting to get excited about it. It looks like it's going to be another record setting summer for lessons. My first summer here I think I taught about 15 kids private lessons. The next summer I taught about 30 kids private lessons. Last year I taught 50 kids private lessons and it's looking like I'm going to pass that record for this summer. I've been very fortunate with my swim business and grateful for all the many moms that have put their trust in me to teach their child how to swim.

Finally, I've been on a health eating kick since the new year and I'm down 7lbs from Christmas. I don't think I've weighed this little since since getting married. Too bad my body doesn't look the same. Even with excercising 5 times a week I haven't been able to erase the damage 3 children has done to my body. Oh well...at least I'm looking better than I did a few months ago and loving all my exercise classes. I was getting sick of running and it's nice to be changing up the routine.

That's it for now. It's 12:30am and I'm up blogging. One of the many reasons that I don't blog or look at blogs much anymore. AHHH! Good night!

Happy Halloween & 2 new posts

2010-01-01T20:30:00.000-08:00

Jeremy was home this year so he took them out trick or treating, while I stayed home and passed out candy. Jeremy said that Cody probably loved it the most!

There's 2 more new posts tonight so scroll down if you want to see them all.

Cooper's Birthday Party

2010-01-01T19:56:00.000-08:00

Cooper turned 4 on October 25th and he wanted to have a Star Wars party this year. We had our first kid only party this year for Cooper and I think it went really well! We had light saber battles, played pin something (i'm not sure what that piece was called) on Darth Vader, hit a Darth Vader pinata, and had pizza and cake. Jeremy dressed up as Darth Vader for the battles and Caden dressed up as young Anikan Skywalker to assist with the party. We had a great time, but I must say I was ready for it to be over at the end and have the noise level drop down several decibals.

Not the best costume, but it worked. Jeremy was such a good sport to let 9 boys pound on him and chase him around.

There's so many things that we love about Cooper that it's hard to know where to begin. Cooper is our goofball, funny man. He's always coming up with funny names and sayings. I've been called everything from mommacita to snox to Mrs. Kissy. He recently went through a phase where he replied, "oh yeah" to everything in this drawn out and cool voice. Just yesterday he jumped up and started shaking his booty from side to side while playing a game and said, "Shake what your momma gave ya". (Caden said this was on the new Chipmunk movie we just saw.)

Cooper is growing up way too fast and tries to be 8 like Caden. Just a few days ago he informed me that when he was 3 he liked Thomas the Train, but now that he's 4 he doesn't. He also told me that Buzz Lightyear is not for his age...it's for Cody.

Cooper is our rough and tough boy, dying to play hootball (as he calls it), soccer, and baseball as soon as we sign him up. He loves to win and gets really mad when he doesn't. He loves video games, eating, getting sodas with me, and wrestling. Cooper's not affectionate by nature, but he'll give me a kiss whenever I ask and of course I love that. We love you Cooper!

2010-01-01T19:27:00.000-08:00

Cody turned 2 on Sept 21 so we had a few friends over to celebrate. We BBQ and the kids just played. It was very low key. Cody was real excited that day and had so much fun playing and opening the presents. It was especially fun to let him have cake this year. Last year he was allergic to eggs, peanuts and wheat, but thankfully he's outgrown the wheat and peanut and can have egg now if it's cooked in things.Cody had one little friend there his age and that was his buddy, Ty, in the picture above. Ty is the brother of one of Caden's friends from school, Ben. Their mom, Courtney, has become one of my closest friends. I feel blessed to have her in my life.
Riding around in one of his new birthday toys.

I love this shirt because Cody really is a hot dog, but we love him to pieces!
What to say about Cody...hmm.... we just love this little guy. He has so much energy..usually too much...and he definetly keeps us on our toes. He's been our most active, busiest, dangerous, and into everything kid! So far he seems to be a nice mix of Caden and Cooper's personalities. At this age Caden would go around hugging kids, Cooper would go around hitting and pushing everyone, and Cody hits and pushes kids, but then gives them a hug right after.
He'll talk to kids and strangers, but then also likes to sometimes hold back and just be with mom. He loves to laugh and gives me great hugs and cuddles. We love you Cody!

First Day of School

2009-11-30T19:17:00.000-08:00

Very belated and not very great pictures of the first day of school for my boys. At least I have one right? If you can't tell I'm trying to chronicle the last 6 months or so of our life in a couple of nights. Bear with me.

Cooper started preschool this year and goes twice a week from 9-2:30. He LOVES it and I love it too. Every morning Cooper wakes up and asks if he has school that day. Every time I say he does he says in a very cool voice, "Yes". It's very cute.

Caden is in 3rd grade and is really enjoying it. At first he was struggling with the lack of "Fun" they were having. (His teacher informed me that 3rd grade is very different from 2nd. They don't do any of that "coloring" anymore.) But now he's adjusted and even has "Fun" sometimes aside from lunch, recess, and specials that are always fun. Luckily Caden is a very good student.

Summer Trip- Las Vegas

2009-11-30T18:55:00.000-08:00

After spending 10 days in California we went to Las Vegas for about a week to spend some time with my parents. I actually don't remember everything we did, but we swimming ALOT, played games, headed down to Bass Pro Shop to look at the fish and do some shooting, went to the children's museum, and Jeremy and I headed down to the strip for a night out while my parents watched the kids. My Dad hooked us up with some tickets to a great show. It was one of the smaller ones, but they were great singers and very entertaining. I can't even remember what it's called now. This is why you probably shouldn't blog about something several months later.

Caden's Baptism

2009-11-30T17:49:00.000-08:00

Ok so Caden's baptism happened before the CA trip but I forgot my camera that day and have been waiting for some pics. My brother-in-law Brett downloaded some pics to Jeremy's computer before he went back home, but that's the same as never giving them to me. I finally got some pictures from my Dad. Here's some quick info on that day.

It was the 4th of July which made it neat, but also different at the same time. My parent's and my sister, Kim, along with her family traveled down for the event. Jeremy's parents and his brother, Spencer, and his family also made it out for the baptism. It was so special to have so much family around for this great event and it made for quite the full house. I've very grateful they were all willing and able to make it out to support us and Caden.

It was a stake baptism with 6 kids from our ward alone! Needless to say it was very full and crowded. It felt a lot like a sacrament meeting. We had to stand during the baptism and the confirmations of all 6 kids due to limited chairs and space. It was also a little loud due to so many children and adults in such a confined area. However, Caden was beaming and seemed thrilled to finally be baptised and confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I was very proud of him that day and couldn't believe I was old enough to be the mother of an 8 year old.

Caden is such a wonderful son. He's thoughtful, wants to always choose the right, and he's a great example to his younger brothers. We love you Caden!

All the cousins that made it out for the baptism: Joy, Hope, Liberty, Cole, Trevor, and Lexi.

Caden with his Dad and Grandfathers.

Summer Road Trip- California

2009-11-20T20:32:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't blogged in ages, but my computer has been on the fritz and barely working. So we got a new computer and know I can start blogging and trying to catch up a little.

This summer we went on a 3 week road trip to AZ,CA, & NV. Below are some pictures from our California trip. We had a great time there. I met up with an old high school friend and her kids at the park and got together with a college roommate and her boys at the beach. We saw grandparents and went to Disneyland with them. We ended our trip at Jeremy's brother's house in Lake Elsinore where the kids had a blast playing with their cousins and going to Legoland. We miss California, especially the beach and family, but not enough to move back.

Hangin with the cousins at LegoLand.

I love Disneyland. It really is one of the happiest places on earth to me.

At the beach with my college roommate, Sheri King, and her 2 boys. We went to the beach several times while we were there, but apparently I didn't take very many pictures.

At the park with one of my best friend's from high school, Christina Pyka. It was so good to catch up. She also has 2 adorable boys. Does everyone I know have boys?

Schlitterbaughn & Austin

2009-09-07T20:59:00.000-07:00

Caden turned 8 on the 4th of July so a lot of my family and Jeremy's family came out for the event. My family came out early and we all took a trip down to New Braunfels and Austin for the week. We stayed at the Schlitterbaughn Resort for 2 nights and had a blast!! It was awesome being able to walk back and forth from the park for naps, food, etc! I'd highly recommend staying there and Schlitterbaughn is the best. It's the #1 rated water park in the US and is huge! There's four sections to the park and a tram that takes you between the 2 sections. It has an old school section (my favorite) and then a new more modern section. All the pics in the video were from the new section. I only got the camera out once because we were having too much fun! After Schiltterbaughn we stayed in Austin....saw the bats, visited the children's museum, and went to the main city park. It was a great trip and we missed all of our family members that weren't able to attend. Love ya! Enjoy the video.

Summer Swim Team

2009-08-19T20:21:00.000-07:00

Most people know I was a competitive swimmer all growing up and through high school. Therefore, I've always said that all of my boys will have complete one season of swim team and after that I'd let them decide if they wanted to do it again. Well, I've changed my mind after going through a season of summer swim team. I've now decided that the new rule is they have to swim in enough seasons to be proficient at all of the swim strokes. One season on the summer swim team here is not enough. They have 500 swimmers and so the amt of actual swimming and learning going on at practices is not much. Luckily for me Caden wants to do it again anyway. He complained some about practices, but we seemed to really enjoy the meets and racing. The end of year regional meet was especially fun because he did so well and it was at an outdoor pool instead of the indoor pool that most of the meets were at.

At the final regional meet Caden placed 8th overall in his freestyle out of about 40 swimmers and his free relay team placed 1st! Caden was the anchor on the relay team and it was such a fun race to watch. Caden's team was in 2nd place by at least 2 body lengths when Caden dove in, but Caden really swam hard. First he caught up to the other boy and then passed him and ended up finishing at least a body length ahead of him! Needless to say I was quite proud. Wish I had taped that race so I could post it.

I hope to have lots more swim meets to go to in the future! (Jeremy not so much....he wasn't a fan of how long the meets were and all of the waiting around. Oh well, he'll get used to it.)

Here's Caden with his 8th place ribbon. Only the top 8 swimmers got a ribbon so he just barely made it. He didn't get his 1st place ribbon until later.

Here's Caden swimming freestyle. He's the one at the top of the picture.

Here's his backstroke.

Did I mention that Jeremy didn't like the waiting around? I think the boys thought it was pretty fun.

It's game time!

