Just Another Day...

Monday, January 14, 2013

Back to the Blogging World

After a 2+ year hiatus from blogging, I decided that I really need to start this up again, and do a better job at posting regularly. Whether or not anyone besides me looks at it doesn't really matter. I am doing this for my family...so that we have some documentation of the things going on.

As a quick catch-up, here are the major high lights of the last 2 years:

Grammy (Justin's mom) moved in with us in Feb. 2011. She was diagnosed with leukemia, and our house is usually the best bet for her to avoid exposure to illnesses now.
James moved in with us August 2011, while he is going to school.
Austin went to the BEST preschool ever, and is now in Kindergarten. We are on year-round school here. (It isn't as bad as I thought it would be!)

We have been staying busy with Justin's work, Austin's school, trying different extracurricular activities, and just getting through day to day life. Our year has started out less than exciting. We have all taken our turn being sick. Austin was first, with strep a few days before Christmas. The rest of have just had colds, but it has made the rounds.

Since pictures of sickies aren't much fun, we will start off with some pictures of the kids from our most recent family pictures (taken in October).

Aren't they cute?

Friday, November 5, 2010

Halloween 2010

We had a fun Halloween this year (celebrated mostly on Saturday)! Justin and Austin started out the day building a pirate ship! Since we went to Disneyland, Austin has been obsessed with pirates. He sings "Yo ho, Yo ho!" all day long, and frequently tells us, "I LOOOOVE pirates!" So, when Justin saw a pirate ship at Lowe's, he couldn't pass it up!

That afternoon, Grammy came over, and we carved pumpkins. Austin pretty much got to choose what to do with 2 of them, Grammy did one, and the 4th got to be a Mr. Potato head pirate! And Justin carved one of our left over zucchini from the garden.

If you can't guess, Austin chose to have Mickey Mouse and a pirate, plus his potato head pumpkin! The zucchini has a fish carved into it. Grammy carved leaves and a spider into her pumpkin. They all looked really cool! We even got compliments from trick-or-treaters about how neat our pumpkins were.

Katie finally has enough hair for pig tails! SOOOO cute. You can hardly see the hair under the bows, but I promise it is there!

Then it was time to go trick-or-treating. Austin was a dinosaur again this year (Hey-the costume still fit!), and Katie was Tinkerbell. Of course, neither of them would cooperate so that we could get a decent picture. So, these are the best we got! Just trust me, they looked cute!

Austin absolutely loved Halloween this year. He was a trooper, and was so excited to go trick-or-treating, even though it was cold and rainy. We took Katie out for a few houses, but decided it was too cold to have our little Tink out.

We had a great holiday. I am so glad that Austin enjoyed it this year!

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

October Fun

It has been a pretty laid back month (I better find some wood to knock on...). It has been really warm lately. Warm weather means more yard work! Katie was so excited to watch Justin mowing the lawn, and Austin thought for sure she needed a buddy.

(That's right...he is pant less. But hey, he is in underwear! That is a big deal! Sometimes you just have to pick your battles!)

We also got to celebrate the wedding of our beautiful niece, Jessica! It was an amazing, fun weekend, and we are so happy for her and Jake.

We went to the pumpkin patch. It was a little disappointing this year. I think the warm weather made for a not so great pumpkin crop. We were able to find a few good ones though.

Katie thought she was so cool holding a pumpkin. It was pretty cute to see her smile! And, the pumpkin was actually pretty light...if you were wondering why I was smashing my child.

I do try to get cute pictures of my kids, but this is what a lot of them turn out like. It is a work in progress! Thankfully, Katie is very good at tolerating Austin...most of the time.

Friday, March 12, 2010

3 Months Old

Katie is three months old today!! I can hardly believe it! She is a sweet little girly girl that we just love to pieces!

Who can resist a sleeping baby?

Notice the fuzz on her head. Looking a little blonde...who would have ever guessed that?!?

