Wells' World

The story my family will be telling for years around Christmas time:

My brother-in-law Ben woke up at 2 AM Christmas morning to his covers being ripped away and his pillow being taken.  He lifts his head and looks over to see two bumps lying next to him on the bed, not one.  Both have similar hair color.  He literally thinks that he is hallucinating double of his wife, my sister Krystal.  He gets out of bed and goes down to the kitchen for a drink.  He sees my Dad(often up in the middle of the night-journal writing), and when asked why he is out of bed replies that he woke up and can't fall back asleep.  He was too embarrassed to admit he thought there was another person in his bed. 

Back upstairs he grabs his phone and holds it over the bed, back and forth between the two sleeping figures.  His wife wakes up after the light has been shown on her several times.  "What are you doing?," she asks.  His reply, "There is someone in our bed!"  She rolls over, shakes the culprit and says, "JEN! You're in the wrong room!"  I raise my head, look around the dark room, and say, "Oh!  I must have slept walk or something."  I get up and go across the hall to the bedroom where Dax and I are sleeping, and instantly am back asleep.  My sister and her husband were awake a LONG time laughing.

Yes, I slept walk across the hall and planted myself in the bed between my sister and her husband.  Not only that, I stole his covers AND pillow all while I was asleep.  I remember sleep walking once while growing up, only because I ran into a door and woke up.  Odd that I would randomly do it Christmas night.  If I come to your house to spend the night, BEWARE.  You might get an unexpected nighttime visitor.

I love having little ones around to give Christmas that special excitement for all.  My Christmas present this year is rugs, which we don't have yet, so I didn't have much under the tree come Christmas morning.  You know what?  I didn't feel the least bit down, rugs or no rugs.  It was just so fun to see the excitement on my little man's face when Santa came to visit Grandma Jensen's house on Christmas Eve and as he opened his presents.  Kyra is completely in love with her phone.  Santa brought Hayden a bike!  I made a growth board and gave it to Dax for Christmas (mainly because he said we needed one, not because I thought he would be ecstatic about receiving one).

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with my family and then went to church with Dax's family in Basin City, and then opened presents with them.  We've been at Dax's parents' house since Sunday.  It is always good to spend time with family, but I will be glad to be in my own element when we are home again.

Two of my brothers received new baby girls for Christmas!  Ben and Rachel welcomed Grace on December 26th and Paul and Jenn welcomed Leah on December 27th.  It's hard to top the gift of a new, healthy baby.

The older I get, the more I come to really understand the meaning of Christmas.  I am so grateful for the reason we celebrate this holiday season, our Savior Jesus Christ.   

Our Christmas parties started last Thursday.  I am the Relief Society activities chair (aka, the person in charge of all RS activities), so I planned the Christmas activity this year.  We had a great turnout for our ward-30 sisters!  We made this cute cinnamon candle (I had other ideas, but I had severe budget and time constraints.  Only the 3 inch size...6 inch cinnamon sticks are expensive.

My Thanksgiving post is a little behind, but my entire post is more about thanks giving rather than the actual holiday.  This Thanksgiving holiday I have felt special gratitude for:

-A good husband.  Dax's birthday always falls during Thanksgiving week.  I don't know why, but during his birthday I feel especially grateful for the previous year that I got to spend with him and for all that he does for our family.  He has been gone for work since Tuesday morning (he comes home tomorrow night), and I feel like I can barely hold things together until he gets home.  He holds us all together, and we all need him terribly.

-My kids.  I can't imagine my life without them.  Kids bring a new level of happiness and joy to my life that I didn't know was possible.  I was just reading through some old posts that I wrote when Hayden and Kyra were just born and I am amazed at how much they have grown.  I am so grateful that I get to stay home so I don't have to miss these precious years.

-My family (by 'my' I mean both Dax's and my family).  I couldn't have married into a better family that teaches me so many things.  They are so selfless and giving.  I am grateful for the family that I grew up in, for the wonderful childhood memories that I have.  I am grateful that we get to see family members more than once or twice a year.

