Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Funny, huh? I bought the hat for Dave so that he would be nice and festive for St. Patty's Day. He trains a class of people for 10 weeks and he is right in the middle of it now. I thought his class would appreciate a laugh! I was surprised he wore it so willingly, but he is usually open to getting a laugh at his expense!

Also wanted to say Happy Birthday to my cute little nephew, Braylon, who turns 1 today!



We all tried to get them to give him the middle name of "Patrick", but crazily enough, they said no. Anyway, happy birthday, handsome!


One more thing...we all have a cupboard like this at one time or another, right?



Okay, maybe it is only me, but I like to believe that we all do. So, just humor me!! But, I finally got this cleaned out. I just kept shoving things in and not getting the empty boxes thrown out. It was quite embarrassing. So....here is the final product!



Better, huh?

Our weekend adventure

We survived our trip to Salt Lake and had a lot of fun. Nothing too crazy happened, we had good weather, and the kids loved our activities. Success!

Friday night we picked Dave up from work and headed out of town. We stopped in Pocatello to eat dinner at Butterber's. It was okay, and took us a long time. But, we finally got on the road again and made it to Salt Lake about 9:00. We stayed at the Embassy Suites. Very nice. Each room is a suite and so we had a living room and a separate bedroom. That is so nice when traveling with kids. Plus, in the morning they have a "cook to order" complimentary breakfast. You wait in line and they serve you up whatever you want, and cook your eggs to order. All for free! That is nice, it saved us quite a bit of money.

Saturday morning we got up and headed to Disney on Ice. We didn't tell the kids where we were going until we got there. They were really excited! We got to our seats with about 10 minutes to spare.



Avery wasn't too interested in sitting there with nothing to do and so, of course, there was a bit of drama from the 2 year old.



Once the show began she settled down and seemed to enjoy it. Easton and Paisley hardly took their eyes off the show.



At intermission I sent Dave out to get a lemonade for the kids to share.



The lemonade in the souvenier cup that Easton is holding was quite pricy!! It was $10!!!! That goes to tell you what the prices for things are like once you are at the show. That is the only thing we bought. We have learned our lessons from the 2 previous shows we have been to.

After the show we headed over to a mall to eat lunch and do a little shopping. The kids like to eat at the mall because we let them pick whatever they want to eat. We all ended up getting something different. The shopping was okay, but the kids were tired. We didn't shop too long and decided we had better head back to the hotel for a little rest. Avery fell asleep about 2 minutes into the ride back. Poor girl was exhausted!

After naps, (from Dave and Avery) we headed out. We didn't know what we were going to do. We drove up to the Avenues and looked at some of the cool houses. On our drive we saw the horse carriages you can ride. We decided that it would be pretty fun for the kids to go do that. We finally found a place to park and walked through temple square to get to the carriages. It is always neat to be so close to the beautiful temple. It is so peaceful there.




The carriage that we rode on was pulled by a horse named Charlie.




The kids had quite a bit of fun at first. The weather was really nice. Not bad at all with a jacket on. About 10 minutes into the ride, Easton started complaining about his eyes hurting. He kept rubbing and rubbing them.



We knew that he is allergic to horses, but we didn't think a carriage ride would bother him since he wasn't touching the horse at all. We were wrong. His eyes kept getting worse and worse.



By the end of the ride he was crying and telling us how miserable he was. We made a mental note to never take them on a carriage ride again! :)



Afterwards they did talk about having fun on the ride. Poor Easton. I felt bad for him.

At that point it was almost 7:30, the kids were hungry! So, we ate at a little diner.




Avery was happy as long as Dave would let her feed him. It was really cute.



The next morning was a miracle. We ALL slept in until 9:30! It was sooo nice! (I LOVE the black-out curtains in hotels!!) We really needed that. We took our time getting ready and headed out for our final surprise...Chuck E. Cheese!

The kids were so happy to be going back to Chuck E. Cheese. We got a bunch of tokens and they just played and played.



