The Wood Family

End Of A Year

2011-12-31T11:14:00.003-07:00

I have much to post about with Christmas and I still need to post pictures of our apartment. But I wanted to post now about the end of 2011 and looking towards 2012.

We had a really great 2011. It was full of many changes, but so far most of them have been very good changes.

I'm grateful for all of the life-lessons I've experienced and am still experiencing this year. Some have been really hard on me, still are, but hopefully there will be something to learn at the end of it all.

I'm grateful for my children who continue to grow and learn everyday. They are such good boys, sweet and tender... and a little feisty. ;) But I'm so grateful that they know how much I love them and I'm so grateful to have their love.

I'm so VERY grateful for an amazing husband. He is so amazing with me. Always willing to listen, give advice, let me cry on his shoulder, provide, help raise our kids, helps around the house... etc. He is more than I could have ever hoped for and definitely more than I deserve.

Onto a brand new year... 2012! I have a feeling and hope that it's going to be an amazing one. I have many things I'd like to accomplish this year, so I'm writing them down and hopefully will check up on them to see how I'm doing.

1. Always on the top of my list, bring another child into our family... in whatever way possible.
2. Find Ryan a full-time job
3. Move out of state
4. Get into a home... and I'm okay if we're renting it. It's a bit too much to buy a home right after moving out of state. We want to make sure we like an area before we buy a home there.
5. Get some kind of schooling done. I would really like to do the EMT program at the DATC and I hope we can come up with the money for me to do that.
6. Go to Disneyland. :)
7. Spend lots of quality time with Ryan and my boys.
8. Get a job.
9. Laugh a lot.
10. Be happy and content with whatever comes our way.

That's a pretty hefty list of goals. I'm not expecting to accomplish them all, but I hope to at least be working my way towards them.

Happy New Year!

Darek and Ian's Adoption Story - Part 2

2011-12-07T09:29:00.002-07:00

So I didn't intend it would take 2 weeks to get to part 2, but I'm finally sitting down and have a little while to write the rest of it out. So here it goes!

I remember walking through the airport with Alice and feeling very much dazed. I couldn't imagine that this was all real. We were very sleep deprived but the excitement was keeping us awake. The nerves started to set in for me. I had no idea what to expect. Even though we had some details, there were a lot of other questions and worries I suddenly had. How big are the boys now? Are we going to be seeing and talking to the birth mom? Am I going to see them and love them like I loved Alex? I hadn't questioned this before because I didn't think I'd have issues with that with all the foster kids we'd had over the years and knowing how much I loved each one of them. But this was different. These weren't my siblings, these boys were my children. I remember shaking in the car ride over to the hospital. Alice told us we were going to go over to the first hospital - Norfolk General to see Baby A. After we were done there, we'd walk next door to the other hospital - Childrens Hospital of the Kings Daughters (CHKD) to see Baby B. I tried to enjoy the scenery, since this part of VA was a place we'd never been before. But I don't remember really caring about that.

We finally got to the hospital and checked in. We went up to the NICU in that hospital. Even though Baby A was doing fine, he was still being kept there because of his size. We had been told that he would still be on a feeding tube and we'd need to learn how to use that before we left. We got to the NICU, washed our hands, checked in and went in to see him. I remember the layout perfectly. We went around a little corner and there he was, laying in his crib. My first reaction was the shock at his size. He was the tiniest baby I had ever seen! And he was double what he was at birth! Then I looked into my sons face. He was so beautiful. He had the softest, curly hair and the sweetest little chubby cheeks. How in the world could a baby so small have chubby anything!?! He had big, beautiful brown eyes that looked right up at me. I was in love. Plain and simple. This little boy was ours. I was his mom. After Ryan and I had looked at him, it only took a few minutes to decide that Baby A was Darek. I had wanted to see them both before deciding for certain, but I was 99% sure he was Darek. I was expecting wires and tubes, but he didn't have any of that. I asked the nurse about the feeding tube and she told me that he got sick of it a few days ago and pulled it out and had been taking bottles just fine. I was in awe that this tiny little guy who still wasn't supposed to be born for another month and a half was this perfectly healthy baby boy. I wanted to scoop him up and take him with us right then, but there were still tests they had to do to be sure he was ready to leave. So we said goodbye temporarily to him so we could go meet his brother.

It felt like this crazy maze going out of the 1st hospital over to the 2nd and I swear it was an hour before we got there, although I'm sure it was just minutes. Alice had told us that Baby B was not doing as well, but that he really just needed more time. I was a little more nervous to see him because I wasn't sure how he would look or how severe the problems were. But as we got closer to the NICU at CHKD, all of the worries seemed to go away. We had to check in at the front desk before heading back. The secretaries there were so wonderful as we told them who we were. We were told what room and bed he was in. We got to the room and had to wash our hands really well. I'd like anyone to try and stand there and wash their hands for the full 2 minutes, when your baby is just out of sight right from you. It's nearly impossible. But I managed to get through those few minutes and head back to his incubator. There were probably a total of 10 babies in each section and I remember looking at them as I headed back to my baby. He was the last one in that row, right next to the window. As soon as I saw him, I had the same feelings I had with Darek. I knew so quickly that he was my son. I felt like I already knew him. It was such an amazing feeling. And as soon as I looked at his face, I was totally positive about the names. He was most definitely Ian! I wasn't as bothered by all the wires and tubes as I thought I would be. I just focused on his beautiful little face. He features to me were softer, sweeter almost. He was asleep when we got there. We opened the holes to the incubator and put our hands on him. Again, he was so tiny. He had the softest hair with the most beautiful curls. The nurses gave us some information that I didn't understand even a little bit. But they told us that he was the sweetest baby in there. He was always so good and they loved to come sit with him. I can't remember how long we were there with him, but it didn't feel like very long before we left to go eat and talk about signing papers.

We went to the cafeteria and ate. All of a sudden I started to feel a little tired. After we ate, we found a little quiet area in the hospital and sat down with Alice and signed the adoption papers. She mentioned that there was still a certain time period that Beatrice (our birth mom) could change her mind, but assured us that she was sure that wouldn't happen. We got a little bit more information about Beatrice and found it interesting that she already had 2 little girls and was 20 years old. We asked if we'd be meeting her, but Alice said she wasn't really interested in meeting us. We were a little sad but were okay with whatever she thought would be best for her. We went through the enormous stack of paper work and signed our names a million times.

After we were done with the paperwork and feeling like everything was official, we headed back over to Norfolk General to get our baby Darek. We got over there and there was still so much to do. They hadn't done his car seat test, which was going to take a while. He still was hooked to monitors and needed to be dressed still (which I couldn't wait to do). So as we waited, I took a little time to step out and call a few people, including the people we were going to be staying with in VA. We had been bugged all day by excited family members, but there hadn't been much time to call or update people. It was getting to a point where everything was just taking so long. Alice was getting quite impatient (not that I could blame her) and was more than ready to leave. She suggested we just leave for the night and come back tomorrow for his release. WHAT?!? Oh no, I don't think so! We were so excited and had come so far, I wasn't going to leave my baby at the hospital, when I knew I could wait just a little longer and have him come home that night. So we waited. After everything finally came through and we talked to the doctors and nurses about appointments he would need in the next few days, we finally got Darek dressed, in his car seat and left the hospital. It was an incredible feeling! Alice pulled her car up and we loaded him in.

Now another bunch of nerves set in. We were going to be staying with a family in Chesapeake whom we had never met. We had originally thought we'd be staying across the street at a Ronald McDonald house, but found out they wouldn't let us stay there with an infant. So stupid. So a social worker had gotten word out in the area, through the church about our situation. And this amazing family had stepped up and agreed to take us in for the time we were here. We didn't know much about them, just that they were amazing to let us come stay. When we arrived at the Hunter-Holmes, we were brought in with open arms. And immediately, I felt like I had known this family for years. The family consisted of Steve and Pam and their kids Maya (who was 7 or 8), Avery (who was a month older than Alex - 5) and Ian (complete coincidence who was a few months old). They were all so excited to see Darek and had a hot dinner ready for us to eat, even though it was so late. They showed us where we would be staying and I think I stayed up for a few hours just talking to Pam. On top of having 3 kids, she was also the Relief Society President. I was amazed at the generosity of this family and will always feel in debted to them, in more than one way.

The next day we went back over to CHKD to spend more time with Ian. We took little Darek over with us. Because Darek wasn't allowed back in the NICU, Ryan and I had to take turns going back. They told us that Ian was doing really good that day and we could hold him that day. Because Ryan was going to leave the next day, I told him to take this special time with Ian. I stayed out with Darek and got to meet some wonderful people. The chaplain they had there, Chaplain Reggie, was amazing. We told him our story and he was in awe that we would do this. And of course we felt so privileged. He was in love with Darek and offered to sit with him for a little while so I could go back with Ryan and Ian. I'm so glad he did, because we got some wonderful pictures while we were back there together. We spent several hours there that day and had some wonderful time with Ian.

The next day Ryan had to leave. He left very early in the morning. Darek and I drove Ryan to the airport and said goodbye. It was so hard saying goodbye and I knew how difficult it would be not having him there. Over the next week, things were crazy! I tried to get to the hospital to see Ian as much as possible, but it was so hard with not being able to take Darek with me. Pam was nice enough to watch him when she could, but I also had several doctor appointments I had to take Darek to in the mean time. It was a very hard week. I did get to take a day and go with the Hunter-Holmes family to the Norfolk zoo. That was so much fun and a very needed break. Finally the day came for me to leave and go home with Darek. I went to the hospital that morning and spent some time with Ian. It was so hard to leave. I said goodbye to him, and kissed him. As soon as I left the room, I broke into tears. It was such a difficult thing to do to leave him there. I went back to the house, finished packing up our stuff and Pam took me to the airport. It was almost as difficult saying goodbye to her too. But I was also so excited to get home to Alex and introduce him to one of his new baby brothers.

I flew from Norfolk to Houston and had a 4 hour layover there. It was fun walking through the airport there with this teeny little baby. There were many people that literally thought I was holding a baby doll. It was fun to meet new people and share our story. Darek had some kind of stomach bug on our leg home from Houston and must have pooped 6 or 7 times. I spent most of that flight in the bathroom changing his diaper. And I almost ran out of diapers because I thought 7 diapers would be more than enough for a couple hours flight. We finally landed at the airport in Salt Lake and I took Darek in to the bathroom to change him one more time before taking him out to meet Alex, Papa and Grandma. Ryan had to work that night, so he didn't get to come to the airport to see us. The woman that had sat next to me on the flight had come out and spotted my parents, since she knew what was happening. She let them know how cute Darek which made them even more anxious. I'll never forget the looks on their faces as I came out with Darek. I asked Alex first if he wanted to hold him. He was so nervous and said no. So immediately my mom took him out of my arms. We got our luggage together and started to walk out. Before we got to the elevator, Alex said he was ready to hold him. So we stopped and Alex sat down and held his brother for the first time. It was amazing and precious for me to see. I'll never forget that moment.

The next month was filled with having a new baby at home, getting used to having Alex in school and Ryan at school and full time work. I called the NICU constantly, although maybe not enough. We talked about moving Ian to PCMC so he could be closer. We'd have ups and downs with him getting off the vent, then back on. It all continued until the day he passed away. I am not going to relive that day right now because just reliving the rest of this story has been so emotional. There will always be a void in our home where Ian should be. Always a part of me missing. But I love my son so much and can't wait to see him again.

I know I've left out so many details, but this is our adoption story. I love telling it and I'm glad to have it written down now so I can come back and read it whenever I want to.

I really hope that we will get the opportunity to adopt again. It's a magical experience. One that we will never forget and always feel so grateful to have experienced.

Thankful

2011-11-30T16:12:00.003-07:00

Before November is totally over, I wanted to focus on some of the things that our family is thankful for this year. I've asked each member of our family to come up with 10 things that they are thankful for this year. I'll go first so I don't "cheat" off anyone else's. :) In no particular order, here are the things our family is grateful for:

Mandi
1. My husband and boys - I truly don't know what I'd do without them
2. Our new home - I love it more and more each day we're here
3. Family time - Since moving, we've been able to spend lots of wonderful time together exploring our new surroundings. I have LOVED every moment of this time together.
4. Extended family - I always love getting together with extended family and creating new memories.
5. Perspective - It's been so good to move to a place where I can see people who struggle but still feel that they have it all. I don't know if that sounds bad, but where we lived with my parents, it was a wealthier area and it showed sometimes in the attitude of people there. I'm glad to be "struggling" and get that perspective back of what really matters in our lives.
6. New friends - Ok, so a lot of my things revolve around moving. :) But it's been so fun already getting to know new neighbors and ward members. Our next door neighbors have kids about the same age as ours and come from very similar backgrounds. I'm excited to get to know them and others better and make some new, lasting friendships.
7. Old friends - I love my friends so much. They are my backbone and without them, I would go crazy. I'm so grateful to know that no matter where we end up, I will have my friends with me for life and beyond!
8. Possibility - I feel like I have a new life and am toying with many possible things in my future. I'm not sure yet what I'll do exactly, but the possibilities are there and are very real!
9. Our cats - I feel silly writing this one down, but I love our kitties so much! They add so much fun to our lives and I love that we got both of them from shelters.
10. Knowledge - I'm not the smartest person out there, far from it even, but I'm grateful to know the things that I know. And I'm grateful to the people who teach me new things on a daily basis (especially Ryan).

Now that I'm into this, I could go on forever, but I won't hog the whole post. The rest of them probably won't have as much explanation.... I just like to talk a lot. :)

Alex
1. Family
2. Pets
3. New house
4. Clothes
5. Shoes
6. Furniture
7. Food
8. TV/Movies and Video games
9. The Earth
10. Sports... especially soccer

I have a feeling he was just looking around and saying what he was looking at. That's okay though, cause all of those things are wonderful things to have.

Darek
1. Santa Claus
2. Snowballs
3. Christmas Tree
4. Kitten
5. Disneyland
6. Daddy and Mommy
7. Our new house
8. Alex
9. Other family members (he named all of them)
10. Lagoon

Ryan
1. Family
2. Our Country
3. Technology
4. Knowledge
5. Compassion
6. Agency
7. Air Conditioning
8. Employment
9. Understanding
10. Forgiveness

There it is... I probably would have stolen a couple from the different lists. We are thankful for so much more than that, but this gives a few things that top our list. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Darek and Ian's Adoption Story - Part 1

2011-11-23T22:55:00.003-07:00

My friend Amy posted her little girls adoption story in honor of National Adoption Month. After reading it, I've been inspired to do the same. I posted bits and pieces of it when we got the boys, but never went through the whole thing. Hopefully I can remember it all and hopefully get through it in one post. Just a warning... it might be pretty long. ;)

Ryan and I have always wanted a pretty good sized family (4-5 kids) and never thought it would be a problem. When it took 14 months and some fertility drugs to get Alex, we figured it would probably be the same with any future children. So we didn't wait long to start trying for another one after Alex was born. Each year passed with fertility drugs and procedures. After 4 years, some pretty bad break downs on my part and lots of failed attempts, we stopped the drugs and procedures and took a little break. The break didn't last long because we had such a strong desire to add to our family. We immediately started talking about adoption. It was something I always eventually wanted to do... this just gave us the opportunity to do it sooner than we had planned. We got the information we needed and started the process to adopt. It took us about 6 months to get everything completed and approved. We got our approval letter in February 2008. We knew that because we already had a child, we would probably end up waiting a bit longer than a couple without a child. We were expecting a possible 2 year wait. Even though it was a long time, we knew we were at least working towards our goal.

We were never really contacted by any birth parents within that first little bit and we weren't really surprised. Late on Friday, August 22, 2008 I saw that I had missed a phone call and had a voicemail. I listened to the voicemail. It was our social worker calling about twin boys in Virginia that were looking for an adoption placement. My heart skipped a beat. I was excited but almost immediately started to dismiss the call. Twins? Virginia? Right now? Alex was starting Kindergarten on Monday and Ryan was going to be in his 2nd week of his Radiology program for school. This would just be impossible! TWINS!?! But I couldn't shake the call. I casually brought it up to Ryan. His first reaction.... Twins??? I told him I knew and had no idea how we'd do it, but convinced him that it wouldn't be a "big deal" to just call our social worker back for a little more information. He agreed and I called her. She gave me a few more details including the fact that the adoption would be through another agency. She gave me the contact information and said to contact them if we were interested. Ryan again said he just didn't think it would work. I agreed but again said it wouldn't be a "big deal" if I just called the agency back east to get a little more information. After talking to the other agency and really getting the information about the boys, my heart was about jumping out of my chest. I sat down with Ryan and we had a very long talk about it. Ryan was pretty focused on the "twins" part of it and the horrible timing part of it. But he went off the feelings I had about it. I told him that if we wanted to proceed and get a little more serious about it that we would need to fax our paperwork to the agency over the weekend. He was so worried about it but said if I felt good about it that he was okay with proceeding. (I just want to note here that in NO way did Ryan not want these boys. He was so concerned about all the details... it's the kind of person he is and I'm glad he is that way. I tend to work from the heart and him from the brain. It works out pretty well because both of us think of things the other doesn't.) Over the weekend, I worked on getting our agency to fax back our paperwork. I felt like I was on the phone the whole weekend. I was also learning what a miracle it was that we were even notified of these boys. The news traveled through several social workers to get to our agency, which totally confirmed to me that these boys belonged with us. But I knew it was still a long shot for us to even be chosen. After we had sent all the paperwork in on Saturday, I decided to tell just a few close friends and family about the situation and ask them to pray for us. We were told that we would have an answer Monday morning.

