The Whitesides Family

Happy Birthday Mason!

2011-09-10T21:13:00.000-07:00

My sweet, handsome boy Mason turned 4 today.

As he was sassing off today while I directed him to time out, I have to admit, this day didn't seem any more special than yesterday. But then at the very end of the day when I was kissed him goodnight, I remembered the emotions of gratitude and joy that I felt when I finally got that positive pregnancy test. YES, FINALLY! Whoa, WHAT?!

4 things I love about Mace:

-He is so shy and very sensitive. Totally like his mamma in that regard! While we are working on helping him better assert his needs, he is one of the most thoughtful and sweetest kids I've ever met.

-He checks and rechecks all the facts. "Mom, we live in Texas? Not Utah, but Texas? Grandpa lives in Florida? But we don't b/c we live in Texas?" It can be wearing but he is turning out to be one smart kid!

-He is so inquisitive and his questions are hilarious. "Why did Jesus give us 2 legs?" "Why do bums have a line in them?" "Mom, is it time to pump?" (Yep, talking about breast pumping...fun stuff!)

-He finds everything funny. We often call him "drunken sailor" because he will laugh so hard that his head is bobbing and he is stumbling all around...hence, drunken sailor. During his 1st soccer practice, he found the drills to be so hilarious that he was running up and down the field, stumbling around and in the paths of others b/c he was laughing so hard. Oh, and he was the only one laughing.

Mason is such a special boy and has brought so much joy to our lives. While I absolutely adore him, he absolutely adores Joe. Everyday, Samuel wants to be something different when he grows up. Mason's answer is always the same "I want to work with Daddy and fix teeth". One day I asked him what made daddy so much cooler than mommy, and he said quite simply "Daddy is a superhero. He is strong and I want to be like him." Well then.

Thank you Heavenly Father for blessing us with this beautiful, amazing little boy.

Woah, what a month!

2011-04-16T13:02:00.000-07:00

So here are some quick pictures of my sweet, sweet Stella. Since my last post, it seems like things have never slowed down for us. Let's see, where to begin?

1. When the jaundice finally went down to low risk levels (took a month) Stella then caught RSV at 4 weeks. Holy cow, to hear your newborn wheez and cough like a smoker is horrendous. Although her oxygen levels were borderline, she responded really, really well to breathing treatments so she never had to be hospitalized. In that way we were lucky...but the breathing treatments, dr. appointments, trying to keep her hydrated, pumping b/c she wasn't eating, plus dealing with the boys meant a crazy, sleepless couple of weeks.

2. I love, love, love my Samuel but boy has has he become difficult as of late! While we were dealing with Stella, all of a sudden I began to get poor behavioral reports from everyone...speech therapy, preschool, sunday school, and friends who watched him while I drove Stella around to her appointments. Apparently it's his way or the highway these days and he doesn't want to follow directions. He's gotten into trouble in the past, but not from everyone all at once!! It's become evident that I am on a verge of a nervous breakdown...bursting into tears as his preschool director pulls me aside for a mini-conference to discuss his behavior. We are still wondering what to do next. Any ideas?

3. Mason broke his collarbone. Is it possible to catch a break???!! It's my fault. He begged me to take the rail off his bed to a be a big boy like Samuel. I initally said no and then looked into his beautiful big, brown eyes filled with tears. I am such a sucker and said yes. Well what happens? At 5 am, we hear screaming. He had rolled off his bed in his sleep, landed on his shoulder JUST right (of course) to break his collarbone. Great, another ER bill coming our way. He now has to wear this figure 8 type harnes around his shoulders for 4 weeks.

I apologize my writing is all choppy...I'm trying to hold Stella while I blog. This little girl does not like to put down at all. Nor take a bottle. We took a break from the bottle for only a few weeks and now she is completely opposed to it! She is totally attached to me in the daytime, but I can't complain because she is almost sleeping through the night already!

Alright! Phew...enough venting! I do realize there are still many things to be grateful for but I'm just looking for things to slow down and to normalize a little.

Early Surprise!

2011-03-05T16:03:00.000-08:00

Welcome Stella SuzAnne Whitesides who came to us 4 weeks early:
6 lbs. 3oz. 19 1/4 inchesSo here's the labor and delivery story. People are right when they say every experience is different! It all started before we left to go visit the Rigby's in Austin for the weekend. Literally, right before I got in the car, I found out that I had some spotting. After talking to the nurse and researching the internet with Kristen it was decided that I lost my mucuos plug (I know, sounds gross and is) and that labor could still be weeks away. I decide to go the 3 hr. trip. That night, I had painful contractions that were consistently 7 minutes apart for an hour and I was about to die. Not from pain but from fear that I was going to give birth in Austin, away from home and our hospital! I prayed like I never prayed before and they went away that night. So that was Friday night. We had a blast with the Rigby's over the weekend and came back on Sunday. The painful contractions were still coming, but not consistently. Monday morning, I had heavy bleeding and decided to go to my OB who found that I was dialated at a 5. I was having contractions 10 minutes apart so they checked me into the hospital right then. They stopped again and after several hours of waiting and watching, my OB decided to send me home hoping that we could keep the baby in longer. This was my wakeup call and when I got home, I was in a "nesting" frenzy trying to get everything that I had put off into order before I really went into labor...hospital bag, laundry for baby, clean house, etc. Made back-up arrangements for the boys and so forth. At about 2ish, I started to have contractions again but waited almost 2 hrs. to make sure it was the real thing this time! I called my dear friend Jayne and she came over to stay with the boys and we headed over to the hospital! It was smooth sailing from there...labor progressed quickly, got my epidural and had Stella at 9:30 that morning. Coming home from the hospital. As you can tell, I'm a little excited to have a girl...there's lot's of pink in our house right now!

To help us survive this unexpected early arrival, we had help from so many amazing friends. I had it planned so that Joe's mom would be here 2 weeks prior to my due date so that the boys would be covered should I go into labor a little early. Obviously that wasn't early enough so thank goodness I have some amazing friends we were able to count on. I just wanted to give a special thanks to: *Jayne Klingler for coming over to my house at 4AM...4 AM! to stay with the boys and get them ready for preschool when I went into labor. *Kristen Rigby for driving up from AUSTIN to watch the boys all day on Wednesday while I was at the hospital and Joe was at work. And then, thanks to my sweet dad who left his obligations back home to fly out last minute and help me with the boys while I adjusted to having a new baby at home. The past 12 days of Stella's life has been a whirlwind. Although she was born a healthy size for being "near term", she's lost more than 10 % of her birthweight and has since struggled to regain some of that weight. She has also struggled with jaundice...she was under lights for a weekend, the biliruben count went down and has since rebounded up and is now staying level not going back down. I've taken her to the doctor's every other day to check her count and weight and to test for several things to see why her body is not taking care of the biliruben on it's own. I guess the hardest part of this whole thing is trying to force her to eat every 2-3 hrs. I nurse, supplement with formula for the jaundice, and then pump. By the time I'm done with that, it's time to start all over again!!
Well, hopefully on Monday we'll have good news and I can just relax and get more rest at night! Waking her up so often is starting to catch up on me and my poor boys are starting to notice how grouchy I am. Whatever the case, she's totally worth it and I am loving having a little peanut around again.

Curious about the baby...

2011-01-10T19:48:00.000-08:00

Here are just a few of the conversations I've had with the boys that have stuck out in my mind. Of course Joe was no where near at these times so I couldn't just send them over to him. He's much better at improvising than me.

Samuel points to my boobs and says "Mommy, are you growing babies in there too?"
Me: "No honey, that's just part of my chest"
Next day...
Samuel points to my boobs and says "Mommy, are those the baby's feet?"
Me: "Honey, mommy already told you that these are part of my chest."
Samuel: "But they're getting bigger, like your tummy!"

Samuel: "Mommy, how will the baby come out of you? Your mouth?"
Me: "Yep. Hey, show me that picture you made at school today!"

Mason: "Will baby sister have a ding dong?"
Me: "Do girls have ding dongs?"
Mason: "No"
Me: "Then no, she will not have one b/c she's a girl"
Mason: "Aww, how sad."

Samuel: "Mommy, your tummy is getting so big!"
Me: "Umm, thanks hon. That's a good thing b/c that means the baby is growing."
Samuel: "How much BIGGER can she get? Geez."

Mason: "Mommy I can't see! Your big tummy is in my way!" (Apparently I was walking in
front of the TV at the moment)
Me: "Excuse me! Try again Mason."
Mason: "Sorry. Mommy, move your big tummy please"

Finally, last but not least:
Samuel: "Mommy, but how did the baby get in there?"
Me: my mouth opens but nothing comes out.

Ahh, the curiousities of toddlers. Very entertaining for sure. My self-esteem has never been better as they remind me that I am getting bigger almost everyday. Kids are much more observant than I've given them credit for. The best is that I am now referred to as a penguin (started by Joe, thanks a lot) since I am already waddling. Yep those, varicose veins are killer.
Hope everyone had a great holiday and will post pictures of ours soon!

Thanksgiving!

2010-12-20T15:00:00.000-08:00

Before Christmas arrives, I thought I'd put up the Thanksgiving pictures first since we had such an amazing time with Joe's parents who came to visit. 1st, here are some fall pictures we took of the boys.

Here's babybump at 24 weeks. I am now 28 weeks and in that month my tummy has turned into a bowling ball that sticks far out and very low. I would definitely not post a picture of myself at this point...not so cute!

The boys had a blast when Tom and Suzy came to visit. On Thanksgiving, grandma engaged in the boys in a "turkey hunt" and "Pilgrams & Indians" game. We also saw Santa, visited the Ice show at Gaylord Palms, visited the zoo, and did some shopping.

I must make a note of our black Friday shopping early, early at Walmart. Joe and I went for the first time and it was CRAZY! I witnessed people turn into animals once the pallets were open...people trying to rip things out of our hands, etc. I had to guard my cart with my life! Anyways, we went for the $25 Leapsters and were lucky to score those, plus everything else on our list, but will we attempt it again next year? I'm not so sure!

While Suzy and I had some girl fun shopping, Joe and Tom took on the task of putting up the lights. Here's Tom anxiously telling Joe to get off the roof.

Here are the festive end results! Good job!!

Merry Christmas everyone!

October Fun!

2010-11-03T14:42:00.000-07:00

Get ready for the overload of pictures. We wore ourselves out every weekend this October because the weather was fabulous!
-Of course we hit the pumpkin patches...altogether 4 times!