Avery had a ton of fun, also. She loved riding the rides.




Paisley was nice enough to take time out of her game playing and help Avery play on the toys and go down the slide.





The kids won a lot of tickets and were able to each pick out a couple prizes.



That was it. We were all tired by the time we left. Avery slept for a while on the way home and the kids watched movies. Nice and peaceful, (for the most part!)

We had a great time. I love to get away, even just for the weekend. The kids kept telling us thank you for the fun trip, and that was all that I wanted, for them to have fun.

My sister-in-law told me a quote last night. It said something like, "You won't remember the days, but you will remember the moments." I am so thankful that we had many special "moments" on this trip. We will definately remember those "moments"!

Weekend get-away!!! Yea!!

We are off to Salt Lake! We bought tickets for us all to go see Disney on Ice tomorrow morning. We have been to two other Disney on Ice productions and have loved them. So, this should be another good time.

We are also going to make a stop at Chuck E. Cheese while we are down there. We have only been there once, in Boise, but the kids still talk about it.

The best part about this trip is that the kids have NO idea we are going. I am not going to tell them until it is time to get in the car. And then, I am not even sure that I am going to tell them where we are going, I think it will ALL be a surprise. I just want them to have a really fun time. This trip is all about the kids.

I made Easton and Paisley a "fun kit". It has a sticker/coloring book, notebook, activity book, crayons, colored pencils, and a pen. I am going to surprise them with that sometime along the way. They love to draw, write, and color and so it should be plenty to keep them busy.

Anyway, it should be fun! I am sure there will be moments that we wonder why we did this, but there always are. I just hope the kids have a great time and enjoy their weekend! I am sure I will have a couple stories to blog about when I get back!!

(Don't worry, I already told Dave there WILL be a bit of shopping going on. I have to have a little fun, too, right?) :)

Have a great weekend!

A little scary...

Today I took Avery to her 2 year old check up. She is 35 inches (81st percentile), 30.5 pounds (88th percentile) and her head is 90th percentile. :) She has always been big for her age. Her height has gone down in percentile. For a while she was off the charts in her height, then like 99th percentile, and now it is creeping down. She must be leveling out a little. She is definately bigger that Easton and Paisley were.

Everything seemed pretty good until he listened to her heart. He asked me if he had ever mentioned before that she had a heart murmur. I told him that I didn't think so. He looked back in his notes and saw that nothing had been noted before. He was a little concerned because he did hear a fairly loud heart murmur and it concerned him because he hadn't heard one in her before. So, as a mom and a HUGE worrier, I began to worry. He said that it is enough of a concern that he wants to get it checked out. But he told me not to worry. He said he doesn't think it is an emergency or anything like that.

So, he made an appointment for us to see a pediatric cardiologist that comes to town from Primary Children's Hospital every couple months. She will have to have an EKG and a heart x-ray before that so they will have that to look at. I guess that most of the time it isn't a big deal. But, better safe than sorry. We will see the doctor April 15th. So, just a month of worry ahead of me is all!

Also, he is going to have her speech tested to see if she is in need of any therapy. He said she is probably on the line of qualifying or not. She should be speaking 50+ words, and she has about 10 really solid words. So, we will be getting that checked out, too.

Hopefully there is nothing to worry about. But, when it involves my children and their health, I always worry! I will be sure to keep y'all updated!

My baby is 2 today. Time flies so fast. I can not believe she has been in our lives for 2 whole years now!

I wanted to write a few of my favorite things about Avery, it is hard, because I have a lot of favorite things!

1. She is cuddly. (At least when she wants to be.) She will give me the biggest and tightest hugs. I absolutely love when she will hug me and just let me hold her.

2. Her word, "please". The cutest thing ever. She has been a little slow to talk. It is coming slowly, but surely. One word that she knows well is "please". It sounds like sheez. We LOVE to hear her say it! I need to record it!