Waking up Monday morning, Ryan had left for school and I probably should have been totally focused on Alex's first day of school. And I was to a certain degree, but the seconds ticked by so slowly and I was sure I was about ready to get some disappointing news. I got a phone call around 9:00 that morning. It was the director of the agency here in Utah. He said he was in contact with the agency back east and they had narrowed the couples down to 3.... and we happened to be one of them. He asked me several questions. How big is your apartment... will you have enough room for twins.... do you plan to work after bringing them home.... I answered the questions and when it came to working after bringing them home... I said no. NO??!? What was I thinking? Ryan had just quit his full time job so he could focus on school. He was still working part time and I was working full time and had the benefits. I honestly hadn't thought about it and had NO CLUE how we would pay for twins if I decided not to work. But I said I would not be working after bringing them home. And I wasn't lying. I really meant it. Boy, Ryan was going to be surprised about that! He said that was all he needed and would be calling back within an hour with a decision. I was a complete basket case! I can only imagine what Alex was thinking watching me pace around the house. I didn't sit still the entire time. An hour passed and no call. 1 hour 15 mins... nothing. 1 hour 30 min... they must have called the adoptive parents already and now they're going to call us with bad news. I was devastated. I was certain we were not chosen. And to know we came within 3 couples. It was a terrible feeling. Finally 1 hour and 37 minutes later. (I'm crying right now thinking about this moment.) I remember having a very solemn tone to my voice when I answered. He asked me if we were ready to fly out to Virginia to pick up our boys. I started crying on the spot. He said he'd give me a minute to gather myself. I had about a million things going through my mind and somehow managed to get some very important information down... including the fact that Baby A was going to be released from the hospital the NEXT DAY and we would need to fly out TONIGHT!!! I got off the phone and started sobbing. I grabbed Alex and hugged him and told him he was finally going to be a big brother. Something he had waited a VERY long time for and wanted so badly. I called Ryan to let him know he was going to be a Daddy again, but only got his voicemail. I left him a message... a weird message to leave on your husbands phone. ("Hey babe, can you pick up some milk on the way home? Oh and by the way, you're a proud new father of twins!") I had kept my Mom informed of what was going on and she knew I'd be getting an answer soon. She had her visiting teachers over when we got the news and they had no clue. I told Alex to go upstairs and tell Grandma that he was going to be a big brother. I crept up the stairs behind him so I could hear the reaction. There was a lot of screaming, then crying. We told the visiting teachers what was going on and then kindly told them they needed to leave... because we had A LOT to do!! We called my Dad and got him working on getting us plane tickets for that night. I really wanted to go to Alex's kindergarten orientation. I didn't want to miss out on it and really didn't want him to miss out on it. My Mom took off to the store and bought lots of teeny tiny little preemie clothes and diapers. After all... we had NOTHING! We had been given less than 24 hours notice and we were totally unprepared! I took Alex to the school around noon for orientation. I had to leave about 5 times to take phone calls, one of which was finally Ryan. He had finally gotten my message. Even with as nervous as he had been, he was so excited! I told him we were leaving that night and he needed to get things figured out with school and then get his butt home! He was worried about school and worried that they wouldn't let him take the time off. But they were so happy and excited for him and he had no problems getting a couple days off to fly out. Honestly, a lot of that afternoon was a complete blur. I remember orientation a little bit and then coming home to pack. I don't remember much after that. I remember Ryan getting home and getting really excited. I remember calling Ryan's parents and leaving a message for them that they were going to be grandparents again. And then I remember the airport. My parents drove us to the airport. We had decided it wouldn't be wise to take Alex. I hated making this decision and it's one I still kind of regret. Had I known everything I know now, he would have come with us and flown home with Ryan. But I won't get into all of that. It was so hard leaving him at the airport. We were so excited but I hated leaving him. He was so excited too and understood why he couldn't come, but still wanted to so badly. We hugged and kissed him a million times and said goodbye. We got to our gate, got on the plane and took off. It was a red eye flight, so we should have been sleeping. Right. How in the world can you sleep knowing you would be meeting your children in just a few short hours. I remember looking through a baby name book almost the entire time. We had 2 names to come up with and (no offense) the names we had picked out for "future children" didn't really fit for African American kids. :) So we really had to start fresh. Ryan and I had a really hard time agreeing on names. I had quite a few picked out and Ryan really didn't like very many of them. I look back at some of the names I had picked out and am SO HAPPY Ryan didn't like them. I actually kept a list of the names I had started looking at over the weekend we were sending our paperwork back. Even though we hadn't officially been chosen, I had already started looking at names. :) Here is my list dated 8/24/08 (Sunday).

Order	Name	Sort	Gender	Meaning	More info	My Names
	Isaac		Boy	He will laugh	More...		Delete

	Ethan		Boy	Strong, firm, impet...	More...		Delete

	James		Boy	Supplanter	More...		Delete

	Ian		Boy	God is forgiving	More...		Delete

	Jesse		Boy	Gift; wealthy	More...		Delete

	Seth		Boy	Appointed	More...		Delete

	Jonah		Boy	Dove	More...		Delete

	Sawyer		Boy	One who saws wood	More...		Delete

	Joaquin		Boy	God will establish	More...		Delete

	Jude		Both	Praise; thanks	More...		Delete

	Jakob		Boy	Supplanter; held by...	More...		Delete

	Jonas		Boy	Dove	More...		Delete

	Jack		Boy	God is gracious	More...		Delete

	Keenan		Both	Descendant of Cathá...	More...		Delete

I still very much like Keenan, but all Ryan could think of was Keenan Wayans... so he vetoed that one. I did get to use Ian Jacob and Ethan for a middle name. But Ryan really liked Darek. I wasn't really into that name at all. I figured he would drop it, but he kept bringing it up. The more I thought about it, the more I liked it. But I didn't like a lot of the spellings. Derrick, Derek, Derick, Derec, Dereck... but when I saw Darek, it just kind of clicked. By the time we landed, we had the names Darek Ethan and Ian Jacob picked out. We just didn't know which name would go to which baby. We got of the plane, got our luggage and found our social worker, Alice, waiting to take us to our babies.

Ok, this is getting very long. So I'm gonna quit for the night. I will get to Part 2 soon!

Darek's Post

2011-11-16T20:33:00.001-07:00

Questions about Mom and Dad

How old is Mom? 3 Dad? 3
What is Mom's favorite color? Pink
Dads? White
What does Mom like to eat? Sandwich
Dad? Mac and Cheese
How tall is Mom? Humongous
Dad? Humongous
How strong is Mom? Bigger strong
Dad? Really big strong
What do you like about Mom? Good
Dad? Good
What is Mom's favorite TV show? Kitty show or Hot Dog show
Dad? Team Umi Zoomi
What is Mom's name? Mandi Wood
Dad? Daddy Wood

About Darek:

Age: 3
Favorite color: Green
How tall: Bigger
How strong: Really strong
Favorite Food: Mac and Cheese
Favorite TV show: Bubble Guppies
What do you like preschool: Good

Alex's Post

2011-11-16T20:25:00.001-07:00

I stole this from my sisters blog. I thought it would be fun to do with the boys. Here are Alex's answers:

What is your happiest memory? Disneyland trip with the family
Why do you like being a kid? So I can be active
One word to describe you: Athletic
What advice would you give your parents? Be more active
If you could be any animal, what would it be and why? Cat - So I could run fast
What do you like to do for fun? Play with friends
Tell about a funny time in your life. When my pants accidently came down outside... and just my pants, not my underwear
What is your favorite thing to do and why? Play soccer, it's fun and I like to get better
What is your favorite thing to do with your friends? Anything
What do you love most about your sibling? That he loves to play with me
What was the nicest thing you've done someone else? Raked their leaves up without being asked
What do you think you'll be doing 10 years from now? Getting good grades in high school
What is your favorite thing to do in the summer? Play with my friends
What would be the ideal allowance? Tell me how you would use it. $1000 per day. Buy everything in the toy isle.
What do you think makes a person good-looking? Bieber hair
Name two things we should do together as a family on the weekend. Boondocks and Chuck E Cheese
What is the grossest thing you can think of? People eating tarantulas

MOVING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-11-03T20:50:00.002-06:00

Well, it's not exactly what we had planned or how we thought this would go. But we finally got to a point where we knew we needed to get be out on our own again and decided that we weren't going to just sit around and hope we get a full time job. Ryan has two jobs already, so as long as he keeps getting the hours that he has been getting, we'll be just fine. So about a week ago, something happened that lit the fire in us to really start looking and just go for it. We looked at an old apt building that we had lived at previously that we had LOVED. Sadly, the only apt they accepted pets in was a much smaller apt than what we were looking for. So we moved on. We looked at a few other place south and north of us. We finally found a place in Layton, Utah that we loved and the boys loved. It allows us to have our cat with us (which was a necessity) and has a storage unit we can rent. It's quite a bit smaller than we had hoped for, but it has great use of space. There are negatives and positives to this move, but the important thing is that we feel very good about it. One of our major worries has been Alex and how he'll deal with it. He LOVES the apt., and really likes the look of the school. I don't think in his mind it will ever come close to Adelaide, but he'll give it a chance. :) I really hope that being in an apt complex, Alex and Darek will have the opportunity to make a lot of new friends. We will be in an incredible location... walking distance to the mall and movie theaters, so there will never be a problem of having nothing to do. I just have to watch myself with how easy it will be to go shopping! We got a great move in deal with this place, so we feel like we can take our time moving in. But at the same time, I just kind of want to get it over and done with too. So hopefully within the next week or two, we'll be totally moved into our new place. Once we have furniture and such in, we'll take some pictures of it!

PRESCHOOL!!!

2011-10-25T13:17:00.003-06:00

Today marks a very important day for Darek. He started preschool today! We have been telling him for a very long time (A VERY LONG TIME) that as soon as he was potty trained, he could go to preschool. He was sad when school started in August and he didn't get to go to school. A few weeks ago, Darek said something to Ryan about potting training and how he could go but didn't feel like it. Well that ticked me off and I decided this potty training thing was going to happen. He obviously knew how, but was being a lazy kiddo. So without too much trouble, he is finally potty trained. We're still working on night time, but he's even getting through nap time without accidents! So yesterday, after being almost a week with very few problems, I told him I would call and see about starting preschool. A lady in our ward has a preschool out of her home. Alex went to her and loved it! So I called and she said he could start the next day (today)! I got off the phone and told Darek and he got really excited.... and then really nervous. He went back and forth the whole night, but was really excited to tell his Daddy and Alex. As soon as he got up this morning, he got his backpack on.

I took Alex to school then came back, got Darek dressed and ready to go. I was pretty much planning on staying the whole time, since he has been a bit of a Mamma's boy lately. We walked inside, got his backpack and coat off and he was immediately interested in EVERYTHING around him. He realized that he knew 5 other kids in the class with him and all of a sudden it wasn't so scary. I stayed about 10 minutes and said I was going to leave and would be back to pick him up soon. He got a little upset, but I gave him a hug, told him I would be back and I left. No problems!

I came back to get him and he came out smiling and so happy... with his backpack on upside down! :) I talked to his teacher a little bit. She told me he did okay. No crying or anything, but he did have issues with taking toys from other kids and throwing crayons. UGH. She said he listened to her when she asked him to stop or give something back or pick something up, so that was good. I'm not happy that's the way he began things, but I'm not surprised either. And I'm glad she's the kind of person that will let me know how he's doing.

Anyway, he's very excited to go back tomorrow for HIS school. I know this will be such a wonderful thing for him and I can't wait to see what he learns. And I'm just a little bit excited for the 2 free hours I'm going to get every day!!! :)

I LOVE this last picture so much, because this really shows Darek so well. He is a very good eye roller right now. He was getting so annoyed at having to stop and take pictures this morning and before long I got some good eye rolls from him.

This little dude drives me so crazy at times, but I can't help but adore him. I just want to write a little synopsis of Darek at this point:

Limit tester
Loves to cuddle
Gives the best hugs and kisses!
Smart
Whiny
Hilarious
Cheesy
Sensitive to others (especially Alex)
Determined (In good and bad ways)
Demanding
Great Dancer and Singer
Sweetheart

I love this little dude so much and I am a lucky Mom to have such an amazing little boy!

The Weekend - Saturday

2011-10-25T12:55:00.004-06:00

Saturday ended up being another jam-packed day! We weren't quite sure what we were going to do, but came up with a pretty fun plan. Darek had his last soccer game of the season. I was sad I didn't bring the camera for the last game, but oh well. I'm sure we'll have many future soccer games to take pictures of. At the end of the game, the coach gave all the kids a trophy! Darek was SO EXCITED! He showed it to everyone and carried it around.

We came home after the game and chilled for about an hour. Then we decided to head down south. We knew we'd be going that way for the Real Salt Lake game that night, so we figured we would go to a place we'd never been. I saw on www.citydeals.com a deal for Planet Play, so I figured we could try it out. It's kind of a mix between Boondocks and Chuck E Cheese. Darek fell asleep on our way there and slept for the first 30 minutes or so. I finally had to wake him up, which was cute. We were sitting in the arcade area and I took him out of his stroller. He was out cold. I shook him a little... a little more... until I finally had to just sit him up to help him wake up. He still wouldn't open his eyes. I laid him back down and said, "Darek, you want to wake up and go play?" That got his eyes open at least. As soon as he saw where we were, he bolted up so fast and his eyes opened up wide. He got a huge smile on his face and couldn't wait to get down and play. We stayed for a few hours and had a great pizza/pasta/salad buffet lunch, played some arcade games, went on go karts, went mini bowling and got some great prizes. I think it's the boys new favorite place to go. As long as city deals has that special, we can afford to go there.

After we finished there, we went to our last Real Salt Lake home game of the season. For being one of the first 5,000 people in the stadium that night, we all got a free Nick Rimando (our goalie) bobble head. We barely made the first 5,000 and were so excited to all get our bobble heads. The game was pretty good and ended in a tie 1-1. We ended up placing 3rd in our conference, which means we are in the play offs! We have a play off game this week and cannot wait!

That pretty much ended the weekend. It's always nice to have a long weekend with the family and make the most out of it. We're going to have another really fun month ahead of us. I love this time of year with all the holidays. I am really looking forward to spending some time with my sisters and their families a lot in the next month. I'm sure we'll have lots of great posts to come!

The Weekend - Friday

2011-10-25T09:56:00.008-06:00

This past weekend was so much fun! I thought Cornbellys on Thursday would be the highlight for our weekend. I was totally wrong! I'm going to have to break this post up so I don't overwhelm it with pictures. Friday ended up being crazy, but so much fun! My next door neighbor and I decided to have a Halloween party for the neighborhood kids. We were so excited about it, but soon realized that we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. We prepared all day getting the food and activities ready. We were going to rotate activities between our two homes so neither one of us would get too overwhelmed. Candace started off at her house painting some cute masks for the kids. While she was doing that, I set up a scavenger hunt. This was my biggest stress. A lot of work goes into getting a scavenger hunt ready. I had been up the night before planning it out and some of the day writing out the clues to make it all cute and fun. So the kids finished their masks and came over to eat before starting the hunt. I had made about 40 little mummy hotdogs, which the kids loved. I also made a snake calzone, which didn't turn out as I had hoped. As the kids were standing in the yard waiting for their food, two of them said, "Oh, the scavenger hunt won't be very hard at all since Alex told us where the hiding places were." My head shot up quickly (since I hadn't told Alex anything about the scavenger hunt) and I asked what they meant. They went on to tell me two of the places I had just hid clues and prizes. I was pissed! I looked at Alex and he knew he was in trouble. I got all the kids food and after they sat down outside on the grass, I calmly asked Alex to come inside really quick. I asked him how the kids knew about the hunt and hiding places. He said he had gotten up early that day and came over to the computer and found the notebook I had written everything down in. He tried to lie and say he only told them one place, but confessed that it was 3 or 4. I wanted to cry. All that hard work for nothing. I told him off pretty good about how he needed to consider all the work and time that it takes for something like that and.... blah blah blah. As punishment, I told him he could not participate in the hunt. He was bummed and tried to negotiate with me a little. He said I could just change the clues. HA HA HA! Oh well, if it's just that EASY! I explained that was not going to work and would take a lot of time. He looked pretty pitiful watching the other kids do the scavenger hunt and I felt like a terrible mother. But I stuck to my guns. I got over it pretty quickly (but writing it down now is bringing back all the feelings. I'll probably be mad at Alex when he gets home from school and he'll have no idea what he did!) and we continued with the activities. We did a mummy contest with toilet paper, Halloween bingo, pumpkin race (hitting a pumpkin with a broom) and ended the night with a movie. The kids had so much fun and Candace and I were totally beat by the end of the night. And I was silly enough to go see a scary movie with my friends that night that didn't start until 9:50! Smart, huh? It was a fun and crazy night. Candace and I said we'll probably forget what a pain it was by Christmas and end up doing a Christmas party as well. :)

The snake was pretty cute and I was sad I didn't get any pictures of the mummies. All 40 of them were gone before I got the chance. I didn't even get to eat one! :)

On the Scavenger Hunt!

The Mummy wrap was hilarious! The kids had so much fun decorating each other. And I got to be the judge!

These two were being crazy and didn't quite know how to wrap each other, so I wrapped them together. They are so cute!

I didn't get to see this whole race, but I stuck my head out long enough to take a few pictures.

All the kids with their masks ready to head in and watch a movie. They had so much fun, were insanely hyper and very cute!

I'm glad we live in a neighborhood that has lots of kids around. Alex gets along really well with the kids in the neighborhood. They have a great time with minimal fighting. I'm glad I can help do things like this, especially before we move.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Cornbellys

2011-10-20T18:25:00.005-06:00

I'm going to try this crazy thing... posting when events happen. I know, weird! It'll probably only happen this one time, but it's worth a shot.

Today I decided to take the boys to Thanksgiving Point and go to Cornbellys. The only other time I've been there is when Alex was 3 or 4. So it's been quite a while. The boys whined all the way there about how hungry they were (at about 12:00). As soon as we got there, hunger was the last thing on their mind. We actually didn't eat until about 3:45, as we were getting ready to leave. The boys enjoyed jumping on a big bouncy balloon, going through tunnels and mazes, swinging, lots of slides, several inflatables (which I was so excited about because Darek has always had this crazy fear of them) and a hay ride. We were constantly moving and the time flew by. Darek fell asleep as soon as we got in the car. It was a great day, full of lots of fun memories. I was planning on taking lots of pictures and actually remembered my SD card, but forgot to charge the camera. So I managed to get a few before the battery died. I also got a few random pictures of the boys before we left for Cornbellys... in case you're wondering about the Halloween costume with Alex. :)

Dang I have cute boys!