2009-06-26T20:05:00.000-07:00

Caden played baseball again this Spring. This is our third season on this team and Caden is having a great time! Same coaches.....3 different uniforms. Not really sure why we have to get a new name and uniform each time. The newness has worn off so these are the only 3 pictures from this season. How many pictures of playing baseball do you really need anyway?

The best kind of camping

2009-06-26T19:50:00.000-07:00

This year Jeremy was gone for both the ward and father/son campout. Jeremy hates camping (not sure how this is possible growing up in a house full of boys) and so he wasn't real excited about going camping somewhere to make up for the missed campouts. Therefore we compromised and ending up camping in the backyard. I must say this is my kind of camping! It was so convienent to have a kitchen, bathroom, and anything else you might need right at your disposal. We ate dinner outside, roasted marshmellows over the camping stove, jumped on the trampoline and waterslide, and ended the night with ghost stories. Jeremy's ghost story scared Cooper so much that he was too afraid to sleep outside in the end. Therefore, Cooper, Cody and I all went inside and slept in our cozy beds. Jeremy and Caden toughened out the first part of the night in the tent, but early morning it started thunderstorming so they came inside and finished off their night in their cozy beds as well. Maybe this is how we should always camp!

Blowing up the air mattress

Needless to say we got this away from him quickly. Not even sure how I got this picture.

Setting up the tent is the best part, right?

Getting ready to roast marshmellows over the camping stove.

Nasty Storm

2009-06-11T20:52:00.001-07:00

We had a nasty Texas storm last night and needless to say the kids were not happy about it. We had some roof damage, our ourdoor umbrella that was closed was lifted right off the pole and flew across the yard, our heavy metal chairs blew over and our cooler we left outside on accident also went flying across the yard. I should've taken some pictures afterwards.

These were the kids reactions to the storm: Cody stayed curled up in a ball in my lap for about and hour and wouldn't move. Caden kept asking if we were going to die and said he wanted to move to the mountains where there are no tornados. Cooper just kept saying, "I don't like Nados!"

Luckily we didn't lose any power, the storm passed, and it was back to swim lessons the next day. I don't know if I'll ever get used to the massive storms they can have here!

Caden turned 8!

2009-06-11T19:44:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I have a son old enough to be getting baptized! It makes me feel old. I can't really say it feeels like yesterday that he was born, but I can say that it feels like he was just starting kindergarten and now he'll be entering the 3rd grade. I think time speeds up once they become school age.

We were going to keep Caden's party easy and go somewhere this year, but somehow we ended up having it at our home again. This year we did a race car theme where we built, sanded, decorated, and raced pinewood derby cars. I made driver's licences and went around to some car shops where I got oil can boxes to decorate with and some free racecar posters for the goody bags. It worked out great and Caden said it was his best birthday ever!

I forgot to take pictures before the festivities began, but I was able to get a few in before things were too messed up from the boys.

The pit crew

Jeremy did a great job building this track. Luckily we have 2 more boys to use it again in the future!

Happy Birthday Caden! We love you and can't wait for your baptism!

Talent Show

2009-05-29T20:19:00.000-07:00

Caden and his friend Carter decided to be in the school talent show. They weren't sure what they wanted to do at first, but they knew they wanted to be in it. After lots of brainstorming we came up with the idea of doing a skit. Carter's mom found a short, comedy skit that was perfect for the boys. The skit was entitled "The Best Pick Pocket". The boys did an excellent job and everyone laughed in all the right places. After the show I heard a few of the girls come up to them and tell them how funny they were. Needless to say they were beaming.

Caden actually has some talent for this. He added some good lines and even came up with ending for the skit. He tripped over the microphone cords during the show, but it didn't even phase him and he kept right on going. He did a great job and it was really fun watching him perform!

Caden with his friend Carter after and during the performance.

Caden's teacher left the talent show before we could get a picture with her, but Caden insisted we get one the next day at school. We're thinking he may have a little crush on her.

Easter Week

2009-04-30T17:52:00.000-07:00

This year a friend of mine organized a once a week playgroup. Each mom takes a turn hosting all the 6 kids one week, but gets the other 5 weeks off! It has been great and Cooper really enjoys it as long as his buddy, Cole, is there. (As you can see it's mostly girls, but it's definetly nice when it's your turn to host.) It was my turn to host the week of Easter so we decided to make it an Easter party. We had an egg hunt, dyed Easter eggs, and ate Easter treats. Dying eggs with 6 preschool children and only one adult was no small feat, but we made it through with minimal damage. Cooper was excited all week about his Easter party and couldn't stop talking about it. Below is a pic of all the kids ready to head out and find their eggs.

Easter Sunday Jeremy had to leave for work, but he was able to be here in the morning to see what the Easter Bunny left behind.

Our Easter Bunny always hides their baskets and in this picture Cooper had just found his. He's such a goofball.

Somehow we didn't get a pic of Cody that morning. This is actually from the egg hunt with Cooper's play group, but we couldn't leave him out.

That evening we went over to my friend, Adrien's house for dinner. Her husband and 2 other men from his work were out of town that day so all of us spouseless women got together with our kids and had our own Easter feast. Adrien made a wonderful dinner and one of the other mom's put together an egg hunt with dollar bills as the surprise! I'm bummed I didn't take any pictures of the whole crew, but we had a great time. Thanks Adrien!

Spring Break fun

2009-04-19T13:59:00.000-07:00

Here are a few of the pics from Spring Break. Jeremy was gone the whole week, but the weather was nice and we had a great time. We went to the beach at the lake, attempted to go to the Ft. Worth Zoo the same day that 25,000 other people also tried to go. (Needless to say we never made it in.) We made some spring time cookies that were egg free so Cody could eat them! Yeah! We were quite proud of them and they tasted really good. We also went to the Children's museum in Dallas with a bunch of friends and lots and lots of kids. I think we only lost 2 kids which was pretty darn good considering there was so many of them. Did I mention that Caden was one of them? Oops! All turned out well. We should've put all the kids in matching shirts. We ended the week with some much needed R&R after so many fun filled days. It was great having Caden home all week. We miss him when he's at school!

PTA Reflections Award Ceremony

2009-04-17T12:18:00.000-07:00

Every year the PTA has a nationwide reflections contest where elementary kids can enter works of art from a variety of categories focused on the theme of that year. This year the theme was "Things that make you say wow." Caden entered a poem in the Arts and Literature category about the sun. He was awarded Excellence (first place) in his school and therefore was able to move on and compete at the School District Level. On the district level he was awarded "Honorable Mention" (which we figured looked like it was 3rd place). Caden was super excited to have won. Below are some of the pictures from his award ceremony.

I put this pic to show my mom that I have been wearing the new jacket she sent me.

I saw this pic when I downloaded my file and decided to throw it in here. It's a classic pic of how my 2 cute boys have been spending their mornings as I've been running and biking most mornings. I absolutely love my bike/jogging trailer. It's the best!

School play and school carnival

2009-04-15T20:02:00.000-07:00

Every year they do a school play/music concert at our school. This year the play was entitled "Lemonade". It was about when life serves you lemons then make lemonade. Caden was excited this year because he got one of the bigger speaking parts- he was Humpty Dumpty. He did a great job! Caden is very comfortable getting up in front of people and speaking and it showed in his performance. I was very proud of him. I was also proud of my Humpty Dumpty costume I made. Anyone that knows me well, knows that craftiness is not my forte, but I actually received many compliments about his costume.

Jeremy was gone flying so I got a babysitter for Cody and made a date of it for me, Caden, and Cooper. Cooper enjoyed watching Caden and then we went to Baskin and Robins after to celebrate.

My Humpty Dumpty

Caden with his friend Carter above and his friend Jake below.

A couple of weeks later was the school carnival. I hardly took any pictures, but I thought I'd include them since I'd like to get my blog printed out someday and made into a book. The carnival was a lot of fun and Cooper especially enjoyed it this year. Cody mostly chilled in the stroller since I was flying solo again and it's hard enough keeping track of the 2 kids with the crowds let alone 3.

I have no idea why this picture flipped like this and unfortunately I also have no idea how to fix it. I couldn't leave out my cute Cody though.

Catch up

2009-04-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

Where to begin? So basically I've haven't blogged about anything in the last couple of months. I just downloaded a bunch of pics and realized how behind I am and how much I want to record. I'm going to try to catch up here during this next week. Stay tuned- there should be lots of posts.

Ward lip Sync

2009-03-15T12:17:00.000-07:00

Our ward had a lip sync this past Sat and I'm on the activities committee so the pressure was on to perform a number. After enlisting some brave friends to join in with me here was the result. We copied an idea from a you tube video entitled Evolution of Dance. I must say the best part was the practicing and preparing for the lip sync. These women are so much fun and I thank you all for doing it with me! I know many of you were very nervous about it and it pushed you out of your comfort zone. You're all the best!! This video is for you guys- you rock!! Sorry the quality isn't so great. It was taken with our digital camera.

front: Steph, me, Melis

Back: Danielle, Tiffany, Adrien

Worst mother of the year award

2009-02-18T19:01:00.000-08:00

Here's how it started. Monday night Coop had a slight fever, then the next morning he woke up fine. Later in the afternoon he starts getting feverish again and just before bed says his ear hurts. He only said it once, no tears, and he slept fine through the night. This morning he wakes up again fever free and is acting normal, but I make a dr. appt anyway because he said his ear hurt the night before. The appt is at 1:30 and on our way I notice that Cooper is starting to feel warm again. We get there and the nurse takes his temp. She says it's 101. something. No surprise there. I then said that his only syptoms are a fever and he's said once that his ear hurt. Then the dr. comes in and starts to examine him. Dr. asks if he's had any nasal congestion, cough, etc, and I said, "No. Just a fever and he said one time his ear hurts." Looks at his ears and then looks at me and says he has an ear infection in both ears and that he's ruptured his ear drum. He then asked, "Didn't you see the discharge in his ear?" To which I replied, "Yes, but I thought it was ear wax." Dr. continues talking about the ears. I asked, "How do you know his ear drum is ruptured?" He begins saying that when he looks inside with his ear tool (don't know the name) it looks yayayada yada." So I said, "you had to look inside his ear to know that and not just by seeing the discharge in his ear." Hmmm...Interesting. Well I don't have one of those look inside the middle of your ears tools. That's why I go to a doctor! Next he moves on to his throat and again gives me the once over. Dr. says, " His throat is completely inflamed with lots of white something or other and I think he has strep throat." To which I replied, " I asked Cooper if his throat hurt and he said no. I had no idea." Dr. says, "He's a very sick boy", and then tests for strep (of course it's positive), and gives me my prescriptions.