Every year Mason tries to lift a big pumpkin and is surprised it's too heavy. Always following the surprise is the frustration (meaning, mini tantrum)

So Joe puts Samuel on top of the maze next to the sign that says "No standing on the maze". He took him right off after I threatened that Samuel could fall and lose another tooth. No, not that!

-We went to the circus and during intermission the kids had an elephant ride. $8 per kid for 15 seconds...ouch. But how often do you get to ride an elephant?? We're such suckers I know.

-Boo at the Zoo 2 times: Our zoo is awesome here and they throw a pretty fun Halloween event. Samuel dressed as Peter Pan and Mason as Captain Hook. I thought Samuel looked pretty Shakespearean in this picture!

They played carnival games, danced with the witches, and marched in a costume parade. -We went to 6 flags twice this month. No pictures but we had so much fun! Samuel sang karoke "I want Candy" on stage (by himself!) and they both participated in the costume parade. They just wore their superman capes to the park and looked pretty funny among all the real costumes, but Samuel's dance on stage totally made up for it!

-Here we carved pumpkins with our neighbors next doors. The adults were more into it than the kids, but still fun!

-Ward trunk or treat: Samuel and Mason in their real costumes as Captain Hook and Captain Jack Sparrow. We had Samuel watch Pirates of the Carribean with us so he could become familiar with his costume and he loved it. Anything pirate is his thing!

Aren't Samuel's dreadlocks killer? Thanks again mom for the costumes! -Finally, trick or treating in our neighborhood. We went with our neighbors and the kids had a blast. I love how everyone, adults included, really get into Halloween here!

Joe and I dressed up to be the prisoners of our pirates. Then Joe took it further and said that truly we are prisoners of our kids everyday. Samuel is saying...no time for Halo tonight dad, you have to wake up early with us tommorrow morning!

Phew! That was our October. We literally did 2-3 major activities every weekend. We even suffered the flu this month! I just love the fall! My favorite time of the year by far. Any fun ideas for November?

It's a GIRL!

2010-10-27T19:47:00.000-07:00

Yep, for those who didn't know, I am pregnant...with a GIRL!!! Holla! Our Vegas trip was a major success :) I was trying to find a more creative way to break the news but as weeks continued to pass I decided to just announce the news before I delivered a 3rd child without having told all my friends.

So, here are the facts: 20 weeks along, due March 17th (St. Patrick's day everyone tells me), a GIRL (did I mention that?), and my worst pregnancy to date.

I shouldn't say that since the baby has been strong and healthy so far, but my have I suffered this time around!! It's gotten a lot better but even at 20 weeks I'm still losing my meals here and there. I'm anemic so I lay around all the time with no energy and I've got painful varicose veins. Yep, just got my presciption for my compression hose...lovely huh? My next door neighbor is due the week after me and she is having the time of her life being pregnant. No nasuea, no veins, and full of energy as she zips back and forth to the gym.

Oh well. However miserable I have been, I cannot forget what a blessing this pregnancy is. It was a year ago that they found a tumor in my uterus. And now I'm arguing over girl names with Joe! (He's so opinionated at the wrong times!) Anyways, Trapnells...we're going to have to postpone our plans for a cruise dangit. One day when we're 50 I'm sure we can coordinate our lives and go!

Here's a picture of my cute boys. More to come!

Utah fun!

2010-08-08T13:55:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this Utah trip was combined with our Vegas trip, but as usual I am very behind on my posting! We had a blast as usual. The pictures start out at Cherry Hill...a kid favorite!

We were so excited when Tyler and Katie decided to come out an join us at Cherry Hill. This was our first look at Zaida. Isn't she so precious? I had the opportunity to rock her to sleep and loved every minute of it! Thank goodness for Bella and Lily who were always great help with the kids. My boys miss them tons.
After 7 hours at Cherry Hill, Mason gives a sleep thumbs up.

The night of 4th of July. We had a picnic at a park with the Berrett family and then watched fireworks afterwards. So much fun! It was also cooler that night so it was that much nicer!
Here we are in Park City. We took the lift up and the Alpine slides down.

For some reason Samuel felt like posing for pictures that day. He was cracking us up, doing any pose Joe asked him to.

Here is Samuel's first hike. He took a spill and is crying here...he has a hard time comprehending "walk slow and carefully". But other than that he had a blast!

On our way back from Vegas, we got to stop and visit the Trapnells. We love those guys! It felt like no time had passed since we had last seen them. We saw their beautiful new home and were plenty entertained by their kiddos. Damon, my little buddy throughout dental school actually took this picture. Pretty impressive for 8 years!
I also got to see Tara Summers, one of my best friends from Milwaukee days. She now lives in Bountiful, UT which is so cool b/c she's only a couple of blocks from Joe's parent's house. Anyways, I didn't catch any pictures from our visit, but we had a blast!

Vegas Baby!

2010-07-16T12:43:00.000-07:00

For our anniversary, Joe surprised me with a little getaway to Las Vegas. Let me tell you, I love these kind of surprises! Thank you Tom, Suzy, Emily, T, Bella, and Lily! It was a team effort to watch our boys! So we left the boys, and headed to the Bellagio. Joe, I know I give you a hard time for being "thrifty", but this time you really spoiled me! The Bellagio was gorgeous. Here is the Botanical Gardens in the courtyard of our hotel. Don't mind us, we still get a kick out of taking these kinds of pictures!

Here's Joe relaxing by the pool. We made sure to do a lot of this! Along with eating.We watched the Cirque du Soleil "O" show...the water one. It was amazing! We also watched the broadway "Jersey boys" (my favorite show), and the Cirque du Soleil "Ka". Lot's of shopping on the Vegas strip. I saw many things I liked...but a little too high end for me!After sleeping in (my favorite part of the trip), we'd eat a huge brunch, and then explore the different hotels. Here is the courtyard in the Wynn. A waterfall at the Wynn
Ceasars PalaceOutside Paris, Venetian, and Palazzo.So much fun to get away! I'd never really been to Las Vegas and I really liked it! Our trip included my favorite things: sleeping-in, good eating, relaxing by the pool, and great shows. Thanks so much Joe! I had a blast!

Thanks for my camera!

2010-06-07T13:43:00.000-07:00

Thanks for my new camera Joe! I've been bugging him for a Nikon SLR camera for 2 years now and I finally wore on him. This was the best mother's day gift ever!! My goal was to take my own pictures of our boys since every professional photo shoot with these 2 scoundrels have been disastrous. Plus, I was getting annoyed that my other camera wasn't quick enough to get their faces in any pictures. The 3 frames/sec feature can keep up with them! I am still figuring out my camera and have yet to photoshop, but here are samples of my 1st try:

Can I add one more time that I love my camera? Thanks Joe. And Happy Anniversary...9 years, oh my goodness we're old! I am so lucky to have you in my life. Love you so much.

1 Week of Disney= 2 Very Exausted parents

2010-04-08T20:08:00.000-07:00

So here we are, our annual family trip to Walt Disney World. 1 year later, and the boys were much easier and more eager this time around. We had a blast, but after going nonstop for a week, words cannot describe the exaustion we felt by that last day.

1. Magic Kingdom-We visited this park 3 different times (see what I mean about being tired?) 2. Epcot-we spent 2 days at this park. It was focused on innovations and different countries.

3. Hollywood studios-Really neat park themed around making movies. Here we are in the "Honey I shrunk the kids" themed playground. The coolest playground that made you feel tiny 3. Animal Kingdom Or Animal "Ding Dong" as Mason calls it.

This is probably my favorite park b/c of the scenery & animals. It has an African feel to it.

5. Character restaurants. We spoiled the boys by taking them to a couple of restaurants where the characters actually came to our table. This one was called Chef Mickeys and they got one on one attention from Mickey and his original 5 friends. The food was amazing as well. Now we actually thought that this next restaruant would be Winnie the Pooh and friends, but that night was Cinderalla night. I kept thinking of all my friends with their little girls b/c they would've loved this. All these little girls were dolled up in their glittery cinderalla dresses to meet the cast, it was so cute! Then there was my boys who had no idea who she was and could care less that they were meeting her. Where she came by our table, they didn't even want to take a picture with her. After talking him into it, Samuel broke away from his mac n'cheese and posed. This may have been the 1st time Cinderalla has ever been rejected!

6. So during our trip, the boys got really into meeting the different characters and getting their signatures & pictures in our book. We met too many characters to mention, but here are a couple:

Samuel loves Toy Story and was Super excited to meet Buzz Lightyear. We braved a heavy downpour of rain to meet this guy, but seeing Samuel's face made the wet clothes worth it. The things we do to make our kids happy.

I think this picture is funny b/c Mason was pretty scared to meet the Beast. I would be too. Look how big he is just kneeling, he's huge!! But he braved it.

Finally, the surprise of the trip was how much Mason like Mulan. He'd never been interested in watching the movie, so he must've thought she was pretty cute b/c he kept wanting to see her. We stood in line to see her twice and she spent a lot of time with Mason on our 2nd round which was so sweet. He always finds her picture 1st in his autograph book.

Well our trip was in Feb, so I am a bit behind but all in all, that was our disney trip 2010. It was so much fun to see the boys get excited over the rides and meet these characters that they know from movies. However, I must admit...it was quite a lot of work and very exausting! We had 2 toddlers who were still in diapers and relied on daily naps which they did not get most days. While it was much easier than last year, I am thinking next year will be even better! Can't wait!

It's all fun and games until someone loses a TOOTH!

2010-03-02T14:27:00.000-08:00

My new toothless wonder: Sir SamuelAt the ripe age of 3, Samuel managed to knock out a tooth. I was working out at the gym when not 1, but 2 kidcare workers came to get me...blood being on the shirt of one of them. I promptly freaked out and ran expecting to find a sobbing Samuel. Nope. He was growling and chasing kids like nothing had happened. Then as I was getting him ready to go, some of the older kids asked him why he had blood all over his mouth. His response? "Don't worry, my daddy fix it. He a tooth doctor." Put a smile on my face as I contemplated telling Joe. Everything appears fine...Dang it, he lost a tooth! This may not seem a big deal to many, but believe me, my poor orthodontist husband relented about this tooth for many days. Less than perfect smiles bug the heck out of him and now he gets to watch his son's tooth grow in too early, weird, maybe brown.Samuel thinks he's a superhero which may have contributed to the tooth incident. He literally bounces off the walls and somersaults all over the place. This is his response whenever anyone asks about his tooth. Big thumbs up. He's pretty proud of it and shows it off to anyone who will look. The tooth fairy didn't even come! A random picture, but we've loved having the Rigby's live so close to us. Finally, after 6 months, we managed to pull off a date night without the kiddos. Tough task!

Is this really Texas?