3. Her kisses. She loves to give these big open mouth kisses. Every night before bed she has to go around and give each member of the family a BIG kiss. So cute!

4. Her spunk. If you know Avery, she is FULL of spunk. I will admit, sometimes it drives me crazy. But there is truly never a dull moment with Avery around!

5. Her love of everything "girly"! She is the girliest girl! She loves taking care of her dolls. It is a rare moment in our house if she doesn't have a doll, blanket, and bottle in her hands. She loves purses, shoes, clothes. Once, several months ago, we were in the mall and I tried a pair of really cute shoes on her. When I went to put them back, she cried and cried and cried. Now I know that I better be serious about the shoes if I try them on her.

6. Her smiley eyes. Avery and Paisley both have smiley eyes. Their eyes show so much emotion. I always say that we could cover up Avery's face except her eyes and we would know exactly what she was feeling, especially happiness. Her eyes "smile"!

7. Her dimples. I always wanted a child with dimples. Avery's aren't too deep or prominent, but they are there. She has one on her cheek near her eye that we saw from the minute she was born. My mom and I call it her "mad dimple" because you see it mostly when she cries.

8. The way that she is SUCH a mama's girl. Seriously, it is kinda sad, sometimes. She wants me to do everything for her. She often times won't let Dave do anything for her because she wants me. Most of the time, I love this.

I love my little girl so much. She has brought so much joy into our family. Easton and Paisley love her to death. Easton loves to give her kisses. He told me last night that he would walk 200 miles to give her a kiss! I am so thankful for her and all she brings to our lives, even the craziness!!!

CAUTION: No Adult Supervision for this post!!!

While I was doing this...



Avery was doing this...



And ended up looking like this...



Then, while I was still on the phone and then bathing Avery, Easton and Paisley took my camera and did this...





Okay, so there wasn't a lot of supervision. But, I was SO thankful for adult conversation from my sister-in-law that it was worth the craziness during the conversation. Thanks for the "break" and for bringing back my sanity, Erin! :)

I'm feeling a little crazy

This "single" mom thing is tough. Today Dave left at 7:45 a.m. and won't be home until at least 7:45 p.m. We have been doing this for 8 days. Only 45 or so more to go.

I am glad I have Enrichment to go to tonight. I need some adult conversation!!! And THANK GOODNESS they are providing a nursery!!!!!!!!

Ever heard of a Sacroiliac joint??

Ever heard of it? Neither had I, but I sure know what it is now.

A couple years ago almost exactly, I was right at the end of my pregnancy with Avery. I started getting pain in my lower back. But, it isn't in my spine, it is over to the left of my spine. It is always in the exact same spot. The pain is sharp. But, it is not constant (fortunately). When I first started getting the pain it would last for a while and then I might not get it again for a couple months.

This has gone on off and on since I had Avery. Then about 5 months ago I woke up in the morning with horrible pain there. I finally decided to go see a doctor, but being a Sunday, our family doctor was closed. So, I went to an Urgent Care. The doctor told me it was my muscles and prescribed Ibruprofen. The Ibruprofen does help, but I just did not think it was my muscles. When it hurts, I can push on the spot and it doesn't feel worse. It is a deeper pain.

Then about 2 weeks ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with horrible pain again. It hurt so much more than ever before. I was up for about 3 hours with it that night. I decided I had better go get a second opinion.

So, today I went to see our family doctor, who I LOVE! He is a great doctor. So, I told him all about it and all my symptoms. He came to the conclusion that it is my Sacroiliac joint. It is a joint in your back between your pelvis and spine basically. It is a joint that doesn't move.



A lot of women have issues with this joint at the end of pregnancy, which makes sense with when mine started. I read about it online and sure enough, my syptoms match for sure.

There isn't a lot you can do for it. He told me to keep taking the Ibruprofen religiously for about 10 days and that should help a lot.