So by now I feel like the worst mother in the world, not to mention that I have a terrible head cold and head ache myself. How are we as mothers supposed to know what's wrong with them if they don't complain at all? I knew he was a little sick and that's why I took him in. I just didn't know how sick because he never complained and with some motrin in him was running around, jumping on the tramp, playing wii and acting normal.

So that was my afternoon. Unfortunately the rest of the day only got worse, but I'm too tired and achy now to write about it. I just wanted to say that Dr.s should gives moms a break. We feel enough guilt everyday without a Dr. making us feel worse for not knowing that the orange goop, that looks exactly like ear wax, is actually ear fluid from a partially ruptured ear drum.

I thought I'd also quickly add that it really stinks having sick kids, being sick yourself, and having a husband who's gone the whole week. Enough of my pity party- I'm going to bed.

When is it too much?

2009-02-05T19:31:00.000-08:00

You know it's been too much Wii Mario Kart playing when:

1. My young 3 year old, Cooper, can tell you the name of almost every character on Mario Kart.
2. Cooper knows the names of the different tracks and will tell me he wants to race on
the moo moo meadows track or luigi circuit.
3. He replays all his races and actually watches them.
4. He's already planned his 4 yr. Mario Kart birthday party for next October and Mario
Halloween costume.
And Finally:
5. Cooper can beat his 7yr old brother and his 33yr old Dad on races and has won the first two cups!! (This part will make sense to anyone who's played this before)

Needless to say a wii intervention is just around the corner!!

Update

2009-01-19T19:16:00.000-08:00

A few quick updates:

New Year's Eve: Jeremy gone flying, Caden at a friend's house, me alone watching "Becoming Jane"- a movie Jeremy would never see. Watched the ball drop in bed and then went to sleep. All in all- not too bad a night.

New Year's Day: The Jenkins invited me and the boys over for dinner and to hang out a little. I love the Jenkins! Thanks for thinking of me and teaching me how to make your yummy salad.

School: started back up- so sad! I miss having my Caders around.

Lately: no time for blogging because a new obsession has entered my life. I discovered facebook and I've been playing around with that.

Today: funny convo between Jeremy and Caden at dinner. Goes like this:

Jeremy: Does a tree that splits in half in the forest still make a sound if no one is around
to hear it?

Caden: Is it a deciduous forest or a coniferous forest?

Who thinks like this? This kid is too smart for me. He cracks me up! Plus what kind of
questions was that anyway? I guess I can see where Caden gets it from.

Finally: I've decided to train for a sprint triatholon! I'm really excited!! My friend, Adrien, inspired me to do it. The triathalon is April 19th. Wish me luck! I'm on my 3rd week of training. I'll post more as I get closer to it.

That's all for tonight. Hope you're all doing well!

Christmas week

2009-01-04T13:49:00.000-08:00

Christmas week was so much fun! My parents came from Las Vegas and spent the entire week with us. I hadn't seen my dad in a year so it was such a treat!!

Texas is so much fun at Christmas time. We spent the week going to movies, playing lots of games, eating way too much food, looking at lots and lots of Christmas lights, shopping, building candy trains, opening presents, and visiting the Gaylord hotel with it's wonderful Christmas decorations and it's incredible ice sculpture displays!!

The Gaylord had a real giant gingerbread house as seen below, several giant electric train display, and the incredible ice sculpture displays. The ice sculptures are amazing, but freezing. They keep the area at 9 degrees and give you the giant blue parkas to wear, but it's still cold even with those on. Cody was freezing so I had to take him out early and couldn't get more pictures of it. They had an ice house to climb in, an ice Santa's lap to sit on, ice slides to ride down on, several ice candies, etc, and a life size, ice navity scene at the end. It was simply beautiful and amazing! I'd like to make this a tradition for my family every year and it was a great way to spend Christmas Eve Day!!

Cute Cody just chillin. Believe me this happy chillin in the stroller didn't last long!

The ice slides- so neat!

In front of the ice train with Pappa.

It was soooo cold!!!

My parents- Jim and Judy. Aren't they so cute?

The giant ice bridge in the ice forest room

The downtown section of our city. They do a sychronized light display to music down the entire steet. It's really neat!! There are lots of restaurants on this street so we thought we'd try one of the Mexican ones while we were there. It was pretty good, but I'm also not a huge fan of Mexican food.

My mom had this cute idea of making trains out of candy. She said I did it as a child, but I don't remember it. Caden is modeling his train and Cooper's is in the front.

Thanks Mom and Dad for coming out here! We had soo much fun even if me, Jeremy, and Cody all got sick. Can't we ever be well on Christmas? We love you and can't wait to see you again!!

Christmas Morning 2008

2008-12-31T10:01:00.000-08:00

This a video of Christmas morning. The slide show is fun, the video at the end is a little boring, but we're experimenting with the video clip portion of our digital camera. We didn't even know it took videos. That's why the video's aren't the best quality. Maybe someday I'll figure out how to download from our video camera if that's even possible.

There's one big gift that somehow we forgot to take a picture of- our new Wii! My parents gave us a wii this year and the kids absolutely love it!! They play it all the time. Thanks Mom and Dad and thanks for spending Christmas with us. We're so glad you came and we miss you already!

My first and possibly last video- ahhh!

2008-12-30T20:13:00.000-08:00

4 videos, one you tube account signed up for, and 90 minutes later I finally got my first video to acutally post on blogger. I'm sooo not tech savvy!! I tried 3 times on blogger and twice on You tube to up load a video before I figured out where I went wrong. I also made 3 videos previous to this one that were actually much better with more effects and music. However, since I was saving them wrong they can't be uploaded. Enjoy this final product because I may never upload a video again- haha!!

This is a video of the gift now set up and opened from the previous post (remember the 3 giant boxes). It's called the extreme coaster and the boys love it! Thanks Jan and Philip for the great gift!

It sure is Christmas!!

2008-12-18T19:37:00.000-08:00

These three boxes arrived at our doorstep yesterday! It's their Christmas gift from Jeremy's parents. It's only one gift, but it comes in 3 giant boxes and then has to be assembled. What can it be? (I know it says on the box, but there's no picture on it thankfully!) Needless to say the the boys are exstatic and can't wait to open it on Christmas!!I had to get a picture to show you the size of this thing. Remember Caden is 7 years old!

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

2008-12-18T19:06:00.000-08:00

Cody has chronic ezcema and my pediatrician swore it was a result of food allergies. We had a basic allergy test done a while back and we found out Cody was allergic to eggs, peanuts, and wheat. We cut those things out of his diet, but Cody's still having skin issues. Our Dr. recommended we take another allergy test that tests for a broader range of food. 2 days ago we got the results:

The Good: Cody has outgrown his wheat allergy and now only has a very low, delayed allergic

response to wheat.

The Bad: The egg and peanut allergy are still with us.

The UGLY: Cody has a delayed allergic response to many, many foods, especially Fruit!

Here's a picture of his test results. Any thing with a color means he has some kind of delayed allergic reaction to that food. The level of the reaction is color coded with red being the highest and green being the lowest. Notice how many reds there are and most of them are in the fruit section! He has very few non reactive foods (represented by white), but what's interesting is that the most white shows up in the fish section. CRAZY!!

Cody has to completely elimate all red foods for 6 months and then yellow and pink foods for 3 months. The rest of the green and white foods he can eat on a rotation diet plan. He's only supposed to eat the same food once every 4 days. After the 3 and 6 months mark we can introduce the other foods back again on a rotation schedule of once every 4 days. However, anything with eggs and peanut can't be reintroduced because he has an immediate allergic reaction aka your typical allergic response to these foods. We'll test in a year to see if he's outgrown these two allergies and see if they can be reintroduced.

I have no idea how I'm going to do this. It's completely overwhelming!! I don't even know how to prepare fish and nothing I put on it can have any lemon in it, onion, or egg in the dressing like hollandaise or tartar sauce because those are all red foods for him. Not to mention that fish is expensive and I don't even know if he'll eat it. Fish is the only food that he can have everyday providing that he has a different fish everyday.

I decided that I wasn't going to try and start this until after the holidays because it's too much to even think about right now. For now I'm avoiding his red foods and I'll work on avoiding and rotating the others after the new year.

I may have to start a food journal on this blog.

If all of this works and Cody gets relief then it will be worth it in the long run. The goal is to one day have him so that he can eat any food (on a rotation diet of course) and still be ezcema and itchy free!

I'll try to keep you updated on our progress! Wish us luck!

Serious Bed Head

2008-12-18T19:03:00.000-08:00

Caden woke up with a perfect mohawk. Thought I'd take a picture for fun. That's some serious Bed Hair!

Santa's lap- finally!

2008-12-15T15:33:00.000-08:00

Cooper finally sat on Santa's lap! This was the first year and the first time. Last year Cooper wouldn't even go in the same room with Santa at our church's breakfast with Santa. Last week we had our Breakfast with Santa again and this time Cooper went in the room with Santa, but stood about 5 feet from him. Last Friday night was the break through. We went to safety town at the fire dept. for their Christmas lights and celebration. It was a lot of fun and FREE which is always a good thing. I guess the third time really is the charm. Notice he still wasn't smiling, but at least he sat with him!

Walking, potty training, Cooper, & FHE

2008-11-17T18:56:00.001-08:00

Cody is officially a walker today! He took his first few steps on his 1st birthday, but continued to mostly crawl until last week. Last week was the turning point. Cody started really trying to walk more than he would crawl. Today, however, it's official. This afternoon we went outside to play and Cody walked the entire time. He turned around in circles while walking, transfered from the sidewalk to grass while walking, and even turned around and waved at me while walking. It was a great day! He still isn't talking yet, though. He'll say "Uh Oh", and can sign the word "more" but that's pretty much it. He does however, love to laugh at everything!

Cody walking

A couple of weeks ago we started potty training Cooper. The first 2 days were horrible, but by day 3 it seemed to click. We're still have a few #2 issues, but overall he's doing great. Hallelujah! One less set of diapers to change!!