4 Pumpkins

2011-10-18T10:08:00.002-06:00

I've noticed my blog being a little depressing in the last little while and I apologize for that. I thought I'd blog something a bit more uplifting.

We are loving this season right now! I love the weather (at least when it's not too extreme), love the changing colors and we love Halloween! Last night we decided to get ready for Halloween with our pumpkin carving. I always loved doing this as a kid and want it to be something my kids love doing too! Ryan decided to do a VERY detailed carving of Batman (which I told him he was crazy for), I went with a cute and easy little bat design, Alex went with his own design and I helped Darek do some cute little ghosts on his pumpkin. It took a bit longer than I thought it would, but we all had a great evening working in the kitchen together on our pumpkins. Perfect family night activity. I made some fudge, but we didn't even get to eat it last night. I guess we can take care of that tonight! :)

A Few Special Moments

2011-10-09T15:51:00.002-06:00

I wrote about these on facebook, but I also wanted to put them here, so that I could look back on them later. Darek must have had Ian right with him on Friday (the anniversary of Ian's death) because some of the things he said were so sweet and inspiring.

Friday morning we took Alex to school and then Darek and I went over to the cemetery. On the way to the cemetery, I started crying pretty hard and Darek got very concerned. He always is concerned when anyone cries. He asked me if I was sad. I told him I was sad about his brother Ian and wished Ian was still here instead of in Heaven with Heavenly Father. Darek said, "Mommy, you don't have to be sad because I am here." I told him I was so happy he was here with me and how much I loved him. I said I just wished Ian could be here too. He replied with, "Mommy, it's okay, because Ian is a child of God." And of course, instead of that stopping my crying, it made it worse because of how true and how sweet it was for Darek to say. It is true. My little Ian is a child of God and is loved and being taken care of. I don't know how these things pop into little children's heads, but it's one of those things that brings my faith to a whole new level.

When we got to the cemetery, we had a little pumpkin to put on Ian's grave. So we went over and put the pumpkin down. We always walk around the baby cemetery for little while. It's sad to see an entire area of little children that have passed away, but I also feel such a strong spirit in that area. As we were walking around looking at the headstones, Darek pointed to one with a carving of Jesus holding a little baby. He exclaimed with so much enthusiasm, "Look Mom! It's Jesus holding my baby Ian." I think I had finally stopped crying a few moments before, but that started the tears right back up.

If Ian was not meant to stay here, I am so grateful that my Heavenly Father chose to leave my little Darek here with me. I don't know what I would do without him. He made Friday a bit easier to handle. I wonder if Ian ever talks to Darek... I wonder if they have a special bond... From the things that Darek said on Friday, I can only imagine that they do.

***Note - Thank you so much to Beth and Chad and to Julie for the beautiful flowers. It's something I appreciate more than you know and just about the only thing I look forward to on this day every year. Not saying that you always have to give me flowers :). Just wanted to let you know how much it means to me that you remember.

3 Whole Years

2011-10-09T14:02:00.004-06:00

This is a post I've wanted to write for a little while now, but needed some major strength and a lot of time to sit down and write. I guess now is as good a time as any.

First I wanted to post this poem that I took from a friends blog. Her little girl passed away in February. I cried the entire time I read this poem because it says all of the things that I haven't been able to express. And having it typed out for some reason, really brings the emotions out as though I'm finally saying it. I hope that makes sense. On some of these I wanted to add my own thoughts to it, so anything I write will be marked with a *.

Normal

Normal is having tears waiting behind every smile when you realize someone
important is missing from all the important events in your family's life.

... Normal for me is trying to decide what to take to the cemetery for Birthdays
Christmas,New Years, Valentine's Day,and Easter. * Or whether to take anything at all because it almost seems silly at times because you know your child will never actually get to play with anything you bring.

Normal is feeling like you know how to act and are more comfortable with a
funeral than a wedding or birthday party...yet feeling a stab of pain in your
heart when you smell the flowers and see the casket.

Normal is feeling like you can't sit another minute without getting up and
screaming, because you just don't like to sit through anything.

Normal is not sleeping very well because a thousand what if's & why didn't I's
go through your head constantly. * This is my biggest hurdle. I don't know that I'll ever be able to get past the what if's and why didn't I's.

Normal is reliving that day continuously through your eyes and mind, holding
your head to make it go away. * Especially on the anniversary of Ian's death. I wake up in the morning to that horrific phone call. Then take myself through each and every moment of the day from calling my husband to tell him that Ian didn't have very long, listening through the phone to my son being given his name and blessing and then finally talking to the doctor confirming that Ian had left this earth. I can remember each of these moments as though it was yesterday.

Normal is staring at every child who looks like she is my child's age. And then
thinking of the age he would be now and not being able to imagine it. Then
wondering why it is even important to imagine it, because it will never happen. * Sometimes I wonder if it's easier or harder having Darek for this reason. I know almost exactly what Ian would look like and what he would be doing. Sometimes I think it makes it easier (especially when Darek is being a stinker), but then makes it extremely hard when I have those very special, wonderful moments with Darek. I know that I should have double those moments, double that happiness, double that love.

Normal is every happy event in my life always being backed up with sadness
lurking close behind, because of the hole in my heart.

Normal is telling the story of your child's death as if it were an everyday,
commonplace activity, and then seeing the horror in someone's eyes at how awful
it sounds. And yet realizing it has become a part of my "normal".

Normal is each year coming up with the difficult task of how to honor your
child's memory and his birthday and survive these days. And trying to find the
balloon or flag that fit's the occasion. Happy Birthday? Not really. * And finding a way to do it where I'm not taking away from the happiness of Darek's birthday.

Normal is my heart warming and yet sinking at the sight of something special my
child loved. Thinking how he would love it, but how he is not here to enjoy it.

Normal is having some people afraid to mention my child.

Normal is making sure that others remember him.

Normal is after the funeral is over everyone else goes on with their lives, but
we continue to grieve our loss forever.

Normal is weeks, months, and years after the initial shock, the grieving gets
worse sometimes, not better.

Normal is not listening to people compare anything in their life to this loss,
unless they too have lost a child. NOTHING. Even if your child is in the
remotest part of the earth away from you - it doesn't compare. Losing a parent
is horrible, but having to bury your own child is unnatural.

Normal is realizing I do cry everyday. * I feel lucky that it's not an everyday occurrence for me anymore.

Normal is disliking jokes about death or funerals, bodies being referred to as
cadavers, when you know they were once someone's loved one.

Normal is a new friendship with another grieving mother, talking and crying
together over our children and our new lives.

Normal is not listening to people make excuses for God. "God may have done this
because..." I love God, I know that my child is in heaven, but hearing people
trying to think up excuses as to why children were taken from this earth
is not appreciated and makes absolutely no sense to this grieving mother.

Normal is being too tired to care if you paid the bills, cleaned the house, did
laundry or if there is any food.

Normal is wondering this time whether you are going to say you have three
children or two, because you will never see this person again and it is not
worth explaining that my child is in heaven. And yet when you say you have two
children to avoid that problem, you feel horrible as if you have betrayed your
child. * I hate this more than anything. There is no easy way to do this and unfortunately it's one of those questions you are asked all the time. It is the most difficult question for me to answer and I always get the biggest lump in my throat as soon as I am asked this question.

Normal is asking God why he took your child's life instead of yours and asking
if there even is a God. * I have never questioned if there is a God, but I always wonder why.

Normal is knowing I will never get over this loss, in a day or a million years.

And last of all, Normal is hiding all the things that have become "normal" for
you to feel, so that everyone around you will think that you are "normal".†

There are a few of these that I thankfully feel don't really apply to me. But this is a very good look at normal for me. I have struggled a lot in the past few weeks. I think part of it was because the anniversary would be coming soon but there were many other factors as well. I have been feeling as though I have been moving backward instead of forward with my feelings about Ian's death. I have been feeling some extreme bitterness and anger that I don't think I've been allowing myself to acknowledge or admit to. But because I haven't acknowledged it, it's been growing inside and prohibiting me from coping and moving forward. I'm hoping that writing some of these feelings down will help.

The guilt I feel is something I don't know how to get past. There are a few times I remember being back in Virginia that I felt so torn. There was one time I remember being at the hospital with Ian. Ryan had already returned home, so I had to leave Darek with the family we were staying with (since he wasn't allowed to come with me to the NICU.) At the hospital there was very little I could do. I would talk to, read to, and sing to Ian but I recall feeling bored (again, feelings I don't want to admit to) and wanting to go back to Darek, where I could actually take care of him and felt needed. I can't forgive myself for feeling that way, for not enjoying every moment I had with Ian. It's hard for me to remember and focus on the sweet moments I had with him. I tend to focus on the negative and things I could have/should have done. I wonder all the time if I should have been more forceful with the doctor and demanded that they keep doing everything in their power to keep Ian alive. Maybe he would have gotten better. Maybe I would have had the time to get back to Virginia to be with my little boy as he left this world. I know he was in excellent hands, but I wanted it so badly to be me.

I asked Alex a few weeks ago if he ever thinks about Ian. He replied, "No, not really." It was a bit of a shock to me and it wasn't that it made me mad, just so sad. But what can I expect? And this is where more of my anger comes in. I get so angry sometimes with God that he didn't allow Alex the chance to meet his little brother. I know it may have been harder on Alex when Ian died, but he deserved to have some positive memories with the little brother he had waited so long to get. One day, after having a really hard day, Ryan came home from work and sensed there was something wrong. I told him I was okay, but soon burst into hysterics and started telling him everything that I had been holding in. One thing that has made me feel like I should hold it all in was the fact that everyone around me seemed to be okay. I felt like I was a crazy person for still feeling like a basket case after 3 years. Ryan explained that for him, he had to come to terms with death at a very young age because of close friends, grandparents and others that had died. He said he also thinks very factually an feels that Ian's body was just not made to stay on this earth for long. He doesn't question or do the "what if's" because the outcome will never change. He tried to be comforting and told me that I shouldn't feel crazy, that my feelings are completely valid. I told him that I wish I could be like him, just accept what has happened and continue on. Why can't I?

The part of the poem that says, "Normal is not listening to people make excuses for God. "God may have done this because..." I love God, I know that my child is in heaven, but hearing people
trying to think up excuses as to why children were taken from this earth
is not appreciated and makes absolutely no sense to this grieving mother." This is something that even I have done. I try to cover my sadness by saying, "Well it's probably better that he's not here because he would've had a difficult life and possibly had health problems and many other struggles." I realized the other day that this is really not how I feel. It's true that he may have had many struggles and issues, but the truth is, I don't care! I would've loved my son no matter what! I would have taken care of him and given him the best life he could've had here. I know this is completely selfish. But I also think of the joy he would have experienced too. There are so many people here that love him so much.

Because we had Ian for such a short period of time, I felt like anything I hadn't shared on my blog before he died was something I needed to keep to myself, something I didn't want to share. I think I felt that if I shared everything about him, all the pictures, all the video, then there would never be anything else ever again to share about him. And even though that's true, it's something I'm trying to accept. So looking through some videos, I found 2 that I had never posted. It still makes me sad to watch, hearing the hope in our voices, knowing the dreams that we had for our little boy. But these are moments that we'll always get to remember.

I will always miss my little boy. I know that will never change. I wonder if one day some of the guilt or sadness will go away. I just hope that the few wonderful memories I do have with Ian won't ever fade. I don't ever want to forget him or feel like he's fading from my memory. I hope he can feel my love for him and knows who I am. And as always, I hope that I can live the kind of life that will one day allow me to be with my baby again so I can truly show him how much I love him.

Turning 30

2011-10-09T13:31:00.002-06:00

My birthday was a week and a half ago, so I thought I'd finally blog about it. I honestly didn't have too difficult a time turning 30. I think the biggest change is just saying the number. I feel like I've been twenty something for a very long time, so to say thirty now is just kinda weird. But I decided that your age is what you make it. Just because I'm 30 or 40 or 50 doesn't mean I have to act any differently than I do now. Sure, my body may catch up with me and tell me what I can or can't do, but I have control over my mind (at least for now). I hope that as I get older I will still make time to have fun. Play in the nerf wars, stay up all night with the girls.. maybe even a sleepover or two, play soccer with my boys, play volleyball with anyone who wants to and all that other great stuff. That's the kind of stuff I live for and it helps keep me young.

My birthday was simple, but really great! My girls took me out a week before my birthday and we all went bowling! After, we had some cake and just stayed up chatting for hours and hours. It was a blast! I celebrated with my family a few days early because my actual birthday was going to be very busy. But we went out to eat at Texas Roadhouse and they got me some wonderful gifts. Again, so simple, but spent exactly as I wanted. And for the first time EVER, Ryan actually had flowers delivered to me!! He has only bought flowers for me on 2 other occasions, but one didn't really count because I was standing right there. When my mom brought them down to me, Ryan was actually home. She said someone had sent me flowers. I said, "Who in the world would get me flowers?" Then looking over at Ryan I said, "It definitely wasn't you, right?" Amazingly he wasn't offended, but laughed and nodded his head that it was him. The arrangement was gorgeous and full of my favorite flowers! Biggest shock ever!

I love my family, my life, my world. Sure there are things that I would like to change, things that I hope will come soon in my life, but I feel so grateful and blessed for these first 30 years of my life. I have been given so much and hope I have been able to repay some of that to others.

Jobs...Moving...etc.

2011-09-18T18:49:00.002-06:00

So as you all know, school is OVER for Ryan. Over, over, OVER! There's always the possibility of more in the future, but we're talking at least 10 years away, if ever! He finished at Weber in July and received his bachelors. He still had his MRI licensing test to take, which was really giving him some anxiety for a while. He felt totally unprepared (thanks to the spectacular job they do 'teaching' at Weber State) to take the test, but crammed in some major studying. He just hoped he would get a passing grade. As usual, he did more than that. My miraculous husband pulled out a 92% on the test. So he is official!!! He has received all of his licensing information and certifications. It's so nice to have that all behind us. I figured this would end the most difficult part of it all. I was wrong...

We are searching for a job. I hate this process 10 times more than I hated when Ryan was in school. At least we knew how long school would take and had a plan set for it. We have found that it will be nearly impossible to get a job in Utah. I'm not exactly sad about this. There are sad aspects, but I really like the idea of a new adventure. And honestly we're not even finding jobs close by. There has been one posted in Utah, but the rest are either back east or down in Texas. We've applied for a few and are waiting to see if we hear anything back. We've found a lot of companies are keeping jobs open for over a month and then may or may not contact you at all to let you know if they are even interested. It's so frustrating and not what we're used to. We're pretty open at this point as to where we will go. There are a few states that we probably won't apply to, unless we get desperate. I have had so many people come up and say, "Aren't you supposed to have moved by now?" Makes me feel so good inside! It's aggravating not having any control over any of it. Our goal has been to be moved before Christmas. I'm really hoping we can still meet that goal. But I'm constantly losing hope in that. It's only been a month and a half, so it's not like it's all that long. But after you spend so much time and money into school, you want to start making the money you deserve on a full-time basis! I'm grateful that Ryan does have 2 jobs right now working on an as needed basis. It's not always consistent work, but it's helping us survive.

Anyway, just thought I'd give an update on our situation. Hopefully a post will come soon about our new job somewhere and that we'll be moving in a few weeks.... but don't hold your breath!

Happy 33rd Ryan!!!

2011-09-18T16:08:00.001-06:00

I'm back peddling here a little bit, but I didn't want to miss wishing my amazing husband a Happy Birthday. He turned 33 on Sept. 9th. Ryan never wants big celebrations or big deals made out of his birthday, but I'm totally opposite. So I ended somewhere in the middle. I got a really fun cake for him. It was a Real Salt Lake cake. It was a soccer field with the RSL logo in the middle. The decorator was amazing and paid very good detail to the logo. Ryan was very surprised and loved his cake. I took him to dinner and a movie for his birthday. We saw Contagion, which was really good and totally made me into a temporary germ-a-phob. The movie made it extremely hard to go to dinner at Golden Corral after the movie. It was probably pretty funny to watch us both cringe as we picked up tongs or spoons for the different dishes, wondering who had touched them and what diseases they had. :) My in-laws were sweet enough to watch the boys and let them hang out with some of their cousins. They had a great time there. We had a great night with some much needed alone time.

I love you Ryan! Happy Birthday!

Darek Soccer

2011-09-16T19:54:00.005-06:00

Even though I have about 20 posts to catch up on, I was looking at these pictures tonight and just had to get them on here. Darek has been watching his big brother play soccer since he was born and has loved playing in the backyard with him. We found out this year that Darek would be old enough to play on a team. Last weekend was his first game. I laughed so hard, to the point where I was almost crying, it was so funny to watch. Darek has a lot to learn... like, you cannot pick up the ball and place it where you feel it needs to be. You cannot tackle kids for the fun of it. It's pretty important to kick the ball into YOUR goal and not the other teams. We'll get to all of these things in time. For now it's so much fun to sit, watch, laugh, cry from laughing so hard and cheer! I love that he is starting sports. He is going to be an extremely athletic kid! It's already become harder as a mom to have another kid with activities to get to. But I sure do love being the 'soccer mom'!

Oh, and I have to say that I had the best time shopping for his little cleats and shin guards. Who knew they actually made them in sizes that small?? If I can, I'll get a few videos on here that were just hilarious from the game. But enjoy this for now!

Who Wants Some Lemonade??

2011-08-13T21:35:00.004-06:00

Alex has been begging for ways to make money. Since summer began, our "Mom Bucks" system kinda went out the window. Every once in a while I've let him earn some money for certain things by doing chores around the house. But I decided that I would let him try something else to earn some money. Lemonade stands were pretty common (from what I can remember) when I was little. I remember doing them all the time. So, to relive my glory days and to help my kid create some fun memories, I mentioned having him do a lemonade stand. He wasn't sure about the idea, but agreed to it. We decided to go crazy and sell a few other items as well. We had Otter Pops, Double chocolate chip cookies, Lemonade and Shasta soda. I decided this time I would donate the items and not make them pay me back for them. Alex helped make the signs and sort of helped me get things ready. He decided he wanted to invite his buddy Christian to come help with the stand... even if that meant splitting the profits in half. We packed up the van and brought everything down to Orchard Drive and set it all up. The boys held their signs up, jumped and ran around to attract customers. We stayed out for 2 1/2 hours from 11:00-1:30 and took a break for lunch. We decided we'd head back out around rush hour to see what we could do. We were out again from 5:30-7:15 in the evening. All together, the boys made $28.00... thanks to some very generous tips from parents, grandparents and neighbors. :) The boys were THRILLED with how much money they earned and Christians parents couldn't quite believe the stack of money he came home with. Alex's last comment of the day was, "I think we should do this every day until school starts!" Yeah, I don't think so! One day was good for me. You might be able to get one more out of me in the near future. But I will agree that it was a blast. We were able to stay cool in the shade and the boys stayed very hydrated on the lemonade they were supposed to be selling. :)

Darek loved being included with the big boys and loved holding his sign up. It scared me a lot to be on a main road, but he was surprisingly good and never stepped foot in the street.