-A doctor telling me that Hayden does not have a broken forearm.  I went to my Mother's house last night and Hayden slipped while going up the stairs and fell on his arm.  I have never seen him cry so much, nor protect an injury so.  I decided to let him "sleep on it" to see if it felt better in the morning.  He woke up crying that he couldn't get out of bed because his arm hurt, and cried all morning whenever I wanted to touch it or even talk about it.  He held it close to his body all morning.  Finally I decided I better take him in (I pay for special visits like this one out of pocket, hence my hesitancy).  After the x-rays they decided there probably isn't a fracture.  The doctor saw a tiny dark line when he zoomed in a ton on the x-ray, but he couldn't be sure it meant anything.  He gave Hayden a stiff brace and some ace wrap and told us to keep it wrapped up for at least the better part of a week.  After Hayden got the wrap on he finally relaxed his arm away from his body.  I don't know if the pressure and stabilization helped with the pain, but he has seemed better and better every hour since then.  I was actually hoping for a more mild Hayden for at least a few days, but he has already tried wrestling Kyra and wanted to play swords with me. 

-L.A. Awesome cleaner from the dollar store.  It took bright pink nail polish out of my carpet!  Hayden and Kyra dumped a whole bottle out on my bathroom and bedroom floors-thankfully mainly the bathroom floor.  Part of our conversation about the incident:
Me:  Hayden, you know it is NOT ok to dump things out, especially something like mommy's nail polish, it made a big mess that is hard to clean up.
Hayden:  Mom, you shouldn't have left it where I could find it.  It was not a good idea.

-Dermatologists.  Turns out the bumps on the back of my upper arms and legs are not due to the skin's lack of exfoliation (what I was told by a doctor when I was in high school).  I have a mild case of eczema (who knew red bumps were a form of it?).  The treatment is gentle soap, minimal scrubbing and lots of lotion.  Nearly the opposite of what a doctor told me 10 years ago, and thus what I've been doing for 10 years.

-The fact that I have been writing on this blog for so long.  I haven't written in a journal more than 3 or 4 times a year for a long time.  It is so nice to look back and read posts like a journal and remember: activities, feelings, and thoughts.  Basically it is nice to remember my life.  I am amazed at how quickly I forget things I thought were emblazoned in my memory. 

I am grateful for many other things, but it is 9:20 and I am dead tired and want a long night's sleep.

Lately whenever I think about blogging I completely blank on what to write about.  Luckily I haven't forgotten my resolution to be better about taking pictures, so I do have some documentation of our everyday lives.  The pictures spark the memories.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be a good friend.  Unfortunately I have been lacking, in a major way, the qualities of a good friend.  Fortunately though I have had one good friend everywhere we have lived, despite my lack of being a really good friend in return.  I don't know how that worked out.  I guess that is the beauty of a great friend; they are wonderful 'just because.'  This is one of my new goals:  be the kind of friend someone wants to have. 

Just one(I could share more) example of an amazing friend:  Sarah Roylance.  This woman is a saint.  When we moved in she came a couple of different times and helped clean, unpack, and get settled.  She is easy to talk to; she listens.  She remembers birthdays (one of my worst traits,-I'm working on a birthday calendar).  She came and spent an entire day helping me make and bottle applesauce, JUST BECAUSE SHE IS NICE.  She is one of the friends I would like to emulate.  It doesn't hurt that both of her girls are exactly 10 days older than both of my kids, and that we share similar interests. :)  

I don't have a picture of just Sarah, but this is our crazy crew when we are together anyway, so it is probably more fitting.  The oldest girl is Sarah's niece.  