At three months, Katie is:

Finally starting to be a happy girl. She still fusses in the evening, but is good for the majority of the day!
Sleeping from between 9 and 10 PM to around 5 AM
Smiling lots
Giggled a few times
Making lots of little noises
Grabbing at and holding onto toys
Liking her bouncy seat, with the toys above her
Loving her big brother...smiling at him and watching him all the time (She is gonna be one tough girl...cause Austin really loves her, and doesn't quite understand being gentle with her!)
Trying to sit up
Letting Daddy hold her sometimes now
Finally getting some hair on the top of her head
Getting cuter every day (is that possible?)
Wrapping us tighter around her little fingers

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Our week of Emergencies

What's the perfect way to start a week? How about a trip to Primary Children's Emergency Room? Sunday night we had gone to Grammy's house for dinner. Austin went upstairs to play with Kennadie. All of a sudden we hear something fall, and Austin starts screaming. Justin ran upstairs to find Austin with a big gash in his forehead, blood all over his face, and a pen in his hand. Thankfully, he had the smarts to check the wound and make sure none of the pen had broken off inside.

Turns out Kennadie had been coloring with her special Disneyland pen (a big, fat ballpoint pen). When she set it down, Austin grabbed it and took off running. He tripped on a rug, and fell right onto the tip of the pen. Thankfully, it didn't hit his eye. We still ended up in the emergency room. They took us back as soon as we got there. They had to sedate him to clean the wound out, and put 9 stitches in (2 deep, and 7 surface).

He was pretty funny with the medicine. He was laughing while they cleaned it out. His face was draped, and when I talked to him, he said, "Mom? Is that you?" Then he sang the Chipmunk song for everyone. He did really well, until the last few stitches, when the medicine started wearing off. They gave him more, but it didn't kick in until they were mostly done. Then we had to hang out at the hospital until he was more coherent. He was not happy coming out of the medicine. Then in an instant, he perked up and said "My jammies!"

Before stitches (1/4 in deep and 3/4 in long)
(2/21/10)

Six days later (2/27/10). Looking so much better

He about broke my heart when he was all worried to go to a neighbors house a few days later. He said "But everyone will look at my owie!" I told him it was okay, and to just tell them what happened. So, now he tells EVERYONE what happened ("The pen cut me at Grammy's house. I had to go to the hopsital (not a spelling mistake, just how he says it!) and the doctor fixed it.)

Then...

Friday night, Justin's mom came over to watch the kids so that we could go out. Katie has decided not to take a bottle, so she got to come with us. We went to Macaroni Grill (about 25 minutes away from home). We had to wait a while, finally got seated, and as soon as our food came, Justin's phone rang. It was his mom saying that our fire alarms were going off. There was no smoke, she didn't smell anything, and couldn't make them stop. So, Justin told her how to reset them. No good. We said we would come right home. She and Austin were going to go sit in her car.

Of course it took a little bit to get our waitress and pay. The whole time I am feeling sick, thinking how our smoke alarms are also carbon monoxide detectors. We get in the car and I convince Justin to call the fire department to go check it out. My reasoning: if it is a fire our house will be burnt down before we get there, and if it is carbon monoxide we need to get the problem fixed. So, he called in a non-emergency call. As we got to Jordan Landing, his mom called to say the fire truck was pulling up. A few minutes later she called back to say they had found the problem.

THE BABY MONITOR

Austin had turned the volume up, and it had microphone interference causing a high pitched squeal. When we pulled up, the fire men were just about to leave. One neighbor was walking by to make sure everything was okay. A few minutes later, the phone rang. It was my visiting teacher, the relief society president (who lives on the other side of the neighborhood), saying someone called her because there was a fire truck at our house.

Such excitement!!!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

My Little Valentines

So Cute!!!

What more can I say?

I love these kids!!!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

It's overwhelming...

Yes-having two kids. It is overwhelming sometimes. But, that is not what I am referring to here.

I am so behind on my blog. It kind of took the back burner for most of the last year...with the pregnancy and now two kids to wrangle. But, because I want to have everything documented and recorded, and this seems like a pretty easy way for me to do it, I have come up with a plan. I want/plan to put up a new post everyday until I am caught up. It is a big task now, but hopefully it won't be too bad. So, stay tuned, and look back every now and then because I will be backdating posts too!