Alex's sign cracked me up! I loved that that's what he decided to write. :)

One more story... One of the cars that pulled up to buy stuff had a sweet little boy in the back seat, a little younger than Alex. His mom got some cookies and asked him what he wanted. He said he wanted to get an Otter Pop and made sure his mom got one for his younger sister and then had to tell me he was going to get one for his little sister. He talked to me while we were getting everything for them. He asked me if I liked banana bread. I told him that I did. He said he had made some with his grandma that day, a whole bunch of little loaves. He pulled one out of the bag to show me. I asked him if he was going to go sell them. He said no and said he wanted to give them to his friends and neighbors and then said that he wanted me to have one too. I asked him if he wanted some money for it. He smiled and said no. I totally got choked up! I took it and thanked him profusely for the bread. He got a huge smile on his face and said, "Your welcome! I hope you like it." I know how easy it is to be selfish sometimes and always want to "get something" for another thing. But this moment from this little boy reminded me how easy it can be to do something selfless. It left quite the impression on me and I hope I will keep it in mind the next time I'm feeling selfish. I've also decided that no matter what (unless it's a life or death emergency) I will stop at every lemonade stand I see. And I will always leave them a tip. It doesn't matter all that much to me, but it means the world to those kids! :)

More Thoughts

2011-08-11T12:37:00.002-06:00

So, just a little update on the job situation. We got word back on the Logan job... no go. We were really disappointed, but have come to terms with it. The job in Idaho finally closed and we are waiting to hear back. A few other jobs have opened and we will probably apply for them. So we'll just see what happens.

I had a talk with Ryan last night to try and explain how I was feeling about our current situation. It was so helpful to both of us and has made me feel a little more at ease. But it doesn't really solve anything. I still feel the same way.... stuck. The hard part about this for me is, What do I do? I have been doing daycare for the past several years. With the current situation being as it is, I'm down to watching Ava (whom I love and adore) part time during the week after school. So I'm trying to figure out what to do with my days. I can't really try to get more daycare kids, knowing that I could be moving soon. I still have my little Darek around, which I love. But I feel the need to contribute financially right now. Especially since we need to save as much as possible for moving. But how can I go to an employer and say that I'm the right person for the job, when I know full well that I will probably be moving before Christmas (at least we had better move before then)? Ryan suggested that I take this time to go to the DATC and get my certificate in my CNA, EMT, etc. (I haven't decided yet). But I explained that I can't really do that until we know if we'll be staying nearby. It would be a huge waste of time and money if we ended up moving away. Anyway, I just feel stuck. It's not that I mind just focusing on Darek and being a Mom. I'm just used to doing more. And I'm afraid I'll become a couch potato. So there it is. As always, my hope is that this is all short lived and we'll get a job soon and get settled somewhere.

Onto the kiddos.

We decided a few weeks ago to take Alex out of the Spectrum program. Very hard to take him out after finally having made the decision to put him in it. But we thought about how hard it would be to start the school year out at a new school, make new friends and then move and have to do it all over again. So we're keeping him at Adelaide until we move. That way he still will see his current friends and not have to worry about that part of it. Alex is having a blast with this last bit of summer. He and all his neighborhood buddies are really making the most of it. They just had a sleepover last night and as we speak, he and Christian are playing poker at our table. :) His friendship with Christian will probably be the hardest thing to leave behind when we move. Alex is more than ready for 3rd grade. (Writing that totally made me cringe... how did I get a 3rd grader???) He is excited that his other best friend, Jaxon will be in his class. Jaxon is the only kid who has been in every school class since Kindergarten. They have a lot of similar interests and very similar personalities. Alex can't wait to get back to see his friends again. Alex is also still in soccer. He did baseball during the summer and loved it, but his heart belongs to soccer. He is in bantam soccer... which is in between recreation and competitive. It's to help him get ready to be in competitive soccer, if he chooses to do it. So Alex has been doing soccer practice all summer long and is continuing to get better and better. His first game is a week from Saturday and I really can't wait for it!

Darek has also enjoyed the summer. He has become best friends with our neighbor Savannah, Christians little sister. They are inseparable and get along really well... most of the time. Darek is a smart little boy and is learning lots of new things. We're working on ABC's right now and he recognizes more than 1/2 of his numbers. Darek really thinks he is going to school this year. He wants so badly to be big like his brother. I'm considering putting him in preschool. Although I could do it with him here, he really wants to go somewhere else for school. Again, it's all about feeling like a big boy. The place Alex went for preschool requires kids be potty trained before they come. Darek is not there yet. We are trying to potty train again, starting today, but I'm not holding my breath. There is another place, further away that does not require it, so I'm considering it. But my hope is that the enticement of going to preschool will help him finally get potty trained. If he does go, I will have a few hours to myself during the day! I really don't know what I'll do! Darek is also starting soccer this fall. We found out that our rec center does soccer for 3 year olds. He is on a team with his buddy, Truman. I found out the other day that his first game is on Sept 9th, Ryan's birthday. I cannot wait to go watch these little 3 year olds try to play soccer. Darek is already amazing at dribbling a ball. I think the struggle will be trying to get him to get the ball in the goal. Just thinking about it is making me giggle.

I have found that my blog really is my therapy. I'm glad to have it just to write feelings and thoughts down. And I appreciate the comments people leave too. So thanks for listening to my whining, complaining, excitements and all the other boring stuff. You all make me feel very loved!

The Grand Canyon... It Really Is Pretty Grand

2011-08-11T11:49:00.006-06:00

So our summer had been planned with several cool trips... most of them didn't work out because of unexpected financial issues. But we were still able to go to the Grand Canyon. I have never been and I have to say that I was not thrilled about going to the Grand Canyon. It seemed like it was going to be pretty boring... ugly drive through Arizona, looking out at canyon and then a boring trip back. I wasn't all that impressed at the idea and could only think of how dumb it would be. I was more wrong then I could have ever imagined.

The drive was actually pretty amazing, once you got past the desert part. It actually turned into a beautiful forested area and lots of amazing little meadows. I had no idea there was any part of Arizona that looked like that! :) I was glued to my surroundings as we drove through. As we got closer, it was hard to imagine that this would just end as a huge cliff into the Grand Canyon. But finally it did. Now I've seen many, many pictures of the Grand Canyon before and it really didn't look all that special. Nothing can prepare you for seeing it in person. There is no way to really describe it, but to do my best, I've come up with a list of words I would use. I've also asked the kids to describe it. :)

Magnificent
Beautiful
Majestic
Breathtaking
Incredible
Nerve wracking
Picturesque - Seriously! Most of the time I felt like I was looking out at a painting. It was hard to believe it was real... until you looked down. ;)

High
Awesome
Scary
Fun
Cool
Awesomest thing I've ever seen!

It was so, so scary on the mountain. It was very cool. I liked to walk. I was going to get hurt.

I love kids interpretations and memories of places. I hope they remember something about it. I kinda doubt it with Darek, but I'm sure Alex will have some great memories of the trip. But, as always, here are some of our pictures.

Honestly, this is a trip I will most definitely want to do again! I love trips like these. And although we didn't get to go to Yellowstone like we had planned, it will be a trip that we will do in the future. I love trips to Disneyland, but they all seem to mesh together as far as memories go... because we go so often. It's nice to experience something new with my kids and make those lasting memories.

St. George Nerf War

2011-08-11T11:29:00.006-06:00

When we went to St. George in July, we were able to have a Nerf war in Chad's school. The only downside was that the floors had just been waxed, so we all had to be barefoot. We used the band room as one base and the piano room as the other base. We did a couple rounds and wore ourselves totally out! Hayley was nice enough to take pictures of our war...

We didn't really have any flags, so we used coats that had been left at the school. We hid ours in the box. You can see the sleeve sticking out.

This is where the guys hid their coat.

The kids always enjoy climbing in the band instrument lockers when they visit. Cracks me up!

The whole gang pictured (except me... who was taking the picture). This is the best family fun you could ever have!!

Waiting, Waiting and More Waiting

2011-08-05T05:16:00.002-06:00

So even though I have a few other things to post about (like our trip to the Grand Canyon), I have to let off a little steam. I'll start off by saying... I am NOT a patient person when it comes to planning my future. I like to have an idea of what is going on and when it will all take place. When we moved in my parents basement, we were going to be here 2 years tops! Hahahaha.... 6 years later. It has totally killed me not going by "the plan". Not to say it hasn't been wonderful. We owe a lot to my parents for letting us stay here. We have been able to finish school, with no school debt at all! We have been able to adopt our boys, which would not have been possible at all if we were not living here! And many more blessings have come from us being here.

But it is time to move on. Ryan is DONE with school!!!! So we've applied for a few jobs. There is really nothing extremely close to here, which honestly, is perfectly fine with us. We actually prefer to move out of state, although that may not happen. At this point, we've applied for an MRI position in Idaho Falls. This position has been open since July 1st. It still has not closed. And if it doesn't close, they cannot interview for the position. I was told it should close soon, but that was a week ago, so we're really not holding our breath on this one. The other job we applied for is one in Logan. This is a Rad tech job, so not exactly what Ryan wants to do and not quite as much money. But it's still something he loves and will be happy to do if he gets the job. This one was only open a couple days, so there is more hope on this one.

It has been difficult trying to figure out what the best plan for our family is. Alex is not thrilled with the idea of moving, but is not totally opposed to it either. The more we talk about it, the better the idea becomes to him. Darek doesn't understand what is going on and I'm sure he'll adapt well when we do finally move. I'm so excited at the thought of having our own place again. It has been way too long and it will be nice to have more space. We are thinking that once we finally do settle down somewhere, we can finally focus on finishing our family. I'm not getting any younger, after all. :) It's hard to have all of these things up in the air right now. I hope it is all short lived and we'll get answers soon.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. Hopefully we'll get some good news soon that we'll be able to share with everyone!

Lodgepole

2011-07-08T11:54:00.007-06:00

We always look forward to this time of year. Mostly because we get to go camping with some of our best friends... The Nielsens. Every year we have an amazing time and this year was no exception.

Lodgepole is located east of Heber City, but not quite up to Strawberry. We decided this year to stop at Dairy Keen in Heber City for some lunch. We had heard that they had gotten the Coke Freestyle machine, which made it even more enticing! So we stopped there, got our lunch and let Darek have some fun on the train. Alex was a little too "old" for it. :) After lunch, we headed up to camp. We got there before the Nielsens did, so we worked on setting up camp. We got our new tent up and all our sleeping bags and such inside. Shortly after, our friends got there and set up camp. The evening was nice. We had hot dogs and hamburgers and got in a game. Then the weather hit. It started pouring without hardly any warning. Then hailing. We were all huddled under a canopy for a while until we realized it probably wasn't going to stop. So we all headed in our tent/camper. We got to our tent and realized our sweet kids did not zip the tent all the way at the bottom, so we had some major water to clean up when we got in. It didn't do too much damage since that was our entrance and we didn't have anything sitting by the door. So as we're cleaning that up, Ryan looks over and notices the back door (which we weren't using) was also unzipped from the bottom about half way up by our adorable little Darek. Now that side did have stuff by it. Alex's mat got soaked, along with his pillow and a little on his sleeping bag (the only sleeping bag not water proof). It got the floor of the tent pretty good, so we got it cleaned up as well as we could. The rain stopped for a little bit and we came back out. But it started up again soon after and we headed in for the night. It rained all night long, so it made for a pretty long night without much sleep.

The next morning we woke up to beautiful weather. We got the water cleaned off everything and I went on a nice morning hike with Tammy, Kaylene and Alex. We came back and had a big breakfast (french toast, hash browns and bacon). We spent the rest of the day hiking, playing lots of games and just enjoying each others company. It was so relaxing and so fun. Our second night was much better, thanks to Advil PM.

Our 3rd day, we woke up and had breakfast and started packing everything up. We like to have everything pretty much packed up and then we sit and play a few games. We finished our trip with a game of Farkle and SkipBo. Another trip gone, but many memories made.

We are lucky to have friends like this! And we're lucky enough to get to go up with them again in August. Maybe even twice in August... and I'm already looking forward to it!

Darek Is Turning 3!

2011-06-30T04:46:00.007-06:00

Sunday is Darek's 3rd birthday! I can hardly believe he is almost 3. This year has been the first year that he has really recognized that it's his birthday. Before he didn't really know what it meant or cared about it. This time we've been counting down the weeks and days. Yesterday was his birthday party. We had a total of 6 kids (including Alex and Darek). We had our neighbors Christian (5) and Savannah (2) as well as two of his buddies from nursery Truman (3) and Dylan (2). We were having a little trouble coordinating the party time with everyone we wanted to invite, so I knew it would probably not work out as the best time. But the plan was to have everyone get here at 1:30, play a little, open presents, eat some cake and ice cream and then head to the theater to see Cars 2 for a showing at 3:20. Darek loved opening presents. He didn't really care to look at what he got immediately. He would open one and then head on to the next present. He did this until they were all open, then went back to the boxes to figure out what he got. It was really funny and cute. I don't think I planned the timing out great. I didn't realize that the kids would want to open every box of every present and play with all the toys... RIGHT THEN. They were having so much fun though, I hated to put an end to it. So we skipped the ice cream, had cake really fast and somehow made it to the movie on time. Then the chaos began...

We got there with only 10 minutes to get treats and get everyone seated and situated. My parents, brother and 2 of my friends also came. When we were directed to our theater, we were surprised to find out the Green Lantern was playing. So when we asked the employees about it, they said our showing had been moved to another theater because the original had a broken reel. When we went into that theater, we found that our seats were taken. In other words, when they switched theaters, they didn't mark our seats as being sold, so they double sold our seats. The main reason my parents came was to help us out with all the kids (if needed), so we had them sitting right behind us. We had to do some adjusting with our seats. I had Ryan and two of the kids sit in the row in front of us and eventually we got settled, but still worried that someone else might come in and demand our seats. My parents were not having as much luck. A very rude older man came in and had the same seats as my parents, plus a few more. He got angry with my Dad (with my Dad trying to explain what happened) and they went to find a manager. They got an employee and were trying to page a manager. The manager would not respond. When they spotted him and yelled his name, he looked over and said, "I'm off". So the poor employee was left to handle a very unpleasant situation. And really, he did nothing to solve the problem. My parents had already had to move seats 3 times and were getting frustrated. The older man insisted the seats were "his" and demanded my parents get out of them. He was yelling at my Dad, who was trying to talk to the employee about the situation. I told the man to stop, that this was not our fault, but the theaters. He then screamed at me, "Well, it isn't MY fault!!" The guy was just a moron and a jerk. My Mom told him she was sick of hearing his mouth and got up and moved. His reply was, "Good, that's fine with me!" His daughter was telling me that if we really all wanted to sit together, that I should just get up and move down to the bottom of the theater. Sure, I'll just quickly move all 8 of us! I got a little angry with that and we got in a little yelling match. Anyway... I could go on and on. My parents ended up moving to another row, no where close to us, but gave clear instructions that we were to see a manager after the show.

The movie was great, by the way. Perfect for boys! Throw in spies with cars... every boys dream. But I was very entertained also. We really loved it and the kids were actually very well behaved during the movie. Darek and Savannah slept through about half of the movie, but that's what you get for having a party during nap time. I was bound to hit someone's nap time. Even with all the craziness going on, I'm so glad we took the kids to see it. I think Darek remembers some of it! :)

As we were leaving, I had a few people come up to me and apologize for how we were treated. It was really nice to hear that from other people. I was glad we weren't being viewed as the ones causing the problem. When we got out of the theater, my Dad was already talking to the new manager, the employee that tried to help and the manager that was "off". My Dad was pretty upset, rightfully so. He talked to the new manager about better ways to handle this kind of situation... mostly just to have someone in the theater directing traffic when they KNOW something like this is going to happen. The other manager stood there looking annoyed and bothered. My Dad asked for an email to be sent to him explaining what they would do to ensure this wouldn't happen again like this. The new manager told us he would send that as well as refund our tickets and apologized profusely for what happened. He was very nice and very courteous about the issue. He refunded all of our tickets! It helped make a bad situation a little better. The thing that made me SO angry was the man and his daughter that were so rude to us, also demanded to get their tickets refunded. FOR WHAT!?!?!?! As were getting our refunds, the daughter leaned over to me and apologized for her fathers behavior and said she was so embarrassed by him. What about her? Oh well. I came outside and found out that the manager had given my parents an envelope with 22 free tickets and 6 free popcorn vouchers!!! We split that up, so we'll get some free movies for the next little while!

We got the kids their goody bags and took them home. They really had a lot of fun, but I was sad that Dareks first real birthday party was tainted by this situation. The nice thing is that the kids didn't even know what was going on and probably won't remember a bit of that! After we got home, all the neighborhood kids came in to play with all of Dareks new toys. They stayed until about 7:30. Then we all got in our jammies, our pizza was delivered, we put on Harry Potter 4 (we're trying to get through all of them before the last Harry Potter comes out) and enjoyed the evening together. It was a great end to our day. We're going to have another small little celebration on Sunday and I'll post more about Darek at that time. For now, here are a few pictures of Dareks party.

My CUTE boy!

Not to brag, but I think I might have been able to do a better job on his cakes. But he loved them, which is all that matters!

Everyone, except Dylan. From left: Christian, Alex, Savannah, Darek and Truman.

I don't think the photos can even come close to capturing the madness that was happening!

Cake faces!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAREK!!!