I haven't posted in what feels like ages.  We have just been living day-to-day life and I'm trying to keep organizing and unpacking.  Honestly, I am losing my motivation; it takes me a long time to go through one box these days.  My house is still completely BARE, and I took these pictures 3 weeks ago and before I had cleaned the house (and I've done some more organizing/unpacking since), but at least it's a little taste of where we live, because let's be honest, who doesn't get curious about what it's like in someone else's house??  Especially since we live so far from everyone we know (we're working on making friends), I doubt we'll get any visitors soon.  If you came to my house I would invite you in to sit on my floor.  Maybe it's for the best that we don't have visitors. :)  I keep telling Dax we at least need a couch and a kitchen table!  Maybe you can give me some good decorating tips, because I have yet to put anything on my walls.  This is not all inclusive or intentionally exclusive.  I just realized for some reason the kitchen was left out, as well as the full shot of the backyard.  I think one of the kids needed something before I was finished.  Something to see another day.

Master bedroom

The "other half" of the master bedroom.  Someday I'll put some chairs in and a cushion for the window seat and we'll have scripture study/family meetings in there.  It was laundry day, as you can tell by the 3 mounds of clothes.

Master bath

My jetted tub.  I don't know how I've only managed to use this thing twice since we moved in, but it's heavenly

What I call the play room.  Yes, it looks like this more often than not during the day.  When we get two kids of one gender they will share this room, because it is biggest.

Laundry

Hayden's room.  Before you call CPS on me, we have since purchased a real mattress (no box spring though) and yes, he does have sheets and a blanket

Was the formal dining room.  Will be my piano room.  We actually got the piano moved in since I took this picture.  I want to switch this chandelier to the kitchen.

First time the grass was cut after we bought the house.  You LITERALLY could have swathed it.  My dad had to mow it 3 times, that's him in the background.

Entry/family room.  The Lightning McQueen rug doesn't belong there, Hayden just got it for his birthday and laid it there for me to see.

Den/office.  Dax hates when I use the word "den."  He has informed me I am not to touch the walls, this is his sanctuary to decorate as he pleases.  He's told me some of his ideas...yikes.  If we have tons of kids it can become a 5th bedroom, it has a closet.

Somehow the only picture I have of Kyra's room.  Her room is the most organized, so I don't know how that happened.  Oh well.

On Saturday Genie Industries had their annual family day.  This was very exciting for us because "outsiders" are not allowed inside Genie.  Dax has been working there for 10 months and this was the first time I have seen the inside of his work.  They manufacture the lifts at Dax's plant, so we got to see the layout of how it all gets put together.  They make tons of different lifts.  Dax's design responsibilities are mainly centered around a model call the Z-135.  This means that beast goes 135 feet in the air fully extended.  This is the biggest model that Genie currently makes, and the list price is about 450,000 dollars.  I hadn't ever seen the Z-135 , so it was awesome to be able to see one fully assembled while we were there.  I got just a TINY understanding of the pressure Dax feels.  Dax's dad and my mother were able to come with us and we had a good time.  It was hard to keep Hayden in the caution tape, but he enjoyed sitting on "daddy's machine."

Outside.  The plant consists of 4 old bomber hangers.  It is huge.

Grandma Jensen and Hayden with Daddy's machine

Our crew with a smaller model

The birthday boy, wearing the same shirt he did on his last birthday.  It was a little big then, it's a little small now. :)

Last beautiful day of summer.

As Hayden said, "Kyra and I are colored."

Morning of Hayden's birthday

This is actually Kyra's birthday.  Dax accidentally had the video on while trying to take pictures on Hayden's birthday.

Mr. Hayden had a birthday on October 6th.  We kept his birthday pretty small, considering we just moved to a new town so we know virtually no one, and all of our family is 45+ minutes away.  Our one relative in Moses Lake, Dax's sister Haley and cousin Kyree, came to celebrate with us.


Hayden got to pick out one thing at the dollar store on his birthday.  He chose a 24 piece Chuggington puzzle, which he only recognizes as a train.  I tried to convince him to get a 48 piece puzzle, but he was set on the red train puzzle.  He came home and did it in a matter of minutes.