2010-02-18T19:37:00.000-08:00

Yes, the picture you're looking at is our home in Keller, TEXAS. We got a whole foot of snow and it stayed on the ground for almost 4 days. Supposedly, this kind of snowfall hasn't happened in over 40 years. The kids were absolutely loving it....ok, ok....Joe and I were loving it too! Joe was very proud of the snowman he built with the boys. It was the tallest one in the neighborhood...our Texan neighbors were not much competition to Utah boy.

Joe built a snowfort for the boys.
Samuel making a snowangel. My poor kids had no snow clothes so they were sopping wet in no time. They still lasted almost 2 hours our there though!

Our Christmas...yes, a little behind as usual!

2010-01-16T19:33:00.001-08:00

Here is our Christmas vacation in no particular order. We went to Utah and enjoyed lots and lots of snow. It was fun taking the boys tubing. And yes, that is Mason in pink pants....obviously borrowed!

Mason threw a fit about putting the mittens on, but gave in once he touched the cold snow!

We went to Temple Square on Christmas Eve to see the beautiful temple and all the lights. It was so flippn' cold that Mason, who usually hates wearing gloves & hats, didn't complain one bit when we bundled him up. We lasted about 15 minutes and then couldn't take it anymore.

The boys absolutely loved all the attention they got from Aunt Emmie, Uncle T, and especially their cousins Lily and Bella. They could not get enough of them and it certainly gave Joe and I a break to have them entertain the boys! One of Samuel's favorite thing to do was tackle the girls...and he got pretty good too! Lily also introduced Samuel to the Barbie world.

The story behind this picture below: The girls had taught the boys to do the Donald Trump finger point and say "You're Fired!" This turned out to be pretty funny b/c Samuel would say it with a lot of conviction. Anyways, when we were saying our goodbyes, there were lots of tears as we watched Aunt Emmy and the girls go out the door. As they headed to their car, Samuel ran out unto the porch and shouted "You're Fired!" And then Mason followed suit. It was like...you're leaving me? Then you're fired as my cousins! We sure miss them!

One of Samuel's favorite places is Chuck-e-Cheese, so we thought it would only be fitting to have his birthday party there. It was so nice to have Joe's family to be there and celebrate his birthday with us. It really made the occasion that much more special. If you ask Samuel today what he did at his b-day party he'll say "Chucky Cheese came out!"

I can't believe my little Samuel is 3 years old! I know every parent says that, but honestly, where has the time gone? I took him to primary for the first time and was in tears. I pulled the primary president aside and asked if he could stay in nursery for another year, b/c surely he's too little to start primary? I mean, if he were born 2 hours later, he would've been a 2007 baby. She was kind but firm and I ended up leaving in tears. People were asking me if I was ok and it was so embarassing to admit why I was crying...b/c I'm pathetic!! I'm going to be a wreck when he starts kindergarten! Anyways, the party was an absolute success and Samuel still talks about to this day. His favorite gift was the Superman type action figures. He takes them everywhere!

According to our boys, Santa visited us twice this year...at our home in Texas and Grandma and Papa's home in Utah. Since Santa gave the boys great gifts in Texas already, their main gifts in Utah were from Joe's family. However, we wanted the boys to have lots to open on Christmas morning since that's their favorite part. So there were lots of laughs as everyone realized that all the "presents" from Santa were just wrapped up old books and toys we found around the house. The boys could care less, just as long as they were opening something, and it didn't cost us a dime to have a 2nd Christmas!

*One of their gifts from Aunt Emmie were these Burger and Fries shirts. They love to wear them and I've gotten so many compliments on them. Thanks Em for these cute shirts!

Here are some of the gifts the boys scored while at our home. We had our own little Christmas right before we left for Utah. Mason loves trains and cars so he was feeling good about his car transporter. Samuel was estatic get a little drum set. We had to hide the cymbal after 10 minutes...I figured that might happen! Oh, and if we ever tell Samuel to smile for the camera, this is what happens.

My parents came to visit for Thanksgiving and we had such a great time. We dragged them everywhere...from tree lightings and light parades to the polar express train ride. Note Samuel's "smile" face for the camera!

And thanks to my dad, we had Christmas lights up on our house for the first time. It looked absolutely amazing. Unfortunately the final picture won't download, so you'll have to take my word for it. There were lot's of lights and lots of color. The boys loved it! The real effort however, was in taking it all down! Which I did almost entirely on my own. I wanted to add more lights to more trees, but I'm rethinking that one after being poked in the eye with a branch.

Anyways, lots of good times over the Christmas break. We had so many friends in Utah that we wanted to visit while we were there, but the four of us had the pleasure of being sick our entire trip. Even I, who hardly ever gets sick, slept half our vacation away. My immune system was compromised from the chemo so I got hit pretty hard. But it was still fun and we still got to do so many fun things. We can't wait until our next trip!

New Year=Fresh start? Hopefully!

2010-01-06T12:28:00.000-08:00

Since Joe just set up our new computer (Merry Christmas to us!), we are still trying to figure out everything so no pictures just yet.

I just wanted to briefly post the great news from my doctor. It looks like the chemo did it's job and all the growth seems to be killed off. I actually passed the tumor...sorry if that is disgusting to anyone reading this, but it actually made my whole holiday! It was the size of a golfball and I had to run it quickly to my doctor so he could preserve it in some solution before it was sent to a pathologist. That was quite the experience...trying to quickly get myself and the boys ready, realizing the boys had found and were fighting over the "tissue"! I know, sick! Luckily it was in layers of bags so there was still a layer left by the time I arrived at the scene! Geez, I can't seem to get anything high enough these days!!!Anyways, my latest bloodwork showed that things are looking good so I am taking a break from chemo for a little while. I have an appointment in a couple of weeks to see if anything has grown back. If my bloodwork comes clean, I could possibly be homefree from this ordeal! Wish me luck!! Pictures from our Christmas vacation to come :)

Update on Jenn:)

2009-12-14T12:23:00.000-08:00

For those who are curious about the status of my health situation, or for those who have absolutely no idea what I am talking about but might like to know...I thought it would easiest to inform and update my blog and in that way, everyone who cares will be in the know on how I am doing :)
So, how do I summarize a 5 month and counting experience? I'll try to keep it as short as possible.

After a miscarriage in July, 2 D&C's (both related to same m/c), and months of continuous and major bleeding, my doctors figure there's something wrong.
2 biopsies, a gazilion ultrasounds, and CT scan later, I find my self sitting in front of an oncologist who gives me a diagnosis:

Gestational Trophoblastic Disease

Apparently after I m/c, some of the 'tissue' embedded into my uterus and formed a small tumor. So, while GTD is a form of cancer, I have a 99% chance of a full recovery as long as it hasn't spread elsewhere...and it hasn't (phew!)
I've had 2 weekly chemo treatments and so far I've got 4 more scheduled...but the dose is very mild and the side effects have been really minimal. PLUS, test results show that the medicine is working...already! Hallelujah! I'm ready for this to be over!

So that's my story, in as few of words as I could manage! The hardest part of the whole thing really has been that the bleeding has made me very anemic so I am weak and tired all the time. And did I mention, grouchy? Yikes, poor Joe and the boys! Anyways, I will try to remember to post any updates on me when I hear any news from my doctor.

I also wanted to mention...it snowed here in Texas! How cool is that? It was very strange to wake up and to see white all around (a very thin layer, but still!)

The longest post ever!!

2009-11-05T19:39:00.000-08:00

I apologize ahead of time for this super long post, but it has been since July! I decided to take my computer head on and update...even if it took me an hour or 4! So, these are the events that have happened since July, in no particular order.
1. Joe and I went to a Dallas Cowboys game. His company provides the football players with free orthowork and as a perk, the doctors can go to games once in a while. The stadium was amazing!! 2) One of our closest friends, Brent and Kristen Rigby, happened to move just 20 minutes away from us! We all went to Ohio State together...Brent and Joe in dental school, Kristen in dental hygiene, and me in social work. Being one of the few LDS couples without kids, we hung out a ton and had so much fun. Coincidentally, their little boy is about the same age as Samuel and Mason, so its been so fun to get together once again and watch our boys run wild. 3)In September, we went to Carlsbad, CA for our first little family vacation, along with Joe's parents. Thanks to his sister Bethany, we stayed in a nice condo right by the beach. It was fabulous! We went to the beach everyday, ate great food, visited the aquarium, and hung out with his sister Bethany and her family who live near by. The picture below is us at Legoland. It is seriously the best themepark for children 5 and under. We were there from open to close and our boys were so stimulated they didn't even nap.

The reason why we decided to go in September is so it wouldn't be as crowded. We were loving how there were no lines. The boys went on this horse ride 3 times in a row!
The boys loved the beach! Mason was scared of the water, but boy did they love playing in the sand. They loved it when the tide was low and we could dig little baby pools for them to splash in. Samuel would stand on that hill and say "I'm the king!" Joe and I are giving thumbs up because that is Samuel's latest thing...when he approves, he gives you a thumbs up with wink.

Joe and Mason searching for little sea crabs.3) Airshow in Fort Worth. I'd never been to one so I had just as good of a time as the boys. They loved looking through all the different planes and then watching them perform tricks in the sky. We were there all day long and were very exausted that afternoon, let me tell you!
4) Pumpkin fun: The boys were excited to have their pumpkins lit for the first time. Thanks Brent for helping us carve them! Boy did our boys love the pumpkin patches this year! We went to 2 of them a total of 5 times!! There is just so much to do that they couldn't get enough. Here are the boys on a hay ride.

5) Halloween: Samuel has been in a major pirate phase for the past few months so there was no question as to what he was going to be Halloween. See this pirate fight stance? This is not just a pose for Halloween pictures, this is Samuel who believes he's a pirate through and through! Thanks mom for the beautiful costumes straight from Disney World. Samuel is Captain Jack Sparrow...dreadlocks and all!
Samuel the pirate, fighting every spider and ghost he faced that dark Halloween night!! Mason wants to do whatever Samuel does, so he claimed that he wanted to be a pirate too. Grandma got him the cutest Captain Hook outfit and he loved it! Held the hook all night long!

Here is our little trick or treating crew. We have Lucas as superman, a friend we met at our pool this summer, and Logan Rigby the tiger. They did so well, knocking on doors for over an hour! Samuel of course could've gone on until midnight!