Lagoon Pictures

2011-06-26T06:31:00.002-06:00

I took the boys to Lagoon the other day. It was fun to just hang out with them and have some fun. While we were there, I took out my camera and got a few cute pictures of the boys. They weren't exactly cooperating, but it was still fun to get a few pictures.

They might not always be on their best behavior, but they sure are cute!!

A Few Random Things

2011-06-21T20:59:00.002-06:00

So there have been a few things that normally I would have posted about, but since I'm catching up, I'll just do it all in one post. Not many pictures, just thoughts.

1...

RSL season began!! We are lucky enough to have season tickets again this year. We have already been to some amazing games, sad games (like when Javier Morales was injured and is out of play until at least October), disappointing games and most recently extremely frustrating games. But we love our RSL and have really enjoyed seeing our guys play!

2...

Nate graduated! My little brother (ok he's taller, but he's still my little brother) Nate graduated on May 24th! It was such a huge moment for him and I was so proud to be there to cheer him on! He has had a lot of difficulties to work through, but he has done so well and I am so proud of him. He is now living at home again and my boys couldn't be happier. In fact, Darek has found a new best friend! Anytime we're upstairs, he immediately is looking for Nate and wants to play with him. It's so great to have him back and I love him so very much!

3...

Daycare ended for the summer. The nice thing about the majority of my daycare kids is that their parents were employed by the school district. So I get the summer off with my kids! It's happy and sad. My kids miss having the other kids around and I do too! But it's nice to sleep in (sometimes) and be able to go on vacations and such whenever I want to. I may have one little girl off and on throughout the summer, but other than that, it's truly summer vacation for me!

4...

School ended. This has been such a bittersweet thing this year. Usually Alex has really looked forward to the summer and all the fun activities we are planning. We had a hard decision to make this year. Alex was offered a placement at West Bountiful Elementary in their spectrum program for next year. This has been very exciting, but terribly sad at the same time. We have come to love Adelaide Elementary and Alex has so many friends that he loves there. As parents we had to decide what would be best. This was one of those times I really didn't know what to choose. Ryan and I thought a long time about this and finally made the decision to move him. There were two main reasons behind our decision. The first was of course the education possibilities. We knew that if we didn't do it, 2 years from now we'd look back and regret not trying it. The second reason was due to the fact that we were planning on moving anyway. We were going to try our best to stay within Adelaides boundaries, but the chances of us being able to rent a home in our price range and get the size we wanted in the boundary was not good. Moving him to the spectrum program will give us a larger area (like all of davis school district) to look in. So the last day of school was really hard for Alex, knowing it would be his last day at Adelaide. Honestly it was really hard for me. I've been involved with the PTA these past years and gotten to know many parents and teachers. It will be hard to start over at another school. We have already been over to the school and walked around it so Alex could get a feel for it. He does love the huge soccer fields at the school, but he is still not thrilled about the idea. And I really don't blame him. I remember how hard it was to move and I hate that I will be doing that to him... and might have to do it another time after this. No matter what I want us to be settled where ever it is we will be by the time Alex reaches Junior High.

5...

Even though changing schools has been on Alex's mind, we have been keeping him pretty busy. Right now he is involved in baseball (which he doing really well in) and he's doing a more competitive soccer this year, which means soccer practice during the summer. It has made life pretty busy, but it's been really nice at the same time. We're very excited because Darek will be old enough to play soccer this fall. We already have him signed up and cannot wait to see him play this fall. Cutest thing ever!!! We also have a lot of trips planned for the summer. We kind of get June off, but July is going to be fun! Darek will turn 3 on July 3rd and then we're off on our first camping trip of the summer July 5-7. We'll have about a week home and will head down to St. George July 15-18 to spend a long weekend with my sisters. While there, we'll be taking a day trip to the Grand Canyon! I've never been there before (sad, huh?) so we can't wait to get this experience! We'll be home for another week and then we're taking a nice, long trip to Yellowstone!!! This is another first for me! Ryan has been before, but I never have. We'll be leaving the 27 and not come back until the 1st of August! We are tent camping it the whole time and I truly can't tell you how excited I am for this trip. I know my boys will love it... we just have to figure out how to keep our tent warm at night. Any tips??? Then we're home another couple days and I'll take the boys on another campout from Aug 4-6. Then we get a few weeks home before our last camping trip the 17-19. WHEW!!! I love that this is an outdoors kind of summer! I think we'll just keep our tent and camping supplies in our van the whole summer!

Well that's about it. I know that more has happened that I have missed, but that kind of catches us up. I do have one more post to do about my wonderful trip to Park City with the girls. But that needs a post all on it's own. I will try to be a little better about my updates from here on out!

Ryan's Graduation!!!

2011-06-21T20:45:00.000-06:00

Ryan finally graduated on April 22nd!!!! A week later he went back to school. :) But honestly he is just about done. Weber State allowed him to graduate and walk after Spring semester even though he still had to go back for Summer semester. Summer semester ends at the end of June, so he really is almost done. Just a week left to go! So he received his Bachelors of Science in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). It feels good to finally (almost) be done with it all. The only thing left will be for him to take the official MRI test to get licensed. He'll do that sometime this summer. Then the job hunt begins! We're not sure what our plans are exactly. We want to move ASAP, especially before school starts up. We're thinking we'll stay in the area, maybe somewhere around Centerville, but really just don't know yet. I just want to be certain that Ryan has a full-time job and then we'll go from there. But I'm so proud of Ryan for all his hard work and dedication throughout school. He graduated with honors, which totally amazes me! It's been a long road and now we can finally get on with our lives. We have many plans for the future and can't wait to get them started!!!

I didn't get the best pictures, so I apologize for that... but here is my man!

Alex's Baptism

2011-06-21T13:05:00.005-06:00

I am still sad to this day (and probably forever) that I did not get more pictures at Alex's baptism. I didn't even get any of him in his baptismal clothing. But even with a lack of pictures, it's a day I will always remember. I feel lucky that the stake we live in does baptisms on a ward level. I didn't want Alex to have to be baptized with a whole bunch of kids he didn't know and feel like a lemming waiting to be dunked. And it just so happened that he was the only one in our ward getting baptized in April, so we got to plan the whole program. It was a little nerve wracking, since I had never done this before. But thanks to the internet, I was able to figure it out. My favorite thing was getting to do the program. I really went crazy with it. My computer doesn't have many programs on it, so once I figured out what I wanted it to say and the pictures I wanted on it, Ryan took it all and made it look beautiful.

Here is a picture of the front and back of the program.

This shows the inside.

After doing the research, one of my favorite things I had found was a little section that talked about the child's favorite things. And I got a lot of comments about that little part... and the adorable pictures of my handsome boy!

Alex got to pick out who did what in the program. He decided I was going to play the piano... and I'm not sure if it was a good idea or not. The bad things about it is I wasn't right up close for the musical number and it was hard for Darek to listen well to other people while I was back there. The nice thing about it was no one could see me crying my eyes out when Alex was singing (more on that in a minute). He chose the prayers and the talks. The one thing I requested of him was the musical number. When I was baptized many years ago, the musical number was "When I Am Baptized". My siblings got up and sang the first verse and chorus and then I sang the second verse and they joined back in for the chorus. I loved that and I really wanted Alex to do the same. Only since he doesn't have older siblings, I asked his cousins to sing with him. Darek got up there too and knew some of the words, which was really cute. But when Alex came in by himself on the second verse, I totally lost it. He has the sweetest voice and sang beautifully! I was SO happy to be back at the piano and take a minute or two after the song was over to regain my composure again. I was so impressed with him to sing by himself though. He was so nervous and I wasn't sure how it would go. But it was perfect! The baptism and confirmation were perfect and the talks were also amazing and just for him. Our bishop commented that it was the most spiritual baptism he had been to and I would have to agree with him.

After the program we went to another room and had a little luncheon. It was fun to visit with everyone who had taken the time to come. We had most of Ryan's family there and all but my brother and his family from my side of the family. There were friends, neighbors and primary workers there as well.

I was so proud of my Alex and the choice he made to get baptized. He is such a wonderful son, brother and cousin. He sets such a good example (most of the time) for others... even me!

Alex's Other Parties

2011-06-21T12:31:00.007-06:00

I just had to post a few more pictures with Alex's other parties. He had one party with all of his neighborhood friends. We had a "movie night" themed party. Each kid was given a celebrity name and told to dress up as much as they could. We set up Alex's room for a movie night and the kids just got to play and watch a movie. It was very relaxed and fun.

Sami was Miranda Cosgrove

Reilly was Johnny Depp

Christian was Jack Black

Ava was Selena Gomez

and Alex was Dan Aykroyd

In case you couldn't figure it out, Alex picked out all the names for everyone. And Dan Aykroyd was because of Ghost Busters... in case you were wondering.

The next (and last) party was with Papa and Grandma. It was just simple with a cake and a few presents. Since going to Disneyland, Alex has really loved the idea of the pin trading they do at Disneyland. So when we got home, that's all he wanted. So both me and my mom ordered some disney pins in bulk off ebay for his birthday. He was so excited and he can't wait to go back to Disneyland, so he can do some pin trading with the cast members there.

Alex Turns 8!

2011-06-21T11:47:00.010-06:00

I'm going to back track a little bit to cover some of the things I missed. Because I have a horrible memory, there probably won't be a ton of info... mostly pictures. But a lot of wonderful things have happened in the last 3 months and I don't want to just pass over them.

Alex turned 8 years old on March 25th! It's hard to believe he's that old already. He had a wonderful birthday party at Chuck E Cheese this year with some of his best friends... Josh, Landon, Annika, Jaxon, Ava, Cameron, Ben S. and Gunner. I'll just post pictures and comment on them... that's probably the only way I'll remember what happened.

At the table having pizza before the major festivities began.

I love the "deer in the headlights" look from the kids! :)

Playing games

Darek loved this roller coaster and even put his hands up whenever it went downhill.

Alex got to go in the ticket blaster as part of his birthday party. He got to catch as many tickets as he could and then use them towards prizes. I think he got somewhere around 500 tickets from the blaster. The other kids were a little jealous.

Chuck E Cheese came over and danced and played with the kids for a little while.

Alex got a cool blow-up crown with extra tokens in it to use on the games.

Opening presents. This soccer ball was probably his favorite present and it was given to him by his "girlfriend", Annika.

This is just an adorable picture of Darek that I had to post!

Alex had a wonderful birthday party and is so happy to be 8! He got to start scouts and was able to be baptized (another post on that to come). I can't believe I have an 8 year old, but I really am loving how much fun I am having with him!

Think It's Been A While???

2011-06-20T19:36:00.002-06:00

I've been absent from my blog for a long time now. After I got back from my vacation in March, I tried changing up my blog. It ended up really getting messed up and for some reason I decided to get angry with it. But I have really missed doing my updates and have missed a lot of special occasions. So I'm going to try my best to make up for it in the next little while and get back on track. One thing I lost when trying to update my blog was all the links to everyone else blogs. So if you follow my blog at all, I probably followed yours and would love to get your blog address again. I don't know that I've been missed at all, but I have missed posting and looking back at my blog. So I'm back now!

Universal Studios

2011-03-15T23:37:00.004-06:00

No post yesterday, not too much happened and no pictures. But today was great and I have a few pictures to post.

The family kinda split up today to do different things. Aaron and Hayley's families went to Lego Land, my parents went to Disneyland, Beth went to the Hollywood area and did beach stuff and we went to Universal Studios. We talked to my parents and while ago and they offered to take Darek with them to Disneyland while we were at Universal Studios. It was hard to let him stay... but I am so glad we did. He would've had such a boring day with us. They have a few shows for little kids, but not many rides that they would really enjoy, or honestly can even go on.

We fought through traffic and got to Universal around 10:40. We got our tickets and went straight to the Back Lot tour. This has always been one of our favorite rides, so we were excited to show Alex how fun it was. He has been on it, but he was about 3 years old. We got to see the new King Kong 3D, which was really fun and also got to see a few TV shows filming... CSI and Parenthood (which is one of our favorite shows on TV right now). Alex really liked the back lot tour and thought it was cool to see a little about how making movies works.After the back lot tour we went over to the Simpson's ride. This was our longest line of the day (only 20 minutes) and it was well worth it! A very fun ride and one that Alex really enjoyed. We then went down to Jurassic Park. Alex has been dreading and kinda freaking out about going on this one. We waited only 5-7 minutes in line and got on the ride. I forgot ponchos, but figured we'd be fine. We got a little wet, but not bad at all. We got off the ride and Alex was jumping up and down with excitement. He wanted to go on it again so badly! The story of our lives... he always freaks out and then loves a ride. After that ride was a perfect time to stop and eat. We ate at our favorite restaurant there - the one next to Jurassic Park. We love going up on the balcony area outside over there. And Alex had to get up a few times to watch people come down the hill on the Jurassic Park ride. After lunch we decided to go on The Mummy ride next (only 5 minute wait). Alex did NOT like this one at all. I loved this ride, so I was kinda bummed that he didn't. But I was happy that he was willing to try it and not put up a fuss about it. We got off that one and went back over to ride Jurassic Park again. Can anyone guess what Alex's favorite ride of the day was??? We went back up and went to the Water World show. We were some of the last people in, so we didn't have much of a choice in seats. All that was left were seats in the 'soak zone'. I was not thrilled about this and told the guys I was going to see if I could find something else. I did find a seat and actually found an area that all 3 of us could fit. I motioned to Ryan to come sit, but he said he wanted to stay. So did Alex. The show was great as usual and the guys got totally soaked!! I was so glad I moved. We walked from there over to the Coca-cola water area. I ended up getting a little wet over there but we had so much fun all playing together. Then we went to the last show, Terminator 3-D. This one was okay, but not my favorite. After that was over, we did a little shopping and took some pictures. We stayed until the park closed and then fought traffic again on the way home. It was a great day and very relaxing. I am so happy we went and was thrilled to get back and hear all about Darek's day with Papa and Grandma. Tomorrow the whole family is going to Disneyland/California Adventure together. We will also have a character breakfast all together in the morning. I can't wait and hope we get tons of pictures! Until then, here are a few pictures from today!

A Few Comments

2011-03-14T00:18:00.002-06:00

Just a few comments to end out today.

-Didn't get any pictures today. :( But did get some amazing video of World of Color.
-World of Color was AMAZING! Alex and Darek loved the "fire" part.
-Alex and Tyson are the BEST buddies ever! They go everywhere they can together and have fun being 7/8 year olds.
-Naps can make all the difference when you are on a Disneyland vacation.
-They have added some crazy cool Tron stuff at California Adventure. You would think that Alex had died and gone to heaven, he was so excited about it!
-Still can't get over this cold and it's driving me crazy!
-My boys are the 2 cutest kids in the world and I love seeing them so happy!
-The bear (Mickey) that Darek made at Build-A-Bear is his new favorite thing. Mickey comes on every ride with us, eats with us, rides in the stroller next to Darek... it is so sweet to watch him with his new friend. :)
-The weather is perfect here! Which makes walking, standing in lines, etc. all so much more pleasant.
-I am so grateful to be a kid at heart! It makes Disneyland so much more fun!

Day 2... so far

2011-03-13T16:50:00.003-06:00

Right now we're taking a break in the hotel room since we got to the park pretty early today. This morning was so dead in the park. Ryan and Alex went straight over to Space Mountain while I took Darek back to Fantasy Land. We were able to get on Peter Pan's Flight in less than 20 minutes and then went to the carousel and got right on that. While on the carousel, I could see that Dumbo was a smaller line than usual, so we got right on over there and were on it in less than 10 minutes! I have never had lines so short for those rides! After we got off Dumbo, my parents, Beth, Chad and Gryn all came over and we went on Dumbo a second time (again, less than 10 minute line). Then I went over with Alex and rode Space Mountain and Darek went with Beth over to Peter Pan again. It was a great morning and we got to do so much! After that, we went over to California Adventure so that we could get tickets to see World of Color tonight. We met up with Hayley and her family and all went back to Toy Story Mania. All the kids loved being in line and it honestly made the line seem so much shorter! After Toy Story, we went over and met up with my Uncle Rob and his family on the Pier and had some lunch. The kids all fed their lunches to the ducks and played around. We then went over to California Screamin and took turns staying with kids and going on the ride. It was a lot of fun to be back on that ride! I love roller coasters! We were planning on heading back over to Disneyland, but Darek was not wanting to settle down to take a nap, so we decided to bring him back to the hotel to sleep and get some rest ourselves. We have about an hour until we head back to the parks. We'll get to see World of Color and enjoy some more time together. We didn't bring our camera in this morning, but we're planning on bringing it tonight. So hopefully I'll get to post a few pictures of our evening there. Tomorrow, my brother will get here with his family! They may or may not come to the parks tomorrow, but it will be so much fun to see his family! That's all for now...

We're Here

2011-03-12T21:44:00.005-07:00

It has been a long couple of days. But we are finally here. And it's already getting late tonight, so I'm gonna make this quick. We left yesterday right after Alex got out of school. I was proud of Alex for getting through the day. He came out of school looking so happy! The first part of the trip went pretty well. Darek slept for the first part of the trip, which was wonderful. When he woke up, we put on Toy Story for the boys. They watched it and it ended right as we got to St. George. We went over to my sisters house to stretch, let the boys play and have a little to eat. We got back on the road at about 7pm. We went straight from there to Primm, NV. Honestly, this part of the trip went well too. It felt a little long, but the boys were really good. We got to our hotel, went to an automatic check-in and got the keys to our room. Ryan was out getting our luggage, so I took Alex and Darek through the casino to find our room. We got there and the key would not work on our door. I tried again and again. To make a long story short, I stood in a line for 20 minutes, got another room key for a different room and we went to the room. Darek went to sleep almost immediately. Alex soon followed. Ryan and I were somewhat awake, but tried to get some sleep. Darek was snoring like mad. Because of the snoring, caffeine from earlier in the car and doors slamming, Ryan and I only slept a total of 2 hours during the night. It was a nightmare! We got up at 5am to finish our journey. We drove straight through to Anaheim. Again, the boys were excellent on the trip. We got to Disneyland at 9am and Alex and Darek were as giddy as they could possibly be. We realized as soon as we got there that it was going to be a busy day. But we made the best of the morning. We went on Buzz (which Darek mostly liked), Pirates of the Caribbean (which he wasn't thrilled about) and Winnie the Pooh (which he really loved). We had some lunch and by then the park was full. So we took the boys into Downtown Disney to the Build-A-Bear store. This is something we've been planning on letting them do for quite a while. They both picked special Mickey bears. And they both decided on Buzz Lightyear outfits for their bears. Darek named his Mickey and Alex names his Nick Bearmondo (this was totally Alex's idea and he named it after his favorite soccer player on RSL, Nick Rimondo. I thought it was so cute and clever. We then came back to the hotel and have relaxed the whole evening. I am exhausted and ready for bed, so I'm gonna post these pictures of our journey and first day at Disneyland and get myself to bed. Hopefully more posts will follow for our adventures tomorrow!

