Boys Boys Boys. . .

~Sept, 2012
We had some visitors over and of course A and E were bouncing off the walls. Head butting their legs, jumping on their back and freaking out. So I chucked them both in the kitchen and told them, "You are out of control." Angrily A turns to me, hands on his hips and snaps, "No Mom! YOU are out of control!"

~Aug. 2012
A comes up to me and tells me very officially, "Mom, I'm smarter than you. I'm not smarter than Dad, but I am smarter than you."

~July 4th, 2012
A and E were wrestling today and it was A's day. He was doing really good keeping his little brother subdued, although E put up a pretty good fight. Once they were finished, Daddy and I told E he did a really good job! He looked over at Daddy M angrily from the floor and said, "No, I din not!!" he flailed his arms on the ground and continued, "He's still alive!"

~June 2012
E and A were playing T-ball today with A's new gear. I of course laid down the rules. No hitting anyone with the bat. No swinging at the ball until every body and body part is clear. Simple enough. Not 5 minutes into it, I hear a blood curdling scream from A. E runs inside, eyes big, and says, "I din'n know what I was doing!" Big brother had a pretty good goose egg on his head.

Thanks for the Help

As most of you are aware, we're trying really hard to maintain our privacy on here, so if you can remember when you comment, to not use our real names if you know them, that would be great!

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Family Pictures

I've shared these pics online already. But heck! Why not put them on here too.







Aren't we cute!!!

Saturday, December 24, 2011

We're still here!

I guess I can give an update on here. Heck why not! I miss not having the time to write posts. I am not sure what I've updated you all on. So forgive me for repeating myself if I do.

Daddy M is just finishing his semester of school! I'm so proud of him and the goals he's achieving. He got all As and only 1 B+ this semester! WHOO! I finally feel like we're well on our way to getting DONE with school. Even though that's still 6-8 years away. Now we just need to get me into school so I'm not finishing when I turn 40.

A just finished school. He's on winter break now. He is truly enjoying pre-school. We're thinking about applying to BYU's Kindergarden program as well. We've been talking to some other parents and they've told us that public kindergarden is a joke. I'm beginning to feel like public school, period, is just a joke... I just wish I had the confidence/desire to home school my kids, or the know-how really.

E has been his usual self. He's a little ornery still. He's very fun. He's getting better at talking. And he's ready to potty train! Daddy M found out a way to make him want to potty train. It was an accident really, but I'm glad he did it. While on Thanksgiving vacation Daddy M was changing his diaper and told him to get "his baby diaper." E freaked out. He started crying that he's a "big boy! and he can't wear baby diapers." So now we've really been milking that until we're ready to potty train him. ie after Daddy M is done with his finals and actually has the time to give attention to training him and now that he is on break, it's been go time for us! He's poo'd maybe twice in the toilet and pees in it all the time. I think he really loves the attention he gets every time we see pee in his little toilet. I hate potty training, but seeing his big, cheesy, accomplished grin seems to make it worth it. It's really a family affair. His big brother even gets into it! A will run around the house cheering for his little brother and announcing it to us like E's just won a gold medal.

As for me. I'm still working two jobs. I love my job at the hospital. I am currently training to do c-sections. I'm a scrub in the OR. It's pretty exciting and terrifying all at the same time. I've never done anything like this before. I've never been previously trained, so it's kind of stressful for me. But overall, the docs have been nice enough, which was my main concern. I'm learning what the instruments' names are, what their nicknames are, and what hand symbols to watch for from the doc. I'm almost done with training and then I'll be on my own!

Christmas is close! It's tomorrow! I can't believe this year has gone by so quickly. I'll have to put our Christmas card on here....ok, honestly, I probably won't have the time. My apologies if I didn't get one to you. I still love you--unless I don't know you or like you, then get off my blog. You're creeping me out.

:) 

Friday, October 28, 2011

Quesy stomach's beware. But really- it's not that bad.