6) Joe and I went to a U2 concert. It was my first concert ever and it was amazing! Quick story: So we go to our seats on the lower level and they were completely blocked by the lights tower. We were ticked. Joe went to guest services to complain and they put us in the VIP section front row!! We were as close to Bono and The Edge as you can get sitting down.
7) Mason and I flew to Missouri for my grandma's 80th birthday party. During our visit we got to see Dave and Jada, our really good friends from Wisconsin who now live in Kansas City, MO. It was a quick dinner, but it was so good to see them! Jada was on the verge of having her baby but she was tiny and gorgeous as ever. So unfair! People asked me if I was having twins when I was only 7 months pregnant!

8) Finally, I must mention my own summer saga. Many of you may already know that I miscarried in July (yep, apparently we can still get pregnant!!) but unfortunately that miscarriage was not fully resolved until just recently!! Meaning, I got a D&C after that miscarriage, and from then until now I have had major complications. After telling me to wait it out for over 2 months, my doctor finally checked it out and realized he left a good amount of tissue behind. Switched doctors, and after trying a couple things, we had to resort to a 2nd D&C because of all my blood loss. That happened last weekend and I am praying that I can finally move on and feel normal! SO! If you or anyone you know has a future D&C, it is NOT normal to bleed for more than 2 weeks! Knowledge that will stay with me always!

The Cruisers are BACK!

2009-07-15T19:14:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my wonderful and fantastic parents, Joe and I were able to relive our cruisn' days. We had a whole week of fun and relaxation without the kids on Royal Carribean's Freedom of the Seas. It's the biggest ship out there right now.

Here's Joe relaxing on the balcony of our room. One of my absolute favorite things we did was sleep-in and then order room service breakfast which we ate on our balcony. The life!On our previous cruises, Joe and I would be super busy trying to squeeze in as many activities as possible...from art auctions to excursions to sport events on the ship. Not this time. For me at least. I took advantage of the "no kid" time and sat in the hot tub, read by the pool, and slept!Isn't this cool? It hangs over the ocean. So I relaxed while Joe kept up his usual regime of trying to do every activity possible. What can I say? I love to relax, he loves sports. During down times, he could be found rock climbing...Surfing on the ship's flowrider. Sometimes he'd be up at 8 AM to be the crowds on this wave. He actually got pretty decent...I did not dare try it after watching the majority of surfers wipeout in 2 seconds. Plus, some swimsuits were lost!While I laid around like a "slug" as Joe referred to me, he entered the ping pong and the speed rock climbing tournament...and actually won both. "I get better with age" qoutes Joe triumphantly, since I tease him all the time for being "old". Joe owes his gold medals to the 10 ice-cream cones he gets a day. I owe the extra pound I put on to these twist cones. The machine is right by the pool...what else am I suppose to do?Our first stop is Labadee, Haiti. Beautiful place!These swim mats are my favorite things! I could continue my lounging in the ocean!Our next stop: Jaimaca. The thrill of the cruise was our drive up a mountain on a 1 lane, 2 way street. It was the mix of cliff drop-offs and horrible Jamaican driving that made my life flash before my eyes. This picture is of 2 cars in front of us stuck b/c neither of them honked like they were supposed to let other cars know they were coming along a curve in the road. Thankfully, we made it to our excursion where we tubed down the White River. It was absolutely beautiful and there were fun rapids along the way. I managed to be one of the few that flipped over...of course!Along the way, there were some Jaimacan families barbequing while the kids played in the river. They wanted Joe to take a picture of them.We snacked on some burgers and fresh cococanuts afterwards. This picture is for my parents!
3rd stop: Grand Cayman. We'd been there before, but thought we'd try snorkeling. It actually wasn't too bad...there were some pretty coral out there. That's me snorkeling with our ship behind me. So here is a fun couple that we dined with every night. They are Chris Fountain and Amy Diamond from England. Chris is actually a soap opera star in England and a pretty well known celebrity. His girlfriend Amy is a model and singer who has sung all over, in cruise ships, tours around the world, and a show in Vegas. It was interesting to see people (from England) recognize him and ask for autographs. They were even invited to dine with the Captain which I think is a pretty big deal. Anyways, despite our completely different lifestyles, we got along really well. Hanging out at 70's night.4th stop: Cozumel. We've been there plenty of times and love just going to a beach with good food and things to do. We went with our Chris and Amy. Joe and Chris played on the waverunners.

And football in the ocean.

While Amy and I floated out to sea (literally, the boys had to come and get us) and relaxed by the beach.

So that concludes my very long post of our very wonderful vacation. It was just nice to get away and focus on Joe and I for once. Thanks mom and dad for giving us that opportunity to be free kids again. We love you and are so glad you survived the week!

Congratulations Joe!

2009-06-25T14:03:00.001-07:00

Exactly a year ago, Joe and I were scrambling to figure out a Plan B because our Plan A failed at the last moment...which was to move to Florida by my parents, in a house we'd chosen, and Joe would work for and eventually buy out an orthodontic practice in my old hometown. Due to the horrible luck of a patient biting Joe's hand, he drilled too far and failed the restorative part of the FL dental boards. Even though it was disappointing not to be able to live by my family, we couldn't dwell too long on the turn of events because we had to focus on Joe finding a job and figure out where to live since we had to be out of our apartment in 2 weeks!

Well it all worked out thanks to Joe's wonderful parents who let the boys and I live with them for that summer while Joe worked in Texas and closed on our house. And we've loved every minute here and definitely have thoughts of staying here longterm. So this is why it was a hard decision to retake the part of the FL board he failed...but we decided that he might as well try again since he is so close and it will leave FL as an option in the future. So he endured another weekend of FL boards, and this time, things went much more smoothly and he passed!

I am so proud of you Joe! What a champ you are for enduring 2 FL dental boards for me. Maybe it was meant to be that you failed that first time and we live in Texas. But whatever happens, whether or not we move to Florida, at least you have something to show for all the dental board torture you endured!

Never say Never!

2009-06-15T15:27:00.000-07:00

Bye-bye Altima. We'll never forget you since you were our first car together. However, driving you from Utah to Ohio to Wisconsin to Texas seems to have taken a toll on you and now... I have been forced to become a minivan mom. I am almost in tears looking at my picture in front of that van. Ha, ha. Just kidding. Ok, not really. I did have a slight identity crisis as we were shopping for a new car but I am over it and loving the new van.

I was one of those gals who swore to NEVER drive a minivan. I could never get over how
"uncool" they looked. But after looking at all our options, we couldn't deny how user friendly these babies are, especially getting into the 3rd row which will be nice when we have more kids. How can you not love the automatic doors, trunk, and dvd player? I am definitely spoiled and loving our "blue whale". To anyone trying to decide: SUV or minivan? All I have to say is, minivans aren't too bad!

Let's party like it's 1999!

2009-06-02T14:24:00.000-07:00

Go Class of 99'! I just went down to FL for the weekend to attend my 10 year high school reunion. I swear, nothing makes you feel older than than to see the people that you went to highschool with go bald, gain weight, gain a few kids, become career people, etc! The first night was at a club in Universal Studios. I went with Sarah (one of my HS best friends) and her husband. It was neat to go to this thing and tell others "yeah, we still keep in touch" and "we were in each other's weddings". I'm so grateful for friendships that last! We had a mini-awards ceremony where I won longest marriage (8 years folks!) and Charlie, the girl in the middle won most changed person in 10 years. 10 years ago, Charlie was very into physics and not into appearances...I mean, not at all. Then when she walks into the reunion looking gorgeous and buff, jaws dropped. Don't you love stories like that? But don't worry, she still loves her physics with her PhD in Engineering and all!

Some of the girls (minus Charlie) from cheerleading.

My friend Sarah again, Jamie, and I.

Larry behind me, (who was not supposed to be in the picture), also won the most changed person in 10 years b/c he went from super short to super tall! And he was a lot more social at the event than he was in high school.
The next day, there was a picnic for the family and we all brought our kids. I only brought Mason since I left Joe and Samuel at home for the short weekend. Mason was free on the plane, so an easy decision on which kid to bring!

I forgot to rotate this ahead of time, but here is our homecoming King and Queen who ended up marrying and now have a little girl. True highschool sweethearts. I can't imagine marrying anyone from highschool, but its definitely worked out for them!

Mason found some friends and they were playing "pat, pat, pat, blastoff!" from Little Einsteins. He was really missing his "brubber" as Mason says, so when he met the little boy in the middle who is Samuel's age, he followed him everywhere. So cute!

Some of the Class presidency that put this fun reunion event together. Until the 20-year re-union class of 99'!!!

Finally, I wanted to post a picture of the new location for my parents' health food store. It's the section right behind the gray SUV. It's in a great spot that is close to the courthouse and a bunch of health practioners' offices. Congratulations Mom and Dad!

Samuel's new look

2009-05-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

Before:After: After seeing my poor child drip sweat everytime we went outside, I decided to let go of his longer hair-do...but just for the summer! Once the fall hits, I will let his beautiful, thick, and silky hair grow out once again. Unless Joe can talk me out of it...but I think his hair is just too pretty to be kept short. Should've been a girl I tell you!

Here is Mason at the zoo. Little guy is growing up so fast!
All we wanted was a cute picture of the boys on the same horse, but of course they didn't want to share it with one another. Not even for 5 seconds.

Despite their many, many, many, many fights, the boys do have moments where they are actually affectionate with one another. Despite the endless "MINE" arguments, it has been fun to watch them have a lot of fun together and grow up as buddies.

We're alive!

2009-04-16T20:29:00.001-07:00

Happy Easter! And yes we are still alive and well. Obviously I've gotten pretty lazy with blogging but I have 3 decent excuses: 1. My days are filled with sibling rivalry 2. Our computer stinks so it takes an hour just to check my email (I'm exaggerating, but you get the idea...it's SLOW!) 3. DVR-Maybe I'll be a better blogger in the summer when there's not as much to watch! Anyways, here's a few pictures of our Easter celebration:
A couple of days before Easter day, our playgroup had an Easter egg hunt. Here's Mason in action. I was impressed that he knew exactly what to do once I set him free. I've never seen him run so fast! I thought this picture was funny because Mason looks so sad. I'm guessing that Samuel stole that green egg from him. Here are the kids exploring their eggs. My kids of course gagged on the chocalote candies and Samuel kept giving everyone a "taste" of his sucker. I'm sure they all have runny noses by now!

On Easter day we had our own little egg hunt in our house. Here are the boys waiting in the playroom while Joe hid the eggs. Mason's spike is held up nicely by syrup from his pancakes.

Knowing our boys, I filled the eggs with fruit snacks and this time they went to town! They were fighting over each other's eggs even though there were plenty. My life! After eating their fill of fruitsnacks, they opened their gifts from the Easter Bunny. Although I didn't want to get drums, Samuel has an ingrained rthym, is always bopping to a beat, and drums on everything. It was a good buy, he absolutely loves it.
My kiddos goofing off. They are constantly hot and cold: laughing together one minute, crying and hitting the next. I love them to pieces, but boy they are alot of work! To the grandparents: our little Mason is getting strong! This was taken a month ago (or was it 2 months?) and we are at one of the parks in our neighborhood.