In the car, waiting for Alex to get out of school

Alex running as fast as he can so we can start our vacation

Pictures of all of us this morning as we wake up at 5am and get ready to go.

You can tell I'm thrilled to be up after only getting two hours of sleep. ;)

The boys SO happy after getting to Disneyland!!!

4 more days

2011-03-07T10:09:00.003-07:00

We are getting so excited around here! Just 4 more days until we leave for our vacation. I have been pretty sick for the past 4 or 5 days and it's driving me crazy. I could be getting so much done, but I don't have the energy for it. Despite being sick, we have started our packing process. We figure this week will be pretty busy. I have daycare kids all week (including the day we leave) and Ryan will be working through Thursday as well. Tonight my cousin is coming over to do some planning for her wedding. Tomorrow evening I will have daycare kids all day. Wednesday evening we will be going to Disney on Ice and then Thursday will be spent finishing up our packing. Our house looks like a disaster right now with suitcases out and packing in process. The nice thing is that we can pack all of our shorts right now since it's still freezing here. We looked at the weather there and it'll be between 65 and 75 degrees while we are there. PERFECT! Our goal is to have the van pretty much packed on Thursday night and then pick Alex up from school and start our journey. We'll stop in St George for dinner and to get out and stretch. We may or may not get to say hi to my sisters and parents who will be staying in St George for the night so they can all go see Bill Cosby. We will then continue on to Primm, NV and stay the night there. Early the next morning (5:30) we'll get up and drive the rest of the way to Disneyland. We won't be able to check in yet, so we are just heading straight to the park. We'll spend the morning there, have lunch and then take the boys to build-a-bear in downtown disney, where they'll get to make their own bear and pick out a disney outfit for the bear. After that, we will probably head back to the hotel. By then my sisters and parents should have arrived. We may spend the rest of the evening at the beach or just at the hotel, or go back to the park. Not sure yet. The rest of our vacation looks something like this:

Sunday - Disneyland/California Adventure
Monday - My brother arrives Disneyland/California Adventure
Tuesday - Split day... some will go to Legoland, Hollywood, Disneyland and we will go to Universal Studios
Wednesday - My whole family (all 21 of us) will get to do a character breakfast in the morning. We'll try to spend the majority of that day all together in the parks
Thursday - The whole family will be going to Newport beach to go on a whale watching cruise. I am so excited for this and I think this will be some great family time. After the cruise is over, we will spend the rest of the day on the beach.
Friday - Another day all together in Disneyland/California Adventure
Saturday - My brother flies home and possibly my sisters will drive back (not sure). We will stay that whole day, so the fun can last as long as possible! :)
Sunday - We travel home :( We like to take the ride home in one day, just to get the driving over and done with.

It is going to be a fun-filled week and will probably go by way too fast. I am praying that I will get rid of this sinus cold by then and am praying even harder that I don't give it to Ryan or Alex (Darek gave it to me)! We will be bringing our laptops with us so hopefully we'll be able to do some posts while we are there. Disneyland... here we come!

Valentines 2011

2011-02-15T09:10:00.004-07:00

Yesterday was fun, until I got stupid.

I had all my daycare kids yesterday morning. I had to go out and get some valentines "stuff", so I took 2 daycare kids and Darek with me. I think because of the holiday they were extra excited, which made my shopping trip a little more difficult than usual. But we got it done and came back home. The kids got to playing and I got to baking! I was making cupcakes for Alex's classroom party and then I wanted to make some chocolate-dipped strawberries... just because. So I made about 40 cupcakes, dyed some frosting for the kids to decorate with and got all of the stuff ready to take to the party. Then I started on the strawberries. I don't know why, but making the strawberries is so therapeutic to me for some reason. Baking in general is that way for me. I ended up covering 60 strawberries. My initial plan was to take 1/2 of them to Alex's classroom, but with everything else I was doing for it, I decided not to take them. After all my daycare kids were gone, Darek and I got ready and left for Alex's party. I love the looks on the kids faces as you walk into the classroom with all the fun party stuff. The party was great and I got the kids all hyped up on sugar!

The afternoon was fun. I took some of those tasty strawberries over to some friends and got to talk for a while. It was so nice and I really needed it. Alex delivered a few more valentines to neighbor kids. It was just laid back and nice.

Ryan and I had decided a few weeks ago that we weren't going to do anything for valentines day this year. Mostly because all of our money is going towards our Disneyland trip coming up really soon. And I thought I was just fine with that.... I thought. Ryan had left pretty early in the morning so I was hoping that maybe he'd get home early and we could go to an early dinner or something. It kept getting later and later. It was now getting too late to really go to dinner since we'd be ruining someone else's plans by dropping our kids on them. So that didn't work out. Secretly I was hoping that Ryan was late because he'd stopped off somewhere to get something for me (even though we had discussed this and decided not to). But he had just gotten stuck at work a little late. I was bummed. And now it was 6:30 and I had no idea what to do for dinner and didn't even want to think about it after being in the kitchen all day. So I decided to use some Arby's coupons we'd gotten and get a free dinner from Arby's. Alex and I went and picked up dinner. After we had all eaten we all sat down together and played Rock Band. We hadn't done this in a while and it was so fun! We played until 9:00 (thinking it was only 8:00) and then put the kids to bed.

For some reason I had a huge chip on my shoulder about the day, when truthfully, it had been a wonderful day. But deep down, I guess I had wanted more. After working all day to bake and make things for other people, I wanted something in return. I'm such a selfish brat sometimes. I hate it when I do those stupid "girl" things. Have a conversation about something, make a decision together and then get all annoyed when things go exactly as we had said it should. So Ryan and I watched a little TV (with me hardly talking and acting all annoyed). BTW - just writing this out makes me feel like an idiot for the way I acted. We went to bed and finally talked about what was bugging me. We talked it out and things were totally fine. And then Alex came and joined us in bed... :)

I love my husband. I love him so much! I know he is not the romantic, "surprise me" type of guy... and I am fine with that. I don't need any of that because he gives me so much more. I'm grateful I can talk to him about anything. And I love that we can do this without yelling or really even arguing. And I love that he validates my feelings, even when I'm being a stupid girl.

Anyway, I woke up feeling much better this morning. I'm planning on apologizing to Ryan tonight for my stupidity. And to make things even better this morning, Alex made me something really cute while I was taking a shower this morning. I think he could sense my negativity last night and wanted to make it better. And he did just that.

I'm so thankful for my family. I'm thankful that we'll get to have a whole week + together on vacation without any other distractions. We need a break together and I really can't wait for it! So there is my valentines day 2011. It was wonderful! Oh and if anyone wants some chocolate-dipped strawberries, please let me know. We gave away quite a few, but still have 20 or so left. And I am not going to eat all of them!

Funny Moments

2011-01-31T20:47:00.004-07:00

Just a few funny moments of the day that I wanted to write on my blog so I don't forget...

I took Darek to the doctor this afternoon to see if he just has his usual cold or if it was something more that needed to be addressed. The doctor came in and looked at him. He said that Darek has a sinus infection. Yay. So he prescribed the medicine and then asked if I wanted to get flu shots for the boys. I figured I might as well. Alex was not happy with me and I don't think he thought I would really go through with it and make him get a shot that he "didn't need". After I went and paid for it, he I knew I meant it. So when the nurse came in and asked who was first, my "brave" little Alex pointed to Darek and said, "HIM!!!" And before the nurse had come in, Alex had started freaking out about how much it was going to hurt, so he got Darek all upset and worried about it. We laid Darek on the table and after the shot it took about 10 seconds (and a popsicle) to have him calmed down. Then came Alex's turn. You would've thought he was the 2 year old... only he is much harder to control. He kept pulling his jeans back on and crying. Finally the nurse held his shoulders and looked at him. She calmly told him that if he jerked and moved that it would only hurt more. She told him that the needle wouldn't hurt, but the medicine going in would hurt just a little. She got him so calm that he was able to watch her poke him with the needle. She held the needle in for a minute to show that it didn't hurt, then slowly pushed the medicine in. He started to freak a little and she just told him to breathe through it. He started taking deep breaths and breathed right through it, watching the whole time. I think I may have been freaking out more than he did at that point, because it looked like torture. She pulled the needle out quickly and he started laughing. Then he exclaimed, "I feel so stupid now!!" Alex can definitely overreact. He's actually become really good at it now. We've seen him do it before going on roller coasters (well just about any ride really), pulling his teeth, just to name a few. It's what makes Alex, Alex. And we love him for it. I'm glad that he can at least recognize afterward when he has over reacted. It doesn't help us beforehand or even for the next occasion, but at least he'll apologize afterward.

And speaking of pulling teeth... We have been working on a tooth for the last couple days. It has been ready to fall out, but of course Alex freaks any time we mention pulling it. So last night I told him that this tooth was to be out of his mouth by the end of the week. Tonight at dinner, he got really quiet. I was about to ask him what was wrong, when he jumped out of his seat and yelled, "I pulled my tooth out!!!!" He was so excited that he did it himself and was especially excited that it didn't even hurt! So after he got the tooth out, he looked at me and said, "Mom, this has been one of the best days ever." Who would've guessed that getting a flu shot and having a tooth pulled out would make for the best day ever? Now I know the secret. :)

Kids sure keep life interesting. Just as I'm getting the boys tucked in and ready to say prayers tonight, Darek vomited all over. He's really good with timing. I told Ryan we need to keep a stockpile of carpet cleaners and probably invest in a good steam cleaner. Poor little dude. I hope the medication helps and he gets better very soon.

Now I'm gonna sit down with Ryan, eat some ice cream and watch an episode of The O.C. Yay for guilty pleasures!

Mom and Dad Bucks

2011-01-28T15:08:00.004-07:00

So a wonderful friend gave me a great idea for a rewards system. We've been trying to figure out what the best thing to is to do with Alex as far as allowance goes. I don't mind doing allowance, but it just hasn't worked out any time we've tried it. So the idea of "Mom bucks" or "Parent bucks" was presented. I found a website that lets you personalize real-looking money with your own picture and then print it out.

I like the fake money idea because it's a little easier to keep track of for me. And it's easier to give and take away. I now have to set a system out for how much Alex will earn for things he does right (doing chores, helping his brother, obeying consistently, etc.) and how much he'll lose for choosing poorly (talking back, not doing his homework, getting in trouble at school, etc.). That's kinda the hard part that I'll really have to think about. But I'm really loving the idea and am excited to get going on it. I will also have rewards (toys, eating out, movies, friends over, etc.) priced out so he'll have some great things to buy with his Parent bucks! I'll try to give an update from time to time with how it's working out.

Random

2011-01-26T10:47:00.004-07:00

I just had a few things to write down that I wanted to remember. Sorry for the randomness...

I LOVE CLEARANCE! I have scored some awesome deals in the past few weeks and I just wanted to say how much I love it! I just got Alex's main birthday present (an Air Hockey table) for $17.48 today! It's awesome to be able to give someone a $20.00 gift and only have spent $5.00 on it! Especially when you don't have a lot of money to spend. It really makes your dollar go far... very far!

Alex got in the car yesterday after school. He was carrying a little purple bag. I asked what the bag was all about. He said a girl named Annika gave it to him at school. I asked what was in it. He said he hadn't had a chance to look inside it yet. So he opened the bag, took the "stuffing" out and looked inside. His face got pretty red. He pulled out a little heart and a note. He opened the note and said, "Oh.. my.. gosh!" So me being the nosy Mom I am asked what it said. "It says, To Alex From Annika. I love you." At this point he was giggling nervously, smiling and completely red in the face. I asked if he knew that she "loved" him and he said he had NO IDEA! I asked him if he liked her and his reply was, "I like her, but only as a friend." I teased him like crazy about it. I had to tell Daddy, Grandpa and Grandma so they could all tease him too. I love this point in a kids life. All the little boyfriend/girlfriend situations. It's so cute!

A lot of thoughts and reflections on Alex lately. We are nearing his 8th birthday and I'm getting very sentimental. He is getting baptized in early April and it's so hard to believe that it's already time for this. I swear we still had a couple years before this happened. He can't wait to start scouts. We had a meeting this past Sunday to go over what to expect with the baptism and talk a little about scouts. He gets so giddy when you talk about it with him. I'm very grateful that our ward does baptisms on a ward level so that he isn't baptized with a whole bunch of kids he doesn't know. He happens to be the only one getting baptized in our ward that day, so we get to plan the whole program. I am excited about this and we've been talking about who will be giving talks and saying prayers. Some of it he doesn't care all that much about, but he has been very specific on other things. We've already planned out his birthday too. He wanted his party at Chuck E Cheese this year, so we have that booked and are deciding who to invite. I'm also letting him have a late night/sleepover with those that we can't invite to Chuck E Cheese. He is spoiled rotten, but eh... he deserves it!

I cut Darek's hair last night. I meant to leave some of it so that he wasn't completely bald in the winter time, but it didn't work out. So he's a cute little bald boy again. He looks so old without hair. But still just as adorable!

Ok, that's all for now...

You May Have Noticed...

2011-01-18T10:30:00.003-07:00

that I changed a few things on my blog. Honestly, I'm not sure why it isn't Disney/Mickey all the time with how obsessed we are with it. But the reason I changed it is because we're getting ready and excited for our next vacation to Disneyland! 52 days and counting until we leave! There are a couple reasons we're extra excited about this trip versus past ones. 1 - My amazing parents are paying for the trip! They decided a family vacation was in order and instead of trying to work around what people could afford, they are covering the cost! That kinda brings me to #2 - Almost the WHOLE family is coming! Except for my youngest brother and sister, all other siblings, nephews and nieces will be coming. I believe we'll be a party of 21! I have yet to meet my brothers 2 youngest kids, so this will be a wonderful treat to see all of them! 3 - Darek has not been to Disneyland since he was this size...

so it will be a whole new experience for him this time and he is going to LOVE it! He talks about going to Disneyland every day now and names off every person who is coming with us and who we're gonna see there. SO CUTE!

It has been close to 2 years since we've been (which may be a record for us) and we are excited to see the new attractions and changes. We are also hoping to visit Universal Studios and Magic Mountain while we are there. And we will get to take a whale watching cruise, which I have never done and am extremely excited for!

Vacations are a huge part of our lives. We love the break and stress relief we get from our regular lives and the family bonding time you get to experience. Why does it still have to be 52 days away??? :)

How To Complete A Family???

2011-01-12T11:55:00.003-07:00

Ryan and I are getting ready for some changes in our lives. Before you get too curious, let me say... no we are not pregnant and no we aren't planning on adopting any time soon. But we are getting ready for Ryan to be done with school in late June/early July. And after that happens we are planning on finally moving! Until he has a full-time job, we do not know where we'll be moving. But we're pretty much up for anywhere (hopefully not Utah).

One thing we have said since we adopted the boys was that we couldn't fit another child in our home, so we'd have to wait until we moved to complete our family. Now that we have actual plans in place for when we'll be moving, I can't help but start daydreaming about adding to our family. In my mind, we have 3 options. Fertility treatments, private adoption or foster to adopt. All are scary, time consuming and possibly expensive. I was talking with Ryan the other night about this and we had an interesting conversation. One I wasn't quite expecting... and honestly made me a little sad. When talking about these 3 options I brought up that I was looking at costs at a local fertility clinic. Then I looked at his expression and asked him if he was even interested in pursuing adding to our family through fertility. He very honestly shook his head that he did not. I had known that it was not his first choice, but I did not know that he didn't really want to consider it as an option. I can totally understand why. It is the hardest thing as a couple that we have had to do. It sent both of us on an emotional roller coaster every single month. It was very costly and sent me into a pretty bad depression until we stopped treatments and decided to adopt. It consumed me. And even though I have no desire to go through all of that again, I really wanted to experience being pregnant one more time. When I was pregnant with Alex, I loved it! It was an amazing, beautiful experience for me. And I never imagined it would be the only time I'd get that experience. Now I know that miracles happen and one day it might happen naturally, without medications. But that conversation left me a little sad about closing that door completely.

With all of that being said, please do not get the impression that I wouldn't be thrilled to adopt again. I loved everything about the adoption of boys (minus the cost maybe)! I would feel honored and humbled to have that experience again. We are considering private adoption (although the time wait on it is not ideal at all) and foster to adopt. Once we move, we'll probably start pursuing it with more intensity. For now, I will dream about our future children and hope that we don't have to wait too long.

Buca Di Beppo... Titus Family Style

2011-01-12T11:33:00.004-07:00

A tradition for the Titus Family for the past couple years has been to go to Buca Di Beppo on New Years Eve. Last year Chad, Beth and I made a cake especially for the occasion. This year, to save some money, give my parents a break and to put a little twist on our tradition, we decided to do our own Buca Di Beppo. Beth and I looked our favorite Buca recipes online and split them up. Our menu consisted of:

Bruschetta - made by Ryan, Chad and Mandi
Garlic Mashed Potatoes - Made by Beth and Chad
Green Beans - Made by Mandi
Cheese Manicotti - Made by Mandi
Baked Ravioli - Made by Beth and Chad
Chicken Carbonara - Made by Mandi
Chicken Limone - Made by Beth and Chad

Once it was all set out on the table, it looked like it could probably feed 20 people! This was our first time at attempting most of these recipes, so we really hoped that it tasted somewhat like the Buca version. I can say with much certainty that we were very successful! The food was insanely good and extremely fattening! :) Although we gave our parents a break, we gave them one task... decorating. At Buca Di Beppo, each room has a theme. And at every Buca, they have a "Pope's Room". They have pictures of different pope's on the walls. Well we decided to put a twist on that as well and make a "Prophets Room". My Mom did a great job and other than dinner being really late (didn't plan very wisely with time), it was a perfect evening! Here are some pictures of our feast!

