SNOW=Skiing &Boarding

Not for me don't worry, with a year of recovery for my knee I won't be doing that this year. Although, I did dream about it last night, almost as good. However finally we have been hit with some snow, the kids have been twice this week with.......their Dad. Even better it's always me and the kids. I'm just happy they finally get to go. Eliza got ski's and boots for Christmas and has been dieing to go. Everyone has, I'm just glad they got the chance. Hopefully we keep getting storms so the can ski some more. Just got the update on the snow while they are eating lunch, the snow is good, they are having the best time, Dallin crashed, they are warmed up enough after one day and then 3 runs today before they went to the top of the mountain to ski the blacks. Way to go D & E.

Spencer is NAUGHTY!!!, and quick catch up

I have the cutest but naughtiest 2 1/2 year old. Ever since I've had all these knee surgeries Spencer knows he can out run me so anytime he has the chance he runs away. I am always limping after him or trying to dig him out of whatever hole or under whatever he can get under to get away from me. A couple of days ago we went to the movies to see Journey 2, Mysterious island. Towards the end of the movie Spencer starts crying about his nose. I tried to pick it, thinking it's a hard bugger or something, and he wont let me pick and then really starts up about his nose. Steve grabs him and takes him out. Steve tried to get a look at his nose in the hall but Spencer won't let him. The movie gets out and we meet Steve in the hall he asked me what is wrong with his nose and I tell him my theory of the bugger but he wont let me pick it so I just let it go and tell Steve we will just put him in the shower when we get home and his nose can drain in there. Well we got home and were having dinner first and Dallin says there is something in his nose, he reaches over and pops a popcorn kernel out of his nose. That's right. Spencer put a popcorn kernel up each nostril. Unfortunately the other kernel is up past the nostril and in that cavity right above it. We tried everything, one of those baby suckers, the method were you cover their mouth and the clear nostril so they will farmer blow it out. Not working. I ended up calling Timothy Jackson, he is a Physicians Assistant at the ER. He came over with his tool bag. We hog tied Spencer, and he dug for a while. Spencer was screaming and sobbing, shaking from the pain, and not knowing whats going on. Timothy tried about 5 times and it wouldn't come out. Lots of blood was coming out of his nose at this point, so we stopped to give Spencer a break, and myself. I was trying not to cry. I've never had to hold my kid down like that, and have them scream in pain like that. I had a talk with Timothy and said, "If you feel like you can get it out, then we can try again. But if you think you don't have the right tools, or if they can do it easier in the ER, then I will just take him there." He said I had a good point and this is what they would try in the ER first, so I said OK lets give it another try. We hog tied him up again. This time Steve and Sissy took his head and body I took his feet. This is the best way I can explain his pain, when it got really bad you could tell because his whole body was straight as a board, but he was shaking. I was at his feet just praying we would get it out. Timothy tried twice, the second time it popped out. It was seriously the biggest popcorn kernel I have ever seen. Timothy sprayed some steroids up his nose. Everyone at that point was talking about how they were all silently praying it would come out, Timothy also told Sissy that was going to be his last try. We gave him some IBU and I held him all night. Steve got kicked out of our bed that night and Spencer slept with me. I even spent the next day just hanging out with him, reading books, building blocks, playing with cars and play-do, we watched a movie all cuddled up in my bed. Obviously he is my baby. Hopefully Spencer has learned his lesson and he doesn't put anything else up his nose. The next day we were talking about it and his comments of the experience were, "My nose (he points to it)....hurt."  "Sissy got it out...hurt." Oh I love that baby boy. Bedtime with him is exhausting, it goes something like this after dinner he, showers, pj's, brush teeth, story time, prayers, song (during the song he closes his eyes to pretend he is asleep, while shaking his head to dance along to the song, smiling of course). Then we turn off all lights, say good night, we love you. Dallin and Spencer say, "we love you too." We say, "love you higher than whatever you say," then shut the door. With in 5-10 minutes he is out asking for another song, water, or story. He does this about 3-4 times,  we don't ever say anything to him, just pick him up and take him back to bed. He will finally stops asking for things, but still comes out.  He stands in the hall and when we come around the corner, he puts his blanket over his head, so we can't see him. He does this about 10 times, until finally he gives up and goes to bed. Today at the grocery store, (and this experience is not much different than most) he asked to get down because he wants to walk. I pick him up and look into his eyes (like this is going to really get my point across) I warn him that if he goes running off then he is back in the cart. He does a really good job staying with me until we get up the the lines to check out , and then he starts wondering off. So I go over and get him, hold him by the shoulders, and have him look me in the eyes, I start to say, "Spencer you need to stay by me." I am cut off by Spencer, who is closing his eyes and rolling his head around while saying, "Of course mama, of course, of course," over and over. To distract him I say, "Do you want to help me unload the cart and put the groceries up on the belt?"  "Oh yea," this is one of his favorite things. I give him the lettuce and he shoots it up there, he does the same with the bag of rice and a few other things. I then give him the bag of about 20 red potatoes. They are about the size of golf balls. I guess the bag wasn't closed all the way because a few started to fall out and before I could stop him, he has shook them all out and onto the floor. I said, "Spencer no, OK quick help me pick them all up," and he starts to. But if you are two, and have two hand fulls of potatoes it is very enticing to throw them all up in the air. I was trying to pick them up as fast as I could and so was he, so he could throw them back into the air. After he did that twice, I was getting mad and he had one in his hand, right as I was saying, "don't you dare thr...." he hocked it across the store over into the service desk area. I just picked up my potatoes and my kid, paid for my food and went home. He is to much for me. The real problem is, he is my baby and it is kind of funny. It's not like he is doing anything really wrong, I can see how they look like a whole bag of balls to a 2 year old boy, and how fun that they all came tumbling out of the bag for him to play with. Right??? 
     I know I need to do a better job at blogging I am just really busy lately, with all the surgeries and now in physical therapy 2-3 times a week, they also gave me a recovery time of 9 months to a year. I feel very overwhelmed. I am also coaching 2 basketball teams, Dallin's and Eliza's. Dallin's team is 5 and 2. Eliza team is 7 and 0, that's right undefeated. They are both playing great and really learning a lot this year. Spencer is doing a gym class once a week and goes to reading time on Fridays. I meet with my breakfast group once a week and book club once a month. Dallin is in scouts, going through the braces process, which is an appointment once a week for 3 weeks. I also just enrolled him (so we just just did all the touring) for a new school next year, called Basis. It's going to be a challenging year, but he is looking forward to it. I just got him signed up for baseball. Eliza is in girl scouts, jazz, and ballet. She goes in tomorrow for her first braces appointment. I just signed her up for softball and she is going to start horseback riding in the spring. Steve is in young men's, coaches Dallin's basketball team with me and plays basketball in his own league. I feel like all we do is run, run, run, as long as I can stay organized and on schedule it's manageable. If we fall behind, catch up can get a bit stressful for everyone. For the most part, we are staying above water and really enjoying life. Today was Valentines day, I set up a really fun table for dinner. I made heart placemats and put each family members name on it, then wrote "name, we love you because..." Steve and I wrote some of the reasons we love them. Before dinner each of the kids wrote on them reasons they love that person. At dinner we read them out loud. I am very thankful for my family. As crazy as life can be, I really do have it all, Steve, Dallin, Eliza and Spencer. 