This is my little brother's leg. I talked about him a bit in the post just before this one. He has more of those incisions all over his leg. Pretty neat huh? Or gross. Whatever floats your boat. I'll be adding more awesomely gruesome pictures once I get them uploaded! But for now. This is what you get to see.

This is what strep A does to you people! Strep-freakin-A! And this isn't even the worst of it! My dad almost lost his arm. Little brother- who's not so little really- is anxious to get out of the dang hospital. Who wouldn't be after a few weeks of family only isolation. There's only so much of one's family that one can handle. haha

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

A little bit about us this time of year

My apologies for the lack of posts on here. Considering that I'm the only one that posts and my workweek is on average 70 hours, it's hard to find time to get on here. You can feel consoled in the fact that not posting on here means that I'm with my kids, or passed out asleep! 

Before I update about my immediate family, here's a little news about my little brother. He was admitted to the hospital about a week or two ago. At first he had a swollen knee, fever of 105, and was vomiting. His b/p went down, wouldn't come back up, so he was turfed to the PICU. Long story short. He has the same thing my dad had a year ago. . . Strep A. (It ate my dad's arm basically.) He's had 4-5 surgeries since on his leg, thigh, and ankle. His skin was so inflamed, the surgeons couldn't close his incisions. Tomorrow, he has his last surgery to close up the rest of his incisions and then he should be able to go home the next day! It's been tough for him to be in the hospital. He missed his homecoming dance, the homecoming game that he was supposed to play in, and he missed the one game they have against their rival high school. We just feel so blessed that he didn't have to lose all his skin on his leg and have grafts like my dad. We're also so grateful that the infection did not spread further up into groin. Let's hope he'll get to go home tomorrow!


On to my oldest little man!
A  boy is in school now. He's been for about a month. He loves it! His teacher says he's always happy and so helpful to the other students. I am so proud of him and who he is becoming. He has some pretty weird, crazy, and irrational parents and he still seems to be turning out alright. A's thing to do right now is sing impromptu songs about anything and everything that he sees. We love his songs. I hope that he continues to feel confident about himself, it's fantastic!


And my youngest little man!
E boy is growing so fast! He's a spitfire of energy. He's a tad bit more rough than his brother is. But maybe that's just his age. I can't remember if A was this rough at E's age, until he learned to not be, or if he's always been more laid back. We've been half-heartedly trying to potty train E. And he is just not at all interested. Joy. There's just nothing like changing a poopy diaper from an almost 3 year old. E's thing to do right now tell us "I don' love you," when he's angry with Daddy or I. Good times! I didn't know this kind of attitude began at this age! Can't wait to see what my little bundle has in store for me!


Daddy M has been keeping busy busy! He's going to school full-time and studying full-time too it would seem. Something I think we'll all be glad to be done with some day. Right now we're both just glad to be getting done! 

And I am working two full-time jobs at the moment. I just got hired on at the hospital and even though I was hired on as PRN. They train you for 3-months full-time. So, I have been pulling quite a few hours. My ultimate goal is to be full-time at the hospital and part-time at the care center. I am hoping that opportunity will come up sooner rather than later. 

For now our family feels like we're being pulling in 7 different directions, but we love being busy! Especially when it's for our future! Keep us in your prayers, we need all the help we can get. If not to finish early, at least not to kill each other on the journey there. :)

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Another Great Day

When I get to be home during the day. I try to take advantage of the outside. Especially now that summer is starting to say goodbye. The boys and I live outside if we can. And to fill our time, because sometimes the fun dirt just doesn't cut it. We take pictures!

And then we take pictures of the people that are still entertained by the dirt. Which is very cute!

And if you're cool like me, you let your son take your camera and let him take some pictures.
I'm holding the camera with him here.

I was the subject of his photography for a bit. Then our car was, and the tree, and the grass. I'll spare you those photos though.