I hope this becomes our new tradition! I think it was a lot more fun doing it this way than going to the restaurant. And we had TONS of leftovers!

Christmas Break Isn't Complete Without....

2011-01-12T11:31:00.002-07:00

A Nerf War!!!

Christmas 2010

2011-01-12T10:38:00.005-07:00

I have lots of blogging to catch up on, so hang in there with me with all these posts! I'll first back track a little to Christmas break. I usually tell long stories and I think that's why I don't blog as much as I want to... because it takes too much time. So instead, I'll post pictures and just comment on an individual picture if I feel like it. :)

All the little boys got matching Batman pj's and wore them on Christmas Eve. They were so adorable and my boys especially loved matching their cute cousin!

Santa brought Pillow Pets for both the boys (bumblebee for Darek and a Panda bear for Alex). They were in heaven!

Alex's favorite gift, by far. If you haven't seen these Hex bugs in action, they are pretty amazing little things to watch.

For whatever reason, Alex really wanted a football jersey for Christmas. He didn't care what team it was or who the player was, but he really wanted a jersey. Since the 49ers are the only NFL team I've ever cared about, we decided to get a 49ers jersey. And since Alex Smith was the Utah Utes quarterback and went to the 49ers and shares a name with Alex, we decided to get his jersey. My Alex was SOOOOO happy to finally have his jersey and wears it every chance he gets!

We were so happy to have Chad, Beth and little Gryn here for Christmas. They were all fun to have around and I loved being able to hold and spoil my little nephew.

It was a very Merry Christmas for our family with lots of fun memories. Until next year...

Holidays

2010-11-29T10:04:00.010-07:00

I guess I never really posted about Halloween and now that it's past Thanksgiving, I guess I'll just do one big post on the last couple months.

So there isn't much to post about Halloween. We stayed home this year, which was great. We went to a trunk or treat and a ward party. It was fun and got the kids enough candy to be satisfied. Here are a few pictures of the kids... Alex as an army guy and Darek as Captain Hook. I also have to post a picture of Alex in this same costume. I can't believe Darek fit into it already!

Alright, onto November! Most of it has been pretty normal. I got to volunteer at my favorite thing at school... the book fair! It was very fun like usual and I got the kids some great books! I did get to go down to Hurricane and spend a whole week with Beth, Chad and my adorable nephew Gryn. I had a wonderful time down there and sadly got absolutely no pictures. Beth and Chad came back up here with us and we saw Harry Potter over the weekend. Then before we knew it, Thanksgiving was here! My sister Hayley and her family came up on Thanksgiving evening. My boys are always so happy to have their cousins here. They played and played. Hayley and I were crazy and did the whole Black Friday shopping. We left at 9:30 pm Thursday night to go to Toys R Us (which opened at 10pm). We got most of what we wanted there, but were not prepared to have to stand in a 3 HOUR LINE to check out! By the time we were an hour into it, we knew we'd invested too much time and couldn't turn back... but it sure was frustrating. We missed the opening of Walmart and Old Navy. I was able to leave Hayley in line so I could go to Old Navy and see if they still had the free games to give away. But they had given those out long ago, so I missed out. After we finally left Toys R Us at 1:40am, we went to Walmart, and amazingly still got almost everything we had wanted. From there we went to Kohls and did GREAT there! On our way home we stopped at Kmart and I was able to get the two things I had wanted there. We got home around 5:30 (I think) and went right to sleep. It was so much fun and very memorable. But I was very happy to sleep. After I woke up, we went out to Ryan's parents house to celebrate with them. The kids got more cousin time and we all had fun together. Saturday we were able to go see Tangled and then went to Chuck E Cheese in the evening. We all had a great time together. One of the fun parts of the week was that I had Ava (a little girl I watch) for a while during the time my sister was here. Ava has become like one of my nieces. I love that little girl! Hayley's kids and mine are very close together in age. Tyson and Alex are 3 months apart and Brayden and Darek are 1 month apart. I've always felt really bad for Anna because we don't have a little girl her age. Well, it turns out that Ava and Anna are only 1 week apart in age. So they got along perfectly. During Tangled, the girls sat together by us and the boys sat together by Hayley. It was really fun to see them all together. I've decided we really need to adopt a little girl that age. :)

It was a great holiday weekend. The only time I remembered to take pictures was on Friday night. The kids all decided to have a slumber party in Alex and Darek's room. So before they went to sleep, I snapped some cute pictures of them all together.

I cannot wait for Christmas this year!

Good and Bad

2010-11-11T09:29:00.002-07:00

I've waited a while to get this posted, but it is something I wanted to mention. So a few weeks ago, Ryan told me that there was a Rad Tech PRN position available to apply for. There have been a few of these in the past and we have kinda passed them by. After talking about it, I told him to go ahead and apply and we'd figure things out if he got the job. Let me explain... A PRN position is an "on-call" position. That means, 1. No scheduled hours (possibly no income) 2. Because there are no scheduled hours, he does not qualify for benefits. 3. The only way to get hours is if someone takes vacation, is sick, etc.

So with all that being said, why do it??? I have gotten this question from a few people. Here are a few reasons... 1. He will have to start at the bottom at some point. Better to get it over with now. 2. When he does get hours, he makes A LOT more than what he was making. 3. It gives him the experience he will need to get the part-time and full-time jobs when they come available.

This has been a very scary step to take. We have cut as many bills as we can and have put ourselves on a very strict budget. My original thought was to go out and get a job. But there were so many things to figure out if we did that. Especially concerning our kids. So we've decided for now to wait a few months to see how things go and hope we can make it. Our kids will have to be ok with not having much of a Christmas this year. The scariest thought for me is the lack of insurance. Luckily, Darek will always be covered. But Alex is not and Ryan and I are not. We'll see how things go.

Ryan is very lucky to have a lot of people at work looking out for him. As soon as he got this position, someone offered him work all of next week. So he'll get around 34 hours just next week. He is very loved at his job and is very good at it. We have faith that all will work out. We don't doubt for one second the decision we made. It's scary, but sometimes you have to take the scary road instead of the safe one. Hopefully there will be a big pot of gold waiting at the end of our road! :)

Daycare

2010-10-29T11:37:00.002-06:00

I have been doing daycare now for just over 2 years. WOW! Crazy that it's been that long! It has been a lot of fun watching all these cute little kids and watching them grow up. I was just thinking of some random things today regarding my experiences with daycare. So here they are:

-I love that it allows me to be home with my kids.
-It has helped me realize how many kids I will be able to handle as a mom. This number is somewhere between 4 and 6.
-I figured out that I really need a little girl that is 5 years old.
-There are days that I know if I hear the theme songs to iCarly, Dora, SpongeBob, or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse one more time.... I will throw a rock (or something else that will do some damage) right through my TV.
-I love feeling like I'm (hopefully) making a difference, or at least making a positive lasting impression on these kids.
-There are days where I want to go in my room and lock the door.
-There are days when it really makes me sad when kids go home.
-I really think I would be a great foster mom.
-I wish I had more space for the kids to play.
-I love when the weather is nice and we can all play outside!
-When we move, we WILL have a big backyard!
-It is almost certain that my family will have twice to three times the amount of colds/flu.
-The getting sick part really sucks, especially with a kid that was a preemie baby.
-I take lots of vitamin C!
-Sometimes I feel like I'm taking my time away from Alex and Darek.
-Then I realize that I would be working out of the home and would be away a lot if I weren't doing daycare.
-It's so fun to listen to kids play pretend and imagine.
-I really wish that I still had that kind of imagination.
-Taking 7 kids to the grocery store isn't as hard as I thought it would be. I've only done this once, so I'm sure my experience next time won't be nearly as easy.
-Surprisingly, all the kids I've had are really good kids. The only problem with this is that it really makes me want to have more kids REALLY BAD.
-If I ever do have to go find a job or we move far away, it will break my heart to leave these kids.

So there is some randomness for ya. I really am grateful the "job" that I have. It has been fun, frustrating, rewarding, exhausting and humbling. I am grateful to the Moms that have trusted me with their children. I know sometimes I don't take that to heart. But when I think about who I would trust to take care of my kids, very few people would be on that list. So I am truly honored.

Two Years

2010-10-07T09:30:00.004-06:00

It's hard to believe two years have passed. Two years without our sweet little Ian. For some reason I thought it might be easier this year. Not as difficult to deal with and think about. But it actually seems a little harder. I know part of it is because Darek is this funny little kid now with such a huge personality and I dream about what Ian's personality would be like. I imagine him being a sweet little guy and kinda shy. I can see his beautiful smile (but it's different from Darek's). I imagine him loving his pacifier and having a hard time taking it away from him. I can see him sitting with Darek and dancing and singing to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Umizoomi. He loves music and especially loves to lay in bed and sing Twinkle, twinkle and ABC's. He loves books and could be read to for hours. He knows how to throw a really good tantrum, but they don't last long. He is beautiful, just like Darek. He has the same big, brown eyes. He loves getting in a good sword fight with his brothers. He is very sensitive. He has a special bond with his Daddy. He gives the best hugs and kisses.

I don't know if it's a good or bad thing to daydream about what he would be like if he was here. But sometimes, it helps. I wish I knew exactly where he was and who was taking care of him. I know that sounds silly. But as a Mom, just saying, "He is in a better place and being taken care of", isn't enough. I want to know specifics. I know I won't get an answer, but I want one so badly.

Ian, I miss you so much that it feels like part of my heart is missing. I need to be so much better to ensure that I can be with you again. I love you.

So Behind!

2010-10-02T21:51:00.002-06:00

September is always filled with many, many celebrations. This September has been no exception. I feel extremely bad that I haven't blogged about so many of those celebrations. So this post will have to be a quick summary of some of these events.

Sept 9th - Ryan celebrated his 32nd birthday! As adults, birthdays don't seem to mean nearly as much as they used to... which makes me sad. Ryan is fine with it and never wants a huge deal made out of his birthday. We celebrated with cake and ice cream and he got some fun gaming presents.

Sept 17th - My cute little nephew, Gryn, was born! We were able to go down and visit him in the hospital and then at home for a few days. It was so much fun and he is the cutest little guy! I'm pretty sure I'm already his favorite person... ok, maybe I come in 3rd behind his Mom and Dad. :) I'm so happy for my sister and my brother-in-law. I love them so much and couldn't be happier for them. I have some cute pictures that I will post later. But I cannot wait to see all of them again (soon)!

Sept 22nd - This was a pretty big date for us. Ryan and I celebrated our 10th anniversary! That's right.... 10th!!! I think this is a huge accomplishment for anyone. As it usually is for us, we were both busy on the actual day, so we had to put of celebrating. My parents were kind enough to babysit our kids for the weekend and we went up to Park City for 2 nights. We stayed at the Silver King (which is where we spent our 1st anniversary) and relaxed all weekend long. I cannot tell you how wonderful it was and how quickly it went by. It was so nice to have that time alone with Ryan and really enjoy each other with no other distractions. When I think about these past 10 years, I'm amazed at how quickly they've flown by. I love Ryan so much! He is an amazing Husband and Father. He is kind and gentle and so loving. I can't imagine anyone more perfect for me than him. I look back at our wedding pictures and see how young we were. Our love was strong then, but with each year it has grown stronger and deeper. Thank you for these amazing 10 years Ryan! I can't wait to see what the next 10 bring!

Sept 29th - This was my golden birthday! I turned 29 on the 29th! And once again, Ryan and I hardly saw each other on my birthday. It was all just fine though. My parents went out to dinner with me and the kids and I got some wonderful gifts! I have some incredible friends that visited me and wished me a happy birthday and brought over some gifts. I felt very loved and incredibly lucky! We had planned to go to Lagoon today to 'celebrate' my birthday. But Darek had an incident that made us postpone those plans. We might go tomorrow (that's right, everyone get out their judging notebooks and write this one down) since Ryan and I hardly see each other to do anything together. We'll see.... Even if it doesn't work out, I know that I am loved and I am grateful for all those wonderful people in my life that remind me of how lucky I truly am.

Well those are the major celebrations for September. We had a whole bunch of other stuff that went on, but I'm too tired to even think about all of it right now. Hopefully October will be a little calmer so that I can enjoy it a little more. :)

Mom of the Match

2010-09-19T16:16:00.005-06:00

I had a wonderful time at this past ReAL game on the 18th. I was selected to be the Mom of the Match. It was so much fun and a little scary too. We got to the game about an hour early so that we could go out onto the field and watch the players warm up. The boys really enjoyed watching their favorite players and it was fun to be that close to the action. About 10 mins before the game started, they took me over to one of the cameras. I decided to bring Darek along, so I wouldn't be scared. :) I got to hold my gift from OhMyCrafts.com, which was a Cuttlebug. It was a little difficult to hold the gift and Darek at the same time and I felt like an idiot trying to wave too. I smiled at the camera and attempted to wave. Luckily I did not have to say anything on camera. Darek was really cute and waved into the camera as well. I'm glad I didn't have to watch myself on the big screen while I was being filmed, or I probably would've freaked out. After the minute I was on camera, they told me I was done and took me back over to Ryan. Then we made the trek (all the way around the stadium) and got to our seats (which were really wonderful seats). It was a really fun experience and I am grateful to have had it.

I love my boys and it makes me so happy to know that they think I'm a good Mom. And the bonus of this game... WE WON!!!!

You're Invited....

2010-09-15T09:31:00.001-06:00

You are Invited to our
Halloween Stamp Camp

When: September 25th from 10am-1pm

Where: LDS church building at
3599 S Orchard Dr., NSL

Cost: $15.00 per person - due at the beginning of the camp (If there are projects you would like to do multiples of, please let us know which ones and we can let you know what the extra cost will be.)

RSVP: Mandi Wood 801-450-2245 or
Tammy Nielsen 801-550-4917 by Sept 18th

Refreshments will be served and we will have some fun giveaways as well! Please join us for a fun morning out with some wonderful friends! See below for the card and projects we will be doing at our camp...

Our first project listed here are the luminaries. I have made 3 styles and you can choose the two you would like to do. There may even be a few other design options for you.

I will provide a LED light for each luminary you do. I really couldn't get a picture that could do these justice while lit up in the dark. But I can tell you that they look pretty amazing!

Next on our list of projects are these adorable boxes. Using the new Halloween designer paper and stamp sets, this box is perfect for favors at a Halloween party or a gift for a friend.

And for our last project, we will be using the new candy wrapper die cut from our new mini catalog. This is a MUST HAVE if you own a Big Shot machine. Whether using regular paper, designer paper or dressing it up to look like a bat, there are plenty of uses for this fun project.

We will get the card posted later so you can see what it looks like. But let us know by this Saturday if you would like to attend the camp. We want to make sure we have enough projects for everyone attending. So leave a comment, call or email if you would like to attend! And, as always.... Thanks for stopping by!!

Mandi

What Am I Doing???

2010-09-08T11:00:00.002-06:00

Answer: EVERYTHING!

I have been looking over all the activities that I have signed myself up for and am wondering if I've lost it a little. I don't know why I don't think my life is busy enough, but I've found that I have a very hard time saying no or turning someone down. Now I just want to lie down and cry a little. Part of me wants to come up with some amazing excuses to get out of some of the activities, but the other part can't wait to plan and have a great time when all of it is completed. So just to list out a few of the things I have coming up:

-5 part time day care kids
-Planning and scheduling the Stake Women's volleyball
-In charge of planning all the activities for Red Ribbon week at Alex's school.
-Alex's soccer practices and games
-Activity days with the 8-9 year old girls in the ward
-Volunteering at school
-Volunteering with the PTA activities

That's enough for now. I'm sure there are a few things I left out, but those are the bigger things I have going on right now. I need to really learn how to prioritize or I will not get anything done on time. Luckily I've done most of the planning for volleyball, so all is left it to show up every Thursday night to do score keeping and hopefully get to play a little too. I'm just in the beginning stages of Red Ribbon week. I'm really nervous about this one. I really don't know what I'm doing. Luckily I will be working with some more experienced Mom's. But I am excited and want to make this really fun.

And somehow during all of this and the other things we are doing on a daily basis we have Ryan's birthday (tomorrow), our 10th anniversary (22nd), my birthday (29th) and a new nephew that I will want to go visit all to fit into this month. Needless to say, it will be an amazing and exhausting month.

I just hope that I have enough energy to make it through all of this and still come out on the other side with a good attitude about all of it. :)

2nd Grade

2010-09-02T07:09:00.003-06:00

Well Alex has been an official 2nd grader for almost 2 weeks now. And no catastrophes of going to the wrong room, like last year. I don't think he could love it any more than he does! He was worried about not liking his teacher, but it turns out that he really likes her. And he has an insane number of friends in his class (some from previous school years, some from church, some from last years soccer team and some from this years soccer team)! He said that most of the kids have gotten in trouble from his group of desks, but that he hasn't (yet). He is LOVING that they are doing more math this year already. It's his favorite subject and he is really good at it.

Back to school night was last week and I always really enjoy this night. We ran into a few issues though. Alex had his first soccer game of the season at the same time. His game started at 5:00 and back to school started at 5:30. Ryan didn't get home from clinicals until 5:45, so luckily my parents came to the rescue. I really didn't want to miss Alex's game, so I came to the first 15 mins, hoping to see him get to play. They ended up starting 15 mins late. Bummer. So I told Alex he was not to do anything big (like cool moves, or score a goal) while I wasn't there, because I didn't want to miss it! :) Well 20 mins into back to school, I get a text from my Dad saying, "GOOOOOOAAAALLL!" It was his first goal EVER and I missed it. I know he'll make other goals in the future, but I almost started crying when I read the text. I hate missing any kind of milestones with my kids. Anyway, at back to school I signed up to be the "class parent" this year. Not precisely sure what that means, but I think it's more like the party planner... which I will love! I'm hoping to be able to come help out in his class, but I have daycare kids in the morning and that's when she really needs the help. I'm hoping we can work something out.