Early Thanksgiving in LaVerkin

 Above is Spencer using the force. I am very far behind so I am guessing a little on the date. I think it was November 11th thru 17th that we went to Lavercan to meet up with Family (Grandma, Matt, Tom and Chelsea) and go to Zion's National Park. We also had a Thanksgiving celebration since we weren't going to be able to meet up with family on the actual day of Thanksgiving. Lavercan is this great little town right outside of Zion's. When I say little you really don't get it, there is all of one stop light at the very end of town. Small town aside we sure did have a great time. Steve even got to come with us, we love it when Dad comes. Below we are all doing P90X together, everyone except me, I had just had knee surgery 3 weeks earlier and was still having trouble with it. Only to find out about 3 weeks later I had to go back in for another surgery. I need to write about all of that business in some other post.

 At the house in the backyard was a very "awesome" tree house. my kids loved it. They also loved the hammock that sat right below it. They spent a lot of time laying on it all curled up in a blanket reading. 

 Eliza loved this rope swing, I'm surprised she let Uncle Matt have a turn.

 We played a lot of games this trip, sequence was a popular game, so was Uno. It got a little competitive to, below you can see how upset Grandma was getting. Dallin kept putting down, draw fours, and draw two's. Dallin was down to 2 cards and you can see how many he got Grandma up to.

 It was a little overcast the day we went to Zion's, but still spectacular.

 On the way home everyone was obviously very tired. It's only a 10-15 minute car ride home and yet they all managed to pass out.

 Everyone else had to get home to work but the kids and I got to stay for a few more days. We went to a ghost town one day, I can't remember the name of it but we took some fun pictures there. Those three kids are defiantly my GOLD.

Dallin and Eliza having a shoot off.

This dog was the funniest part of the whole Ghost Town trip. While we were there we literally saw NO one. We were going down this rode just checking out the homes in the little town and we drove up on this little dog in the rode, he didn't move a muscle. We drove up on him, went in reverse, and drove back up on him. We sat there for a while then even honked the horn at him. This little dog sat right in the middle of the rode for a good 5 minutes. Finally it got up and ran up towards our car. The kids were looking out all the car windows trying to find out where the dog went, they were spooking themselves out saying the little dog was a ghost. It was really funny.

 Just being goofy and pointing towards town.