I also realized that I forgot to write a few of the things that I love about Cooper on his birthday entry so I thought I'd add it now. I plan on making my blog into a book someday and I wouldn't want him to feel left out since I wrote things on his brother's birthday.

What can I say about Cooper. He's our laugh hard, play hard, and scream hard child! He's extremely loud and talkative at home, but quiet and calm in public. Cooper likes to be good and has a definite sweet side, but doesn't want people to know or talk about it. For example, tonight I was praising Cooper on some things he did good today and some of the things I like about him- how nice he was to his brother, etc. After a minute or two, Cooper looked me straight in the eyes and said very seriously, "I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE", and then ran away into my room. I think that pretty much sums up my Cooper. We love you, bud and we're so glad you're part of our family!

Finally, tonight we had our first Family Home Evening without Jeremy and I must say it went extremely well. In the past we've just skipped the weeks Jeremy's gone. I had many excuses, some very legitimate, as to why I didn't hold FHE when he was gone, but recently I've decided that I need to make a change and keep FHE as a regular, weekly, event in our home. (Jeremy is, of course, all for this idea.) Although, we all missed Jeremy greatly, there was still a special spirit in our home as the boys and I had our lesson, read scriptures, sang primary songs, prayed together, and then ended the evening with hot chocolate topped with whip cream and dancing/jumping around to one of our favorite Christmas CD's, "Polar Express". I'm grateful for this divinely inspired program and I know that if I can continue to make FHE a priority in our home, even when Jeremy is gone, that our family will be greatly blessed!

Photo Shoot

2008-11-05T20:52:00.000-08:00

So my fabuously, wonderfully, talented friend, Stephanie Read took our family pictures for us last week!! She did an incredible job! I loved all the pictures and I'm having the hardest time deciding which pictures to hang in my house because I want to hang all of them! Somehow I was able to decide which pictures I'm using in my Christmas card so it's now safe to post some more of the pictures that I love, but that won't be on my card. I want my card to be a little bit of a surprise.

Stephanie is now starting a photography biz so you can get amazing pictures too! If you live in Texas or Utah and need a great, artistic, and creative photographer then check out her blog for more info. It's http://www.thereadfam.blogspot.com/. You won't regret it! Thank you soooo much Steph for taking our pictures!

The picture really are super clear. I don't know how to make them bigger so you can see them better. Sorry!

For both sets of my parental units- check these out and then put in your order. If you leave it up to me then you'll get them all-haha!

It's a record

2008-11-02T19:51:00.001-08:00

4 new posts in one night! I think that's a record for me. Scroll down to see them all.

What I don't like about blogs- it sometimes feels like a chore. I actually feel better now that I've caught up on so much blogging.

One more thing- my new blog pictures were taken by my wonderfully talented friend, Steph! She took our pictures last week and she did an amazing job! Thanks Steph. I'll be posting some more pics soon.

Joys of motherhood

2008-11-02T19:22:00.000-08:00

Things my kids have said recently:

Cooper while looking at my wedding picture, "You're a princess mommy". Thanks Cooper! It made my day.

Caden-out of the blue, "I love research! I'm going to write down science facts when I go to bed."
The following morning there was page of 5 science facts he had written in his notebook before falling asleep. Wish I had taken a picture of them. Who thinks like this? He cracks me up.

Cooper: I want to eat my snack in the car.
Mom: But we're not going anywhere.
Cooper: I want to eat my snack in the car.
Mom: OK but we're not going anywhere and you'll be all alone in the car.
(The car was parked in the garage)

Cooper now gets in his car seat in the car and says,
"Strap me in!"

Cooper ate his entire snack while strapped in his car seat, all alone, in the dark garage. (Of course I left the car door and the door to our house open.) I took a photo, but I accidently deleted it.

It's moments like these that I'm grateful I get to stay home with my kids. Thanks for making me laugh Caden and Cooper. I love you both!

Halloween

2008-11-02T19:05:00.001-08:00

We had a nice, quite Halloween. We were bushed from the hectic, fun filled week we had of potty training nightmare, fussy & sick baby, playdate host of 5 busy 3 year olds, Trunk or Treat the night before, and real estate business craziness (not to mention that Jeremy was flying out Sat morning) that we decided to call it a week and spend a quite Halloween at home. We did however, go trick or treating with a few neighbors.

Cody hated his costume, but we were able to get a few pics before he cried so much we had to take it off. I loved Cody's Chewbacca costume! Too bad he didn't!

Looking cool, boys!

Fall Ball

2008-11-02T18:39:00.000-08:00

I'm trading in soccer mom for baseball mom! Caden's bad ankles couldn't stand up to all the running in soccer so we played baseball this fall instead. I must say that I'm starting to love it! Caden has improved sooo much this season from last. He almost always gets at least one hit per game (now watch he'll strike out both times this upcoming game) and is becoming quite a good fielder. However, the best part has been watching Caden start to really love baseball! He wants to play catch and practice with Jeremy now and I love watching them play and spend time together.

Growing up I played almost every sport at one time or another and loved almost all of them. The one sport I thought was really boring was softball. Go figure!

Finally, I wanted to give a shout out to my Dad for taking me to all those Angels games as a kid and teaching me the rules of baseball. I've impressed many of the moms on the team with my baseball savvyness. Who knew! This pic is Caden holding the game ball that earned that day. He had a great game!

I know the fence got in the way, but it was a great slide into home plate. Go Caden!

Fall Fun

2008-11-02T18:24:00.000-08:00

The boys buried themselves today over in our neighbors yard and then pretended to be leaf monsters. You gotta love Fall!

A couple of weeks ago we headed over to the local pumpkin farm. The boys had a great time feeding the animals, going on the hay ride, picking out their pumpkins, roping steer, and posing for lots of pics.

Cooper's Birthday party

2008-10-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

Now that's Cooper's turning 3, we decided he was old enough for a friend birthday party! We did a Halloween theme and Cooper loved it! We had a lot of fun decorating and shopping for the party and it was especially fun to see Cooper get so excited everytime he looked at the supplies for the party. Almost every day for about 2 weeks prior to the party, he would go to my closet, get out the bag with the party supplies, and then proceed to take each item out and show them to me while explaining that these were for His "Halloween Party". It was so cute!

The party was a success. First, we had all the kids came dressed in their costumes- they were all so cute. Then we decorated Halloween bags that we then used for the Frankenstein pinata. He played a pumpkin ring toss game, jumped on the trampoline, had a "Mummy Dog" lunch and finished the party off with a cake, ice cream and presents. Cooper had a great time and I want to thank all of his buddies and their moms from celebrating with us.

Spiderman and Skeleton Man

My "Mummy Dogs". I was very proud of myself because I usually don't bother with making specialty food for birthday parties, but when I saw the recipe for these I couldn't resist. Not only were they cute, but they were actually really good too!

Cute Panda Cody
Before and After the Frankenstein pinata was broken

Cooper's buddy, Cole. They were both black spiderman- so cute!

My 2 regrets from the party was that I forgot to take a group picture of all the kids there with their cute costumes and that I wasn't able to invite more of our friends. It was at my home and with the chance of rain we had to keep the guest list down.

Mother and Son Dance

2008-10-16T12:06:00.000-07:00

Every Fall our city has a Mother and Son Dance. This year Caden and I decided to try it out. We had a blast! The theme was "Around the World" and the city encouraged everyone to dress up in clothing with an international flair. Caden and I decided to go as Zorro and mom Zorro. We bought the masks for the event and luckily my neighbor had an old skirt with a Mexican/Spanish flair to it for me to wear.

Jeremy was out of town so I hired a babysitter and off we went. They actually had 2 dances split by age group- our dance was for 4-7 year olds. Upon arrival we got our picture taken, sampled the hors' devours from around the world and then boogied to our hearts content. After the dance we went over to McDonalds for some dinner- Caden's pick. (I probably would've pushed for something nicer, but I was also paying for a babysitter.)

It was a wonderful and special night! It's not often that Caden and I get to be alone, and I don't think we've ever gone on a date. Caden is quite the dancer and everyone that knows me well, knows that I love to dance! I plan on going to this dance again and again with all my boys. It was really neat to see all these boys dancing, laughing, and hanging out with their moms. They're aren't a lot of activities for moms and their sons so I wanted to give a shout out to my city for planning this neat event. Next year I hope to be able to recruit some other moms and sons into joining us. You won't regret it! Zorro and mom Zorro

Caden getting his groove on...I thought this was a funny pic

Cody turns 1!

2008-10-09T19:13:00.000-07:00

Our little Cody turned one on Sept. 21! (Yes, I'm getting this out late, but at least it's being posted right?) I can't believe it. He's getting so big and cuter and cuter everyday! I love as they get older and start becoming their own little person. Cody is so fun and has such a happy spirit. He laughs at everything and smiles at everyone. He also loves attention!! He was eating it up when everyone was singing Happy Birthday to him. It was obvious that he knew the party and the singing was all about him and he loved every minute of it!

Below are some pics from his very, very simple party. Jeremy was working on Cody's b-day so we had to celebrate before the actual day. Due to a crazy schedule that week, we were forced to celebrate on a Wed. evening. Therefore we only invited our good friends, the Goodwins, over to keep it simple and quick. We had dinner with Elmo themed decorations, opened a few presents, and ate some cake. Quick, simple, and super small, but of course Cody didn't mind. He thought it was great!

For those of you who know, Cody is allergic to eggs, wheat, and peanut. That, of course, meant no cake. I was feeling bummed about it when my friend Emily suggested that I order a cake from Baskin and Robins and just give him the ice cream part. It was a great idea and Cody was still able to get some great first b-day cake pics. Thanks for the idea, Em!

Thank goodness for ice cream and my thumb!

I'm one today!

Can't my brother's leave me alone?

Opening my presents....I seem to have my fingers in my mouth a lot!

Thanks Goodwins for celebrating with me
My mom made me take a picture with my whole family right before the Goodwins left. I just wanted to go to bed.

Tagged- 6th file

2008-10-09T18:56:00.000-07:00

My friend Rebecca tagged me or Jenny Frederick. She just put Jenny, but since it's an easy one I figured I'd do it either way. I was supposed to go to my 6th file and put in my 6th picture.