I am once again loving the stage that Alex is in. He is able to have a little more freedom because he is older. I love sitting down with him and just talking. Our conversations are so much fun right now. And, as always, he is a great big brother. He loves showing Darek off to his friends. I'm glad Alex still wants me around and isn't too embarrassed by me. I'm sure that isn't too far off though. :)

Here is to a great school year with a lot of fun memories!

More ReAL

2010-08-27T11:10:00.002-06:00

So I just had to post about this because I am so incredibly excited (and humbled) by it. This past Tuesday evening I got a call from someone at ReAL. I didn't get to my phone quick enough, so I listened to the message a few minutes later. It was a representative from ReAL Salt Lake stating that I had been selected to be the "Mom of the Match" for the Sept. 18th game. This is sponsored by OhMyCrafts.com. So how did this come to be?

I saw at one of the games a Mom being honored and thought how cool that would be. So I mentioned this to my husband. A few weeks later, we (because he wouldn't do it without my help) filled out an short application to see if I would be chosen. After a few games passed, I figured I probably wouldn't get selected, which was fine. There are so many amazing Mom's out there. But I guess I just needed to wait a little longer. I'm so humbled to be chosen for this. Here are the fun things I get to enjoy:

4 tickets to the game
4 pre-game passes to watch the team warm up on the field
Recognition on the field before the game starts (this one I am terrified about)
and a gift of some kind from OhMyCrafts.com

I am so excited and very nervous for the game. I think I'm going to be giving my parents our regular tickets so they can come to that game. But I can get some other tickets (not sure the price) if anyone is interested in coming to that game. Anyway, nothing like this has ever happened to me before, so I was really excited to share the news. I'm sure we'll have some cool pictures and video to post after the game.

Meet The Team

2010-08-24T11:52:00.006-06:00

I don't do nearly enough posts on here about our ReAL Salt Lake team. We used part of our tax return this year and got season tickets to ReAL. It has been one of the BEST choices! We have been able to make most of the games and enjoy every single one.

This past week they had a day to meet the team. So we went down to Rio Tinto Stadium this past Saturday to meet some of our players. It was a lot busier than I had anticipated it would be. Even though some of the lines were worse than ones at Disneyland, we waited so we could meet some of our favorite players. We didn't get pictures of all those we met, but we do have a few. We have a couple favorites on the team... although we love them all! I'd say at the top of our list would be Javier Morales, Nick Rimando, Kyle Beckerman and Alvaro Saborio. Although as I'm making this list, it's really hard to narrow our favorites down. We have so many wonderful players, and after meeting some of them, it's nice to know what really great people they are. So here are a few pictures of our experience meeting the team.

Meeting Chris Wingert. We didn't get pictures of the rest of the guys at this table, but we also met Collen Warner and Andy Williams. All of these guys were really funny and seemed very down to earth.

Meeting our awesome coach, Jason Kreis. As a player, Kreis was amazing! As a coach, he has been incredible! It was really great to meet him.

Javier is probably our favorite (or at least tied for our favorite). It is incredible to watch this guy out on the field. And he is from Argentina, which makes Ryan happy! :)

This is Ned Grabavoy. He was a lot of fun to meet and had the coolest autograph by far.

Another favorite that I didn't mention. Will Johnson. He is one of my favorites. He is so quick out on the field and seems like a very genuine person. (Ya know, since I met him for a whole 30 seconds.) :)

Just an idea of one of the lines.

This shows a few lines, but doesn't do it justice. It was insane!

I think this was Alex's favorite table. Meeting Kyle Beckerman! He was so shy about meeting most of these guys. In this picture, Kyle is signing Alex's shirt. He would probably wear this shirt every day if he could. Next to Kyle is Jean Alexandre.

Chris Schuler signing our ball.

Meeting Alvaro Saborio! This was another very exciting one! Saborio has done extremely well this year, already with 8 goals this year! He was really nice with Alex, even if Alex was ridiculously nervous.

Some other players that we met, but didn't get pictures of were:
Robbie Findley
Kyle Reynish
Tony Beltran
Nat Borchers
Pablo Campos

My biggest regret not meeting was Nick Rimando (goalie). His line was one of the longest (tied with Kyle Beckerman). But Nick's was almost completely in the sun. Ryan was waiting in line when they closed it down for the day. I wrote on Nick's facebook page and he said we could hopefully work something out to get his autograph and picture. :) I sure hope so.

The other regrets we had not meeting were Fabian Espindola and Robbie Russell. Russell was at the same table as Rimando and Espindola was down at another end of the stadium.

We had an amazing time! We were able to get a poster, ball and shirt signed by most of these players. We are really hoping we are able to get season tickets again next year... as long as we're still living in Utah. :) Ole, ole ole ole... ReAL Salt Lake!!!

Getting Ready For School

2010-08-20T22:24:00.003-06:00

I have always enjoyed going school shopping. I get giddy seeing all of the school supplies at stores... I know I'm crazy. Right now, Alex doesn't need most of those things, so we skip through most of my favorite stuff. Last year and the year before, Alex didn't really care about getting new clothes. He did like picking out his backpack, but that was about it. So I have been used to picking out all of his clothes and shoes. Well this year has been very different. Alex wanted to be very involved with everything! We went shopping with my Mom, since she was so gracious enough to want to buy some school clothes for Alex. (Thanks Mom!)

Alex wanted to look at everything we pulled out. He had an opinion about everything. He would tell us if something was his "style" or not. And he was very specific about not having any character shirts this time. (We did get some Phineas and Ferb shirts, but those were cool, so it was ok.) He was really sweet about it and it was actually kind of funny to watch him look at all the clothes. We went over to ShopKo and he found a shirt that he LOVED! I really don't like to pay more than $5-$8 for a shirt. This one was $12. I told him it was bit expensive. He looked at the price tag and said, "You're right, it is kinda pricey." He went over and put it right back. He was so mature and sweet about it that I almost told him to go back and get it. :)

My favorite thing so far about shopping, was getting Alex's shoes. We found some really cute Nike shoes at Kohl's for a really good price. Again, my Mom was really sweet to get these for Alex. He wanted to wear them over to the next store. I told him he couldn't wear them yet. He threw a little fit about it, but got over it quickly. Once we were home, I let him try on his new shoes. He told me he had to make sure they would make him fast. After running around like crazy he said, "Mom, these shoes make me faster than I ever have been! I think I'm going to be the fastest kid in school this year with these shoes!" He has wanted to show his friends his cool Nike shoes and keeps them in a specific spot right now. :)

Although it has been an adjustment not picking out what I want, it has been so much fun to have a little boy that WANTS to shop with me. Alex has already picked out his outfit for the first day of school and tried it on. He is somewhat excited for his first day, although I am not. I will really miss my little man. 2nd grade, here we come!

Camping Trip #2

2010-08-15T11:32:00.007-06:00

We are officially done with summer vacations now. We had a wonderful time camping with the Nielsens this past Wednesday through Friday. The weather was beautiful! We got up there in the afternoon on Wednesday and set up camp. The whole weekend was spent relaxing, playing games, talking and laughing. We have so much fun when we spend time together and this was a trip we had been looking forward to for a whole year! So thank you to our wonderful friends for inviting us again to come camping with them. Here are some pictures of our fun time together.

Farewell summer! Until next year!

Camping Trip #1

2010-08-10T13:00:00.006-06:00

Last year we had camping trips all throughout the summer. Well this year has been a little harder because most of the trips seemed to fall during the time Ryan was working. And the fact that Darek is mobile and independent now. This past weekend was a neighborhood campout up east of Huntsville. It's an annual trip Alex, Darek and I were able to go last year as well. Ryan was working last year and was again this year. But my wonderful friends Tammy and Kaylene wanted to go and agreed to help me out with my boys. (Did I mention what AMAZING friends I have?)

We went up on Thursday late morning and were the first ones to arrive. Last year we found a nice secluded area to put up our tent. It's not that we are recluses or anything, but with a baby last year and a 2 year old (that likes to throw fits) this year, we thought it best to keep our distance. I won't go through an hour by hour schedule, but we had a great time playing games, getting rained on, running and riding through huge water puddles, playing in the river, having a water balloon toss (in which I did not get wet) :), and much more. I have some very fun pictures and will comment on those as I go.

Alex's friends taught him how to play Uno. He LOVED it!

Alex

Alex's buddy Ben

Awww.... too cute!

We never got fully in the water cause it was quite chilly. But we did get our legs in and it was nice once they became numb from the cold.

Darek was CONSTANTLY at this water spout. I was always telling him no and finally decided to put him in his swim shorts and let him go crazy. And he did exactly that!

He was getting a bit cold, but was not going to stop for anyone or anything. :)

After a pretty good rain storm, we had some massive water puddles. I think this is the best present you could give any kid. We were running through these puddles for about an hour. And it would've been all night if had been up to the boys.

Darek loves his Tammy and Kaylene!

But isn't quite sure about their kisses. ;)

My big tough guy

Goofy or not, he is adorable!

I think my boys think of Tammy and Kaylene as their Aunts. I know they love them and I think that Tammy and Kaylene love them too.

We had a great camping trip. We leave for another one tomorrow with Reese, Tammy and Kaylene. We enjoyed their camping spot so much last year, we really can't wait to get up there again. Especially Ryan. He needs this break pretty badly!

Adoption

2010-07-27T10:59:00.002-06:00

So I've been thinking about doing this post for a while and after so many incidents I've finally decided to do it. I doubt it'll make any difference, but at least I can get my thoughts and feelings out there.

So I'm not sure why people feel they have the right to ask anything they want to about other people's lives. But there are a few questions that I get over and over again regarding Darek and adoption. So I want to post them and maybe suggest better ways to ask it or maybe even think about not asking at all.

The question "Where is he from?" is asked in all sorts of ways. I know people are curious, but I'm not sure why this is something people need to know. It also bothers me that it's assumed he's from another country because he is black. And when I say he was born in VA, there is almost a disappointment. After the earthquakes in Haiti, so many people just automatically assumed that was where Darek was from. It just bothers me that it matters.

The question that bothers me the most is, "So is he yours or was he adopted?" For anyone who has adopted, you know that this comes as a huge slap in the face and is so hard to reply to. My usual reply is, "Yes, he is mine and yes, he is adopted." But that is usually just confusing to most people. But for me to say that he isn't mine and is just adopted is like saying he isn't really ours, so he's not really apart of our family.

I won't go on and on with questions. I just ask that people simply think about what they're asking before they ask it. And also ask yourself if it's something you really need to know. Does it really matter? I love talking about both of my boys. I have two beautiful boys with amazing capabilities. And none of those capabilities has anything to do with where they were born, what color their skin is or if they are "mine" or "adopted".

Anyway, just a few things to keep in mind.

Darek's 2nd Birthday

2010-07-25T10:17:00.003-06:00

And the worst Mom award goes to..... ME!

We celebrated Darek's 2nd birthday... well several times. But I have failed to post about any of it. Darek turned 2 on July 3rd. So here I am, almost a month later, finally posting.

None of my family were actually here for Darek's birthday, so we didn't do too much on the 3rd. Ryan and I did give him a few gifts that day. We got him a kitchen because he loves playing pretend and we also got him a little tricycle. He loved the kitchen and wanted to make food for everyone. Since that is the day that we have fireworks up at Eaglewood, we decided it would be a fun way to do a little celebration. We met our friends Tammy and Kaylene up there and had a great time just talking and running around. They also gave Darek his present while we were there. Darek had a wonderful time and LOVED his present!

The next evening we went out to Aunt Roxie's house for fireworks and another little birthday celebration. Darek got some adorable outfits from Grandma and Grandpa. And some fun toy story toys. He also got another fun toy story lego toy from his Aunt, Uncle and cousins. After having fun with fireworks and playing with cousins, we went home.

The next day my parents came home from the East coast and Beth and Chad came up to visit. So, of course we needed another birthday party! :) On Wednesday we all went out to The Mayan for dinner and presents. Alex and Darek thought the divers were amazing and we all had a lot of fun.

I think we took pictures of all of this but I have no idea where they went. If I can't find them, I'm really hoping that some of my family have pictures.

We love our little Darek. He is getting so big and learning so many new things. He is finally on the charts for height... in fact he is now at 50% in his age group! He still is below 3% with his weight. But I'm happy that he is growing and that it's almost impossible to detect now what a premature baby he was. Darek is a bundle of energy. Just listening to him talk sometimes exhausts me. But he speaks very well and is learning so much. He continues to adore his big brother and wants nothing more than to do EVERYTHING that Alex does. He can be a big helper when he chooses to be. He loves other kids and loves playing with them. He looks forward to nursery every week so he can see his buddy Truman. Darek still loves to cuddle and I love when I can hold him like a baby and he strokes my face and plays with my hair. He loves to rough house with anyone who will participate. Sword fighting, jumping on each other, wrestling, he will do it all! He has the cutest belly laugh that I love to hear. I adore my little boy and hate that he is growing up so fast. We are all so grateful to have Darek in our lives and how much fun and energy he brings. Happy Birthday sweet boy!

Some Alex Moments

2010-07-18T01:26:00.002-06:00

Today had a few really fun (and brutally honest) moments with Alex. I wanted to jot them down before I forgot.

This morning as we're watching cartoons on the couch.

Alex: "Mom, I really hate that most cartoon people only have four fingers. It really freaks me out!"

It was so random, yet something I know most people have thought about at some point in their life. It was just a funny, entertaining moment. :)

The next one came this afternoon. I picked Alex up from a birthday party and told him we were going to get Subway for lunch. We get coupons for Subway every time we go to a Salt Lake Real game. So I thought it was a good time to use them. We ended up getting 5 - 6 inch subs and 2 32 oz. drinks. Normally that would come to around $25.00-30.00. After giving them my coupons and finding out I had enough Subway points for another free 6 inch, the total came to $12.00. I was thrilled! I love getting great deals like that. So we got in the car and started driving home. I was babbling on to Alex about the great deal we had just gotten and how much money we had saved. After a few seconds of silence...
Alex: "Mom, can I ask you something?"
Me: "Sure."
Alex: "Okay, but I really don't want you to get mad at me, and I really think you will."
Me: "It's okay buddy, I promise I won't get mad at you."
Alex: Hesitates for a minute.
Me: "Alex, just say it."
Alex: "Okay. Mom, I really don't care about saving money. I'm just not interested in it at all. So can you please not talk about it to me anymore?"
Me: I really want to get angry at him, but wonder why I would. What kid cares about how much money was saved buying lunch? It sure isn't anything I would have cared about as a kid. With no reason to be mad, I chuckle. "No problem bud. I totally understand how boring it must be for you. Mommy just gets really excited about saving money and wants to talk about it. I'll make sure next time not to say anything to you about it."
Alex: "Thanks Mom."

Every time I replay it in my mind, I want to laugh out loud. He was so sweet and polite about it. I'm glad I didn't let the first emotions get the best of me. I would have really regretted that later. Funny, funny kid. I love the way that little mind of his works. :)

Summer Fun

2010-06-28T22:05:00.007-06:00

Before I forget or get lazy, I wanted to post some pictures of some of the fun we've already had this summer. I can't believe a month is already gone. It kinda makes me sad. I look forward to summer so much so I can have more time with Alex. But now that he's older, he has so much going on. I think I see him about the same as I do during the school year. Or less, if it's a day where all his friends are home. :) I'm glad that we've been able to be home more this summer. Last year was crazy with trips, so it feels good to be home a little more. I guess I'll just post pictures and then write as I post them.

Our first vacation of the summer was down to Southern Utah to visit family and just take a little break. It worked out that we could go down for almost a whole week that Ryan had off. This doesn't happen very often, so we were thrilled to go as a family. We threw a baby shower for my sister Bethany and helped her set up the baby room. It was a lot of work, but everything look so cute! I didn't get any pictures of it though. We had hoped to drive to the Grand Canyon while we were there. But the night before we were to go, Darek got a fever of 103.1. He was quite ornery with good cause. I knew that if we attempted this neither Darek or I would enjoy the trip. So we decided to stay closer by and went into Zion's instead. We took a smaller hike and ended up having a great day. We were able to spend a lot of time with my sisters and Ryan's brother. We had a wonderful trip and I hope we get to go back again before the end of summer.

The day after we got back from Southern Utah, we decided to head to Lagoon. We have our season passes so this was our 5th time going this season. But we finally remembered our camera and took some fun pictures. This was also the 1st time Darek went on several rides. As a freaked out mom, I was worried he'd try to jump out of the rides and get seriously injured. So I hesitantly put him in each ride. He didn't shed one tear or get upset at all. He didn't quite know what to do, but eventually got into it. And Alex was so sweet taking him on some of the rides. He loved the rides that he could take his little brother on. It was really touching to watch.

Alex was very wishy-washy about baseball this year. At first he really didn't want to play and then after playing a little in the backyard, he really wanted to play on a team. So last minute we were able to get him onto a baseball team. He has been loving it and is improving each time he plays. I love watching him at his games. Although he's totally turning into a boy... where he will no longer acknowledge me when I say "good job sweetie" or try to give him a hug. I knew this day would be coming, but I wasn't prepared for it yet. I guess now it's my turn to embarrass him as much as I can by giving him big kisses and patting him on the butt! :)

So there is what we've been up to. Although that feels like only a fraction of what we've been doing. We are lovin' summer!!!

Sad Day

2010-06-14T20:44:00.002-06:00

So the other day I was tucking in my shirt and noticed that my wedding ring got caught on my shirt more than usual. I looked down at my ring to see that my main diamond had fallen out of the ring. We searched for it, but I knew it could've happened at any time and it could be anywhere. I've had that ring for 10 years now and it feels weird to look down at my hand and not have that ring on. It wasn't a very expensive ring. Ryan and I wanted to make sure when we were married that we didn't have loans for our rings for the first 5 years of marriage. But it was what I liked and what we could afford. I always imagined one day that we would get new (better) rings, but I'd always have that one to wear. I know I could replace the diamond and wear it again, but it would feel different. Anyway, for now I have a very fake ring with lots of bling. I guess it's the ring I'd like to hope I'd end up with someday... not really. It's way too much for me. I do get to go ring shopping, which will be fun, but I will miss my other one a lot. :(