We had chip and mint mud pie.  My first time making mud pie was a success.  Not too much can go wrong with ice cream and oreo cookies. :)  Hayden got some "racing cars," a small Mater, Guido and Luigi(from Cars as well), a Lightning McQueen rug, a look and find book, counting soldiers, and a tool box.  Aunt Krystal stopped by before heading back for Utah and bought Hayden a blizzard for his birthday as well!

The doctor said Hayden is looking healthy, and Hayden was relieved that he didn't have to have any shots...that is until they asked about giving him a flu shot.  He was pretty brave and they gave him a car.  Hayden is in the 94th percentile for height and 93rd percentile for weight.  He has stayed close to the same growth curve since he was 2 months.


Hayden:
-Loves playing with racing cars and recently loves pretending to be a race car.  His sound effects are AMAZING.
-Does not do well when you wake him up prematurely.  We struggled for over an hour when I woke him up from a nap the other day so he would go to sleep at a decent time.  BIG MISTAKE.
-Loves gum.  He's discovered all of the gum "stashes" through the house and will help himself.  We got it in the carpet for the first time today.  Time to hide the gum.
-Enjoys puzzles.  He spent 15-20 minutes concentrating and finally succeeding at putting together a 48 piece Lightning McQueen puzzle Aunt Makala gave him last Christmas.
-Takes everything apart to see how it works.  He remembers EVERYTHING.  Don't tell him something unless you make absolutely sure you will follow through.  He won't forget.  He has my memory and Dax's brain functioning.  Yikes.
-Tortures his little sister to no end.  He just enjoys getting a reaction out of her.  I keep telling him she can't wrestle or play rough for a few years, but he keeps rolling, sitting, squishing, pummeling (you get the picture) his poor little sister.  She'll grow up to be tough thanks to him, but with lots of bruises along the way.
-Loves reading books.  He'll still sit for as long as I'll read.  Unfortunately our long sessions are getting fewer and farther between. 

-Works with tools, just like his daddy.  The other day he unintentionally let a balloon go outside, and said, "Don't worry, we will just build an airplane and go get it."
-Can be the sweetest boy.  He still comes and finds me every morning and after his nap to sit in my lap for a big hug.

We love you Hayden!  You bring energy, spunk, and laughter to our home.  We can't imagine life without you.

It has been 2 weeks since I've checked into the blogging world.  Mainly because we've MOVED IN!  We've been busy trying to make the house somewhat organized, and have been trying to tackle small projects.  Everything of ours is at the house, but it is far from being organized.  There are also so many projects I want to do, but currently lack a) money b) time c) know-how or d) a combination of a, b, and c.  For now I am content to work on the small projects that are possible, and am trying to decide which projects will take priority when we do have money.

I have not taken a single picture since we moved.  Pathetic.  No one else will document my children's lives, so I better get with the program.  Here is the written documentation of our current life, hopefully the photographic documentation will catch up shortly.

I had a birthday!  It didn't feel much different than the one before.  Except I'm 25.  That means next year I will begin the phase of "late" 20s.  Hmmm.  I feel old lately.  With everything we've been doing for the house I can't seem the remember anything.  I was asked my social security number the other day and blanked for 5 seconds before it came to me.  I better do some more brain stimulation; I'm too young to start losing my memory.  My mom surprsied me with an ice cream cake, and Dax brought me a black forest cake when he came home from work.  My present was a pair of jeans bought when we stopped in North Bend, and my new home.  I've said goodbye to a budget for the first month of living in our home, and Dax is going crazy.  Seems like there is always something we need to get for the house.

We have mowed the grass, scoured toilets, scrubbed doors, installed a washer/dryer, cleaned out pipes/drains, unloaded dozens of totes/boxes and been to home depot more times than I care to admit.  We're definitely new homeowners.