Here is a sample of what our Family Home Evenings are like. Opening song, fun song, lesson, and prayer all within a 5-10 minute span. You'll see why they don't last very long!

Mason's favorite song right now is "Pokerface" by Lady Gaga. Because our cd player no longer works in my car, the boys have become big fans of pop music. Samuel in particular loves songs by Pink. Whenever we are switching music in the car, Samuel makes certain that we stop and listen to any Pink songs. My boys are growing up to be so cultured. This video is of Mason singing the Pokeface song. Of course it's never as good once you get the camera out, dang it!

And finally, I wanted to announce that Samuel went pee pee on the potty for the first time tonight. I have heard horror stories about potty training so I have had no interest in potty training Samuel until he was 3. Anyways, lately Samuel has been telling me when he is about to go potty and like the good mother that I am, I usually just tell him to go in his diaper. Finally guilt pushed me to sit him on the toilet, and after the 3rd try, he went! We'll see what happens from here. I'd much rather change diapers at this point in my life, so we'll be taking the potty training VERY slow!

Well, we should be all caught up by now. Let's see, am I missing anything? Joe is loving his new job and I am loving being here. We both turned 1 year older; I am FINALLY back into my prepregnancy clothes (only took me 18 months, pathetic! I need to breastfeed next time!); and I got Joe to watch Twilight with me the night it came out on DVD. He did question that "glittering vampire" idea, but otherwise didn't think it was too bad. Hope everyone is well!!

Christmas Fun in Florida

2009-01-09T20:23:00.000-08:00

To help keep this post as short as possible (which will not be very short!) I will try to condense my pictures and keep my writing to the point. So yes, for this Christmas we visited my parents in Florida for 2 weeks. It was so much fun and so busy since we had lot's to celebrate:

(1) We visited every theme park in the Orlando area. Of course we spent the most time taking our kids to Disney. Samuel's favorite ride happened to be the mini-rollercoaster they have for kids...thanks to his thick puffy hair, he made the height requirement and went on it 3 times.
Mason's favorite thing to do: WALKING! Yay, finally! My parents were so determined to see him walk before we left that they walked him all over Disney's Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom to get him confident. Finally, while waiting for us while we took Samuel on a ride, Mason started walking. It'll be fun to tell him one day that he started walking at Magic Kingdom of all places.
Here's a video of Mason walking for Joe's family. This is his 2nd attempt at walking after Magic Kingdom the previous night.

OK, back to our Disney experience. On one of the nights, we went to Disney's MGM studios to view the 80 million lights they had on display.
Here is a video of one of the many light shows they had that night. Pause the music on the side bar for better effect.
Here's Samuel participating in a persussion show at Animal Kingdom. He really got into the music and starting dancing with his bells. Before long, he was in front and center.

Now here is a video of Samuel dancing at a Disney World shopping center. It's pretty long, but just watch the first little bit and you can get a taste of how Samuel really gets into dancing!

(2) The boys got to spend a lot of time with Grandma Pauline and Granpa Kaleti this trip. They loved going to my parent's health food store and "helping" my parents out. Mason especially loved being wheeled around on a utility cart as my dad went about stocking shelves. One of my most memorable moments of this trip is when my dad volunteered to watch the boys while Joe and I went to Universal Studios by ourselves. He single handedly watched them all day, fed them, and then put them to bed at night. What a grandpa! (3) We had a wonderful Christmas day...presents, lots of eating, kids had long naps, etc. Other than Samuel having a major meltdown because Mason kept taking his new toys, it was really fun! For our family Christmas devotion that night, my dad played a beautiful medly of Christmas songs he arranged just for the occasion. We recorded one of the songs. Pause the music for this one, it's worth listening to I promise!

(4) We got together with my longtime friend Sarah, her husband, and little girl Kaley who is a month younger than Mason. Since my parents didn't have too many toys at her house, my boys went crazy when they saw all of Kaley's new toys. Needless to say, they had a ball. Thanks Sarah for the great dinner and great company! It was fun!

(5) December 31, 2008: Happy 2nd Birthday Samuel!!

This picture is completely Samuel showing his love for music. He got a music set for his birthday and it was a huge hit. Lately, we've been finding him drumming his hands to the beat of music and while we were in FL, he was attached to these drums at my parents store. This is Samuel beating the drums and blowing his recorder at the same time. If you think this is funny, you should see him try to play the piano and beat his cymbols at the same time!

My mom threw a little party at their store and it was complete with presents and a giant cookie for his cake. We knew better than to serve him cake, so we thought we'd serve him a big chocalote chip cookie instead. It didn't work. Afterwards, we took him to Sea World to celebrate and we had a ball! Even though Samuel couldn't have been any naughtier than he was on his birthday (I couldn't even count the tantrums!) it was still fun to see the delight on his face as he saw Shamu, dolphins, and other water life for the first time.

(6) Later that night, we took the boys home to bed and my sister offered to stay home with them while we celebrated New Year's Eve. We went back to Sea World and joined my parents for their special New Year's bash. Holy cow...so, so much fun!! We ate dinner in this gorgeous shark aquarium restaurant and then listened to an amazing philharmonic orechestra that played big band music. They played live while the fireworks coordinated with their music.

What a blast!! That night and our whole vacation! Joe and I are still talking about how much fun we had and are already planning our next big vacation to FL. Thank you mom and dad for everthing and we miss you already!

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-16T21:30:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of fall pictures that we took for our Christmas card this year. We actually had quite a few good pictures to choose from...thanks Suzie for making the kids smile in almost every picture...quite the feat, and thanks Tom snapping the photos!

When our next door neighbors first saw our picture, their response was "You guys sure like your football don't you?" We do like football, but that definitely was not what we were trying to achieve in the picture! First of all, we took the picture in UT and the clothes that I packed all clashed with one another. So plan B: Joe thought it would be fun to represent all the places we've lived in the past 8 years. That is the only reason why I would wear a sweatshirt for a picture we send out to our friends and family!

Did I forget to mention that we visited Joe's family in Utah for Thanksgiving? His sister, Bethany, also came with her hubby Allen, Taylor 10, Evan 8, and Alec 6. It was a very busy, but funfilled holiday break. Samuel loved hanging around the older boys and copied everything that they did. Samuel's favorite thing to do was spend time with Papa Tom in the train room. I've never seen him interested in something for longer than 5 minutes. He'd wake up in the morning and say "papa" than "choo choo"? On our last night there, we went to The Gateway shopping center to shop (if you can call it that with 2 kids) and then watched pianist John Schmidt play the piano before the Christmas tree lit up. It was quite cold that night and Mason made sure everyone knew he hates shopping, but other than that we had alot of fun. The best part was watching Samuel take in the music. He kept bobbing his head to the beat and would even tap his hand or foot to the beat. We managed to capture a little bit of it in the video.

When we got back from our trip, we went to a Christmas party a couple of moms in our playgroup put together. They all came in their Christmas PJs which was pretty cute. Notice that Samuel is the only one that cannot sit for more than 1/2 a second.
Along with eating yummy treats, the kids got to make reindeer shirts with their hand and footprints. I wasn't sure how do-able this activity would be with 7 toddlers running around but no paint was spilled! Most of the kids actually wanted nothing to do with the paint as shown:
But the shirts ended up looking really cute. Below is Samuel's shirt half done. We added eyes, a nose, and painted his name on the back.

Before I conclude this long and very late post, I wanted to add that Mason is now taking some steps! Yay!! He will only gather the courage to walk between Joe and I, but hey, at least we're getting somewhere! How different he is from Samuel. Samuel never wanted any help from us...one day he just let go of the coffee table and started walking across the room by himself. I am thinking that Mason will still take a couple of weeks before he gives up crawling and really starts walking everywhere. Enjoy grandparents! We thought this video was funny since Mason was able to make it across despite the distraction of Samuel streaking back in forth in his diaper.

Samuel...hitting those terrible two's!

2008-11-15T21:42:00.000-08:00

Here is my dear Samuel, who is as usual squeezing out some tears for a dramatic effect. At this moment, his world is crumbling down because one of his socks came off and he cannot find it. And when I offer him other socks to wear, he gets even more upset and throws them and himself around on the ground. After 10 minutes of searching for the stupid sock with Samuel trailing behind me, he is so happy when I produce the sock. Yep, happy for about 5 minutes until the next meltdown begins when he wants to go outside to play while I am trying to get dinner started. And the cycle of mood swings continues...happy one minute and full blown tears the next...over and over it seems. Is anyone else as baffled as I am about the terrible, terrible, terrible 2 stage? Samuel is not even 2 for heaven's sake...I have a long year ahead of me!

Well, despite the tantrums, Samuel is at a pretty funny age where his personality is really coming through. Something Samuel really loves is music. He is always bobbing his head to the beat of the music when we're in the car and he will always start dancing if he hears music, even in public. Here is a video of Samuel dancing at the pumpkin patch we were at in my previous post. I wasn't able to download the video last time, so here's another try.

In this video, Samuel is wearing a pair of little girl glasses that he found at the pool. He loved them so much that he wouldn't take them off for hours, even through dinner. Once he decides he likes something, say a particular SOCK, Samuel becomes committed and there is no changing his mind. So here he is watching Diego, eating, and singing...all while wearing his new glasses.

So the terrible two stage: endearing and enraging...hilarious and frustrating all at the same time. All I can say is that I can't wait for Mason's turn.

Happy Halloween! Wait, that happened a week ago?

2008-11-06T18:58:00.000-08:00

Thanks Grandma Suzy for the cute Halloween jammies!

So yet again, it seems that I am still a blogging slug. I almost decided to skip the Halloween festivities on my blog so that I could be "caught up", but there were too many pictures to ignore. Plus, the grandparents would probably have a fit for not being updated on our Halloween adventures. So here goes: We start off with Samuel the Spiderman...1 out of the hundred spidermen on my block alone. Thank goodness Halloween is a 1 night deal b/c Samuel split the back of his pants in mid-spiderman pose. Of course Samuel could care less. In fact, I'm pretty sure he enjoyed the breeze as he literally ran from door to door. We started off trick-or-treating with his little friend Emily, but after the 2nd house, Samuel was off to the races! At first Samuel invited himself right into people's houses, but he soon caught on and it was hard to catch up with him after that. He loved knocking on the doors and picking out candy. Samuel in action. Am I a geek for capturing his first "door"? Samuel literally RAN around our neighborhood for almost 2 hours. The boy never walks btw, he really only runs at full speed. I mean, how many 22 month olds can endure running for that long? Can you get a feel for what my days are like, trying to figure out ways to expend some of Samuel's energy?