 We also went on a tour of Brigham Young's home, below we are picking almonds.

 We went hiking one day at our favorite slick rock park in St. George.

 I have no idea what they are playing but I love it.

 Steve with his kids in the tree house, best Dad ever.

 We went to our favorite spin park in St. George.

 After the park we stopped by Mia's burial spot. Our very dear friend's the Dodge"s lost their sweet baby girl Mia a few years ago. Stopping by was to say hello to her, was bitter sweet. I'm so glad we did. Funny story about visiting her. I haven't talked to Julie, Mia's mother in a good 6 months. We were passing graveyard on the way to the park and I said to my kids, "On the way home after the park, let's go by and say hi to Mia." About a minute later Julie called me. It sent chills all over me. That is just not a coincidence.

it was such a fun trip, very relaxing. I got to hang out with my kids, do fun things, we read books, played games, talked about nothing, watched movies. We piled up in the same bed every night and read. Some of my favorite days, ever.

Dallin's Lego my Eggo Team is in the news

http://northernarizonanews.com/blog/2011/12/06/naztoday-show-december-5-2011/

If you give the link a little bit of time it will pull up.
The clip on Dallin's Lego my Eggo team, starts at, 13 min and 40 sec, (right around there) and runs for about 2 min. You don't see Dallin until the very end and it's just the back of his head, he is standing next to his best buddy Blake at the computer. You do get to see what he and his Lego team have been up to for the past couple months. His team is the youngest, 4th graders. They competed against 8th grade teams and they took 3rd out of 33 teams. We are off to Phoenix this Saturday for the state competition, at ASU.

Spencer wishes you all, "A Very Merry Christmas"

The Destroyer

Tonight was to much, Steve and I thought the situation was so funny, but it turned bad so quickly. Eliza was building a fort down stairs. Spencer kept knocking it over and destroying it, she was getting a little hysterical over the whole thing so we said, "if you want to build a fort go upstairs and build one." our upstairs is a big open loft so when Eliza yelled down, "I need some help." Spencer flew out of his seat and yelled,"OK." While running up the stairs to help her. Eliza got hysterical and starts yelling, "No, you are not a HELPER, you are a DESTROYER." I wish you could have heard the fear and anger in her voice. I guess at this point we should have intervened. However I was working on scouts and Steve was watching the Chiefs. Also it was kind of funny.  Next thing we hear is fighting, "Spencer get away, get out of here you destroyer." What we didn't know was he picked up a sword on the way up the stairs. Next thing we hear is a blood curtailing scream, we think Eliza is being dramatic. We were wrong, she has a huge bruise across her cheek. Spencer took a swing at her while she was trying to push him out of her room. I know, it's not funny that she has a bruised cheek, but the whole incident is really funny to me. Sorry Eliza!

Seven Peaks

August the 16th 

My kids think they are so grown up. They don't need me any more to hover over them at water parks. They each got to bring a friend. I could barely get sunblock on them before they ran off. Of course they came back for food and money. Matt went off with Dallin and Ford for a while. Eliza and Emmy spent a lot of time at the lazy river and the wave pool. Emmy does not like water slides, so of course Eliza gave into pier pressure and said they were to scary for her to. Don't worry Matthew and I drug her onto one, and then she realized she loves water slides and couldn't get enough of them. Dallin and Ford raced all over doing a lot of the slides. They spent a lot of time on the rope swings, I did to they are a lot of fun. Eliza and Emmy are having some dip-n-dots under the umbrella.

 Uncle Matt and Spencer soaking up the sun. I know summer just got over but I really miss the heat and the sun.

 Dallin and his best buddy Ford. I love these two boys.

 They think they are so cool, and they are.

 Of course they had to pose for a picture hurting each other. This is one guy thing I will never understand/

 Spencer spent about half of the day with us. He was the only almost 2 year old in the pool with out floaties. I took him to the pool for the 4-6 year olds. I helped him the first few times going up the stairs to the water slide and then stood by while he tried to figure out how to get his feet under him at the bottom of the slide. He got it after a few times and then I just sat on the side of the pool while he went down the water slide about a hundred times. He and Eliza are water babies. they could possibly have gills. I will have to check.Thomas came and picked him up around 1 to take him home for a nap. Matthew and I got to go on all sorts of slides that I really didn't want to go on. But thanks to pier pressure Matt talked me into it. Yes, I think I was actually shaking on a few of them. 

After Matthew and I finished up with all the terrifying water slides, we rounded up the kids and went over to the racing slides. We did that a few times, and I call for a redo.  Matthew thinks that he won every race. I only lost because I just had knee surgery and could not bend my leg to push off as well as the rest of them. After all the racing, we had to leave a little earlier than we wanted. That night there was a shower for Chelsea at my parents house. I wish I would have taken more pictures at the shower, but I got caught up catching up with everyone.