I have to share a moment of insanity with you. I was cleaning my room earlier this year- like deep cleaning- and found a piece of candy that I didn't want to eat. So I pawned it off on our son E. He was glad to take it away for me and eat it. I told him to eat it in the kitchen so he didn't make a mess. For some reason, he felt that my instructions meant, Go hide in the kitchen under the table so no one can see you and eat as fast as you can. Daddy M found him and told me to come downstairs to see what I'd created. As soon as I saw my little boy slowly turning into a leprechaun, I ran and grabbed the camera and stuck him on the counter. His fingers were green for about 4 days. 
I found the cutest leprechaun in the world! (This could be a good idea for Halloween one day. He has the hair for it)

Monday, September 26, 2011

Boys and Bugs

On one of the beautiful summer days that I had off this year, my little boys and I sat outside for hours. What did we do? We played with a bug. Not just any bug. A leaf bug. We loved this leaf bug so much that we were thinking about making it our pet. But.... we decided it might live longer in the wild. It probably got eaten by a bird the minute we went inside though. I just know it!
Here is leaf bug. He hung out with us for a good few hours. He climbed on the boys.
He found spots to just sit and chill. And for some strange reason, never flew away from us. 

We were very nice to leaf bug. I made sure of that. There were some close calls in the tiny hands of E, but he made it out alright.

The silliest thing leaf bug did was crawl up E's head. Every time he found his shoulder, he climbed and climbed until he found E's fantastic red hair. And then he did not let go. E would shake his head back and forth as fast as he could and the bug just hung on. We had great fun with this! A got to have the bug on his head too. As soon as the creature got to his neck, A would laugh and laugh and laugh from being tickled by its little legs. I don't know if they'll remember this moment, but it was a good one for me.

Where'd he go? Where'd he go? *THERE he IS!*

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Soccer

I need to make a new goal. Here it is: Post a new blog at least... every two weeks. That might be possible. I am so busy now, that I do not get the chance to get on here. But I still feel it's important to write about my kids' lives and what we are doing.

This fall A started playing soccer. He is one of the youngest on his team, so he does struggle a bit more, but I think now that he's almost done with his season, the coach has found out where he belongs. A is all DEFENDER! He does such a great job at staying back and protecting the goal. Although this year, he has scored a few goals. Some in the wrong net, but he was still absolutely thrilled. :) His favorite part of the games could arguably be the treats he got after the game. There were moments when we caught him doing somersaults on the grass. Picking the flowers. Running behind his team, smiling at us and not paying attention at all to what was going on. He is very fun to watch.

First day of practice

Go A!!

We did have a moment where he had a little melt down. A is very serious about rules. We told him that he had to run --> this way for the goal and when the other team went <--- this way... he kind of lost it and started yelling at the kids on the field. So he got to have a nice little Daddy talk. Apparently, he was very sad as well because he wanted to score a goal so bad.

He finally cheered up, played with his team. AND scored a goal! In the wrong one.... but he was still SOOO happy. :) He's #2 below.

The fan club

Talking strategy

The coach was so nice. A was having a tough time this game and the coach let him do the kick off a few times so he could actually touch the ball. Remember, he's one of the youngest kids out there. The oldest are six. He hung in there with them though and next year he'll be more prepared!

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Appendectomy Time

It was a cool summer evening when I went off to work and left hubby to fend for himself and take care of our kids. I was confident all would be well. And for a time, it was.

But of course, Daddy M likes attention. So around midnight, he called me to tell me he was puking and sleeping on the bathroom floor. I brushed this news off since he does get sick often. A few hours later he calls again and tells me his stomach is on fire. Still not surprised, I gave no real sympathy.

I finished my quiet shift at 6am and came home to sleep. I found Daddy M in our bed sprawled out. Perterbed, I made him move. A few hours later he was moaning in pain again. Still sleepy after working 16 hours, I told him to knock it off. Being the wonderful man that he his, he got up to do his moaning downstairs.

Around 10am, I woke up, came downstairs to get ready to see another client. He sat in our recliner, complaining of his stomach feeling like fire. I still was not concerned. He has liver disease and I attributed it to that or maybe kidney stones. Told him to call the doctor if he reall felt like it.