Here is Mason in his dinosaur/dragon/lizard costume. We don't quite know what it is, but Joe picked it up at a garage sale for free. Hence, Joe's newest quote: "If it's free, it's for me!" So for those of you who remember Joe's frugal side, you can probably appreciate the humor in this qoute. And yes, we are still scoping out those garage sales come Friday and Saturday! We consider ourselves professionals by this point! Samuel of course got jealous of Mason's costume, so we gave him a turn in it. It put him in the cleaning spirit and he vacuumed in it for almost 15 minutes (vaccuum also a garage sale find). I just wanted to throw in a picture of the Halloween birthday party that we went to. The kids in our playgroup all dressed up in their costumes, made halloween masks, played and threw tantrums, and then ate cookies. My kids of course wanted nothing to do with the sweets. I had to eat both cookies...just so the birthday boy wouldn't feel bad of course! Here is a picture of Joe and his staff for Halloween. It was their idea to dress up in a theme around Joe's costume, so for that day, Joe was the prisoner while the women ran the show. Here are the boys at a haunted house at a pumpkin patch that we went to. I wanted to include this picture to showcase Samuel's 1st crush. Nope, not Mason, but the weird ugly looking witch that he is sitting on. While most of the other kids were too scared to even approach the witch chair, Samuel is holding it's hand and giving her kisses. Mason didn't even want to sit by the witch, but we managed to get a smile with Joe jumping up and down behind the camera. Samuel was too busy looking at his new friend. So now I am officially caught up on Halloween. Until Thanksgiving...haha.

What a fun week!

2008-10-23T19:55:00.000-07:00

We went with our playgroup on our first visit ever to a pumpkin patch. This part is just the pumpkins, but we went on a hay ride, bounce houses, and a little hay maze. Samuel was very upset at first when he realized he couldn't pick up the "balls" since they were too heavy. Needless to say, he was very excited to find this little house full of small pumpkins. I had to pull him out kicking and screaming after he'd thrown a few "balls" around. I couldn't imagine explaining to Joe why I had to buy 50 damaged, little pumpkins. After several attempts, Mason decided to humor me and smile for the camera. Samuel is a little over stimulated at this point...I'm surprised I even got him to sit for picture time. I love the picture below of big brother showing Mason the tractor behind me. Now the best part of the week: My parents came to visit! We had such a busy, but fun time! Here we are at the BYU vs. TCU game. I never thought I'd see the Cougars play any time soon, but luckily they are in the same conference as TCU, which is located in Fort Worth. Unfortunately, we witnessed in person the Cougar beatdown and our dream to see them play in a BCS bowl went down the drain that night. What a disappointing college FB season!!! My Buckeyes lost AND my Gators lost. I better move on before I get upset all over again! During their visit, my dad helped us get our flowerbed in order...they dug out all the nasty weeds that had overtaken the bed, trimmed all the plants, planted flowers, and put up a stone border around the flowerbed. So here is the before (most of it looked like the side Joe is working on):

And here is the after picture. Thanks dad for helping us! You saved us so much money, time, and effort!

And here we are again at the zoo...we just love that place! It's always a big hit with Samuel.
And I just wanted to add that Samuel was such a huge fan of my dad's while he was here. It was so great to see this since the last visit, Samuel was terrified of my dad. Well actually, he was scared of anyone that wasn't me or Joe, so hopefully he is outgrowing this. I wanted to add a little video of my dad and Samuel playing the guitar. My dad is a wonderful guitarist and so we had lots of music time while he was here. I had him listen to all of Samuel's favorite songs and when he played the theme song from Diego or Popcorn popping, Samuel went wild dancing! Watch Samuel's wide-eyed stare as he plays with my dad. Also note Mason, ready to destroy the guitar.

Thanks mom and dad for coming to visit! We had such a great time and we already miss you! Can't wait to see you at Christmas time.

Life in Texas

2008-10-14T20:31:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to start off with this picture to illustrate why I can't find time to blog. Aside from Mason never napping, my kids are destroyers!! I find myself constantly running around yelling "We only write on paper!", "Don't pound your car on that!", "No throwing blocks at the window!" Every day, actually every HOUR, you can find me mourning over all the marks, scratches, and dents on the surfaces of our furniture and new house...sniffle, sniffle. I'm beginning to think that I'm wasting my time and vocal chords trying to keep anything in decent shape around here. Anyways, by the time the kids go to bed I move into zombie mode, too tired to do anything except work the remote. As for the picture, we bought the boys a little tent for their playroom. Within minutes of playing with it, I found that Samuel had taken all the poles out and was scratching our walls with the ends of them. We then taped all the poles together so he couldn't take them apart, but it was no match for Samuel. He just had to get that tent through the doorway. Here's Joe and Mason enjoying the last day at our community pool. Isn't it awesome? There's also a 6 lane lap pool, another pool with a waterfall, other baby pools and slides shown below. This pool area was a major draw for us in choosing our house. We didn't get Crypto this time, thank goodness! Samuel and I going down the slide. Talk about a major fit when we have to leave the slide area!Joe and Samuel at the Fort Worth Zoo which is an awesome zoo. Samuel really loves animals so we've already taken him 3 times.
Here are some pictures of when our playgroup went to the zoo. I was not sure how fun it would be to take a bunch of 2 year olds and their baby siblings to the zoo, but we ended up having an awesome time. And, I swear my boys have more than 1 outfit! Our attempt at a group photo of the kids...Samuel trying to get as much space between he and all of the girls.

Samuel, not much of a socializer!
I just wanted to post this picture of my favorite grocery cart in the world. I absolutely cannot stand how most stores do not accomodate shopping with two babies very well. Samuel usually ends up in the basket part, either smashing my bread or throwing produce over the edge shouting "ball!" The big cars in the front are a pain to push and plus I can't monitor the hair pulling and hitting that goes on down there. So when I stepped into this expensive health food grocery store for the first time and saw this cart, I knew that I would be a frequent customer. Anything to make shopping with kids easier! Finally, my future golfer already in training. Just in case Samuel may one day want to go into the dental field, Joe wants to make sure that he meets the prerequisite of playing golf. Oh, and this is not a pose for the camera...this is really Joe trying to help Samuel connect with the ball.

I know, I'm such a slacker!

2008-09-17T19:58:00.000-07:00

Well we made it to Texas! We are loving our new house and have settled into our new life here. To catch up on what we've been doing here for the past month, I will illustrate with pictures.
1. First and foremost, Samuel, Mason, and I got Crypto the first 2 weeks we were here. We couldn't wait to try out our amazing community pool facilities, so we went swimming the day after we moved here. The very next day, the pool closed down for Crypto. Wasn't it our luck that they couldn't discover Crypto running rampant in their pools the day before...when we decided to try out the pool for the first time? So the picture below...I had to run to Walmart for more pedialite and thought that surely we could make it to the store and back without any incidences. 5 minutes into the store and Samuel had diarrhea all over his clothes. It was supposed to be a quick trip so I didn't bring any spare clothing. So here is Samuel feeling miserable and half naked at Walmart. The only way he'd stop crying is when I let him hold his bag of poopy clothes. 2. We've been trying to unpack a little at a time, which has been a challenging task with these two busy boys. We've also been shocked at how much you have to buy when you move into a house...lawn mower, ladder, vacuum, security system, pest control. Things that are not fun to buy and therefore hurt even more to spend money on. Unfortunately, this means that I have not been able to decorate to my heart's content. This little table for our breakfast nook is one of the few things I was able to talk Joe into getting. And yes, we still have the yellow paint and have decided to live with it for a year. Neither one of us wants to put forth the labor so we will wait until we can afford to pay someone else to do it:) 3. Mason turned 1 on September 10! My sweet, sweet, naughty boy! We went and took his 1 year pictures and he was an absolute pill. He would not sit still for more than a few seconds. We went to the Rainforest Cafe earlier that week to celebrate, which was so much fun, I highly recommend it to anyone with kids. Then on his actual birthday, we sang to him and tried to give him cake, but it ended up on the floor after he gagged on the frosting. I'm starting to wonder if I've been a little too strict on the "no sweets" rule with the boys. I think I've turned my kids into party poopers! The video is long, but its entertaining if you want to witness the grouchy birthday boy diss his cupcake. To the grandparents, we missed you and wished you were here!

4. In the past month, my life has gotten dramatically busier with Mason being more mobile. Not only has he gotten more active, but he also has gotten more attitude, more assertive with Samuel (therefore more fighting), and naps LESS. This is pretty annoying b/c Samuel still sleeps like a champ, but I can never take advantage of it since Mason is always awake and creating havoc at that. Here he is caught red-handed with the toilet paper. He looks pretty guilty, doesn't he? And then on the next picture he is trying to crawl away from me (while giggling) since he knows he's been naughty. Oh my life! At least this wasn't a bad clean up.
5. We've been exploring around this area, trying to see what is out here to do. So far, there's a lot to do for families which has been great! We have so many things on our agenda to do and see that we will not be bored for a while. In the picture we are at an awesome outlet mall close to where we live and the boys are cheering for the good deals that we found that day. Plus, that mall had fun little rides that are perfect for little kids. It was definitely my idea of fun...a little shopping for me while Joe played with the kids at the mall!
So that's a little about us in the past month. So far we absolutely love it here and it feels like Keller Texas was part of our future the whole time! Our ward is gigantic...400 attendance on Sundays! So hopefully between church and all of my playgroups, I can meet some friends that are as wonderful as the close friends I've made over the past years. The most surprising thing so far though is that I haven't met too many people with southern accents. So many people have moved here from all over the place, its amazing. Well, I am going to regret blogging tommorrow morning when my early bird Mason wakes up at the crack of dawn!

Catch-up: summer fun in Utah

2008-08-10T16:13:00.000-07:00

My little Mason turned 11 months today...he's growing up so fast.