This is from Easter last year. I spent this Easter alone without Jeremy or any other family members. Cooper wrote with red chalk that day all over the carpet, kitchen floor, and his brand new Easter Sunday clothes while I was getting ready for church. By the time I was able to clean up the disaster we were 45 min. late to church. It was definetly a memorable Easter for me.

Representative of how that Easter went, I can't figure out how to flip this picture so I'm going to just leave it crooked. Sorry!

Chicago Intro.

2008-09-22T20:11:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago Jeremy and I went to Chicago to celebrate our 10th anniversary even though we've been married 11. (Last year I was 8 mo. prego on our anniversary so we stayed home.) It was soo much fun. I'd recommend Chicago to anyone! It's one of my favorite cities.

We arrived in Chicago on Monday afternoon and left Friday around noon. I blogged about the highlights of each day, but I realize now that I've should've posted them backward so that day 1 would be at the top. You'll just have to scroll down if you want to read about the trip in order.

We stayed at the Embassy Suites Lake Front in downtown Chicago. It was a very nice hotel and ideal location. Anyone who's stayed at an Embassy Suites knows about thier killer breafast and made to order omelets. The best! Having a giant breakfast each day contributed to same major glutteny by the end of the trip. Did I mention that I had to start Weight Watchers again today, just to recover. It was worth it though!

Finally, I have to give a huge Shout Out to my mother-in-law Jan for watching the kids for the week!! The kids had a great time and Jeremy and I really appreciate it!!! Thanks so much Jan!

Chicago- Day 3

2008-09-22T19:42:00.000-07:00

In the morning we went to the Hancock Observatory, one of the tallest buildings in Chicago. (I guess I forgot to take a pic there)

We did some more shopping, had lunch (again outside) and then rented a tandem bike for the afternoon. I thought it would be fun to try to ride tandem, but never again! Soon after leaving the bike store I wanted to go back and swith to singles, but I decided to stick it out. I did get more used to it as the day went on.

Chicago has 19 miles of uninterrupted coastline along the Lake front. I never realized how enormous the Great Lakes were. I felt like I was at the ocean, minus the ocean smell. They had some sandy beaches and it was beautiful to look out over the lake and see all the sail boats. This whole scene is what surprised me the most about Chicago. I always just thought of it as some big inland city, but it felt a lot like you were on the coast. I loved it. We rode our bikes up and down along the shoreline and we also rode them to the aquarium. Anyone who knows me well knows that looking at animals is never my favorite past time, but it was a nice aquarium and we had a good time.

Our tandem bike. Don't try it yourself. You've been warned.

We stopped to catch our breath and take a few pics on our bike ride. I'm not sure how far out we rode from the city, but we went aways.
Kissing a turtle at the aquaruim.
We were so full after our week of stuffing our faces that we couldn't even bring ourselves to go eat out that night. We spent our last night in Chicago in our hotel suite, talking about our high school and early dating days, watching a movie and sharing a bag of m&m's. It was probably my favorite night.

Chicago- Day 2

2008-09-22T19:23:00.001-07:00

On Wed. we took an architectural boat tour of downtown Chicago through the Chicago river. This was really neat and informative! It was really interesting to learn about the history and the buildings of this great city. Here are a couple of the pictures from the tour.

After the tour we headed down to the Navy Pier and went on their famous Ferris Wheel. Mr. Ferris invented the Ferris Wheel and built the first one here in Chicago for the World Expo. Of course we had to go on it. It's obviously not the original, but it was modeled to resemble it.
Our self portrait high on top of the wheel looking over the city.

After dinner we headed over to an authentic Italian restaurant. (We had a great concierge at the Embassy Suites. All of her recommendations were right on.) We felt like we were in a movie. Right next to us was a giant Italian family with many of the members looking like they were straight from the Maffia. The were loud and boisterous and of course knew the owners of the restaurant, who looked like they were members of the Maffia themselves. It was pretty fun and entertaining. Thankfully the concierge got us reservations or we would've had to wait 3 hours to eat. Yikes!

Chicago trip- Day 1

2008-09-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

On our first full day in Chicago (Tues), we walked down to Millenial Park (sp?) to check out the famous bean sculpture. It's pretty cool because you can see yourself and the city reflected in it.

Jeremy in front of the bean and below is a picture I took of our reflection on the bean.
Here we are at the park.
After walking around the park we ate at a cute outdoor cafe in the park plaza. The weather was perfect, sunny, mid 70's, so we thoroughly enjoyed eating outside. It was a nice break from the Texas heat.
After lunch we did some shopping and then went back to the hotel to get ready to go see "Wicked". We basically had to beg to get in because our tickets were no good. I accidently bought them for the week before we were even in Chicago! Yikes! Thankfully, after looking us up and down and sizing us up, the theater manager let us in. I enjoyed the show a lot, but it wasn't one of Jeremy's favorites.
"Wicked" was actually showing at the Majestic Theater, but we couldn't pass up the chance to take a picture in front of the Chicago theater.

Caden wrote a poem about the sun

2008-09-21T18:12:00.000-07:00

Hey fam, Caden wrote a poem about the sun today that I posted on his blog. Check it out when you get a chance. This kid is so random and too funny. The things he comes up with.

It was time

2008-09-17T20:05:00.001-07:00

I love to keep my children in their cribs as long as I can, but seeing that Cooper is turning 3 next month we decided it was finally time to make the move to a big boy bed. Cooper has also been using a binky every day for naps and bedtime and we knew that it was also time to give up the binky habit. So here's what we did to try to make these events happen easily.

I wanted to make it a great big event for Cooper, kind of like a right of passage. So first he and Jeremy took down the crib. Then they set up the new toddler bed that I'd previously bought at a garage sale for $5! You gotta love a deal. After dinner, the whole family went down to Toys R Us and we let Cooper pick out the bedding for his new big boy bed. We got home and made the bed with his new Handy Mandy bedding (maybe I shouldn't have let him pick it out,hmm) and then it was time to get ready for bed. (By this point Cooper was very excited about his new bed, but we still had the binky issue to deal with.) So after stories, prayers, etc. we explained to Cooper about the binky fairy!!

Never heard of the binky fairy? Well, here's how the Binky Fairy works. First, you write a letter to the Binky Fairy letting her know that you're a big boy now and it's ok for her to give your binky to someone who really needs it. Then you put the letter and the binky in an envelope, seal it, and put it in your mailbox. In the morning, you go to the mail box and the Binky Fairy will have taken your binky and left you a gift in it's place.

It worked like magic! Cooper was so excited to mail his binky to the Binky Fairy and get his gift that he didn't even bat an eye that night. He went straight to bed with no tears and never once got out of his bed! In the morning he was thrilled when the Binky Fairy left him a Thomas the Train lantern that we could use in his new bed to have some light while he looked at books and played in his bed.

Cooper did have a relapse the next day at nap time and cried because he wanted his crib. He also cried a little that night for his crib again. The next day at nap time he told me wanted the Binky Fairy to come back and bring him his binky. However, after I reexplained that the Fairy had already given it to another baby, he let it go. That was the last of the crib and binky talk. He's been crib and binky free a few days now and doesn't speak of it anymore. Thank you Super Nanny for the Binky Fairy idea. It worked like a charm!

Getting the bed ready

Here's Cooper taking his letter to the Binky Fairy out to the mail box.
I'm allready! I'm a big boy now!

Cooper started preschool

2008-09-17T20:05:00.000-07:00

Although Cooper is still only 2, we decided to enroll him in preschool one day a week. He was nervous at first, but as soon as he got to his classroom he was thrilled and was off playing. It has been a good choice for him and for mom!
Here he is with his Cars back pack off to his first day of preschool. Yeah Cooper!

Cody's allergies and 1st Day of school

2008-08-25T18:27:00.000-07:00

We just found out this week that Cody is allergic to wheat, eggs, and peanuts. We feel bad for him, but we're hopeful that he'll at least out grow some of it. For now, I'm struggling with trying to figure out what to feed an 11 month old that only has 2 teeth and is allergic to half of the main food ingredients! It's amazing how much wheat is in food. Even some brands of ice cream have wheat! Who would of thought. And of course, Cody isn't old enough for dairy yet anyway. Anyone who has postive stories about kids outgrowing these allergies or good wheat & egg free recipes, please, feel free to share them.

I thought I'd add some pics of our cute Cody because it's been awhile since I've posted any. Cody turned 11 months old this week and is so much fun. He's the happiest baby and loves to smile at everyone. We love you, Cody!

Cody trying to eat the camera

Cody walking with his walker- Go Cody!
Cody has this crazy out of control hair right now that sticks up all over. He gets compliments or comments everywhere we go. Jeremy wants to cut it, but I think it's so much fun. You're only a baby once!!
Caden had his first day of school today. I can't believe he's already in 2nd grade! I was surprised at how much I missed him today, but he had a great first day of school and is excited for the new year.
The typical 2nd grade smile- no front teeth. You gotta love it!!

Now that school is back in, Cooper and I are back to our typical morning routine. We drop Caden at school and then it's off to McDonalds for a Diet Coke and a chocolate milk. I had to take a picture of Cooper to capture the moment and also so he wouldn't feel left out.

Times have been good!

2008-08-21T19:33:00.000-07:00

There are times when I'm absolutely in love with Jeremy's job at Net Jets. How many jobs can you work only 2 out of 8 weeks and be paid a full 2 months salary for it? Not many, but a pilot at Net Jets can.

How did he manage that? It'll take too long to explain all the details, but basically a 3 day stint of Jury duty and taking one week vacation will give Jeremy 6 weeks off total between August and Sept.

What have we been doing with all this wonderful family time? (Obviously not blogging! haha) Let's see, Jeremy and I spent a week in Glendale,AZ taking real estate classes to assist us in launching our new real estate investment business, Aitre Investments! (Thanks mom for watching the kids!!) We've looked at lots of properties and have made many phone calls. We've gone swimming, bowling, to Gatti town pizza, the temple, movies, played lots of games and launched Caden's rocket several times. That's just the first 2 1/2 weeks. His time off in September will have Jeremy and I heading off for another adult only vacation to Chicago! This one is all play and no work, and we have Jeremy's mom, Jan, coming out to watch the kids this time (Thanks Jan!!) This trip is in honor of our 10th anniversary and my 3oth birthday that both happened last summer. (I was 8 months prego last Aug. and wasn't about to go any where.)