I came home around 11am. He was going to the instacare to see what was wrong. A few hours later I get a call. "The doctors are 90% positive that I have an appendicitis. We're driving to Am... Hospital now."

Grandma is freaking out.

I stay up with the kids. And scramble like heck to find someone to cover my shift that night so I can be with my husband. The people I work with aren't as nice as I thought they were. No offense, it's just fact, I really feel like if someone asked me to cover their shift because their husband was having an emergency appy. I would do it if I was not working at my other job. I had to scrounge and scrounge for someone to cover only 3 hours of my 8 hour shift. . . joy. It worked out in the end anyway.

I dropped off my kids with Grammie. Went to work. Finished. And drove right to the hospital. He was coming out of surgery as I was arriving.

See-- Things work themselves out very nicely. I didn't need to be there for the time I couldn't get covered.

I visited a while. Brought him his electronic toys. Laughed at his drugged stupor- he's actually very VERY nice when he's snowed. Not in a bad way. He was calling all the nurses and PCTs angels. I left, slept for what seemed like forever. Probably because I had about 3 hours of sleep in the last.... what? 48 hours?

All in all, things worked out. The boys got a weekend vacation with Grammie and Papa. Daddy M got to rest. I got to work and care for him and now we'll never have this issue again.

At least not with him.

Oh, no pictures for you! His belly looks like a yellow creature died on it from the bruises. That's all the visual-ness you're getting. :)

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Belated News

It's been a little crazy around here. I've been working more than I ever thought I would in my life. For a while there it was like work was where I lived and home was just a place to sleep. But, I've finally managed to find some time to post a few things!

As birthday-
He turned 4 this year! It was such an exciting  birthday. We just had a BBQ outside with friends and family. And it was perfect! Here's just a few photos from the event. It was Cars themed this year.

 A has the perfect reactions to receiving gifts! If you want to borrow him for a party, it'll be $20/hour.


 E celebrated his big brothers' birthday party by stealing one of his presents- a cool talking sucker- and ate it. He looks like he had a tough fight with it aaaaand eventually won. . . barely.


 This was our little man's last gift from Mommy and Daddy. He was pretty excited about it, until he realized he had to ride on it. He's a bit scared of the bike, but we'll change that one of these days. His little brother.... absolutely loves it. We actually caught E later that day sitting on the seat leaning against the wall eating food.



 After the party, A tried his new bike. He was very excited until it started moving too fast for him.... a slow adult walk.

After the party, both boys crashed on our bed. There's just nothing like walking into a sheet ravaged bed to find the cutest little bed bugs on the planet!


Our first Hogle Zoo Trip-
We've never felt the need to drive 45 minutes to a Zoo, but we had our friend from France visiting us and figured that we could make that a little event with him.
 "Enough pictures Mommy." Is what this little face says to me. :)

 I'm not sure who really belongs in the zoo. The animals we saw or the little animals I'm raising! They might actually like living in the zoo though. I'd better not give them the idea that they can stay.
 This elephant sprayed water out it's trunk. There were too many excited people by it's head to actually get a picture up there, but I don't think my kids minded. A in the picture above, is actually happy. . . I think. I don't remember him being mad. I just think he's trying to copy a dinosaur we saw earlier. Yes, it was real dinosaur, they still exist at the Hogle Zoo!

 Daddy looked at this picture and asked us why we had to take a photo next to the creepy gorilla. Looking at the photo now, I'm not really sure why we thought this would be a good place for a photo. I just can't stop staring at that monkey's nipples.

 See! I told you they still existed. This one was domestic enough to let us ride on it's back. E and him got along very well actually. :P

 We thought this Camel's humps looked sooo strange. It looks to me like he used to have one big hump and then it got split in half. By this time, we were about ready to leave. So Mr. Camel was our last photo of the day.


Moving day!-
We also moved in July. I found some cute photos I took while we were packing the truck.
Here's my little helper boys.

One of my helper boys eventually crashed from exhaustion right on our lawn. It's tough being 2 1/2 and moving boxes.