Mason loves, loves, loves playing in the water. Family picture at Cherry Hill. This was the best shot out of 10 tries! We had some fun times with the Berretts at the Oakridge pool. Samuel wearing Papa Tom's hat. Samuel snuggling with grandma Suzy on the lazy river.Samuel loves making animal noises so it was so fun to take him to the zoo and watch his excitement when he saw the animals in person. You can't go to the Hogle zoo without riding the train! Mason with Joe's parents, Suzy and Tom.
The highlight of the day for Mason was the Merry Go Round. He absolutely loved it...too bad I happened to sit on the only animal that didn't move. We were too cheap to pay for another round, but luckily Mason didn't care. I think his expression in this picture is so funny.
Samuel on the other hand certainly did care. He was sitting on his favorite animal and did not want to leave. He was content to watch the Merry-go-Round, so we let him be for 30 minutes. We waited until the crowd died down before we finally braved the full-on-out tantrum.
Well we are finally on our way to Texas tommorrow, yay!!! After 6 weeks on hold in Utah, we can finally get our 'post-graduation' lives started. On Thursday, Joe and his dad flew to Milwaukee to get our stuff, and made it to Kellar,Texas by Saturday night. They had a delay due to a tire blowing out on the car trailer. Fun stuff...glad I'm responsible for flying the kids down! Many thanks to Tom and Suzy for opening your home to myself and our 2 busy, busy boys. I really appreciate your help these past weeks and I am certainly going to miss it once I'm on my own during the days again:( I will especially miss the wonderful company and watching you both interact with these babies in ways that only grandparents can. Thank you so much for everything! This move is so happy and so sad at the same time. For those of you that live by family, please always remember how truly lucky you are!! Well, hope everyone's summers are going well and I will see ya in Texas!!

Hanging out in Utah

2008-08-02T22:51:00.000-07:00

Here's a happy Mason ready for church...spike and all! Well, so far we have been living in Bountiful, UT with Joe's parents for 5 weeks. We finally closed on our house this past Thursday and will be on our way to Dallas next weekend...hooray!! I am excited to move on to the next stage of our life, but even more excited to see my wonderful husband again. So while we've waited, in the mean time lots have been happening.

(1) Both boys took turns with a virus (we think) where they had really high fevers for a couple of days. Samuel even made it up to 104. It was pretty funny trying to guess what it was..."maybe it was the pool water?", "his gums are inflamed, it must be teething", "his stool was a little loose, it must be a cold or virus" When it was Mason's turn, we blamed the fever on a virus.

(2) I've been able to spend some time with some great friends. Below is a picture of my get-together with Kristin and Rebekah...my good friends that I grew up with in Kissimmee, FL. It's hard to believe how much has changed since our Young Women days. After chatting for a while, we decided to herd our children to a nearby park...a process that took us nearly a half hour! The great photographer that I am, the picture ended up blurry and I cut off Hallie. Sorry! This is the best shot too! Below is a picture of Sienna and Mason waiting for their burritos at Chipotle. Katie and I met for lunch and these two were so patient while we slowly ate our lunch over a 2 hour period! Thank goodness for fruit puffs and yogurt melts!
This is the aftermath of our lunch. In addition to snacks, the babies also liked to play with straws and napkins. This extended our lunch another 30 minutes.
(3) Samuel has just about discovered every nook and cranny in grandma and grandpa's house. Toys entertain him for only so long, so we've had to be creative in keeping Samuel busy to divert him away from: the toilets, toiletpaper, the bathroom in general, all the cabinets and drawers in the kitchen, the formal living room, climbing bookshelves, and again Samuel in a bathroom is very bad news. So back to being creative. One of Samuel's favorite things to do is help me with laundry. He loves putting clothes in the dryer. Once he runs out of clothes, than he'll put anything he else he can find into the dryer. Well, even that can become old news, so in the video Samuel has moved on to the next step with the dryer.

(4) Finally, some exciting news for our family, Mason has finally started to crawl!! At 10 months, I was concerned that he was never going to figure it out. The next video is for: my parents who ask me EVERY time I talk to them "Is Mason crawling yet?", my nieces Bella and Lilly who devoted a lot of time into helping Mason crawl, and my poor husband who was bummed that he missed this moment.

(5) We have been going non-stop since we've been here and luckily time has gone fast, since I am beginning to miss Joe. Ha, Ha, just kidding...I've missed you the whole time and I can't wait to see you. I was planning on posting more pictures, but I am way too tired. Stay tuned for pictures at Cherry Hill...the greatest funspot you'll ever know.

How do you like our new house?

2008-07-18T14:30:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of our "possible" new house. I say that because although we are in contract, you never know what is going to happen until the final closing day. I have had a few requests to post pictures on our blog, so here it is. I am a huge fan of the cape cod look with a little porch in front, so this house fits me exactly. We got a killer deal as well, so that was a bonus...gotta love inexpensive Texan living!

I love porches in the front!

Front entry way...it is not nearly as wide as this picture makes it look. The formal dining room is to the right

The living area. The lemon yellow will have to go (what were they thinking?) but my favorite part about the whole house is the sunroom which is through those double doors on the left of the fireplace. It's supposed to be a study, but I'll make it a playroom...my goal would be to keep the toys in that designated area and then shut the doors when I get tired of looking at them! Joe tells me good luck on ever keeping the toys contained. It's worth a try!

Another look of the living room. Below is the kitchen. This is by far the most counterspace I've ever had...goodbye tiny aparments!

There's 4 bedrooms altogether, a formal dining room, a gameroom on the top floor, and a big backyard. The best part about this house is the community center...a waterpark area, lap pools, spray parks, and so forth. I look forward to taking our kids swimming on the the many hot Texas days! Well that's the house. Joe just barely got to take a look at it while in Texas and he gives me two thumbs up on my choice. Thank goodness! It was not easy house hunting alone...talk about pressure!

Catch-up: our 4th of July

2008-07-12T14:05:00.000-07:00

I love our 4th of July get-togethers with Joe's family and extended family. It's usually one of the few times we are in town (Utah) and we get to see all of the Berretts . Below is Mason playing with Sienna...he is not too sure about sharing his toys. At our last 4th of July party, Katie and I were really big (more-so me) and pregnant and sweaty with these two sweethearts. I remember inhaling about 10 chocolate chip cookies that Katie made as I complained about how much weight I was gaining inbetween bites. I'm still working those off plus the 10 sugar cookies I ate this time around.

Some of the cousins and second cousins eating and playing with bubbles. Look about Mason's face, he's now struggling with the idea of sharing his toys with even more cousins. Bryan, Joe's brother, playing with Samuel while we get a bite to eat. As you can tell its getting late and my camera was having some trouble with the flash. But left to right, here's a picture of Monica, Katie, me, and Brooke.

So we are still in Utah having a blast, thanks to Joe's parents Tom and Suzy. Joe will start work on Monday while I again live without a husband for another two weeks...or who knows how long! We did find a house...I flew to Texas for 1 day, looked at 14 houses, and picked one...no diddle daddlying there. Our offer was accepted, but who knows how long it can take to close. We found that it could take up to 6 weeks...ahhh! Very frustrating. Do these mortgage lenders and title companies and whoever else is involved, realize that I am in Utah without all my "mom gear" (I know you moms know what I mean by this)! Of course not. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't care even if they did know. Plus I don't like being in transition for too long. Anyways, enough complaining. I will post pictures of the house once our inspection clears. We really hope buying will pan out for us and will be worth it in the end!

We're movin' to Texas y'all!

2008-06-24T08:43:00.000-07:00

Yay! Joe has found a wonderful opportunity in Dallas, Texas. It was the first interview he went on and we ended up cancelling his other interviews because we both felt so good about this opportunity. It met our criteria of warmer winters, great job opportunity, and being in an area where we could possibly stay if we like it well enough. We will be there for at least 3 years and we are very excited about this new adventure. Now comes the next hurdle...since we had to make last minute plans, we were not able to find housing quick enough. So now we are nomads. We will move our stuff into storage here, move in with our parents, and then come back and move our stuff to Texas when we have a place to live. It makes me tired just thinking about it all! We are considering buying a house since housing is pretty inexpensive there, but that means more time living as nomads. It is a pain, but I actually feel more sorry for our parents than us! Well, I know everything will work out in the end...I've learned that it just takes patience and a lot of prayers. Thanks everyone for all of your kind words and support!

Now here are some pictures of us at a park. Samuel does not like to be cooped up in our tiny apartment so we seriously go twice a day if it's decent weather. We usually go to a park with a basketball court because Samuel loves to run around Joe and shoot at the hoops even though his ball goes no higher than his head. It gets a little tricky when other people are playing on the court though because he wants their ball even though his looks exactly the same. Luckily, people think he's cute enough and are happy to switch balls.

Meanwhile, as Samuel is running around and claiming every basketball as his, Mason is usually content to sit on his blanket for an hour and play with the grass. Here he is pretending he is going to crawl.

For the grandparents, here is a video of Mason enjoying the park:

Sienna tags Mason: 11 facts about Mason

2008-06-17T19:59:00.000-07:00

1. Like Sienna, we consider Mason our miracle baby. Aside from the tremendous odds I faced on ever getting pregnant, Joe and I are honestly stumped on when Mason was conceived! My OB of course narrowed down the days that it should've happened, but we swear it didn't! Hmm...still stumped. Well, we were so swept up in the adoption thing that the month of December was a blur anyways.
2. Although I love Mason dearly, he was the hardest newborn EVER! Unfortunately, I didn't know about reflux so our household suffered ALOT of constant crying for several weeks. He became happy as a clam once we introduced him to Zantac which he is still currently on.
3. For his first 5 months, Mason was a horrible sleeper. On average, he woke up 2 to 3 times a night. Finally I let him cry it out one night and now he is an excellent sleeper!
4. Mason is our serious baby. You definitely have to earn his smiles, especially if he doesn't know you.
5. Mason loves Samuel more than Joe or I. I've finally come to terms with that!
6. At this moment, Mason feels no motivation to move. He is perfectly content to sit in the same spot for an hour and play with his toys or look at books.
7. Mason is the most low maintenance, laidback child. If he is fussy and he's not hungry or tired, than I take him to the doctor because I know something is wrong (and there usually is!) Once he started sleeping better, he has been such an easy baby which is what I needed to be able to keep up with Samuel.
8. He loves being outdoors. I'll take the boys to the park and all I have to do is park Mason in a stroller and he'll just relax and enjoy the weather while I chase Samuel around.
9. Mason loves to give me kisses. Once he starts, he doesn't want to stop! My face will be covered with his saliva by the time he's done!
10. Mason is terrified of Tickle Me Elmo, dogs, and being in the bathtub with Samuel (I don't blame him, Samuel is a wild man!)
11. Mason is very sweet and sensitive. The other day he was knawing on my shoulder and actually bit me pretty good. He didn't mean to, but I responded out of pain and said "Ouch, no, no Mason!" He puckered out that bottom lip and it started to quiver, and then he started to cry. So sad! It was the first time I was stern with him and I actually started to tear up. I didn't think he'd get so sad about it!