Now before you get too excited and think that I'm getting a little braggy, just remember that I spent Christmas, Easter, and was supposed to spend the 4th of July alone with 3 kids! Jeremy also leaves for a week at a time and 3 kids for 7 days with no break, can be extremely hard!

However, when being a pilot is good, it's really good!! I'm very grateful that Jeremy has such a great job with Net Jets. I'm especially impressed that Jeremy has stuck it out through some really crappy flying jobs in the past, to get us where we are today. Thanks you for being such a hard worker, Jeremy, and for never giving up on your goals. I love you J and I love Net Jets!

Let your light shine forth

2008-08-12T19:28:00.000-07:00

This post is tell all my family to check out Caden's blog for the new post entitled "Let your light shine forth" since I know many of you don't check his blog very often.

A very neat experience happened today at the mall with Caden and I think you'll enjoy reading about it.

4th of July surprise

2008-07-14T19:24:00.000-07:00

Cody's first 4th of July and first firework show

Cooper with his friends, Maddy and Macy
So I know this post is way belated, but hey, my life has been crazy these past couple of months. I actually wrote this post a few weeks ago, but saved it because I needed to add the pics. I've finally added some pics so here's saved post:

I was gearing up to spend another holiday alone when we got a special surprise. There was a knock on the door, Thursday, July 3rd, and when we opened it up there was Jeremy! He was supposed to be working on the 4th and Net Jets sent him home 2 whole days early!! Everyone was so excited. We could've stayed home all day and it would've been great because we were all together as a family.

We started out the day going to IHOP for breakfast. Then we met up with the Goodwins at the new Frisco Athletic center for swimming, waterslides and the lazy river. (I was bummed I didn't bring my camera because there would've been some great photo opps.) After swimming all day we headed home for dinner and met up with the Goodwins again for dessert and fireworks. We love the Goodwins! It was perfect company for a perfect day!

I love this country and I love this holiday. I can say that I am trully proud to be an American!

70's Disco party

2008-07-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago I was talking to my friend Emily and said we should have a joint birthday party. Our birthdays are only a week apart and we thought it would be fun to celebrate together. We decided on a 70's theme because that's the decade we were both born. Our husbands were in charge of throwing it, but, of course, they needed some help from their lovely wives. As Jeremy put it, "[we] basically just wanted an excuse to throw a party". Here's how the night went down:

First ,there was the decorations, food, decor, and party favors.

The picture of the cake is for my mother-in-law especially. She loves cake and this one was fabulous! We ordered it from a place called "The Cake Stand".

We set up a disco background to take pictures in. We had a lot of fun with this.

We couldn't forget the party favors. Emily did a great job with these. She stamped the boxes with the smiley face from the 70's and filled them with yummy brownies. (Sorry Em I couldn't help out more with these. The party took place right in the middle of my crazy swim lesson season.)

Next it was time for the guests to arrive in their groovy 70's attire. I have the best friends! Not only are they so much fun and so talented, but everyone was such a good sport about dressing up! We especially all had fun shopping beforehand looking for outfits. Only the Jenkins couldn't dress up because she was deathly ill for the 2 weeks prior to the party.

My friend and party partner, Emily Goodwin, with her hubby, Randy. I realized after the party that I didn't get a pic of just Emily and I. So sad!

I don't love mine and J's couple pics, but it's the best we got that night.

Steph and Dan Read Michael and Rebecca Lee Angela and Kurt LaCroix

Rob and Melissa Miles Audrey and John Erickson

Adrien and Matt Jenkins

Bruce and Misti Hendren

The whole gang

Finally, it was time to party. We played a 70s celebrity game when everyone first arrived. It made me feel very old. A lot of my friends were born in the early 80's and some of them had never seen Star Wars, Grease and Sound of Music! I thought everyone had seen those.

We danced and took fun pictures (the women were into it way more than the guys).

We ended the night playing the Newlywed Game and police and Maffia. The Lees got every questions correct on the Newlywed Game! They were, of course, the winners and I must say it was very impressive. The prize was a CD of Donny Osmond singing love songs from the 70's! Unfortunately, there had to be a loser and the Erickson's lost and received their booby prize. It was a book entitled, "Is communication a problem in your marriage?" Emily found that one. I thought it was a great prize.

Here's some fun pictures from the night:

I just thought this was a funny pic of Misti and Em

I just wanted to give a huge shout out to Emily! She hosted the party at her house and put a lot of work and effort into it. It was sooo fun planning this party with you and I feel extremely blessed to have you as a friend! Happy Birthday, Em!

Cooper loves treats

2008-06-20T20:50:00.000-07:00

My friend, Julie, sent me this pictures of Cooper from his friend, Avin's, birthday party. I thought they were so cute so I'd post them.

Thanks Julie for the pic and Angela for the great birthday party. We had a lot of fun!

It's official

2008-06-20T20:44:00.000-07:00

Cody did his first official crawl. No army crawl or scoot/pull thing. He was on his hands and knees doing a full blown crawl. Go Cody! It was almost on his exact 9 month birthday. He turns 9 months old tomorrow. Time flys when you're having fun!

Caden's 7th birthday party

2008-06-18T20:27:00.000-07:00

So I'm about 2 weeks behind on all my blogging. What can I say? It's swim lesson season and my life is crazy right now.

A couple of weeks ago we threw Caden a big 7th birthday party. We had 14 boys there total with a few siblings thrown in. Needless to say it was a little crazy, but lots of fun! Caden said the party went by too fast because they were having so much fun.

Caden chose a fish theme party in honor of his pet fish Finney and because it was a waterslide party. We set up the waterslide that Caden got for his birthday, gave all the boys water guns, threw some beach balls in the trampoline, turned on Beach Boy music, and let them go at it! All in all, I'd say the party was a success.

I thought Sam's Club did a great job with the cake. It was a chocolate mouse filling with Cool Whip frosting. Yum!
We even fit in time for a fish pinata. Go Cooper!

We had juice boxes, gold fish crackers, and fish eggs (grapes) set out for the kids to munch on while they played.

I can't believe Caden is 7 already! He's a great kid and we feel so lucky to be his parents. Caden has a very sweet spirit. He's our deep thinker and very well mannered. He's a great first child and sets such a wonderful example for his younger brothers. We love you, Caden! Happy Birthday, Bud!

California trip- final part

2008-06-16T20:03:00.000-07:00

On Sat. and Sunday was Dustin's (Jeremy's brother) open house and farewell. Dustin's going to school on a music scholarship and is an awesome guitarist. He treated everyone to a night of great music and it really made for a fun open house. Dustin also did a great job speaking in church. We'll miss him, but we know he'll be a great missionary! Good luck!

Sunday evening we flew home. We had a great time in California even with the bad weather. It was fun to see so many old friends and family. We can't wait until we can go again!

ps. I have no idea why this set of pics are so blurry! Ahhh! Maybe I do need a better camera?
Dustin with his nephews and one second cousin.
(I told y'all, boys run in Jeremy's family.)
Jeremy with 2 of his brothers
Dustin showing off his guitar skills to his cousin, Paige, and her husband
Cody and Grandma Jan
Caden with his cousins

Save money now!

2008-06-13T11:32:00.000-07:00

I'm interrupting my California trip to write a quick post. I'm in the midst of my crazy swim lesson month and haven't even had a moment to go grocery shopping. Therefore, Jeremy took the boys shopping to get a few essential items.

Now listen to this. In addition to the million comments he got from strangers about what a great Dad he is, he's so wonderful, I can't believe you could take all these boys out on your own, etc. the grocery checker actually gave him $10 OFF his groceries for shopping with his own children!

Where's my accolades when I take my boys all by myself? Where's my $10 off for being a wonderful mom! Unfortunately moms we don't get the same treatment. But that's ok because now I have the excuse to have Jeremy go shopping more so we can save money! Who needs to clip coupons when our husbands can go and save money instead.

In fairness to Jeremy and in honor of Father's Day coming up around the corner, Jeremy is an awesome Dad!! He does deserve all the compliments, accolades, and discounts he can get. He helps me out so much around the house and with the boys. He's very capable with our kids and I know I can always leave them with their Dad and they'll be well cared for. He's a very attentive Dad, always ready to listen to Caden's stories, wrestle with Cooper, and change Cody's diaper. In addition to being a great Dad, he's a wonderful husband, partner and friend. I'm so grateful to have him my life and grateful that he chose me to spend his life with.

Happy Father's Day Jeremy to you and all the great Dads out there. You all deserve $10 off at the grocery store in my book!

California trip- part 2

2008-06-09T19:21:00.000-07:00

On Day 4 it was yucky, cold, and drizzling yet again, but we were leaving the next day to go home so we decided to head down to the beach anyways. We planned on at least playing in the sand, taking a few pics, and watching the surf. We headed out in our jeans and sweatshirts and when we got down to the beach it was clear and beautiful! Jeremy's parents live less than 10 miles from the ocean, but obviously a few miles can make a big difference!

Although we were happy that is was a gorgeous afternoon, we were bummed because we weren't prepared for it. We had no swim suits, towels, sunscreen, and little time. (We'd waited till the last minute to head out to the beach, hoping that the weather would clear up.) Dustin had his open house that night so we were only able to stay at the beach for about an hour and half. It was a wonderful hour and half though, and it made us miss SoCal.

So without swim suits, we rolled up the boys pants and let them go for it. After just a few minutes Cooper was PWT-ing it. He got too close to a wave and got soaked. Cooper hates wearing wet clothes and immediately took them off. Therefore, he ran around most of the hour in just a diaper. Oh well, he's little and we didn't know anyone there.

Just as we were leaving the clouds started rolling in. I was glad we got to enjoy a little bit of the nice California weather that I remember and love.

Cody seemed to enjoy the sand

California trip- part 1

2008-06-07T10:30:00.000-07:00

We went to California the week of Memorial Day for Jeremy's brother's farewell. We hadn't been back to California since we moved to Texas so it was very nice to go back. We had a great time, but the weather was pretty awful. We had one day of partial sun and the rest of the time it was cloudy, cold, and rainy. (It hardly ever rains in SoCal and we had 2 days of it!! What gives?)

The first day we hung out with the grandparents and Caden got to ride his grandpa's new motorcyle. He loved it!! He kept telling his grandpa to go faster and faster. We also went with Dustin to the temple that evening. It was a great session and we were so happy for him.