I am just relieved to hear that it is not something serious. I am such a worrier and always think about the worst-case scenario. So, of course, I thought I must have something really serious wrong with me. But, thank goodness, it isn't that bad.

I am thankful for a good doctor to put my mind at ease!

Our weekend

I am going to try to do a better job about blogging more. I blog fairly often, but only usually when I have pictures to go along. I am going to try to put more of our daily activities, just so I can have them documented in the future. And, my in-laws moved to Washington recently and I know my mother-in-law is a faithful reader. So, since I am a horrible phone person, Shirley, these "boring" posts are for you! :)

Starting out...Dave is doing a training class at work. These classes are 10-12 weeks long and are LONG hours for him. So, I don't usually see him until at least 7:30 p.m., and that is a good night. So, Friday night, I didn't feel like fixing dinner, and didn't feel like taking the kids out by myself, so we ordered pizza. The kids love it when we do that, so that was fun. (I love the Hawaiian BBQ Chicken pizza at Papa Johns!! See below)



Then we put on The Lion King and ate popcorn.



I had cleaned the whole house that day, but hadn't vacuumed the family room yet. Thank goodness, because Avery made a TOTAL mess with the popcorn. It looked very similar to this:



Saturday at 8:15 a.m. (too early!) was Easton's last basketball game for this season. He has gotten SO much better since the first game. They ended up with a good little team. I am so thankful for his coach, Megan, for putting so much time into helping them.



Anyway, after the game Dave had made a appointment with the chiropractor. His back muscles had been getting really tight and he was in quite a bit of pain. He has had this problem a few times in our marriage, but he hadn't ever tried a chiropractor. So, he decided to give it a try. We weren't sure how long it would take, so I dropped him off and took the kids to McDonald's to play while we waited for him to call and let us know he was done.



I brought a magazine with me to read at McDonald's for something to do. But, as I walked in, there was my cousin's wife, Chelsea. I was excited to see her and we ended up visiting the whole time, so that was nice. The kids had a bunch of fun playing, even Avery could play on the toys. Afterwards we went to pick up Dave. They had done a few things for him, one of them being a deep muscle massage. He really liked that and seemed to be feeling a lot better.

We then had to make a "fun" trip to Wal-mart. Wal-mart on Saturday is always crazy, but Wal-mart on Saturday with 3 kids is double crazy. So, we hurried through there as fast as we could and headed home.

That night we went to my Uncle Chad's for games. We love to get together to play the Curse of the Wolfen, which I have posted about before.



It sounds weird, but is so much fun with a big group. Chad has kids my kids's ages and so they all play together really well. Dave ended up leaving around 9:30 to take Avery home and rest his back. Easton and Paisley and I stayed until a little after midnight. Too late, but so worth the fun we have.

Sunday, Dave ended up staying home from church to rest his back with Easton and Avery. Pailsey and I went. It was actually really nice to sit in sacrament meeting with just Paisley. It was so quiet and relaxing compared to normal. I was able to listen to the whole thing and really enjoyed it!

That evening, Dave and I had to go have our temple recommends signed by the stake presidency. We had our neighbors, Brandon and Christy, come watch the kids while we went. (Thanks guys!!) On the way there I noticed that the couselor in the bishopric that interviewed me had accidentally marked me as a male on my recommend!! I didn't know if that would matter, but according to the stake president, it really matters. So, the stake president was able to interview me, but I have to go back and get a new recommend filled out and then take it to him to sign it. Kind of crazy!! Oh well.

That night we played games with our same neighbors, Brandon and Christy. We played Risk.



We have played with them before, and Brandon won. I was bound and determined not to let that happen again. But, it did!! I never realize how much I don't like to lose until I am losing!! Not too fun. But, we had fun playing, and eating too much candy! Next time...Brandon is going down!!! (Pass that on to him, Christy!) :)

So, that was our weekend. Sorry it is such a boring post for some. It was a good weekend and as usual, went by way too quick. Counting down the days until next weekend...