How I love this sweet baby boy...such a blessing!

Mason tags Ella, Braxton, Sadie, Austin

Florida...maybe another time.

2008-06-13T09:16:00.000-07:00

Well, Florida is not meant to be for our family at this time. Joe gave his best efforts on the boards and scored almost perfectly on everything...except the biggest portion of the boards. Due to an unfortunate event, which involves a badly decayed tooth and the patient biting down on his hand at the worst moment, he received an automatic failure for that part. He nearly passed despite missing 30% of the grade, so he can retake that one procedure again. But that will not be until November. Although I am very confident that Joe can pass, we have decided not to put everything on the line again to see if he passes. It's too much of a risk and far too much pressure on my poor husband. While he was in Gainesville, he was teased endlessly about how much pressure he had...with a job, house, and my family all waiting for him to pass even though he hadn't touched a drill for 2 years. I am touched at how he went through all of that torture just to please me and my need to be by family. What a husband!
So our plans for right now? Uh, we are back to square 1. Although I was very disappointed at first, I am now pretty excited about a new adventure. Since we now are in a hurry (we will be homeless at the end of this month) Joe is looking for an associateship for a couple of years which will give us a little more time to figure out where we should settle down permanently...who knows, maybe it will be Florida in the future. We are looking everywhere and he already has a few interviews set up. Wish us luck!

Happy Anniversary!

2008-06-01T19:36:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that 7 years have passed since the day Joe and I were married in the Salt Lake City temple. With every anniversary, we like to joke that "it's been a LONG 7 years" or however long we've been married. But really, it's been the best times of my life. I am hoping that Joe can say the same as well! Unfortunately, we won't be able to celebrate this anniversary together and I am so sad that I can't express how much I appreciate him face to face. We thought our last 2 anniversaries were bad since we moved on those very days, but at least we were together! Oh well, what do you do? Obviously passing the boards is the most important thing right now. Joe will just have to celebrate in Gainesville with take-out from Chili's and I will have to celebrate with the boys and maybe some chicken nuggets (Samuel's favorite).
This next video is for my dad who is concerned about Mason's lack of motivation to move. It is true that he is very laidback; He hardly feels the need to roll around much or even try to pursue any toys that are out of his reach. I don't blame him since he gets enough entertainment just watching Samuel continuosly run around, jump, or throw tantrums. However there are times when he does get bursts of energy and they usually happen in his exersaucer. He jumps in it like crazy and is usaully panting by the time I take him out. Don't worry dad...today I saw him rocking on all fours so maybe we will have a crawler soon (yikes, and I thought motherhood was already tough!)
Happy anniversary Joe and goodluck on your practice boards.

Congratulations Joe!

2008-05-29T13:31:00.000-07:00

Joe graduated last week and is now officially an orthodontist. Congratulations hon, you did it! We both never thought that this day would come, but it finally did after 10 years of college and a lot of hard work! I am so proud of you and the sacrifices that you've made so that you can provide for our family.

After an amazing dinner, speeches from his professors, and a slideshow from the 1st year residents, Joe accepted his Masters degree and Orthodontics certificate. Each graduating resident spoke and Joe did a great job even though he didn't prepare anything ahead of time (typical Joe). He was actually caught off gaurd, but recovered nicely. My favorite part was when he thanked me for being such a wonderul support. I would have to agree!

It was so much fun to have Tom and Suzy visit for this occasion. We always have a blast when they visit and this time was no exception. One of the things that we did while they were here was to visit a toy train museum. Tom is a big collector of Lionel toy trains and it was fun to take the boys and watch their reactions to all of the trains.

We also went to the zoo which was really fun. It happened to be a nice and warm day, so of course everyone in the city of Milwaukee wanted to get outdoors and enjoy the weather...the zoo was absolutely packed. Samuel's favorite thing was the petting zoo with the goats. We made 2 trips because he enjoyed it so much. Here is a video of Samuel in the middle of goats, trying to feed them. He had no fear! He just walks in and sticks food right into their mouths.

So now that Joe has graduated you may be wondering about our plans. After A LOT of searching, the best opportunity that met both criteria of being by family as well as being a good practice opportunity for Joe is in Kissimmee and St. Cloud Florida. The only hitch (which is a big one) is that Joe will have to take the Florida boards to practice there. To all my dental friends, you can understand how painful this process is for Joe to do all over again. He is currently there right now taking a refresher class and then the boards. Save some of your pity for me though, because while he is gone for 2 WEEKS, I am here by myself with the kids. My family was not able to come and all of my friends have either moved or are on vacation. Please pray that I can maintain my sanity without any adult interaction during this time! To Joe in Florida: you are such a trooper and I am so proud of all of your accomplishments so far. I admire and respect you so much. Good luck in Gainesville.

May fun

2008-05-16T14:40:00.000-07:00

Below is a video showing a little of the love-hate relationship between Samuel and our cat Chloe...Samuel is all about the love (which he shows by pulling her tail and poking her in the eyes) and therefore Chloe is more on the opposite spectrum. The top of our recliner used to be Chloe's "spot" to sit until Samuel got old enough to climb on and bother her. Now she's usually forced to find another place to sit because of Samuel, but not without a fight! (Don't worry, she doesn't have front claws)

Here is a video of Mason in his little jumperoo. I think babies look so funny when they're in these things and Mason is no exception! He usually won't stop bouncing as long as he's in there and I have to take him out so that he'll rest.

Happy late birthday Tara! Jada and I had so much fun taking Tara (middle) out for her first pedicure. For some reason, Tara's lady gave her the deluxe pedicure and treatment while Jada and I felt jipped, but I'm wondering if she went the extra mile due to guilt...? Here's the funny story: We were talking about Tara's upcoming cruise and new bathing suits, and Tara mentioned that she wanted to lose 5 pounds . Well the lady doing Tara's pedicure piped in just then and said, "no, 10 pounds". We thought that maybe since the lady had a thick accent, there was miscommunication, so we asked her "what?" or "come again?" She then smiled and said, clear as day, "lose 10 pounds". I was baffled, but Tara didn't miss a beat and cheerfully said "yeah, maybe I should lose 10 lbs. or maybe even 15!" The crazy thing is that Tara doesn't even need to lose 1 pound...she is so fit and seriously runs 10 miles a day, which is why we thought the whole thing was funnier than anything. Well, we certainly didn't tip well, but all in all, I think Tara enjoyed her first pedicure experience. To my "Wisconsin BFF's", I will miss you both so much! I will always remember our workouts, lunches, girls nights out, and many more great times.

Fun pictures of the boys

2008-05-03T15:07:00.000-07:00

It's rare to get a picture of both boys smiling, or even just looking at the camera so I had to include this picture. Mason is usually our serious one and only graces us with his smiles on occasion. The only reason why he is smiling so big here is because he's by his brother and for some reason always finds him hysterical.

Can you tell that I really want a girl someday? Thanks to Tara, I inherited a couple of bows and have put them to good use (although Joe definitely does NOT agree!) I don't think she meant for me to use them on my boys, but I decided that it's best to torture them with this kind of thing while they're babies and won't remember this in the future! Unfornately for Joe and the kids, this is not the only time I've put bows in their hair! Ok, now this may seem mean to take pictures of my children when they are obviously upset, but this is an "I told you so" picture. Do you know how many times I told Samuel to leave the stroller alone? After blocking it and trying to distract him countless times, I decided to let him learn the hard way. So like any good mom, I grabbed my camera and waited for him to learn his lesson.

Below is a video of Samuel our little kangaroo. I can always tell when Samuel has waken up in the morning by the sound of "boing, boing, boing" on his crib mattress. He will literally jump in his crib for sometimes up to 30 minutes and not make a peep. I feel bad for the mattress, but at least I get to sleep-in just a little longer! The video is long and for the grandparents' sake, but if you just watch the beginning you'll get the idea!

Spring Break 2008-Florida

2008-04-26T19:56:00.000-07:00

Here is Samuel at a lake in St. Cloud, FL. He had just barely walked in the sand for the first time and found wading in the water to be just as intriguing. He kept walking back and forth, back and forth just staring at his feet.

How can you visit Orlando without a trip to Disney World? Since Samuel has a habit of running anywhere he pleases, we decided to get him one of those monkey backpacks to restrain him somewhat. He absolutely loved it until he realized it was hooked onto a leash. Try imagining a little 1 year old throwing tantrums on the ground in the middle of long and crowded lines. That part of our Disney experience was not the funnest!

Luckily my dad is a big guy and Samuel finds him intimidating. It was nice to hand Samuel right over to him whenever he needed to calm down a bit. Mason is

just happy to be by Samuel. You put him anywhere near Samuel and he starts laughing hysterically. Forget the characters, rides, and music. All he needs is Samuel nearby and he's entertained. It was so nice to get help from my parents while we were there. I love grandparents!

During our visit we were able to see my good friend Sarah and her daughter Kaley. It seems like just yesterday we were complaining to one another about the glories of pregancy, and yet our babies are so big already! How time flies!

We also got to celebrate Easter with my parents which was really fun. They got to experience Samuel's first easter egg hunt with us which I loved. The best part was that for some reason, after picking up the eggs, Samuel would run over to my sister and throw the egg right at her head. If you knew my sister, you would think this was especially hilarious as well. That is why she is sulking in the corner by the bushes. I probably should have stopped him, but I was too busy laughing.

Our Family Story

2008-04-24T13:54:00.000-07:00

Here, Joe and I are enjoying our last cruise in September 2006 right before our lives turned upside down. In this picture we are trying to decide between steak or crab and what our plans were for the next day. Should we snorkle or relax by the pool? Oh, such hard decisions!!! Little did we know that we were enjoying our last vacation for a long, long, LONG time!!

As many of you know, Joe and I were blessed to become adoptive parents soon after we applied for adoption. When we got back from this cruise, we were soon chosen to become adoptive parents and in December found ourselves in South Carolina awaiting our first son Samuel to be born. Although very emotional, the adoption process turned out to be such an amazing experience and I would not change a thing about it. Samuel was born on New Year's Eve and we were able to take him home from the hospital. Joe and I could not think of a better way to begin a new year. WHAT A YEAR! The blessings continued to pour our way because 2 months later, I realized that I had been pregnant even before Samuel's birth. So in September 2007, just 1 year from when that care-free cruise picture was taken, Joe and I doubled our family size. We thought the whole thing was pretty funny too until Mason was born and reality set in!! (The last baby picture is Mason) So yes, our lives have certainly changed and we are still adjusting to the chaos of parenting two little babies. However, we never forget that they are both our miracle babies and are so grateful for the added meaning that they have brought to our lives.