The second day we went to Disneyland, supposedly the happiest place on earth. That was not the case for us. The morning forecast said to expect a partly sunnyday with cool temps and no rain. So we each packed a sweat shirt and were off. The morning started off ok, but after lunch we started feeling raindrops that turned into a torrential downpour that lasted the rest of the day. This was also the day that SoCal had a freak tornado. (When does CA ever have tornadoes?) We had no umbrellas, rain jackets or anything. We bought disney ponchos for the kids and tried to have as much fun as possible going on rides with rain pouring down on you. Definelty, not the happiest place on earth that day.

Luckily we got in free that day because Jeremy's cousins work for Disneyland. Thanks sooo much guys!!!

Caden on grandpa's bike
Caden talked Grandma Jan into buying Mickey ears for them. Thanks Jan!

Riding in the pouring rain with Cooper

Jeremy's awesome cousin, Leslie, and her husband who got us in for free!

Cooper fell on the rocks in his grandparents backyard and scraped up his nose. Poor kid, he's always getting injured!

Cody's pulling up

2008-06-04T18:10:00.000-07:00

Cody's started pulling up and being a scooter bug. He's not really crawling yet, but he scoots around on his tummy by pulling with his arm and pushing with his legs. So cute! I'll try to get some pics later.

I did it!!

2008-06-04T18:03:00.000-07:00

I've officially lost all of my baby weight now! Yeah, go me! I've lost 15lbs since I started dieting and 36 or 37 lbs since the night before the baby was born. I'm thinking of maybe trying to lose 5 more, but it won't be until after the swim lesson season. I start swim lessons on Monday and I'm working M-F, morning and afternoon, through June and the beginning of July! Don't expect too much blogging from me this month and wish me luck.

Memorial Day BBQ

2008-05-29T19:32:00.000-07:00

So I'm going a little out of order here. I don't have time yet to post about our trip to CA so I'm going to post about our Memorial Day BBQ.

It was a blast! We got together with the Reads, Miles, Hendrens, LaCroixs, Cranes, Lees, Goodwins, & Shearers(friends of the Reads) at the LaCroix's house for a good old fashioned BBQ. The day was full of feeding horses, watersliding, horshoeing, waterfights, billards, lots of kids, great food, and awesome friends! I can't wait to do it again.

I feel blessed to have such great friends here in Texas! You guys rock! They sure do know how to have fun here. Thanks guys for keeping me laughing and my social calendar filled.

Steph let her camera be the community camera and we ended up with over 300 photos from that day. Here are some of the hightlights. Thanks Steph for sending them out to everyone.

Steph and Misti stared a water fight that ended with Cody being the major casualty. Kurt turned on the sprinklers to get everyone back and it turned out that Cody was sound asleep right next to the sprinkler. Poor guy. He was soaking wet and wide awake now.

Misti and Bruce. One of the organizers and water fight instigators. Thanks for organizing it!
Jeremy, Rebecca, Melis, and Misti

The food was excellent and apparently someone was having fun taking pictures of everyone eating.
Angela LaCroix- the host. Thanks for having it at your house!

Caden got a waterslide for his birthday. Since it was his birthday on Memorial Day we just had to bring it along. ALL the kids had so much fun on it! Thanks to both set of grandparents for chipping in to get this great gift!
I love this picture because for anyone that knows Caden well, this is classic Caden. He's trying to dodge the water spray. Caden has never liked any water spraying on his face and head.

Kurt and Jeremy playing football. Nice throw J!

The LaCroix's house backs up to a farm. The horses sometimes come around so Misti and Angela had apples and carrots cut and ready to feed the horses should they make an appearance. Lucky for us they did! Steph, Me and Angela cutting some Melon.

Cody is the best baby. He sat on the grass for a long time, just chillin and soaking it all in. We love you Cody!

Cody's photo shoot

2008-05-27T22:08:00.001-07:00

My friend Emily has a great camera and agreed to take some killer pictures of Cody for me. I've had all my kids pictures taken at 6 months, but with all of Cody's health fiascos we didn't get these taken until he was 7 months old. Oh well. I thought I'd share some of my favorites. Thanks Emily! You did a great job!

Mother's Day

2008-05-16T20:07:00.000-07:00

I had a great Mother's Day.! Jeremy always does a great job of basically giving me the day off. He woke up with the kids, made us all breakfast, got the kids ready for church, kept Cody for me during Relief Society so I could enjoy the great lesson we had, did the dinner, and got the kids ready for bed. ( I may have helped with putting the kids to bed. I can't remember, but all in all he did most everything!) It was a great day.

My Dad always got my mom a corsage to wear to church on Mother's Day. I loved that tradition (call me old fashioned) so Jeremy has kept the tradition alive. This year he got me a beautiful corsage with yellow roses. (Sorry the picture isn't so great.)

I also got some makeup, cards from Jeremy and the boys, and lots and lots of kisses and hugs.

I love Mother's Day and I'm also grateful to have a wonderful mother and mother-in-law in my life!

Grandparent-less

2008-05-16T19:59:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago, I found out that my step-grandpa (we weren't very close) passed away and I am now officially grandparent-less. I had 4 grandparents and 2 step-grandparents and now they have all passed on. It is really sad to think that I don’t have anymore grandparents to visit on my side and it makes me feel old. I liked when I was younger and had never attended any funerals. It is sad to say that is no longer the case.

Tagged

2008-05-15T18:35:00.000-07:00

A. Post the Rules

B. Answer all the questions about yourself

C. After you are done posting, tag 5 people.

1) What I was doing ten years ago: I was a newlywed, attending BYU studying to be a middle/high school teacher, and waiting tables at Wingers restaurant in Orem.

2) 5 Things on my 'To Do' list today:The day is about over, but these are the things I did today: Watched my friend, Emily's, little girl while she had an appt. and after we tried to plan our upcoming 70's party bash but our kids were going crazy and we got nothing done, emailed swim lesson clients, filled out Caden's birthday party invitations, had Caden's friend, Ben, over after school, dragged all 3 kids to baseball practice that lasted 1hour 20 min (way too long) and wrote a few posts (because I'm way behind) after tubs, homework, and stories. Today was also my exercise day- no wonder I wasn't able to fit it in.

3) Snacks I enjoy: Lately I've been having low cal rice pudding made with splenda, light popcorn, light string cheese and lots and lots of baby carrots. Can you tell I'm still dieting?

4) What would I do if I were suddenly a billionaire: Pay off all debt, buy a house in cash, help others, and travel to every continent except Antarctica.

5) 3 Bad Habits: Worry way too much about everything, stay up too late at night and then I'm too tired in the morning to wake up, Have a hard time saying thank you when I recieve compliments. I usually say nothing and act like I didn't hear it or change the subject. I hate that I do this and I'm trying to be better about it.

6) 5 Places I've Lived: California, Utah, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Texas

7) 5 Jobs I've Had: swim teacher, waitress, water aerobic instructor, school teacher. That's it. I've never had any other types of jobs.

8) 5 Things People Don't Know About Me:I feel like I share everything and I usually share too much but I'll try to think of a few things: 1. I don't cry easily (or at least before having kids. It's much easier now for me to cry.) I made myself start crying at the testimony meeting my first year of girls camp. Everyone was crying and I thought something was wrong with me for not crying so I made myself cry. 2. I hate peanut butter- always have and always will. As a child I thought it was rude not to eat everything that was given me on my plate when I was at a friends house. One time my friend's mom made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich. I didn't want to be rude so I started to eat it but I couldn't finish it. I started crying and gagging because it was making me so sick to eat it. My friend, Allison, went and told her mom what was happening and her mom said it was ok if I didn't eat it. She then proceeded to make me another sandwhich and I felt so much better. 3. I love sports- so much so that in elementary school I used to check out books about sports I didn't know how to play and then teach myself how to play them. 4. I almost won "most stressed out" in my year book my senior year. There was a run off vote between Samantha and I and she won. I guess people could tell that I was a little overwhelmed with playing 3 sports, being a class officer, being involved in 2 clubs at school, taking AP classes and having church activites on top of that. 5. I've shared enough already.

I tag anyone who wants to do this.

Cooper's gym class and date with mom

2008-05-15T12:40:00.001-07:00

Cooper's been in a gym class for 2 year olds the last few weeks and last Thursday was his last class. As luck would have it, Jeremy was home and Cooper and I got to go to his gym class without Cody for the first time. I decided to make a date of it. After taking pictures with all our new friends in the class, Cooper and I decided to head off to McDonalds for drinks and playing. It was too early for lunch so I ordered my usual Diet Coke and Cooper got his usual chocolate milk. We drank our drinks, visited with the cute, little girl in the booth next to ours, and then went off to the play area. I actually climbed all through the kids play tubes (I hate those things. They're always sticky, gross, and it hurts my knees to climb through it all) and went down the slide. We played the video games they have there and ended our outing with a self portrait. It was a good morning and I was grateful to have that time to spend with Cooper. Caden was the only child for so long and got lots of special outings with just mom. I'm glad Cooper was finally able to have his turn! Thanks Jeremy for keeping Cody!

Cooper with the rest of his class. He's sitting on his teacher's lap. The other boys in the class were lots of fun!

I guess I was wrong- I thought Cooper got chocolate milk, but he must have taken a break and got a soda instead. We love our drinks!

How's this pic for holding the camera myself?

Mastositoma

2008-05-02T11:16:00.000-07:00

Mastositoma (sp?) is what Cody had. Basically, a mastositoma is a benign tumor. It's not a problem unless he keeps getting more, but the doctor said that would be very rare. We don't need to do anything now except check his body periodically for more mastositomas and let his stitches heal. Pretty soon he'll be as good as new. Poor guy, on top of the surgery and stitches he had an ear infection and I'm pretty sure is teething. Cody has been such a trooper though. It's hardly seemed to affect him except at night - he's been waking up several times. He's one tough boy!

It feels sooo good to FINALLY have the results. Thanks to everyone that prayed for him and kept us in your thoughts!! I know it truly helped and I'm sooo grateful that everything is OK. I'm plenty happy now to go back to my uneventful life. One appreciates monotony after 2 weeks like this. I love you all and feel so blessed to have such a wonderful support group of family, friends, and neighbors in my life!