The kids have ringworm.  I wish I would have caught it on Hayden sooner.  I just thought it was a weird rash on his upper arm.  He now has it on his ear and the base of his middle finger as well.  He spread it to Kyra, but I think she only has it on her calf.  We are treating it twice a day, wearing band aids, and squirting it with hand sanitizer for good measure.  Mainly I'm paranoid about it spreading any more than it has, and about Dax or me getting ringworm.  The treatment lasts a month.  We are 5 days in.  It is going to be a long month, and a LOT of band aids.   

Those are the major highlights.  We get internet on Monday and I'll update more often, with pictures.  I'm excited to hear the ladies' ideas on how to decorate my VERY empty home!

With all that we've been trying to squeeze in during the past week I feel like a chicken with its head cut off. Dax actually asked me the other day if I was ok, because with all we've been doing there is always something that I am forgetting(purse, keys, bread, to name a few). The good and the bad:

Bad news:
-Dax's grandpa passed away. He battled cancer for a couple of years and he lived a good long life, so I don't know that his passing was a bad thing. The bad part was that we didn't get to see him once more before he passed away. Dax is in Twin Falls with his family until Sunday evening for the service.

-We bought a fridge and it came with some problems.

-Hayden hasn't had a nap in days, and he is the kind of boy who NEEDS a nap. I've decided nothing is more important and I need to start scheduling activities around his nap time. And my nap time. We all need a little more of this:

P.S. This is what happens when Grandpa is left to babysit. He was babysitting Hayden too.

Good news:
-WE GOT KEYS!! This is the main reason that everything has been crazy the last couple of days. We've been trying to move our things and clean up the house so we can unpack and organize. No easy feat. My dad came with his equipment and mowed our lawn-3 TIMES...it needed a swather. Literally. The house has been vacant for nearly a year-add that to the fact that the cupboards weren't cleaned out when the previous owners moved and it's been beastly to scrub those things down. If you come to visit I hope you like the smell of PineSol.

-We're returning said fridge from above and I purchased another one today that will be delivered and installed tomorrow.

-We went to a Mariners/Yankee game on Tuesday with our friends the Roylances and the McGarys. It was so FUN. I haven't been away from Kyra for more than 4 hours EVER, so it was such a nice retreat. Sarah also converted me to GAP jeans and I scored a pair for $23 at the outlet mall. I'll post pictures when I get around to downloading them on the computer. Thanks Tyson and Sarah for inviting us!!

I've only made the drive from my parent's house to our house(40 minutes each way) 3 days in a row, and I'm already feeling sympathy to the fact that Dax has been doing it for 9 months!

We left our apartment in Provo and rolled out of town headed for Washington.

Today we go to the title company to sign papers on our home. OUR HOME!

Today my baby is 1 year old! I can't believe how quickly time has passed. Kyra is such a joy in our lives and I can't imagine our family without her. (I'll insert her year mark stats after she goes to the doctor next Thursday.)


How did she go from this:


To this:

Right before my eyes? Sometimes I wish I could freeze time and enjoy my kids in the stages they are at for just a little longer. Kyra is in one of those stages right now.

Kyra at 1 year old:

• Not quite walking. She'll take a few steps and then get so excited she falls over, or will realize she is going to fall over so she just drops. She goes up and down stairs like a pro.

• Finally getting back to being my blissful sleeper after a rough month and a half of teething. She's got 7 and a couple more on the way.

• Wants to do whatever we are doing. If we're brushing teeth, she'd better get a toothbrush as well or you will not hear the end of it. She hates being left behind and has the saddest cry when you leave her alone.

• Still has beautiful blues and her brown hair is coming in nicely. She has amazing dark skin.
  

• Loves the thrill of falling or moving through the air quickly.
  

• CLIMBS! Couches at church, stools, anything shoulder level and below she will hoist her leg over and climb.

• Loves soft things. If you lay a blanket on the floor she will crawl to it and lay her face against it.

• Is a TEASE. She loves to get a reaction out of us, especially out of Hayden.

• Doesn't like to be fed. If she can't put it in her own mouth, she usually isn't interested. It's been tricky feeding this one!

We love you Kyra!