3rd Cody update

2008-05-01T12:38:00.001-07:00

We STILL don't know! I called the doctor again today and he said when it's taking longer to get the results it's because they're running more tests to rule things out. He said that doesn't mean it's good or bad and he said he wouldn't worry. Of course, I started worrying, crying, freaking out, you name it. So I called Jeremy- 30 sec. convo, he had passengers and was taking off (of course). I then called my dad, who's a podiatrist for those who don't know, told him what the doctor said and asked his opinion. He agreed with the surgeon. He said usually when it's cancer they know right away so he thought that was a good sign. He explained that they most likely don't know what it is so they're trying to figure it out before they call the doctor. That made me feel a little better. It's very nice to have a doctor in the family who can further explain things and knows how all this all works. So basically, it's still a waiting game. I'm trying to keep busy and not think about it. I REALLY hope to find out soon. All this waiting is very tiring and taking a toll on me. I'll post as soon as I find out.

Jeremy said I need to add some photos and that there's been too much writing. I tried to take a picture of Cody's stitches, but my camera isn't very good and couldn't zoom in and focus enough to get a picture of it. Therefore, I just took a quick picture of Cody to include. He's doing great! The stitches don't seem to bother him a bit.

Cody 2nd update

2008-04-30T18:11:00.000-07:00

The lab at the hospital is running about a day behind so we won't be getting the results until tomorrow. Hopefully, it'll be good news!

cody update

2008-04-28T13:02:00.000-07:00

The surgery went very well. It only lasted 8 minutes- sooo quick- and Cody was awake again in no time. He's recovering well and doesn't seem to be too bothered from the whole thing. The surgeon said we should find out the results tomorrow or Wed. Wish us luck!

Pray for Cody

2008-04-25T19:42:00.000-07:00

Cody is going under the knife (literally) this coming Monday morning. He's having a biopsy done on a mole on his head. Twice the mole has swelled up like a water blister and then scabbed over. The doctor thinks it's probably benign (spelling?), but wants to have a biopsy done just to make sure because moles shouldn't blister and scab. Because of Cody's age, they have to put him under in order to perform the biopsy. He's having the procedure done at the hospital Monday morning at 7:30 am. The surgeon said we'll probably get the results of the biopsy on Wed. unless they find something unusual.

I think everything will be fine, but if you could remember Cody in your prayers that would be great! I'll post again on Monday and write how the procedure went.

Unplugged

2008-04-24T19:07:00.000-07:00

We did it! We took the Oprah challenge (with minor alterations) and we went one week with no t.v., computer, or video games except for one hour of t.v. a day. It was a little tough, but it went amazingly well. We had all gotten in the habit of relying too much on technology for our entertainment so I decided we needed to go on detox and go dark for one week. The results of being unplugged- Fantastic! Cooper had the biggest change. He used to throw 5 minute tantrums every time we turned off the t.v. Now when his hour is up he simply goes and turns off the t.v without complaint. It's wonderful! Down side- I can't get anything done. Cooper is not an independent player. He constantly wants to be played with or else he turns into destructo boy and gets into and destroys EVERYTHING in the house. I'm hoping he'll get better in the future with more practice. I plan to allow Caden some computer and video game time now, but I'm going to try to keep all technology at a minimum. Going unplugged has been great for the family dynamics and I'd encourage everyone to give it a try. It's amazingly harder than it seems (especially when you give up checking blogs for a week)!

Shout out to my neighbors!

2008-04-20T19:08:00.000-07:00

I feel so lucky to have the best neighbors here in TX! We've always had great neighbors, but they have been exceptional here in Texas!! I think the Lord had a hand in us being in this house because I have the perfect support team here with my neighbors. I have relied on their help so much since having Cody and it has been such a blessing. I have my friend and neighbor Michelle, who has 3 kids. One is Caden's age and a great playmate. One is a little older than Cooper, but they still have fun playing. Michelle's oldest, is a girl in 5th grade and is such helper with the kids. She looks out for them all and I've left her in my house a few times when Cooper's napping so I can run errands in peace. Michelle picks up Caden from school for me all the time and we talk almost everyday. She is one of my closest friends here in Texas and I love her to death.

Next, I have my neighbors across the street, The Hensens. They have 2 boys ages 16 and 11. The oldest babysits for Caden and Cooper all the time and they are constantly inviting us over for dinner especially when Jeremy's gone. They're always good about checking up on me and their boys have helped me many times with "manly" kinds of jobs I need done while Jeremy is away.

I have Norma, who's now moved to another neighborhood, but she's a stay at home grandma who's raising her 2 grandsons. She frequently invites me over to lunch, offers to babysit Cody while I take Copper to the library, sewed me some new couch pillows (that I desperately needed), and had us over for Easter dinner.

Last but not least is my next door neighbor, Barbara. She's a divorced, retired grandmother with the sweetest dog that my boys just adore! She is soo good to Caden and absolutely loves Cody. When I had both my breast infections and was so sick with the stomach flu that I couldn't even get out of bed she came to my rescue and took the boys so I could get some much needed R&R. I honestly don't think I could've made it through some of those days without her. She playes games with them, tells them stories, and brings over treats on occasion. My boys real grandmas live far away and Barbara is the closest thing to a grandma that the boys have here.

Today, Barbara and her boyfriend were painting the fence when Caden asked if he could help paint. They were so kind and patient and let both Caden and Cooper help them paint the fence. Obviously the task was going much slower with them helping, but they didn't even seem to mind. Barbara told them stories about when she was young and about her own children when they were little. It was a very pleasant and enjoyable afternoon. The picture below is of Barbara and Caden painting the fence. Cooper was bored of it by the time I thought about taking the picture. I decided to write this post because I felt I would be ungrateful if I didn't publically thank my Heavely Father for blessing me with these wonderful neighbors. I love them all and feel so blessed!
Caden and my neighbor, Barbara

Player of the Game!

2008-04-19T18:33:00.000-07:00

Caden was soo excited last Wed. because he was the player of the game and got to keep the game ball! He had a great game with good fielding on first base and 3 hits with 2 being hit from the coaches pitch instead of the tee. It's been a great season for Caden and he keeps getting better and better. Tonight he played catcher and got a lot of practice catching balls. Caden is enjoying baseball much more than he did soccer and we're all having fun going to the games. I'm looking forward to going to all my boys games in the future.

Philip & Jan came to visit!

2008-04-14T19:01:00.000-07:00

Jeremy's parents came to visit this past weekend from California and we had a great time! We started the weekend off with IHOP for breakfast. Yum! Next it was a movie for the boys, "Dr. Horton hears a Who", and shopping for the girls (always fun)! After that we went to Caden's baseball game. He's on the Atlanta Braves this year and seems to be enjoying it. The weather was great and Cooper and Cody were very well behaved. Yeah! That night we attended an Arena Football game of the Dallas Desperados. Philip's second cousin is the quaterback for the team and got us some free tickets. It was my first arena football game ever and it was a lot fun! We plan on going to some more games in the future. The next day was Sunday so we went to church and had fun hanging out and playing with the kids. We finished off the weekend by heading over to Gatti Town for some good food and games before Jan and Philip left on Monday afternoon to head back to California. We love when they come to visit and are always sad to see them go. Thanks for making the trek out here and for all the food, gifts, donuts, and fun! The kids especially love seeing and hanging out with their grandparents!

Baseball Fun!

Unfortunately, we had to bring Cody with us to the game, but he did very well especially considering how loud it was with all the cheering.

Philip & Jan (Jeremy's parents)

We love our grandparents!!

Caden lost his front tooth while they were here. It fell out at Chili's eating dessert and he was very excited!!
Cody with his grandparents at Gatti Town. Our last outing before they left to go home.

THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES!

A few words

2008-04-04T19:57:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to let y'all (see, I'm becoming texanized) know that I mainly only blog when Jeremy is gone. That's why there's usually lots of posts one week and then none the following week. I have lots of planned posts for this week, but we'll see if I have time to post them all. Stay tuned.

Also, I wanted to say Congrats to Jeremy's bro, Dustin. He just got his mission call to Peoria, Illinois. My old college roommate, Sheri, lives there, but she's moving this May to San Diego and Dustin leave on his mission in May. What are the odds? Way to go, Dustin. We're excited for you!

Finally, I wanted to take a moment and give myself a few light snaps. I started weight watchers about 5 1/2 weeks ago and I've already lost 9 lbs. Yeah for me! The bummer is that I still have 6 more pounds to go until I've lost all of the baby weight, but that sounds much better than 15! I'll keep you posted. I'll be giving myself some major snaps after I reach my goal. I may have to post some pics soon after the nasty fat ones from Canton. Why did I include that nasty pic with my gut hanging out? Oh well! It'll be my "before" picture.

Cody at 6 months eating cereal

2008-04-04T19:26:00.000-07:00

Cody is 6 months now and just started eating rice cereal! He loves it so I thought I'd get a few pics to celebrate the moment. We've also discovered that Cody's eczema was mainly caused by a food allergy. As soon as I quit nursing, the eczema that he had for over 2 months all went away! It really was amazing! It's been gone now for a few weeks and Cody is sooo much happier. Now we just have to discover which food triggered it. I've narrowed it down to wheat or eggs and we're leaning towards wheat. Twice we've let Cody try to pick up Cheerios for practice and each time he was successful at eating some. Each time he had eczema pop up all over his body again the next day. We've of course decided no more Cheerios for him! We're hoping he'll out grow it. The dr. said to give him only fruits and veggies for the first year. Yikes! No fun finger pick up foods for him. Oh well!

Cooper was easy today!

2008-04-04T18:44:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day I can remember in months that Cooper actually turned off the tv in the morning without throwing a tantrum! He also got in the car easily and happily which usually never happens either. He was great at the grocery store as well and listened and obeyed. Where did my Cooper go? Maybe a new child took over his body! Either way it was sooo nice and I'm hoping to see much more of this new Cooper. Way to go, Cooper!

McDowell Look-alike Meter

2008-04-01T15:14:00.001-07:00

The results are in on who my boys most look like according to My Heritage digital facial scan.
Do you agree?

ps. Sorry none of the pics posted very clear on this. It was clear on the actual site during the scan.

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celeb - Collage - Morph

McDowell Look-alike Meter

2008-04-01T15:10:00.001-07:00

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph