Lovin' My Earthly Existence

My Baby Turned 16!

2011-08-19T16:18:00.002-06:00

That's right folks, my firstborn child is almost an adult.....seriously?!?!?
What happened to my life? Well, we wont go down that road here, maybe in another post......

We had a family party Sunday, his favorite dinner on Tuesday (his actual birthday) and then a friend's party Saturday. It's been a busy week.....
Here's the opening of presents.....

This lovely gift was not subway sandwiches after all....though it would have made Nathan pretty happy either way; Jeff and Siena you totally could have saved money here!

This outfit he's wearing was wrapped up in the Subway papers.....cute!! Oh, I mean, Awesome.

Party Guests! Family from both sides; it was great to have everyone together!

Here's the Cake.....Oreo! Nathan's favorite; I'll show you how I made it on my cooking bloggity blog.

Then the friends' party was fun too; Nathan decided on a YouTube party. We had decorations, food, and costumes all themed; YouTube.

Double Rainbow Cupcakes; these had rainbow cake on the inside and chocolate rainbows on the outside; I'll have these on my cooking blog too then; Charlie bit my, Fingers, these were dough with a pepperoni stick wrapped in there; cut to look like a bloody nail (no blood in the real video clip; I promise) Nyan Cats Treats; just strawberry PopTarts; then Potter Pals Licorice wands; licorice dipped in white chocolate for the handles.

The only clip from above I found funny was the Potter Pals, but whatevs....

Nathan streamed a bunch of his favorite YouTube videos in a play list to watch randomly with everyone

Gifts!

Games!

Water Balloons!

And of course Costumes. Nathan is this guy from YouTube and Old Spice TV commercials. Love it!

We decorated the house with these

Friends!

We got out Nathan's Scrapbooks at both parties for some teasing and reminiscing.

Fun Times!!

Happy Retirement Mom!

2011-07-07T12:21:00.004-06:00

Yeah, can you believe my mom is retiring after 27 years of service from Davis County School District?

15 years of Teaching 6th grade and 12 years of being an Elementary School Principal

She is an amazing example, a great teacher, mentor and educator.

So we decided to throw her a party!!

That just happened to be on the 4th of July!

Here is mom next to her table of treats. Recipes found Here. There were fun Cake Bites, Red White and Blue Strawberries, at Red White and Blue Beverage and lots of treats that family brought too! We had Curried Chicken over Rice, and Corn on the Cob and Red White and Blue Jell-o, salad Etc....

She got new business cards that she got to pass out to everyone.....

I can't get these darn photos to turn sometimes!

After dinner the family gave her gifts. Each one of us kids read her a poem we wrote, my uncle wrote one too but I dont have that one:

Retirement haikus for Mom

Shaping multitudes

Correcting bad attitudes

Enough is enough.

Were crying children

Or the students the worst part?

Personal zen earned

Hyper active youth.

He peed where? She bullied who?

Never EVER more

Suns set on careers

But never on adventure

Go and find your path

-Jon (Jeff)

An Incorrect Haiku for Mom

By David Parkin

My mom teaches school

She was my sixth grade teacher

She taught me Haiku

Five syllables first

Seven for the second line

Five for the third line

For an assignment

We had to write five poems

It wasn’t that hard

It is incorrect

To write out a bunch of them

To form a story

Just thought I’d say that

So my mom would understand

I learned my Haiku

Who’s the Boss??

No more pencils, No more books, no more Teacher’s dirty looks……

Cause You’re the Boss.

No more 4pm clock watch or 6am commutes,

Cause You’re the Boss.

No more faculty meetings or annual reviews….

Cause You’re the Boss…..

No more clueless parents or entitled kids…..

Cause You’re the Boss….

No more PTA Carnivals or silly fundraisers…..

Cause You’re the Boss…..

More time for you

More time to create

More time for peace

More time to dream

More time with us

More time to wander

More time to be whatever or wherever you want to be

Cause You’re the Boss!

Love, Kelley

I also made her a "Retirement Suggestion Jar" stuffed full of ideas for when she gets bored, everyone got to add their ideas too. I have tons of stuff in there, websites to visit like "Watch Paint Dry.com" and "99 most viral Videos" and "TED.com" Etc. Plus ideas of places to go, people to see etc.

It was a fun day! She had a great time and we were happy that Rachel could come too! We missed Dave but he was there in spirit.

Happy Retirement Mom!!

Week of Staycation

2011-07-06T16:27:00.001-06:00

I love a good staycation. I was able to spend tons of time with my boys; I made SURE Nathan had something awesome to do with friends every day to make his summer more fun. He usually watches Cameron all day for me when I'm at work so I wanted him to have a vacation too!

He got to:

See a movie with me

Go to Raging Waters with a buddy from Trek

Spend the entire day with said buddy till 10pm - complete with pizza and snacks and sodas.

He also took the train to another buddy's house from school to sleep over , then the next day he took the train further north to Syracuse to spend the next 3 days and 2 nights with another buddy; then we picked him up and we went to our amazing friends' Matt and Teri's house for a get-together: Where I made Nathan's favorite dessert (Chocolate Chip Cookie pie) and he slept in their basement for the most part while we played.....

Here he is not at all awake at 5pm after 3 "sleep overs" you can see the problem

On the other hand Cameron had a great time and he's wide awake at 10pm

We also did some home decor projects during the week- I got like 6 of my closets re-organized and now I have a lovely Pantry, Hallway, Scrapbook, Game, Master and Laundry Closet. They are AMAZING now. It's like a huge relief to open them and see organization and fabulous synergy staring back at me. It's peaceful, it really is. If I need a little Zen, I open one of these closets, take a look and let the peace and tranquility wash over me.

Well, with home improvement projects you usually start with a HUGE mess; Which we did.....

Here are a few projects we did....

TOKEN FAMILY PHOTO WALL

It took a while (a few months for me anyway) to get mostly black photo frames (couponer skills inserted here)I got most of these 8 1/2 X 11 photo frames for $3 and the bigger ones for 75% off or more on clearances or with coupons.

Then I organized, chose and printed my favorite photos, went through archived school pics and put them all together on my couch....

and on my ping pong table.....and on the floor.....

When they were all in frames and I was happy; it was time to organize the wall.

I got a big roll of paper, and cut to size all the photo frames. then I labeled them; and stuck the papers on the wall with painters tape so I could space them out and have them work in chronological order.

Now my friend - who shall not be named - called me a way meaner name for "Overly Organized" (Anal) when I told her what I was doing..... and the process involved; but in my defense you CANNOT start hanging pictures up randomly with NAILS! If you don't like where they are you have to move them and then you have NAIL holes in your beautiful PLUM wall!! (The HORROR) so I had to get it right the first time.....this template and hanging process took like 8 hours total AFTER all the pics were in frames. I have NO idea how long it took to get them all chosen, printed, bought and in the frames.

Here's the paper wall all organized......

And here's the picture wall ALMOST done!

Honorable mention goes to Kevin and his awesomeness; he did all the hard labor whilst I did all the directing. Oh and added bonus is that he used these handy little templates to draw leveled lines on for the pics and he measured the hanger; centering and nail holes vs the top of the frame; and he marked the nail hole spots and hammered through the paper without marking my wall up with pencil YEA!!

(I still think that I am NOT anal)

Now on to the.....

Great wall of Awesome Redness Project

This baby is in my basement; I have an Americana Theme down there and it was BORING in white, so Kevin and I chose a lovely shade of awesomeness and he painted up my wall in one evening - after 4 coats (two primer and two paint including trim) and a midnight/1am quit time this is the result!

Here it is all done with my stuff.....

Awesome, No?
Well, here is that mess I told you about.....I took this picture after I did dishes BTW.

The next project was to make our main floor bathroom look fun and not boring. It is a bathroom with 10 foot ceilings and it was a boring white and now it is a:

Lovely shade of sea blue and sea green striped

Bathroom Project

Kevin did the striping and everything - he is awesome!!

Cute!!

Here it is finished with some seaside pics.

Love Love Love!!

Nice bunch of things done here; then we had a party at our place for my mom; I'll tell you about that coming up soon....here's the food link though.

Peace!

Memorial Day Weekend & Bryce Canyon!

2011-06-03T14:47:00.001-06:00

It's great to have Kevin's parents so close in Cedar City. We love to go see them and hang out & relax. I got to cook a TON (more details here) but the best part was our trip to Bryce Canyon. I can't believe I've lived in Utah most of my life and not seen these things..... but better late then never, and now I get to experience them with my boys.

Looking over Sunset Peak - I couldn't see the bottom from this view!

Mike, Cameron, Kevin and Nathan - Notice how Nathan is the tallest!

I found the bottom! Wow!

We hiked down and the walls were like this the whole time, it was a fun hike so far! Amazing 360 degree views the entire 3 miles.

Maybe Kevin shouldn't have worn his orange shirt but here we are at the bottom of the canyon; see the tree growing there?

It was so beautiful, and huge!

This is Nathan at the bottom.

Found another tree; love this!

Then the hike continued out of the "Hoodo's" and into some beautiful country with red rock and green green trees.

Cameron found a cool spot.

Love this!

Someone made this before us; Rock Stacking; a hobby I may consider.....

Dry creek bed

Cameron found a tree trunk seat; we were about 1 1/2 hours into the hike now; he's getting tired but doing well!

Back side of Sunset Peak

Going up Sunrise Peak

Looking back at Sunset Peak

Just to show you the grade of the trail; pretty steep here!

I love the shots of the trees against orange rock

Do you see that little tree on the right in the "pot" of sand? So cute!!

Looking down at where we were

We made it! After a bit of heat exhaustion on my part and loosing Papa for a while at the lodge; we headed home after a 2 1/2 hour hike; one we will never forget!

Bye Bye Bryce Canyon!!

Happy Easter!

2011-04-25T11:42:00.001-06:00

Cameron woke up to a Lego Easter sruprise!

This keeps him busy for at least half an hour so we can sleep in

Arrrrrrgh! It be the Krusty Krab and Spongebob!

Cameron is always hapy when he gets his own bag of M&M's.

We had Kevin's family over for Easter dinner; it was nice, the kids got to do an Easter Egg hunt, and had a great time! Here is the after.....

But I guess you'll want to see the before......

I love the kids running part of the hunt; it's so cute!

Look at this little one!! So happy and excited!

And of course we had to swing for awhile!

I have some other pics but they'll have to go on facebook, I'm not sure why when I upload they turn sideways and I can't fix them from here, bummer....if anyone knows how to fix that let me know!
Happy
Easter!

Weekend Project

2011-04-25T11:13:00.001-06:00

Kevin's family had this 60+ year old oil on canvas painting that had been given to Kevin's Grandpa many years ago. It had been wrapped up and stored for quite some time and had been passed around a lot that way just waiting for a taker who was willing to give it a shot. Well, I fell in love with it's potential for the boys' room. Cameron wanted a Pirate & Ocean themed room and this went perfectly! The canvas is 4 1/2 X 9 feet long and was just rolled up like fabric. We needed to frame it so Kevin and I went to Home Depot and got some 2 X 2's and some brackets and Kevin built the frame (and did and AWESOME job I must say)

Here it is all laid out; we're ready to stretch and staple to the frame

This took quite a bit of effort and staples but I think we did okay for the non-profesisonal framers that we are

Here it is ready to hang! The colors are nice dark rich greens and blues for the trees and water and I think it's beautiful. Reminds me of "South Pacific" and Bali-hi.

AND here it is hung up and part of our pirate adventure room! It sits between two windows ( the painting is about as tall as the window's too. There is much more to be done in this room, but this was a great start, don't you think?

Thanks for your help Kevin, you're amazing!!

A Tour of our new House, anyone?

2011-02-12T23:13:00.007-07:00

Here we are, outside, playing on the swings in front of our new Townhome! Why a Townhome do you ask? Because NONE of us enjoy yardwork, and Daybreak has plenty of places to play outside, exhibit A. They so graciously put swings and a lawn expanse right in front of our place! This was a cozy day in November BTW.

They (Holmes Homes) started construction on the place in September of 2010. Here it is!

This is a view from the back of the garage. You can see a patio then the back door and kitchen window framing.

Coming along nicely!

Inside up the stairs

Look I can fit my hubby and our awesome friends in the Master Closet!

Windows! and a porch!

The cleanest my garage will EVER be.

And here it is all painted etc!

The view down the street at our next door neighbors.

I'm walking to the front door to find out who it is.....

Ah, it's you! Welcome, here is the first thing you'll see....stairs!

Entry hall, stairs that go upstairs on the right,.....and to your left....

You'll usually find Nathan at his computer doing homework.....I hope!

Yup! Digital photography.....good job Nathan! Now back to your right....

Next to the stairs the cut out wall leads to the livingroom and kitchen....

This is the living room, the wall is plum....I like plum :) All the colored walls are plum but the light is odd on some of these shots.

Here's the back side of the cut out wall.

In the living room looking back to the front door....wait! Don't leave yet! To your left is.....

The Kitchen!

The dining room and through the back door is the patio and garage. We could fit a patio set and a BBQ back there, Kevin says a hottub, I say dream on.

Lego Central! We sometimes eat at this table, but today and this week, or the next few weeks it will be housing our newest Lego creation.

Circle back around to head downstairs, there's a guest bathroom on the left.....Down the stairs you'll find Penny.....

Come on down, turn right; (no other way to go!)

This is the basement fanily room, there's a window on the left and to your right....

Oh look! It's Kevin and Cameron in their natural habitat....lets see what they're watching....

It's the Wii! Oh, Ok, I know, we have a small T.V. I decided to buy a house instead of a 82" LED TV.

Back to the left is the ping pong table (Whoo Hoo!) and down the hall to the left is a bathroom and bedroom...to the immediate right is the storage room. (you can't see the door, but trust me, it's there)

Bathroom! See I told ya!

Here's Nathan's room....

And a walk-in closet! Well that's all there is to see down here, lets go back upstairs....

And Upstairs again.....

At the top of the stairs is the master bedroom.

To the left more windows, and I made my bed, shocking. We want to paint the bedroom a cream color to give it more warmth.

To the right is the bathroom.....

The counters are a plum color but it's hard to tell again, there is a linen closet and the master closet .....

And I had to show you my shower....Jealous?? I don't do bathtubs....... I don't clean them....... AND I don't fit in them, so why have one..... when you can have this???? Lets go back to the hallway.....

Back out to the hallway upstairs, I'll be adding another long shelf here on top of this one, I can do my laundry folding here.....it has cubbies for storage; LOVE IKEA (sometimes, other times it's just a pain and way to crowded!)

Down the hall are two closets (one is behind us for linens) and another one for crafts, puzzles and games, and then there is the laundry closet (with red high efficiency washer/dryer and lots of shelf space), then leading to the end of the hall is Cameron's room, and there's a bathroom on the right....

Mickey Mouse Bathroom! There's the plum color counters....I need a Mickey print here....weird reflection on the counters....now back out to Cameron's room......

This is Cameron's room, two closets, one for toys and one for Scrapbook stuff

(for me) Are you loving all this closet space?? We will eventually paint this place a sea green/blue color and have the lower half of it in Waines coating.

Out one of his windows.....

This is out the other one.....you can see the patio and garage door. The view of the surroundings is awesome - I'll show you that another time.

Well that concludes our tour.....

oh, hello Penny...she likes stairs!

Well see you later!! Thanks for coming to the online tour, call me for a live one sometime!.:)

Thanksgiving 2010

2010-12-03T19:59:00.003-07:00

Thanksgiving Time! Some of you may know that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, its all family, all food, all games, all fun! Okay, it's mostly the food I like.

We had a great trip to Cedar City for a Thanksgiving weekend with Nama and Papa (Kevin's Parents) Almost the whole family made it! Ann from Virginia, Dan and JaNae from Washington, Fun! The grand kids had a great time playing and getting to know eachother again.....here's Cameron, Lucy and Cambree playing dress up. Cameron was always the Prince. Appropriately.

Thanksgiving Dinner #1

Kids Table!

Cameron and his Turkey craft....Cant have Thanksgiving without a turkey craft! I opted for Candy Turkey's instead of hand traced Turkeys. :)

At the hotel, Cameron likes his big brother....just a little.

Kelley's familyThanksgiving breakfast #2 at Cracker Barrel! Dave and Rachel were in town...yea!

Cameron and Maddie....I used to babysit her, and she used to babysit Cameron, the great circle of life....We Love her!

Me and my Boyz, Cameron has a little growing to do still.

Rachel and her cuteTurkey

Dave and Rachel and Family Thanksgiving Dinner #3!

Family of Turkey's, some sad, some awesome, all totally edible!

Hope you all had a great Holiday too!

Summer Fun!

2010-09-17T10:10:00.001-06:00

Well we had a great time this summer but I think everyone will agree that it just FLEW BY!!

Here's Cameon in our fun pool, and Nathan trying to hide evidence he hangs out with his brother and enjoys it!

Cameron's newest thing is puzzles! This one's an easy one but we have 8-10 that are 200-500 peices and he loves them, we did one a night for a few weeks, it was fun!

Nathan's hair before EFY and Pioneer Trek-and then Nathan in compliance

Fourth of July with Lynette and Brian and the gang!

We went to visit Mom and Dad a couple of times; this trip I got to see Cedar Breaks and Kolob Canyon for the first time. It was breathtaking!! All of it - best day of the summer for me! Thanks Dad!

Nathan went on a 'Pioneer Trek' with our church youth group; they walked 23 miles and pulled handcarts; all in the name of having them appreciate what their ancestors went through - and in my opinion, it helps them realize how great they have it!

Nathan after Trek and before the 30 minute shower and the 2 day nap

Nathan's Trek family, he's on the left - where's your hat??

The women's pull - where they guys don't get to help -when the men went to war the women had to do this on their own - this was the hardest part for Nathan of the whole Trek - thought that was sweet.

Nathan had a great birthday he got to go to California for a batchelor's weekend with his Uncle Dave - who took him to see Primus.

He had a birthday party with some buddies at Hollywood Connection.

Nathan didn't even mind that Cameron tagged along :)

Clay, Andrew, Corinne, and Nathan

Nathan was so excited about his router table! He loved it!

Love you, John and Laura! We had a great time with you!!

Goodbye Summer! We'll miss you!

Spring Fun!!

2010-09-17T08:43:00.000-06:00

I know, I'm a little behind, considering it's Fall now. But you know what they say! Better late then.....well you get it. We had some fun this spring; a lot of prep for the end of the school year for Nathan and some fun awards for him too!

Cameron at the Dinosaur Park

Cameron helping me with our new favorite cookie! (to be posted some day on my recipe blog)

Nathan winning Technology student of the year at Legacy Jr, and PE student honor at Open High School of Utah. Great Job Nathan! I love these pictures! Nothing like shaking the hand of a State Senator!

San Diego for Spring Break!

2010-05-04T18:52:00.000-06:00

This is the condo! We stayed there for 4 days, we ate, we slept, we played, we had a blast getting to know Shantel, Jeff's girlfriend. The Condo was SO cute! And Fun! and Awesome! And Thanks Mom!!

Look at those flowers!! It's the first week of April there.....and we have snow in Utah, everywhere!

This is the livingroom; where the children are rough-housing, and George Banks looks on in disgust.

These are my boys; yes, Nathan is almost as tall as his dad.

This is the beautiful Windansea beach and Jeff, Emery, and Shantel! Check out the cool rocks and palm trees.....Beautiful!

Aw......

Playing in the sand and....Aw.....

Yea for hat stores! That's a fish on Emery's head! and the lobster is a nice touch on Cameron, don't you think?

Aw.........

Disney Mania - and not the good kind.

2010-05-04T18:10:00.000-06:00

We all, including my mom, headed out in the van for L.A. on Sunday afternoon; spent a very exciting night in Primm, NV; you're right, exciting, PRIMM? not possible. Then got to LA about 11 that next day. We visited with Dave; and Mom stayed with him so they could head to San Diego; while we continued on to Anaheim to catch a few days of Disney Magic in the most horrible time to attempt Disneyland on Earth, Spring Break!! (NOOOOOOOOOO!!)

After 4 hours in traffic it should have taken 1.5 hours BTW.- (UGH, SERIOUSLY??) we made it to the hotel then headed to the park about 4pm.

WARNING IF YOU LOVE DISNEY DO NOT READ ON; SKIP TO THE PICTURES, TRUST ME
We spent that evening and the next day there and had a good time, it was SO CROWDED though - DUH, I knew it would be, but hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go! This goes for potty breaks and Disneyland.
the second day we kept in contact with Jeff and his girlfriend Shan, (love her!) and her daughter Emery who's 4. (Cutie Pie!) Who were on their way from AZ to join us that day; we met them an hour or so before the park closed. We saw Small World and stood in line for an hour to go on the Peter Pan ride. UGH, then we went on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, you know; the one no one understands; and probably the only ride in the world that you actually die and go to hell on…..

After a fun nights' stay at Shan's FANCY Hyatt Hotel (she works for them and got a killer deal on a room for us) The kids (Cameron and Emery) had a great time playing hide and seek and goofing off while NOT sleeping - Hey, it was Cameron's first sleep over! We headed out again that morning for more Disney Bliss - But not before we stopped at Starbucks for some liquid courage to gird up our loins with.

We decided to get strollers for the whiney preschoolers instead of carrying them on our backs this time - Brilliant plan I tell you!!

Then we spent the first part of the morning we hit Star Tours (again), The Matterhorn, then we relaxed while Emery met Tinkerbell, and then we all hit Splash Mountain….which Cameron hasn't forgiven me for yet. Then as we were drying out; we did the shuttle scuttle back to the hotel at noon to pack up, check out and get lunch at Red Robin - YUM!, but not before the hotel charged up Shan's and my credit card to the max without our permission - mistakenly - but still; they said we'd get the money back, but not for a few days - while it sat "in process" so we couldn't use that money for expenses, like, um, food, and gasoline! Well, who needs those things!

After lunch; we truffle shuttled back to the park for a ridiculous 4 hours of hot weather and sweatiness in the name of 2 more rides; - well; one for Jeff and Nathan, who waited for Indiana Jones for 1.5 hours then were sent away before they got close to the ride itself; because the ride broke down. They managed to line hop and we all went on Pirates of the Caribbean. Then Kelley and fam had had enough torture for one day and headed out, but not before we had to go buy the promised merchandise Cameron had been begging for for 3 days, which meant more walking through the whole park, then more waiting in line, then more waiting for the shuttle - this is the time it broke down - then we drove out at 5ish to San Diego; praying we had enough credit for gasoline; leaving Shan, Jeff, and Emery who hadn't had a whole day yet under their belts; to brave the crowds all alone.
OK, if it sounds like complaining, I am. Sorry folks, you get the real deal here. I am not a Disney fan, my husband is; not me. . I do not enjoy $85 a person entry tickets, crowds, $12 slices of cardboard pizza, $4 waters, or endless ploys to spend our hard earned money on merchandise…

I deemed this trip Shuttle Charade Extravaganza. Because we shuttled from hotel to Disney, Disney to hotel, Hotel to Disney, Disney to hotel all in one afternoon. THEN did it again the next day 4 more times! We had one shuttle break down which caused an hour wait in the hot sun with NO shade; and anyway each shuttle ride was like 30 minutes including wait time, boarding, and un boarding. So along with waiting 40 min to an hour and 1/2 for rides IN Disneyland, we spent roughly 4 hours total shuttling around Anaheim while either being giddy with anticipation to the point of heartbreak it was taking so long , or tired, exhausted, hot, and hungry, and devastated it was taking so long.
Now, don't get me wrong; shuttles are nice; IF they save you parking fees; but the hotel charged guest parking and it was $15 which was more than what Disney charges. So didn't really save money; but probably didn't save any time either way because you have to shuttle in and out of Disney's parking lots too; so you're screwed either way you choose to park. And to be truthful; after the hotel "reserving" all my money by accident; I was afraid I wouldn't have enough money to get us out of the hotel parking;
Man I need an attitude adjustment. Okay, how's this; It was SO great to see my boys having fun at Disneyland, Cameron for the first time and Nathan experiencing it all again; I just love Disneyland, there is a certain magic there; a terrific family feeling of excitement and togetherness, a unique atmosphere that you cant find anywhere else; that just makes you want to……throw up. Seriously! $800 for three days of crowds; 4-6 hours of shuttles; 9 hours total of waiting in lines; being tired, sore feet, sore back, sore legs, sore neck, hot, sweaty, thirsty, sun burnt, pushing and dodging around people while trying no to lose any of your children in this chaos; all while trying to keep a positive outlook because no one should be grumpy at Disneyland….well except Grumpy….but now I know why he is the way he is; he was probably forced to go at Disneyland during spring break!!...then he was probably forced to buy their expensive, crappy food because if you choose to go elsewhere it would take 1 hour round trip on a shuttle to do so; then you'd have to get your car out of parking; and pay to do that. Then you'd have to find a place to eat....and get back to the torture as soon as possible so you don't feel like you've wasted your $800 bucks you've scrimped and saved up for EONS; for this monumental occasion. WHAT.EV.ER.

So, I will just leave you with photos of the happy parts! And yes. There were happy parts.

Waiting for the train

Waiting for Buzz Lightyear

Waiting for my heart to melt

Picks with Mickey after waiting for Mickey

Waiting for our turn to get to look, at nothing

After waiting for Pics with Goofey

Waiting for the crowds to dispurse so I could snap the Token Caslte Picture

Waiting for Cameron to leave the Lego store

Waiting for me to stop goofing off with the Matterhorn already

Thinking about how I can WAIT to get this pic on my blog!!

Cameron waiting for us to stop trying on hats

See? it's not JUST me!!

Christmas 2009

2010-02-15T10:49:00.014-07:00

Alright folks Here's some Christmas pics. Honestly I'm kind of disappointed in the blogger.com formatting changes. The uploading of photos and the inability to move them around easily is kind of a pain.
So it takes me awhile to get motivated to blog. It took like 1 1/2 hours to get this all done.

Anyway!! Christmas 2009. It was fun! We had a great new Christmas tree that we loved to stare at and hated to take down. Grandma D moved in in October and was with us this Christmas season it's been so nice to have her here.

Here's the boys at the Parker Christmas Party. Aren't they cute??

Cameron decorating his gingerbread cookies, he's very focused

"Starwuz Konewuz"

That's Star Wars Clone Wars to you who don't understand 5 year old.

Yeah, he was happy with this gift. In case you were wondering.

This is "Rhino" he is Cameron's gift from Mom and Dad. He's fun. He can navigate the kitchen in his hamster ball like a pro. It's hilarious.

The Christmas Morning Ascent

Jeff distracting Nathan from opening presents

Nathan - look how OLD he looks!

One of the rare moments when the 14 year old and 5 year old find common ground.
We'll always have Legos.

Hope your Christmas was great too!

Pomp and Circumstance

2009-12-19T23:31:00.008-07:00

Kevin's Graduated! Bachelor's of Science in Information Systems Security

We are so proud!!

It's been a LONG four years but Kevin successfully went to school full time AND worked full time (for most of the time, minus the last 7 months)

It wasn't easy for him (or us) either; having him gone three nights a week and Saturdays. He had to drive all the way down in Murray for four years.....we've missed him those nights and weekends! But he's all done!

He graduated With Honors and was the Salutatorian of his class!

We have a job offer in the wings and we'll post more on that when we have more details!!

Way to go Kevin!!! We Love You!!

2009-11-27T18:37:00.012-07:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

We did the traditional extended family get to-gather at the Cracker Barrel. It's always fun to see everyone!

Here's my cute family with a very tall Nathan and a very short Cameron..... (compared to us)

So I tried to pick him up but he hung there like a limp noodle and made it look like I was torturing him.

My Cousin Ryan, his wife Dana, and Jackson

Uncle Kent and Aunt Lisa on the right,then Lindzie, Maddie and Preston who's 6'6" now I think.

This is my Cousin Alan and his wife Heidi -So Cute!

My mom and Grandma "D"

Sean and his adorable kiddo's plus Aunt Chris.... Sean's wife was off running a 5K while we filled our faces.....go Megan!

We had a great brunch. Then Kevin and I made dinner for the 6 of us plus my brother, Jeff. Then we played Mario Kart and other games. After that Kevin, Jeff, Nathan, and I went to see The Blind Side; it was REALLY good; I highly recommend it!

This is Cameron; playing his own version of LIFE for 2 hours!

Hope your day was fabulous too!

Deficits and Attention or Lack Thereof

2009-11-18T14:25:00.001-07:00

Written on 7-11-09 with an update at the end written on 11-18-09:

I just had a life changing event in terms of Nathan and his struggles, an epiphany, a revelation, an inspiring set of miraculous events!! Okay, well it was to me, but to you It will seem anticlimactic now....

The Problem:
Nathan has had some real struggles lately, grades were BAD, attitude BAD, and our outlook was SAD. I was irritated like crazy at him and worried about him all at the same time. I've been struggling with how much I should help him and how much I should back away; especially lately. He seems to want my help all the time, but should I keep giving it? He's got to figure his stuff out and learn to handle reality and new responsibilities, right?

Here's the scoop, Nathan has many "issues" as we’ll put it, and I assume they are all separate, individual issues, yes he has ADD, and he has Depression and Anxiety symptoms all of which we manage okay with meds and other techniques. Those are labels I had a hard time with at first, but we've accepted them, managed them as anyone does with most things. However, in addition; Nathan seems to have what I think of as "processing delay" (It takes him 5-7 seconds to respond to some stimuli -or reply to a question posed to him -and THAT is a patience tester right there),

This creates problems in school when so much is coming at him at once, instructions, distractions, expectations are not processed as quickly for him as with normal kids. Then, the kid has no sense of the passing of time - he can't tell 5 minutes from 40. He has zero organization ability with his thoughts or with his stuff, no matter how many lists I have posted around the house....he forgets to look at the lists! He has a crazy case of forgetfulness...80% of the time any request we make must be repeated, sometimes SEVERAL times till I get frustrated and yell at him or I hold his hand through the task. He makes the most impulsive choices with no thought of consequence. Then....he doesn't LEARN from mistakes, he repeats them often, and over and over, so punishment never works, and neither does reward. He can't sleep at night, but he definitely can't ever get up in the morning. His emotions are raw: (he wears these on his sleeve, and that's hard for a ninth grader!) Then there's school; I'll briefly touch on this.....the fact that he rarely turns in more than 50% of the homework he needed my help with for 3 hours the night before….he loses it or forgets he had to turn it in till it’s too late, then it’s lost anyway days later by the time I find out it was a missing assignment because papers don’t get graded by teachers anymore but by TA’s and in their own sweet time. So I can’t tell if he’s actually turned in something he thinks he has until days or a week later! He has an absence of listening comprehension skills....never remembering due dates, or assignment descriptions, or that there WAS an assignment. Then he has to re-do the assignments he does turn in because they're illegible. His 504 or IEP or learning plan can only make 3 major accommodations for him. (Due to our large schools and staff shortages) One is sitting close to the board, getting to take tests in a different room than everyone else to avoid distractions to give him the best chance possible, and the third is allowing me to “scribe” for him. But this isn’t enough.

At parent teacher conferences they tell me he’s a GREAT kid, he’s involved and knows the answers to most questions and is kind and respectful, as we all know, but then there’s the “But….” Here comes the part where they say, he doesn’t turn assignments in, they can't read his stuff, he's distracted and can't finish any work in class, he doesn't seem to listen blah, blah, blah.....And the teachers continue on with “We know he's capable of more, because he’s so smart etc….which I appreciate of course but I know that already what I DON’T know is how to help him. If he can’t turn in stuff, he can’t get good grades. If it’s too much for classroom interactions and too distracting for him to focus, and too frustrating at home to do ALL the school work there PLUS the homework every night that doesn’t even make it back to the teacher.
They cant read any written material he works HOURS on and they must ask him to re-do it, but then even HE can’t read it and he gets frustrated and gives up on the assignment altogether. ….What do we do?
Yes. That WAS a brief description.

As most of you know, Nathan has a heart of gold and a strong desire to do everything right. He is kind, gentle, sweet and caring for others. He has strong desire to please others too; and this is frustrating when his intentions are so good and his actions seem to be the opposite. It's hard to know when to sympathize, and when to encourage, and when to be assertive and when to punish. And to be honest all of this is down right ANNOYING most of the time.
While my instincts tell me to be compassionate, my personal frustration at his lack of ability to focus grows and grows.
Kevin has a hard time with helping Nathan because he see's way to much of himself there, and is frustrated that Nathan struggles like he did and much more to be honest. You hope your kids are perfect, when you find out they're not, you avoid the reality. When you're too close to something that you wish would just go away it's sometimes too much, too many bad memories. Trying to help your own child "change" by just explaining how they should do things and expecting change right away is unrealistic. Explaining consequence and personal experience paired with current circumstance brings too much pain. So for Kevin, the end result is frustration, guilt, and avoidance. I totally understand. Though I cannot sympathize because I did not have any of these problems like Kevin can; I do feel this frustration and pain deeply.

I'm losing the ability to think positively when I very rarely look forward to spending my nights of searching for missing papers, books, assignments, pencils, quizzing about homework that's due and not getting anywhere with my questions because he honestly doesn’t remember. Then there's the actual home WORK. Many nights end in tears and giving up on Nathan's part (mine too!) We've tried everything.....Home notes don’t help; he NEVER remembers to have the teacher sign one. (Two in one year completely filled out regardless of what punshment or reward was at home waiting for him) He'd forget the signed ones in his locker, or forget to bring a blank one to school or to class. He always forgets his lunch, his books, his coat, his money, his cell phone. Argh! Getting email communications from teachers didn't help because most were not consistent and I feel like I’m tracking them down and nagging them in addition to dealing with Nathan and his things. These teachers have SO much on their plate, they are not the problem here, it's not their fault either so I couldn't find it in my heart to complain.

I was at the end of my rope with him, almost about to give up, and really, just ready to step back, let him figure it out, suffer the consequences, fail. He HAD to change or he would drown! I was hoping against hope that he'll be okay, knowing I couldn't help him any more than I already had without DOING EVERYTHING for him.
I knew that he'd have to figure it out, or fail and learn from failure I guess. How else do kids learn when they don't listen to or follow advice? Consequences? But the other problem like I said before is that Nathan doesn't seem to learn from punishment or consequence. He just beats himself up for being "stupid" and becomes depressed or anxious that he’ll be “stupid” again. And the truth is, he will, he will repeat the same mistake again days later. So when punishment doesn't work. What do you do? The kid can't be grounded 24/7, he's a GOOD kid, but it's impossible, expecially when he doesn't remember what he was grounded for.

But really it's Nathan with the struggles not me. It's not fair to him when all these issues are paired with his intense desire to do everything right. He gets frustrated too, anxious, and nervous, he worries, he panics. Nathan punishes himself for all he forgets to do. So really do I have the right to be frustrated with my daily struggles with him? It's Nathan who has all the real struggles. It's he who has to figure this out and deal with this for the rest of his life.. I feel helpless, like I can only just stand by, and watch, or do it all for him so he doesn’t “fail” but he doesn’t like that either and doesn’t want me to do things for him. And I know I shouldn’t. So now what?

Hope?:
The above is where we were back in February of this year. I wasn't ready to post this because it was well, heartbreaking. But since then, I have learned much. I knew I needed help. Nathan was full of anxiety, rage, hopelessness, frustration, and I couldn't fix it. He didn't know why SO many things were wrong with him. When I keep telling him he can do anything he wants in life if he tries hard. He couldn't even stay at a task long enough to complete it like emptying the dishwasher. He was feeling like a huge disappointment to himself, and me.

Well bless Davis County, they had a seminar about ADD/ADHD a few months ago that I decided to attend just to see if they had anything new for me, I figured I'd learned it all when we diagnosed Nathan in Kindergarten..... because I'd done my research. I'd kept him off meds till 4th grade with diet, lots of exercise and sleep as our cure until it was obvious meds were needed so he could focus on school work. And back then Kevin was learning his way through ADD, and I'd done a LOT of research for him too.....
But six months ago; with all of Nathan’s struggles since sixth grade, I was feeling depressed, hopeless, wondering if I'm just a bad parent because I couldn't seem to help Nathan like I wanted....so I thought going to this seminar might help. Maybe I could find some people who shared my struggles so I could feel normal for a bit at this seminar.....

Let me tell you what I learned is more than I expected and way more than I could have hoped for!
Turns out that these problems listed above that my sweet Nathan struggles with are all-encompassing with the ADD diagnosis. ALL of it. The not sleeping, the processing delay, the disorganization, the emotions, the learning comprehension stuff, the inability to tell time, the inability to get started or remember what is next…. They all come together wrapped in one big diagnosis. They've found so much more about it now, it's so unlike me not to research this stuff too! I found out we only knew about 5% of what they know now.... You may know what ADD/ADHD is or THINK you know what this is, but when I'm done here you'll probably know more than you wanted to, or maybe this will help you too.

The conference was given by Chris Zeigler-Dendy: http://www.chrisdendy.com/author.htm. She's a mom of two boys with ADD, she's an educator, school psychologist and mental health counselor, she was there to share her story of how she researched and found out all there is to know to help her kids. She's written several books and I recommend ALL of them. "Birds Eye View" is the best.

What I learned:

I furiously took notes and bought her book, Nathan and I stayed up VERY late that night talking about all the amazing things we learned and reading her book.

And to think I almost didn't go because I thought I had all the info there was!

There are two distinct types of Attention Disorders – here they are and some symptoms….

AD/HD predominately Hyperactive-Impulsive
Hyperactivity
• Fidgets or squirms in seat
• Cant stay seated
• Runs or climbs a lot, - teenagers are restless
• Difficulty playing quietly
• “on the go” acts as if being driven by a motor
• Talks a lot
Impulsivity
• Blurts out answers
• Cant wait for turn
• Interrupts, butts into conversations or games
• Acts without thinking or doesn’t understand consequences of actions

AD/HD predominately Inattentive – ADD
Inattentive
• Doesn’t pay attention to details, makes careless errors
• Difficulty maintaining attention on tasks
• Doesn’t seem to listen
• Doesn’t follow through on or finish chores or schoolwork
• Disorganized
• Avoids School work and homework
• Loses things
• Easily distracted
• Forgetful

So Nathan has ALL of the ADD Symptoms….

Other things I learned:

This runs in families and is inherited – 54% of the time – 40% of siblings have it, 50% chance to pass on to children

Medication works 90% of the time!

It poses life long challenges – you do not “outgrow” ADHD

5-12% of people have ADHD in the population, 2% of every classroom
30% have a developmental delay of 4-6 years, so an 18 year old may behave like a 12-14 year old in certain areas of their lives – which explains the homework/responsibility issue
69% of these have coexisting conditions like depression or anxiety.

ADHD is NOT over diagnosed like some people may assume:
Only 32-56% of the 5-12% who have it are treated for it the %’s vary depending on the community they live in – low income vs high etc…
Only 7% of those are prescribed medications from 5 years to 14 years of age and only 1.2 % of those are taking medication from 15-19 years old. So we’re in the minority!
12% of Children in the military are diagnosed, which is ironic since our military will not allow diagnosed recruits on medication

There are distinct Structural Differences in the Brain
The Cerebellum, caudate nucleus, corpus callosium are slightly smaller,
In PET scans of the brain you can see that an ADHD child has a LOT less white matter (connective tissue) and also less blood vessels so blood flow to the brain is reduced as well.
The Grey matter is the same so intelligence itself is not affected. The brain itself if FINE, it learns everything, but it’s not connecting or communicating correctly/effectively.
Neurochemical differences show that the Neurotransmitters are inadequate (smaller, than normal).
Let me explain:
The ADHD brain has 1.7X more neurotransmitters- (dopamine)- the chemical that “carries” the message across the gap between each neuron and returns to the first neuron to await the next message to take again. With too much dopamine; it means there is too much trying to return to the previous neuron to pick up the next possible message, and it often doesn’t get the previous message all the way across to the next neuron’s receptor site. It’s like there’s WAY too many things going on between the neurons, chaos. And sometimes the dopamine does not do its job because it’s too crowded. Medication (dopamine inhibitors) slow down the “recycling” of dopamine so there is less in the way so dopamine can do it’s job easier, carry the message across without interference.
This would explain why my ADD kid forgets what he was doing all the time. He’ll start out at the top of the stairs with great intentions but by the time he’s half way down, he’s “lost” the message, and can’t remember what he was doing there or what he was going to do next, he has to wait for a reminder or for the message to get all the way across. (Processing delay)
(We’ve all experienced that once in awhile, but try to deal with it ALL the time, with almost EVERYTHING you do!)

This affects;
Paying Attention
Following directions
Finishing work
Remembering to do things
Emotions
Being on time
Being able to plan ahead

In addition:
The Norepinepherine receptors are also physically different.
The receptors - or the door to the next neuron - are visually and physically smaller and different, the difference could be compared to an open funnel (normal) vs a thin straw (ADHD).

Seratonin another brain chemical; those levels and those transmitters/receptors are not normal either and also don’t work correctly, this affects emotions, measuring time, falling asleep, waking up, and learning from mistakes, accepting punishment and rewards.

With Slower Brain Maturation:
There is also slower Brain Maturation in ADHD kids. The cerebral cortex reaches peak thickness at age 10 instead of at age 7 with normal children. This is interesting: The cortex thickening peaks during childhood then starts to thin after puberty as unused neural connections are “pruned” down
Contributes to deficits in Executive Function and has a significant impact on academic performance.
There is a 30% Developmental Delay – these kids mature 30% slower in these areas; which definitely explains the lack of immaturity level seen in most Hyperactive ADHD kids (I used to teach elementary school, so know this first hand)
This delay is located in the prefrontal cortex which is responsible for
Higher order Executive Control functions:
• Thinking
• Paying Attention
• Planning
• Suppressing inappropriate actions and thoughts
• Remembering things from moment to moment
• Working for reward
• Controlling movement

Learning challenges
• Slow processing speed, and retrieval of information
• Poor organization
• Slow decision making; difficulty getting started on tasks
• Reduced production with written work

This means parents and teachers must give developmentally appropriate supervision, meaning we must give more support and supervision than for other students at that same age. “An 18 year old is more like a 12 year old; if this student is to be successful you must put the supports in place that you would for a 12 year old.” – Dr Russell Barkley
This explains Nathan’s need for me to help him SO often, now I don’t worry about it, and just help! It’s frustrating when you assume your child should be able to handle certain things by now, because other kids his age do. This helped HIM feel a LOT better and this helped me understand him A LOT more. Now I’m okay with helping him; because this is not his fault, he’s not trying to get out of it, he’s not lazy, he just needs assistance.

Coexisting conditions stats:
2/3 of ADHD have coexisting diagnosis
Percentages are Children with community support vs. not

• Learning Disabilities – 25-50%
• Anxiety – 37%
• Depression -28 %
• Bipolar -12%
• ODD (oppositional defiant disorder) 15-30%
• Conduct disorder -14-43%
• Substance Abuse – 5-40%
• OCD -12-20%

Explaining Executive Function Deficits – Nathan has this too…..
“The Brain’s CEO”
“The conductor of the Orchestra” This is where the brain pulls from all it’s resources and utilizes social rules, memory, experience…..
“This is the control center, really an array of executive functions, orchestrates resources like memory, language, attention to achieve a goal, be a fraction of a second or five years from now”
Deficits or Delays in:
• Working memory and recall
• Alertness
• Activation and Effort
• Reconstitution – Analyzing problem solving, organizing, planning for the future
• Internalizing language (self-talk)
• Controlling emotions
The impact of this deficit on ADHD person, trouble with:
• Getting Started and finishing work
• Remember chores and assignments
• Memorizing multiplication tables
• Writing essays – writing rules, sentence structure, essay rules
• Reading comprehension – remembering what they read
• Controlling Emotions
• Analyzing and problem solving
• Planning for the future
• Multi-tasking – Cognitive memory space is limited, remembering math rules, essay rules etc is difficult while trying to complete an assignment. It’s too much at once.

It’s critical to reduce demands on limited working memory capacity.
For decision making from where should we go to dinner to where do you want to go to college?
Give the person only three choices and eliminate one at a time through deductive reasoning.
Because giving them a whole world to choose from makes it impossible for an ADHD brain to make decisions, it’s too overloaded with it’s own memory trying to grasp all it knows and not getting that self-talk message across. Ahh!

Good news is that these executive function skills, for ADHD brains, continue to improve as their brains mature into their 30’s and 40’s.

More Good News
Medication works!
90% of the time Medication is the answer because it is a physical illness, physical difference in Brain composition, you can’t beat that on your own. Like eyesight, or a broken leg, you need help to get them working right.

Medication benefits?
Increased
• Attention
• Concentration
• Compliance
• Effort on Tasks
• Amount and Accuracy of school work
• Working memory, self talk
• Verbal fluency
• Emotional control

Decreased
• Activity levels
• Impulsitivity
• Negative behaviors
• Physical and verbal hostility

In Summary :
Just knowing ALL of this is part of Nathan's diagnosis, and knowing the resources available to me now has made a HUGE difference in how I view our struggles. He's not a kid who's “out to get me”, or a kid who won’t succeed, or a kid who'll never "get there". He is a kid with ADD. And ADD is very treatable. We increased his meds, got him counseling to learn some coping skills, got even MORE organized. This is something I understand now and can help him with. Something I can “laugh” at when it gets out of control, and then have a WAY better attitude about it all.
As Nathan matures, like Kevin, he will get better at everything, like we ALL do, he may take a few years longer but he’ll get there and hopefully I will always be there to help.
I know now that I should spend the time helping him with homework, that I did when he was 4 years younger, because he requires that support, not because he is just "not maturing" or "not caring about school" none of this is his fault! The never waking up? Not his fault. The disorganization, NOT HIS FAULT! Wow! My whole world just changed, my WHOLE outlook. AMAZING!
I now have resources available to help me with ideas and coping and more importantly, teaching him new skills and teaching him that this is something he has yes, not his "fault" yes, but it is his hurdle to overcome. We all have hurdles. This is his. Overcoming them and being the best we can be is our job.

A BIG change:
So the newest news is that we’ve investigated some different schools because the current local public education system is not conducive to his learning style or needs and I’m not sure a private school would change anything for him. The same problems exist.
We’ve decided to place him in the Open High School of Utah. A state affiliated Charter School that is done online. Each class has a teacher he can call or email or video chat with anytime. His lessons and project are community learning based and learning by doing is the best way to learn! His whole school is located on his laptop, and organized for him in one dashboard of assignments and calendars. Each class is broken up into days of “to do’s” so he always knows what needs to be done that day, and will not miss or forget anything that way. I can manage this with him, we BOTH know exactly what needs to be completed. They are affiliated with BYU’s Education program so he can take any elective classes online with them as well for free. They’re also affiliated with DATC! Free classes to high schoolers there too. So he could begin any career program there of his choice anytime. This also allows us to have school at anytime, evenings, weekends, out of town.... anywhere there is a internet connection. Flexability is what Nathan needs!
This eliminates a lot of stress for him……No books, no papers, limited handwriting, no backpack, no school lunch, no early morning stress, no locker, no home notes, no distractions. His classes are completely flexable and will work with him on an individual basis and tailor the learning experience to his needs as he goes along. He LOVES to work with his hands and is motivated to do any project you can think of. He spent his mornings, days and afternoons in wood shop as OFTEN as he could; we will find more things like this for him to do with this new school.

He’ll take Seminary on his Jr. High campus down the street; and I spoke to the principal of the local Jr High who has agreed to let Nathan in on any school activities he wants or classes there if he chooses to do one or two as well, (band, choir, PE, whatever)

The school provides a free laptop to him as long as he’s in school and if he graduates it’s his to keep. The principal there is great too, and has talked with me on numerous occasions already.

We’re really excited for this opportunity that has presented itself.
Nathan is relaxed and excited about school now instead of just the opposite.
Nathan just wishes he could start NOW! That is something I didn't expect.
Here's something you didn't expect: You just read a 9 page article (Word, Single spaced, Times New Roman 12type font)

Update as of 11/18/09 -

Nathan is THRIVING in his school at Open High. I didn't take more than a day to get used to this new way of learning; He's getting A's! He is motivated and LOVES the work he's given daily. He completes his assignments on his own;he finds answers to his questions; and looks forward to school! The flexablity this school offers is priceless for Nathan. He can do school daily when HE's ready and for as long a period of time as he feels he can; he can take as many breaks as he needs ,and and at the same time he is motivated to do his best at all times.

The curriculum is really neat; I'm enjoying learning right along with him. Their approach is a refreshing blend of very interesting topics, thoughtful discussions, "out of the box" learning approaches, zero busywork, challenging and memorable/useful assignments to complete daily and low stress "exams" with a very flexible timeline. The teachers are interactive and complementary; they give it a personal touch and they truly care about these kids. I've gotten many phone calls from teachers checking up on Nathan and myself.

The technology Nathan gets to utilize every day is so above and beyond what he'd get in a traditional school. He's becoming so comfortable with the internet, the computer itself, and the technical tools the teachers are using. Some of the daily assignments include discussion boards, voicethreads, Youtube video clips, Google maps, docs, and email, interactive applications, video chat, and much more; group projects even!

Nathan has GREAT friends that he chats with online almost daily. They've had an activity at Lagoon so they all got to meet too.

These kids are very cute, creative, and thoughtful. There are kind words, "netiquette", and polite encouragement of each other with assignments and social interactions as well.

It's like all the previous stigmas of Jr High are over for all them. These kids are very sweet to each other; and with this equal playing ground environment there's no room for "cliques" or judging others for anything but what they think, what they know, and they all have equal opportunity to express ideas. And like the amazing teachers; the kids are SO resourceful and out of the box thinkers themselves.

Nathan has confidence. He is doing very well. He has Spanish and Seminary at the Jr. High every other day in the mornings. The afternoons are for Open High and Geometry and Health (BYU online classes) And two evenings a week Nathan is at the DATC working towards a technical certificate. He's currently taking "Computer Tech" there which is part of his High School requirement.

He has lots of variety and daily interactive opportunities. This school has helped reduce distractions and chaos for Nathan; his anxiety and depression rarely surface anymore. His ADD will always be there; but these tools are here to help him succeed and stay organized. A kid that can't keep track of his basic daily tasks; really has way to much to deal with when traditional school includes strict deadlines; low flexibility; no one to help you stay focused because everyone and everything is distracting! When you add homework and only verbal instructions for 8 classes for a kid with poor memory, books, papers, backpacks, lunch, pencils, paper, other school supplies to keep track of it gets overwhelming for my ADD kid.

With the online high we've eliminated all of this and it's all contained in one laptop! All due dates; assignments, curriculum, assignments, study guides; all of it.
And believe me it's hard to lose that laptop when I have it strapped to his desk. :)

We're very happy that he is doing so well; evenings are much less stressful for all of us. But most importantly; Nathan is happy with this choice and he is thriving!

November 13th people!

2009-11-14T18:49:00.006-07:00

This is my baby who just helped me rake up some leaves.
On a side note; I don't believe our little tree we planted 2 years ago had leaves this big last year; but look at these! They're beautiful!

Well Mr. Man had to jump into them....of course!!

Boom! And he tried to hide; but I found him......

And this is November 14th! Blooming roses; blooming plants; In November; it was over 60 degrees for three weeks in a row. And the snow had to come sometime didn't it?

Made me want to bring out the Christmas music.....almost.

Blah Blah Blah Halloween Blah Blah Blah

2009-11-02T21:08:00.011-07:00

Here is my token Happy Halloween blog post, just so I don't feel like a bad mom.....

Yeah, confession, If you couldn't tell, I dislike Halloween.....a lot.

Love candy though. Head over to my couponing blog and you'll see...

but I digress....

Here's Cameron as the notorious Darth Vader.....

But I love this little guy and I'd put my personal feelings aside to to play along...

It was a beautiful day, 65, sunny and we went to the park for a little fresh air....

Best part of the day.

See? Very Sunny.

Yea!! Nama and Papa are coming home!

2009-10-30T11:47:00.000-06:00

I don't think I've said much about Kevin's parents in this blog yet, but its high time I did!

Mike and Carol are terrific people. They are kind and extremely generous, caring and very good to their children and grandchildren. They've helped us out of many tough spots more times than I can count and I don't think we can ever thank them enough for that.

They are wonderful! We love it when they come visit (which is never often enough!) and now they are FINALLY getting to retire and move back to Cedar City! These two have sacrificed so much to be away from family and lived in the Chicago area almost their entire working career to be able to provide for their children. Chicago was a great place to live and have their children grow up, but I know in their hearts they've always wished they could be "back home" and now they can be! We are more than excited for them and hope we can see them so much more often when they get back to Utah.

Mike is the hardest worker I know. He is a great example of a protector and provider. His attitude has always been positive and he is helpful and kind. He is easy to be with, generous to a fault, and funny! He has had some struggles with pain for as long as I've known him but he doesn't complain and he works hard right through the pain. He is extraordinary.

Carol is a great person and is up for almost anything! She will be right in the middle of the grand kids, right there to do whatever they'd like to do, play in the yard, go to the zoo on a hot, humid day, she'll play with them on the floor, help their mom with anything she needs, take the kids for walks, and play the Wii! She is very cool! Carol is kind, caring, and such a great grandma and mom to her children. She send suprises in the mail, which the boys love. Her gifts are very thoughtful and individualized for the boys. She is very in tune to what would make them happy, that means a lot to me. She has always taken such good care of the family and is there for all of us, all the time. She takes great care of Dad and makes sure he has what he needs to succeed. And bless her heart she is trying to get the family home all packed up and ready to sell all by herself, and that is a HUGE job to take on. I know it is difficult, frustrating and exhausting work ,and I wish we could be there to help her, but she has amazing energy and a positive attitude and will get it all done!

Both parents have always been strong and faithful in the Church and have always been a fantastic example in this capacity.

I feel very privileged to have them as my parents too and feel like Dad has been a great father figure for me. I hope they know that we think about them often and pray for their safe arrival here in Utah. And we CAN'T WAIT!!

See, she's up for anything! Look at those crowds!

Nama giving Cameron a big squeeze when he was 4

Nama and Cameon when he was one

Nathan and Papa

Nama braving Dinosaurs with Cameron

WE LOVE YOU NAMA AND PAPA!!

Weekend Adventures

2009-10-13T19:51:00.017-06:00

We had a fun filled weekend! CJ and Christopher came to visit us from Chicagoland. They could only stay 2 full days so we packed 'em both full of great Adventures! They flew in Friday and we had the two boys play, and play, and play. Then Saturday morning we gathered everyone up (Except Kevin, who was at school) and we headed to the Hatch's and on to the Ogden Dinosaur Park......

The kids don't seem to be bothered by this at all......look, hands in pockets, like they were asked to pose or something? Run! RUN for your LIVES! C'mon you guys!!! Christopher thinks he's on a roller coaster, or maybe the Dino just said "stick em up."

Well we made it through that one....Now here is Cameron, showing Zoey something interesting....

Cameron is on top of a giant sea turtle...... looking smashing I might add.

We found this dino and before we knew it all the kids were inside it, then the adults felt like it wasn't fair we were expected to act like adults and wanted in on the fun....but we had a little trouble getting in there.....

Here's Zoey looking out the Dino's eyes....she's such a cutie!

All the Adults got in the thing.....

then all the kids found a golden opportunity and ran off... we thought about staying there, ready to claim we'd been inhaled by a dino and could no longer function as responsible parents, but instinct got the best of us and we made our way back to the real world to chase down our rugrats some more..... but then some of us had some trouble getting out of the thing.....Matt and Teri turned it upside down and backwards to get out...we had a few laughs with this one....and one picture I won't post (out of my undying devotion to Teri.)

Then we found another Dinosaur carcass to disrespect and climbed on top of this sucker; it was six feet up, once we all scrambled on top, a lovely stranger offered to record this for posterity.....

Then CJ had to show us all up.....he's about 12 feet of the ground here, sitting on an ancient Rhino's horn.....doesn't look to comfortable to me, but he seems okay! No trip to the ER today!

Towards the end of the trip we tried to gather the kids next to these pumpkins for a pic; this is as organized as we ever got them......

Not too bad! All in all it was a great day and we all went back to Matt and Teri's for some Wingers Wings and Dinosaur chicken nuggets! (how appropriate!) Good times guys!

After heading home and getting a well deserved nap (I think the adults needed this more than the kids, but who's counting) we got packed and headed up to our Cabin where we relaxed and played games, the boys played toys and watched lots of "Noggin."

This is also and when Nathan, who lucked out of the Dino Adventure, also made himself scarce for the rest of the weekend, as any normal teenager would be expected to do.

Here's CJ in my kitchen, helping out and making me VERY happy that he likes to cook!

Matt, Teri and the kids came up the next morning to play too! We had mildly controlled chaos everywhere with 6 kids, all playing and drawing and playing going up and down stairs, and eating and playing and having a great time!

We ate lots of food, Teri did a whole sink of dishes like three times, and Matt once, and we lounged....

We adults tried to play cards, but the offspring made that a little challenging;
So we took them on a two mile hike in the mud to wear them all out. (it snowed that morning and covered everything with three inches of snow...by 4 it looked like this, just sunny and muddy!)

The kids did surprisingly well, no one but the baby had to be carried, or even requested it.... (Even me!)

When we got home, we shed all the muddy shoes, socks, and pants, in some cases, on the balcony and headed back inside for more!

Here's CJ and Christopher enjoying the outdoor adventure together..... we had to get them on a plane Monday afternoon, and now they're gone, and normal life must ensue once more. Curses.

Love you guys!! We'll miss you!

And thanks Matt and Teri for putting up with our Chaos.... It was a blast!

The Little Things

2009-10-04T17:44:00.000-06:00

Stuff I don't want to forget.. updated

Cameron at 5 years....

Cameon is all about pretending, he's a waiter today, he said to my mom, quite politely.... "Ma'am, I'm sorry but we only have one apple left..... and it's for me"

He took orders with a pen and paper, told mom what we had available, "In the back" and offered, Cheese, Crackers, and M&M's.

October 4th, 2009....

Conference weekend? Cameron had had enough of church on TV. When the last session came on, and when he heard the organ music, he put his hands on his heads and shook his head and said, "Oh NO!! Not Jesus!! I don't want to hear anything else about Jesus!"

Cameronn 3 years old.....

In response to my sister's blog she mentioned she didn't usually write stuff down so she blogs memories so as not to forget the precious moments in her life...here's some of mine...

Cameron is barely 2 here loving "marbles"

Cameron is very silly, and indecisive..He must get it from his dad. :)
He says the negatory of things immediatly after the other....
"But I wont, but I will,"
"But I can't but I can"
"But he does oh oh yeah, he doesn't!"

Back Before the end of the binky, these three binkies were a joke, but he'd do this more often than you'd think, he'd have two in sometimes. His binkies were toys to him, he had like 20 at one point, when he was 1 1/2 to like 3 he'd carry around a bucket of binkies as toys (this worked GREAT for us at church) he's pop one out, chose another and pop that in without a moments hesitation, there's not rhyme or reason for when he'd do this, he could be in the middle of doing something, totally engrossed in a toy or a movie and just sporadically switch binkies, it was like second nature to him.

Bedtime:
I'll say at night before bed to Cameron (as not to announce "Bedtime!" and thus induce the fit of the century) instead, I put a positive spin on it and I'll say "It's almost time for songs and stories Do you want to clean up first or go do songs and stories? Which one?" Then I get what I want and he gets to put off the inevitible bedtime routine for 30 seconds longer.
Once we're on our way to "Thongs and Thtories" (we have issues with S's) he has to go potty and brush teeth first, if he does that all well without complaint or delay he gets 3 stories and 5 songs before bed...but I take one away of each if he annoys me...oh, I mean if he doesn't do what he should. :) parental bribery....Anyway,
Well, today I said, do you want to finish your cornbread or do songs and stories?" He said, "Moooooooooom, say "Which one!" You're possa say which one, foos!" (First)I didn't realize I had an exact script to follow. :)

"Bad" Habits:

He's picking up some girlie habits at daycare I'm afraid. He'll say, "I not talking a you any moa!" (more) and "You not gonna be my friend!" and turn his head and pout. Or he'll say, "But moooooooooooooooom! that's not faya!" (fair) Oh wait, maybe that's a teenage one...

Growing Big:
"When I grow up, I'm going to have TWO "N's" in my name just like Nathan!"
And, He'll tell me what he will be able to do when he gets bigger like this, "When I grow big like a brutha (Brother), I'm going to....."

4 Years old

"Am I falling out of this chair" Thanksgiving 2008

Cute! He just broke out in a sporadic happy dance!

He said today 1/15/09....
"Mom, I'm hungry and drinky." For Thirsty! :)

On 4/4/09
Cameron was watching me take out Chocolate Chip cookies from the oven, I gave him a glass of milk and a cookie that was cooled, then I gave him another one just out of the oven still warm, he said "I d0n't want a bendy cookie I want a fixed cookie!"
This is the not so subtle difference between the out of the oven melty break apart ones (MY favorite) and the cooled ones you can dip into milk without the cookie breaking apart.

Yesterday he told me (4/5/09), "Mom, you need to have patiench!" (Patience) when I was asking him twice to clean up his crayons

4/6/09 -Today I said to Cameron "It's Spring!" he said, "Is it time to go to Nama and Papa's house yet?" I said "No, that's in the Summertime" he said, "I don't like Spring, I only like Summer." With a pout.

4/8/09 This morning he cuddled with me in bed (early 530am ritual) and said "Mom, I want you to stay home and make it a Cameron, Nathan, Daddy, Puppies day." I said I would go to work but be home soon and then it would be, he said, "Mom, you have to tell your work peoples.....um, what are they called?", I said "Workers", he said "K, wukers, that you need to stay home with yo Camwon and hug and snuggle awl day instead K?" Amen baby. Amen.

My "Baby"

2009-09-24T18:38:00.011-06:00

Look Who's Five!

My Blue-Eyed boy is FIVE! This was a sad day for me, I must be honest, there's something about the big "5" that makes you feel like your baby is not a baby anymore.....

Ah well. We had a nice family dinner with Grandma "D" and Uncle Jeff, Cameron had Spaghetti and purple jell-o while everyone else had Pot Roast and some other good stuff.
Cameron couldn't wait to open his presents....(of course!) There was this GIANT one on the table before dinner started that he couldn't keep his eyes off of.

When we "finally" were done with dinner the presents were opened....he got some fun things from everyone....Money from JaNae and Family, and money from Grandma D, (which he bought two Spongbob movies with) some pirate and knight "guys" from Nama and Papa, a Castle and accessories from Kevin and I.....

we couldn't get him away from those until this came in.....

Nice! A new bike from Grammy and Jeff!

THe cake was fun to make, a rainbow cake at Cameron's request, you can read about it here.

He had a great day, thanks everyone!!

He went on his bike four times the next day and played with his castle for 4 hours straight!

We love you Cameron!

Cameron the Artist

2009-09-21T22:06:00.010-06:00

I had a week off from work and so took a TON of pictures and had a lot of fun doing things and spending time with the boys during my "Staycation"
Cameron enjoyed having me home and enlisted my help with his creative endeavours which I am always happy to oblige. Cameron LOVES to draw, color, create anything Lego's, blocks, etc.

He can do any one of these things for one to three hours at a time! It's fascinating to watch his long attention span and wonder when the stinkin' heck is he gonna get bored already! I watch him create while I accomplish tons of other stuff of course.....my attention span is not as long as my 4 now 5 year old's..... SAD.

Here's those beady thingies you create then iron together....I helped with this one...a little.

Here's a Haunted House sticker/glitter project he did himself . No help was requested....in fact; no help was demanded. Look at the cute crooked shutters he did. One opened and one closed....how does he KNOW this stuff?

This is an X-Box controller and DVD/Game. He made many games of different colors and built a Lego TV and X-Box to plug them into and "Watch"

Here is three of 6 Monster's INC. Pictures he drew after we watched the movie

He begged me to use Nathan's spare Poster board so he could draw REALLY BIG.....so he drew his shoe.....among other things. It's cute! He didn't trace it or anything, the perspective is really good.

This is the collection of Spongebob Coloring pages he did in ONE SITTING

Well we did this and Play-doh, and sidewalk chalk and drew LOTS of Ed Emberly's step by step drawing books (HIGHLY recommended for any kid 4 and up) ....he loves it! I really enjoyed my time with Cameron, he's sweet and lovable, very cuddly and fun, it's an adorable stage this 4 turning 5 time. I hope he doesn't outgrow this stage too soon.

Birthday A-Fair

2009-09-16T19:11:00.000-06:00

Yes, on my Birthday we went to the Utah State Fair, and if any of you know me at all you know I NEVER miss the fair.....the freaky sales people selling their weird stuff, the animals, the atmosphere....aw, who are we kidding! It's all for the FOOD!

I love it!!

Yes around here we only give shoulder rides when we're sitting down....

Pony Ride!

Here's Kevin enjoying his favorite Polynesian Roast Chicken Vendors' Kahlua Pork.....

Then there's the weird stuff the weird people are trying to sell...... Seriously, who buys a mini-rat transplanted from some exotic rain forest somewhere....if you ask me it's nothing but disaster waiting to happen.... (Actually we DO know this, a friend of ours bought one of these Sugar Gliders.....nightmare)

At the activity farm again.....same as last year....

I thought this pic was funny, I was about to delete, then saw the like father like son pose....

Cameron liked the 4-wheeler that was just his size....

And then....my favorite Vendor.....the.....

My Friends....this is IT! HEAVEN on a STICK! Yes, they serve it on a stick, but it's a full size sandwich, warm and gooey inside, crisp and fluffy on the outside.....

Of course I could have stayed for the Deep Fried Snickers, Twinkie, Oreo, Brownie....etc.... But I had restraint....which I now regret....I would liked to have gorged on more items....

I have the recipe for this if anyone's in!

Wild Time at the Davis County Fair

2009-08-31T20:42:00.017-06:00

We had a great time at the Fair! I'd never been to this one before but our friend Megan was the Fair Coordinator so we went to show our support!

It was fun! First thing they had a huge farm animal petting zoo, we got to feed all the animals some grain and Cameron had a lot of fun meeting and learning about the animals....

This Brahma Bull......a breed of Zebu cattle from India - are you impressed with my Google abilities?

A Buffalo, or Bison, or whatever it wants to be on a certain day I suppose....

This poor guy, I felt bad for him, his cage was too small....and his horns were caught....

Long Horn Cattle? It was HUGE! Poor thing; Cameron was trying to help but the beast didn't understand what we were up too.....in my old sales days, the motivational speaker addict in me says, "Big guy, help me, let me. help you. help me. help you.".....

The Goats were ALL over us, climbing out of their cages, pushing their cages down in some instances, and climbing all over each other and being quite rude I must add; to get some food, they acted more like pigs than goats.....the mom in me wanted to put every one of them a time out and talk to them very sternly about taking turns.....

The sheep were quite polite in comparison, they came up to eye level for us to help us feed them...Considerate widdle wammies.....

We got to feed some chickens, they ate from our hands, it was cool! I'd never fed chickens before.

So enough animals, lets wash our hands three times and use lots of sanitizer and paper towels....

NOW On to the human food frenzy! The funnel cakes! The corn dogs! The ice cream! The cotton Candy! The roasted rotisserie chicken! (sorry the goats got the best of me there)

I mean on to the rest of the fair....there was car racing in the kiddie activity tent....Cameron chose to push, smart boy.....I don't think I could sit in that even at his height and get the thing to move without major calf cramping......

We got a wrist band for Cameron so Unlimited Rides....this kid has no fear! He wanted to go on EVERYTHING, and with limited exceptions, (When mom decided that that thing looks like it could come apart any second, lets redirect) Anyhoo he went 8 times on all the various blow up items and sampled many other rides and was in kiddie heaven....

Here he goes!

Having a Blast I might add.

Then we got to pet alligators! How much better can this place get?!?!?

Nathan and Kevin went off to the Army Booth and did some manly men things; Nathan earned this awesome hat by doing 60, count em folks, 60 sit ups in the 90 degree weather.....

Here we are relaxing at the Rodeo.....I couldn't get good pics of any action there, just us sitting...at least my subject held still....I couldn't get the Bronco's to do that for me. Whatever. I didn't want to blog about them and the cowboys anyway.....cowboys.....

All in all it was Awesome, I got me some fresh veggies at the farmers market; we bought cheep toys and sunglasses and were harassed by only some of the vendors.....we were there two days; I LOVED the fact that it was free entry.....and we.....

Yesssssireee!
Thanks Megan, you did a GREAT job girl!

More Medical Drama

2009-08-23T12:08:00.001-06:00

Kevin's in the hospital! See, here's proof in case you don't believe me.....

He had some chest pain Saturday morning, it got pretty bad so he drove himself to the hospital (I was stuck with NO car at the cabin) UGH!

He found out he had two blod clots in his left lung. No worries though, they've got him on blood thinners and he's okay.

He's here under observation for a few days. They want to make sure his heart doesn't go into arrhythmia from the stress the clot causes on the heart.

Bad news is he'll have to be on Coumadin for at least a year.... or forever....depending on if he has any more clots. or leg swelling, or anything like that.

He has Hyper-coagulation. Meaning the clotting factor in his blood is on overdrive and the meds he'll be taking wont thin his blood but inhibit the clotting factor in his blood to stop producing so much.

It doesn't have anything to do with cholesterol or weight or diet even. Kevin's dad has the same thing so they'll be Coumadin buddies now.

He gets to go home tomorrow maybe! Or Wednesday or Thursday of this week. He'll need to take 2 shots a day in his abdomen of blood thinners for awhile, and he'll have to have his blood taken daily for awhile to check his INR levels, then every other day, then weekly, etc.

The good news?

The view from his room!

My baby is Ancient!

2009-08-10T19:08:00.009-06:00

Nathan's Birthday!
Yup, my first baby is 14.
Wow.
2 years from driving
104 weeks left;
208 weeks till he's 18.
Yipes! I feel old.

Ain't he handsome? :)
Here he is at the cabin, playing an XBox game we got him, he played like 6-8 hours this day

Here's his gift from Nama and Papa, Nathan saw John Bytheway at EFY this summer.

One of three shirts we got Nathan that my brother Dave designed; Dave sells these and some other great Zombie and Star Wars shirts online, (great quality too) and bumper stickers! at Zombies Happen.com This isn't a shameless plug. I'm just proud of my bro!

Then Uncle Jeff gave Nathan the Ultimate Gift AIRSOFT!!

We had a GREAT weekend at the cabin; fun, relaxing... awesome! I love it up there, so peaceful, relaxing, beautiful. FRESH AIR!! It was kind of COLD but SO nice. Next time we'll bring sweatshirts....just didn't think we'd need them in AUGUST.

Campin'

2009-08-10T18:47:00.013-06:00

We went to Lava, Idaho a couple of weeks ago. Just kind of on a whim, I thought the boys needed to say they did something in July. So I girded up my loins and volunteered to suffer through a night of camping. Yes folks, the things I do to sacrifice for my boys.....

We went swimming at the Olympic public pool. Ick. Another sacrifice on my part. I've never been into bathing with a community and marinating in eachother's ....whatever. But! I persevered. Kevin and Nathan went tubing down the Portneuf river. They said it was pretty intense....

Cameron and I hung out at the end of Lava and waited for them to float by.....

Cameron was a little upset that he didn't get to go with them; so upset in fact that his head swelled twice the size it used to be, swelled up like a balloon.....

After the water activities we headed back to camp....
Kevin set up the tent; I helped too....a little....what a great job, baby!
Like our fire "pit"? Ha! more like a fire cup!
I have cooking bowls bigger than this. Looks like I could build a fire in them at home....who knew?

The camp site was someone's wheat field-turned-profit-maker-porta-potty heaven.

Cameron had a blast on the playground equipment.

Cutie!

The tent is pretty big! Big enough for a pillow fight without involving me....for a bit.
The night for the boys was fine. My air mattress deflated twice in the middle of the night so I was a little stiff in the morning, and got maybe 3 hours of sleep total.....wow, it sounds like I'm complaining but really.... I am.

Here the boys are having breakfast at our picnic table.....what did we have you ask? Muffins! From the night before, when we abandoned camp and drove to Pocatello and went to Perkins!!

Ask me what part of the trip was my favorite. I'd have to say....Perkins!

Nathan was kind of wanting to get back to the camping part..... he's so young.

2009-07-19T21:51:00.014-06:00

Happy Independance Day!!

So we had a pretty relaxing day at home, I'm as patriotic as they come....but I don't do crowds if I can help it. But See? My room is all red white and blue! This print is on my wall! I'm patriotic all year. -Ann, you started the Americana thing, I LOVE it and had to keep it going :) -

Anyway, Cameron agreed to have his picture taken so we had a little fun.....

He helped me with some props.... too bad I didn't have a back drop....

The token pose....

We had some fireworks outside and Cameron LOVED the sparklers, he remembered from last year and just grabbed them and did like 4 or 5, no whining, no "ouch!" no fear! These are the cheap ones with the short handles too......

Brave kid.

Nathan enjoying himself until I told him we were not going to do the llegal fireworks his uncle gave him for today....
Then we got this face....

Um...Nathan? We have two police officers living on both sides of us....do you really think it's wise?

Hope your day was great too!

Suprise of a Lifetime!

2009-07-13T22:12:00.038-06:00

K so 3 days after I got back from Chicago I knew I had an "interesting" weekend coming up. My friend Matt emailed me weeks before with a cryptic note about needing me to "reserve the weekend" I speak of and that was all the info I was gonna get and to NOT tell his wife Teri anything (It was a birthday surprise for her)
So, I anxiously awaited Friday where I was to arrive before 3pm with a bag packed for an overnight stay....who KNOWS where.....
Matt also invited 4 other of Teri's friends , her sister in law Megan, whom I knew, two gals from her ward Kristi and Becky - who is an old friend too, and one of them (Cheryl) was flown in from Chicago...Niiiiiice. Matt told us all in an email that he was inviting all her good friends that he KNEW would get along well and KNEW who would make it all about TERI. (Whelll, I was flattered I tell you Whut!) Matt also told us he'd be covering food and transportation too so no worries there... (Heaving big sigh of relief on MY part)
So there we all were, showing up one at a time in Teri's living room, none of us having any clue what was about to happen, (including Teri, who's mouth dropped more with each arrival!)
Then Matt told Teri she was going away for the night with us! And then told us we were ready and to come outside......

AH YEAH!!! A LIMO BABY!!!

Then he handed us a letter and a box and told us to read it on our trek and away we went!!
We were told some sweet things about Teri in that letter and Matt said some amazing things to her. too, told her this was just the beginning on how he was going to attempt to make up to her the hardships they've been through to get to this point in their lives. Teri was misty eyed, and all of us were a little "vaclempt" and then we had Teri open some gifts and we all got to get to know each other by telling our "How we met Teri story and how long we've known her" then Teri got to tell everyone what she appreciated about us. The group of girls I liked instantly and we all were laughing and having a GREAT time. I mean, how could you NOT???

Kristi, Teri, and Cheryl

Becky and Megan

So we deduced that we'd be shopping first at the Outlet malls in Park city!!

and then whooshed away to our hotel by said limo.

Shopping was FUN, well Teri enjoyed laughing at a few things we found. Then we headed to the hotel which was on Main St Park City. Very Posh and earthy and artsy and to DIE for......
This Concierge lady (below) came rushing out and greeted us with a "Helloooooo! Ladies!!!!"
She and the Bell hop (whom we were told NOT to tip, Matt had taken care of ALL of that!) whooshed us and our luggage to our room. She gave us a tour of our room, which was.....well....LOOK!!

Full Kitchen, 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, Living Room, Dining Area, Pool Table, Family Room, Fireplaces in EVERY room
Omigosh!

Where is this water coming from??? "Whaaaaa??"

Some of us collapsed on the wood floors wishing we could transplant them into our homes and giving them plenty of Loooove....

This was mine and Meg's room, yes, the TV just makes a grand entrance appearing out of the bureau. There's our gas stove, and the Powder room just through the sliding doors....

Check out this Kitchen, wine fridge in the double bar, huge counter tops of marble, Double ovens, FULL size fridge, DISHWASHER, there was a washer/dryer in the closet next to the ovens too....where are my ingredients??? I would have cooked had I known such a masterpiece of a kitchen awaited me. There was a dining table that seated 6 too!

We could've been perfectly happy just enjoying our new pad called "The SKY Lodge" but we were told by Matt to get ready for dinner and head up the street in 45 minutes....

I couldn't cook, so I played pool instead....all alone.....while the other girly girls got ready for dinner.

so the excitement built as we got our faces on and headed up Main Street to this great place called, um Something Something Main.

We were greeted there like royalty as well and taken to a great table where Jim Carrey our waiter was charming and fun. Matt texted me and told us to order like four courses or ELSE. So we said "OKAY!!!" And we ordered tons of stuff and shared and tried all sorts of fun things like a fish called "ONO" and melon soup, and venison, and to die for everything.... There was a James Taylor sound alike playing acoustic guitar and we made multiple requests for songs for Teri.

We had a GREAT time at dinner and Matt was SLY, he had menus with no prices on them given to us, he had Crème Brulee sent to Teri and Death by Chocolate cake with a candle on it....yum!

We were told we had tickets to a show up at the Egyptian theater and found out it was Dueling Piano's from the guys from "Keys on Main." If you know anything about that place you'll know how AWESOME these guys are. Dueling Piano's is a ton of fun and so fascinating to watch, we made more requests for Teri and had a BLAST. Here the guys are and here Teri is rockin’ out to Bon Jovi….

We headed back to our room and we got changed,
I just love this pic of Meggers and Ter bein' all "Gangsta" –We then ate junk food, talked,

some of the girls squished themselves like sardines in one of our private HOT TUBS.... I took pictures....I'm not much into marinating.

We watched some Wacko Jacko Special - oh yeah, this was the day he died. Great pic of a $6 burger at Carl's Jr huh?

And we climbed into our turn down serviced beddie bye's at about 2am. These beds were SO soft and comfy. Feather everything and soft cushy warm sheets and blankets. LOVED IT!

We were told brunch was at 10 so to sleep in! "Whoot! Whoot!" - was what we said like to everything all night! So we did sleep in and then we enjoyed getting ready in our amazing powder rooms with TV's and Waterfall showers and yummy smelling bath and body items.....I personally took a 1/2 hour shower using the dual heads for extra "WoW!"

It was a beautiful day, here's the view from my balcony that mornin.....

We decided to take a family portrait....I just love these girls.....

We went to brunch downstairs at a french place, we were seated outside and it was WONDERFUL!! Look at my delectable dish!!

We also were told that next we'd be heading over to a place across the street to get....guess!?!? Guess??!!??
Mani's and Pedi's!!!
Ahhhh Yeahhhhhh
That was amazing!! Fun!!

Check my pampered self out.....

Yeah, so after being amazingly pampered and unbelievably treated like royalty, all of us moms were just about floating at this point. We shopped a while after, admiring our new nails, and headed to Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for a few more yummies and to a bookstore for a good read.....then our limo whooshed us back home again to our hubbies, who were all secretly loathing Matt at this point KNOWING he'd set the bar way to high.

Believe me I will NEVER forget that weekend, I made some great new friends, I got to know Teri better, I got pampered and I can tell you this, I am STILL on cloud nine. It's all I can do to not scream, jump up and down like a child and hug Matt every time I see him :)

Thanks Matt, you're the best!! You did a GREAT thing for your wife that I know she won't forget either. If she's ever mad at you, all you have to do is say “Park City Girls Weekend?" and she'll be putty in your hands. :)

Love you, gals!! Happy Birthday Teri!!

Chicago Baby!!

2009-06-29T19:42:00.022-06:00

So here's some pics from our Chi-town trip. It's been 4 years since we were back. We lived there for six years (total) and we LOVE it there. We have great friends there and even though the humidity was TERRIBLE, the nostalgia was more powerful. We were there a Thursday through Tuesday and were going and going every second! We stayed with Kevin's parents and it was so nice to spend time with them. The boys love being at Nama/Papa's house.

This was Cameron's first plane ride, Nathan got to see his old friends who are now HUGE, they hit it off just fine even though they were in 4th grade when they saw each other last, they're all going into ninth now. (Crazy!) I wish I got a pic of them, darn it! One of them (Matt) was as tall as me!

Cameron on the plane, looking around

I look forward to studying this pic every time I'm there....Kevin is SO cute! The Senior pic is how he looked when we met folks! I think Nathan looks more like Deborah and JaNae than Kevin, Cameron looks just like Nathan when he was little but looks more like me now.....hum...

I love walking the neighborhoods around Kevin's parent's house, the homes, the green, the smells of vegetation, the humidity even!

Thursday:We went to Culver's to eat (butter burgers, custard and crinkle fries!) we spent some time at CJ & Christopher's house and Kevin went to a LAN party at an old buddy's house.

CJ making us dinner

CJ made this...I had to show you, it has mango, raspberries, blueberries, nectarines, lemon rind, cherries, cut up so small and cute, it was tart, sweet, creamy and heavenly

Friday: We hit Portillo's, we went downtown to the Field Museum and met John at his work on Michigan Ave, we went out to dinner with Mike and Carol and to see John's place.

Kevin's happy! He's got to order his very favorite Chicago food....Portillo's Italian Beef

Field Museum

John's and Cameron at John's desk at work

Saturday we went to the Highland Games with CJ and Christopher, we went to Steak and Shake, then to John's for a fun party!

I'm so glad Kevin was there to do carry Cameron and not me

Craft Booth

Walking to the festival, we kept dousing them with our water bottles to kept them happy...

The boys were so cute sharing Toe's sword this way....Cameron has one at home that we bought at our Highland Festival in Utah, so he knew all about it.....The boys got along great, they were fun to watch.

Steak and Shake, we love it!

Sunday we had a great Father's day we went to church and saw so many friends there, I made dinner for Kevin and Dad (and Mom :) Happy Mothers day!) in Mom and Dad's beautiful newly remodeled kitchen. - (Insert pic I missed here.)

Monday we went to Brookfield Zoo and Carol came with us, then Kevin and I went out with John and CJ to "Heaven on Seven" for dinner - this is one of our favorite places.

Not too worried about the Dinosaurs here....

Hot on the Merry-Go-Round

Cameron doesn't look very little here....

We had a great time, thanks a TON to my mom who gave us the airplane tickets for our Birthdays!!

The Scottish Festival

2009-06-13T20:30:00.010-06:00

The Scottish Festival was held at Thanksgiving Point this weekend. We love the Highland Games, the bagpipes that never shut up, the food, the kilts :), the fun!

But first we had some time to kill before the gates opened so we went over to the petting zoo. Cameron rode his first horse, it was quite exciting going round and round like that. Wow.:

Then he went to jail:

Between that, the Turkey's, Horses, Cows, Goats, Emperor Kuzco and the other animals, we had a great time. But now on to the main event:

I thought the guy in the baseball hat was cute.

My brother Dave plays the bagpipes, well, he's working towards it, you have to start with a smaller version before you move on to the pipes, and before you can usually afford them.

His instructor was at the fair (of course!)

We watched the Barrel Toss, the Atlas Stone lifts etc. They were tossing candy to the audience every once in awhile so Cameron was happy:

Oh, okay, it was the new wooden swords that kept Cameron happy.

I don't think I will EVER tell Nathan he has a certain amount of money to spend in any of the shops....He took FOREVER deciding what he wanted. Next time I'll decide for him. He ran into some friends from school there too, that was fun for him.

Here is Nathan's Choice.....

And of course the most important thing about the Festival is......

the TURKEY LEGS!! And the meat pies....and the corn on the cob....and the homemade ice cream.....the popcorn.....wait. Those last three are at most festivals.... Anyway, we had a great time!

Dan and Andrea plus 1 and Cabining

2009-05-28T22:01:00.020-06:00

My life long friend Dan, (well friend since high school anyway, and THAT is a funny story)

and his wife Andrea just had a baby! Her name is London Rose and here she is in all her fabulousness!

They were up at our cabin [part of Memorial Day weekend and here visiting from Phoenix and we had a great time! We were lucky enough to get them for one night (they had a very busy schedule with friends and family and baby showers and meet and greets, etc) and we tried to keep their time with us low stress and relaxing. You cant help but do that at the cabin though! I cooked a "bit" and we had Cinnamon Rolls with Cinnamon Almond Frosting. Homemade Mac and Cheese, Carmel Brownies, and Caramel Popcorn. Yum! I'll post those recipes on my recipe blog too. Most are there already.

Cameron with London, he LOVED her. He asked me, "Mommy, is this new baby for US?"

Kevin and London, she really was a great baby!

AWWwwww...... so cute! We can't wait for them to come back again! I miss Dan, he's so fun and so great to talk to. He's the best person to talk to about stuff that annoys me. HE GETS IT. I tell ya what, it's always a relief to talk to him. You know? I always feel better when I do. He appreciates my quirky, unorthodox personality that I hide from a lot of people. Oh, did I mention we are cousins? Yup, second cousins to be exact. Our grandparents were siblings so we had the same Great grandparents? Yeah. I think that's it. Anyway, he's obligated to deal with me because we're RELATED!

I was in awe of the vivid colors up at the cabin this week, it was AMAZING. Since my eye surgeries last year I am enjoying more and more of what this world has to show me. The drives up and back and all over these last two weeks were a testament to how blessed I am that my surgeries went better than planned. I was seeing so crystal clear, and better than I ever could have imagined. It was the first time with no contacts at the cabin, so dust didn't bother me. The wind didn't bother me, and I couldn't stop just looking at the scenery. I can even see to CLEAN better. (which we did a lot of this weekend at the cabin) Spring cleaning. ICK.

The leaves had all grown in since CJ was there just last week. The contrast between the bright green aspens against the dark shady pines was really breathtaking. I couldn't capture it very well by my camera, Like my friend CJ says, "Sometimes, it's just better in your head" You can kind of tell with the pics of Dan's family.above.

We love it up there, a home away from home, an escape to fresh air, lots of space, it's a blessing we will never forget.

View from above, in the fall, courtesy of our friend John's fabulous talent.

This is a pic from my drive home though I-84 approaching Mountain Green. This drive is the most breathtaking of all and I get to do this like twice a month or more in the summer. It's amazing, the Morgan Valley, Red Rock formations, Devil's Slide, Echo, Rockport Reservoirs, Coalville area, Weber Canyon, Wow!!

Cameron and Nate the Great

2009-05-26T21:04:00.015-06:00

So, boys wrestle, I know of this phenomenon

Cameron will someday appreciate how tolerant his brother is,

Because I would be very irritated about now....

.......Nathan?

Um, are you okay?

Oh, well, if it ends in a hug, I think we've survived this round.

Until next time....

C.J.'s Visit

2009-05-18T20:29:00.017-06:00

We had our good friend C.J. out here from Chicago this weekend. It was his first time to Utah and he loved it! "Yes!" It's nice to show people our beautiful mountains and valleys close to home. It's fun to see our place from other people's eyes that way. He enjoyed the scenery and commented often about how much he liked what he saw, and that he understood why we loved it here so much etc.

We got to show him our favorite places to drive. We went to Bountiful and drove up to the Temple to see the view of the Great Salt Lake. We drove down south to Thanksgiving Point's Gardens, then we drove through Provo Canyon to Kamas then to our cabin. We spent the night there, mom watched the boys for us, thanks mom! C.J. cooked us a fabulous dinner over the fire and we looked at the amazing stars (Beautiful! Amazing layers and layers of stars, we could see shooting stars and we tracked satellites too, I've never seen that before) We took him up to Smith and Morehouse Reservoir and we went on a little hike up there. We drove home on 8o/84 through Morgan and Weber Canyon.

That night we had dinner with my family and then went and played Rock Band with our good friends Matt and Teri which is always a blast!

I was hoping to take him on the Alpine slide or up to the Tram at Snowbird or drive the Alpine loop or Timpanogos Cave, but all of those things aren't open/accessible until after Memorial day. Darn snow.

Bridal Veil Falls

We've missed C.J., he's very generous and helpful. Fun to be around. He's interested in photography so he had a great time shooting different things he saw. He also replaced two belts on our car while he was here (Bless him!) and pretty much paid for gas and groceries/food too. (What a Sweetheart)

We had a great time! He says he'll be back so we didn't scare him away with our Sunday afternoon chaos. I cooked a bunch (which you all know I love to do) and he enjoyed that too.

Next time he'll bring his 5 year old, Christopher, we'll have a great time with the kids, tons of things for them to do here too! :)

Until then, we'll miss you C.J.!

Here's some of my attempts.....I need a better camera....Waaahhaaahhh!!

My new favorite flower! A hybrid daisy, Citrus daisy? Anyway, Pretty!!

This purple one is a tulip! Go figure they were that pretty when open!

This next one wont turn right side up nomatter what I try. Weird. It was my favorite too.

Way to Go Nathan!!

2009-05-02T17:13:00.012-06:00

So remember an earlier post where I told you Nathan LOVES Woodshop and I showed you just a couple of his projects?? Well apparently his hard work has paid off....

Well, his school just had their "Teachers Choice Awards" and Nathan got the only one from his shop teacher, Mr. Johnson.

(Apparently it's pretty tough to deserve an award from Mr. Johnson, according to the school counseler who announced Nathan's name)

Here it is! And Here he is!

Nathan and the Award Handcrafted by Mr. Johnson

Presentation, Some of the Teachers are in the background

Here's the Detail, "In recognition of being the hardest worker and in doing a superb job"

Of course we were all there to cheer him on!
CONGRATS NATHAN!!

Our New Neice!

2009-05-02T08:37:00.000-06:00

It's been cool to say I'm an aunt, though I wish I had more time to be a lot more "involved" in "aunting." We've had Neices and Nephews for over 5 years now. Now there are 9 grandkids in the Broadbent family. That's 8 added in the last 5 years including Cameron. Poor Nathan has 8 years, quite a gap, between him and is oldest cousin, Shayla.

Introducing Tianne!

I love her pudgy cheeks :)

Isn't she Beautiful?? Congrats Lynette and Brian!!

Cameron Adores her!

No I don't Photoshop (not yet anyway)

2009-04-28T17:48:00.007-06:00

Of a few things I am fairly certian:

A. My child has fabulous matching and pattern skills

B. My child is GREAT at entertaining himself

C. My child has OCD

D. We have way too many Duplo's

Umm....

E. I stand corrected. There was a slight tantrum because we didn't have enough Duplo's to make an entire fifth robot, life is hard around here.

Son #1

2009-04-10T18:41:00.001-06:00

Nathan, in my humble opinion, is the sweetest, kindest (?) most genuinely honest kid I know. Nathan is my bud, my smart and curious, sensitive, loving, helpful kid. And as such he is a little shy and kind of likes to fade into the background, and he's humble. Like most teenage kids, he is not too willing to be photographed, where on the other hand Cameron will ask me to take his picture almost every day. Hence all the pics of Cameron; and Nathan's are fewer and further between, but trust me, you should see my stack of Nathan's baby/kid pics. I just wish they were digital! Nathan is curious about a lot of things, we have great conversations about history, politics, religion, people and how they think, he thinks deeply, considers all sides, and makes his own conclusions and will tell people, especially (and even) his teachers! He's not afraid to tell them how he feels about where the thinks the world has gone wrong. (This is a historical point of view, not religous one). His teachers really have great things to say about him, they say kind things about this nature, that he is "A JOY!" that he's a "Deep Thinker" that he "Is VERY respectful and considerate." His history teacher tells me he asks Nathan his opinion often about what they're talking about (maybe too much he admitted), but he says Nathan will not answer immediately but really think before he speaks and give honest and inspiring feedback. The news that his teachers love him and aren't worried a bit about the other stuff.... is great because I'm ALWAYS concerned about his school progress, but parent teacher conferences are SO positive that they help me chill out, speaking of; I'm working on a piece about Nathan's personal struggles with ADD, more on that later, it's my work in progress. Nathan does have a good head on his shoulders, his sense of right and wrong are admirable. He will not buy into certain things, does not conform to what people tell him to do, and will quietly rebel in his head, but never want to offend anyone. He'll respond respectfully if he's asked but wont push his opinion on others, this is helpful in church, we try not to rock the boat there. :) I love our conversations and he is always willing to talk to me, and sometimes he wants more attention than I give him. (I need to be better at this) He's in that stage, you know, between wanting independence and still needing love, attention, and validation from mom. Nathan loves to cook, likes to play with his brother, likes to play cards and board games with me, LOVES video games and movies and some TV shows like Big Bang, Lost, and Hero's. He is into Lazer Tag, biking, snowboarding, fishing, and he recently has found that he LOVES working with his hands.

He's taking woodshop this semester and he's the favorite, the teacher is always complimenting him and his work. He's SO excited about all the projects he's doing. He has like 135% in his class, he's worked so hard last term that he "technically" could sit and do nothing this term and still get an "A". Here is his "Critter Catcher" that works like a charm, in fact it's SCARY it's so fast and loud when it snaps shut it scares me, he loves it! He's made a long board, this bat, and a boomerang, and he's working on a Mothers Day gift I'm not supposed to know about....

Nathan made this bat in woodshop

Here are some more pics of my TEENAGER, (UGH!) but what a cutie.....

St. Patty's Day

K, here's all my boys :)

Snowboarding with Dad, (And John)

Here he's patiently tolerating his brother

I know, I know, we're getting haircuts tomorrow.....

See?

An Inspiring Quote

2009-04-06T20:20:00.009-06:00

"The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before....Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty."

-President Uchtdorf

The rest of the talk is quite reassuring too....

http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-947-37,00.html

I wondered why most of us have this constant, never ending drive to make, create, invent, improve & believe things can be better and believe we can make it happen. From cooking to gardening, home improvement, decorating, photography, crafting, improving peoples lives at work, home, church, wherever! I thought it was Human Nature, but it looks like from this talk, the correct term would be Eternal Nature. I suspect that is what God is doing all the time, and what He was doing as He created us, the world, and the universe. Makes me feel even closer to Him knowing He shares my love for these things too.

HEARTBREAKING!!

2009-04-04T23:03:00.001-06:00

I was looking though mormonmommyblogs and found some adoption/foster care ones that were very helpful and informative but this just broke my heart. It's a list of kids available and looking for adoptive families. I just couldn't help but look at each one and wonder how their lives would be if no one adopted them. And how awful their lives have to be to be placed in foster homes and taken from a bad situation. And let me tell you it has to be REALLY bad before DCFS will consider removing a child from their natural parents and families. And thinking about their plights, and the fact that they aren't accepted and loved like they should be, and that they are hurting, and sad and maybe feeling hopeless and abandoned. And then I wanted to adopt them all! I know, reality dictates so much to me, and it's painful to realize that I'm in no position right now to be able to help. Taking on a teenager requires time and money that I don't have. Taking on a smaller child takes time from Cameron and Nathan that I already have so little of. Oh, and one requires SPACE for adopting a child, which I don't have. My living situation is not condusive to this at all....
UGH.
My mother in law, Carol, did foster care for newborns awaiting placement to their adoptive families (while paperwork and red tape was being completed.) This was inspiring that she did this, and definitely doable for someone who can stay at home, and not have to work. But that's not for me right now. I could help a child who's in school, and I think I'd be a great candidate to help an older child.
This is heartbreaking, touching, thought provoking, gut wrenching but please take the time to pass this link on if you or anyone you know is thinking about adopting or foster care. I know it is the hardest thing anyone would do in their lives, and the most rewarding and joyous thing anyone can do. After all, that's what parenting is right?
I will be looking into the process anyway, maybe I can help more than I'm giving myself credit for.

John's Visit

2009-03-21T16:23:00.019-06:00

We love it when John comes to see us! He is our best friend. Well, I can't claim him like Kevin can, they've been friends since 3rd grade. But he comes to see us about twice a year, and we look forward to it always! We have a great time and it's just nice to have him. John is a great help to us, kind, generous, and very good with the kids. He is easy going and fun to be around. Sound like an advertisement laidies? He's dating someone, sorry.
We always explore new parts of Utah when he's here. That's a lot of fun. Here's some pics from his visit this month....

Kevin and John and Nathan havin fun on the slopes

On our way to exploring the Salt Flats

Did anyone know the salt flats are under water this time of the year??? Yeah. Me neither.

Playing Lego's with Cameron

Reading Dad and John a book

At the Wetlands Preserve by our house

The "We're so happy John's here!" Dance

Cutest Pic Ever

2009-03-14T09:37:00.006-06:00

This is my current favorite pic of Cameron, I had to share.

We got this Pirate Ship for him for Christmas.

You can tell by his suprised face it was a winner. :)

Culture of Entitlement

2009-02-28T07:31:00.008-07:00

When I was talking to a group of people about work and some of the challenges I was facing, I had an avid Obama supporter/liberal say to me after everyone else left,"Hey! Why are you working if it's hard? Quit your job and stay home and have another baby if you want anyway, you could easily get on Medicaid, if you stop working you can qualify for free food, free housing and utilities, and free health care! That's why I quit my job, we get more stuff now if I don't work. And the more kids we have the more money we get! God tells us we should have kids and stay home with them, so that's what we're doing. I can afford to get my nails done and a massage every week now, I couldn't do that when I was working.....isn't that Awesome! Finally we're getting what we deserve." I thought to myself, yeah ya did. Well .......???......What?? ( I happen to know she uses family for all their worth too) I am shocked that this is the new norm.....Rely on family or the government to do everything for you? Selectively use God's counsel as justification for your despicable actions? ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? (Nevermind God said we should not be in debt, we should take care of ourselves and our families and it was a sin to be lazy and expect others to take care of you when you are able bodied)

Truth be told, I've been down that "needing-assistance-because-I-was-stupid" road and hated every minute of it. Making dumb decisions like being married at 19, having a baby at 19, I had to be on government assistance because neither one of us had a job that offered insurance for the first year two years of our marriage. I was ashamed that I had to be on this type of assistance. But my point is.....shouldn't EVERYONE on assistance of any kind feel a sense of SHAME? No they feel that others have an obligation to provide it to them. What is WRONG with this world? Where is the desire to be something better, to work towards taking care of yourself and your family on your own?

Being in debt or living with family is just as bad and it also has it's own list of problems. Now I have to say that my family is amazing, Kevin's family is amazing, and there was a time when I had no choice but to rely on their help. And though I will ALWAYS be forever grateful for their willingness to give us what we needed at the time. In all honesty the cost to us was too high, there is a constant deep down cut like a knife feeling of losing my pride and self esteem. There’s a feeling, no, an obligation, to live as they do and not as you want to, tiptoeing on eggshells, never being able to be who you are, or you appear ungrateful otherwise. There was always feeling of being unworthy of favors, you feel judged, and unworthy of happiness. That is no way to live.
The point is....When you pay your own way you have a sense of accomplishment, pride, and you have dignity. Without that the feeling SHOULD be that you have failed. But people justify anything these days..... they think they DESERVE things just because, I don't know, because they exist?

I refuse to join the new "society of entitlement". I don't care if others are relying on the government more and more to take care of them because they believe they "deserve" it. And if they think that's okay that's to their own personal downfall. I will work for what I have, I will EARN it. Insurance, income, housing, food, all of it. I refuse to rely on the good people of this great nation to help me do something selfish that I want to do just because I don't want to work for it. I believe in the “Give a man a fish he eats for a day, teach a man to fish he eats for a lifetime” thing.

This is a lesson I've learned the hard way, but at least I've learned it. At least I can say I'm growing. Uncertainty and fear shouldn't rule our lives, but reality should. We shouldn't ignore what is real, and we shouldn't hope for better without preparing for the worst. I don't want to be one of those lost unaware ignorant people who ignored the signs and hoped against hope that nothing bad would ever happen. I am a realist. I rely on myself and my husband. I do not rely on my God to solve my problems, I believe He can guide and direct, but He shouldn't have to save us when we've been warned and we refused to listen to His counsel, and the counsel of His wise church leaders and the inspired leaders of a movement towards personal responsibility and a movement away from, if we're realistic and honest, "Socialist" re-distribution of wealth, and entitlement.

Happy Valentines Day

2009-02-21T17:48:00.011-07:00

We like to give some small gifts on this day, here's Cameron with his new "Tato" (Play-doh) stuff. He got this, a book, a "puppy", and some candy. Nathan got candy, candy, candy. We're trying to fatten him up, he's growing like a weed. Oh, and Cameron got a much needed haircut later that day...

Cameron and I made cookies a few days before, these are all his! Start to finish.

And later that day....

Cameron just wrote his name on his own out of the blue, and I was so suprised! We'd done a few letters but I had no idea he could put his whole name together! They've been working on it in preschool....

Great Job Cameron!!

Poetic Destiny

2009-01-25T13:34:00.000-07:00

"My hair, uncombed for days, blew free in the salty air. My face, dark with weather was creased with a smile, I was squinting westward into the swollen face of a blood-red sun which cast a simmering golden road upon the sea. From where I perched it seemed we were sailing on that road in a marvelous dream; and there I was, joyous, new-made, liberated from a prison I'd thought was my proper place!"

-From a favoite book of mine that I've forotten the name of but this is a passage that I've memorized. It has always touched me. Does anyone know the name of the book? It's about a girl, heading West across the Atlantic from England on a ship mid 1800's I think, she comes to terms with who she is on this voyage.

My Medical Drama

2009-01-17T10:15:00.010-07:00

It's three months to the day when I had my emergency ambulance ride, internal bleeding, emergency surgery and blood transfusion. I had a ruptured ectopic pregnancy.

I guess it's time to talk about my ordeal. I don't want to ignore it. Like it never happened.
Most people would call what I went through a "life and death experience". It was quite the "ER" drama for sure. I'm still not sure what to call it myself.

It started after driving home on October 16th from my sisters' wedding reception. I felt totally normal all night long until two blocks from home I had this sudden sharp pain and then hard ache in my abdomen. I couldn't pinpoint it. It just felt like I ate something bad. I felt pretty terrible I didn't say "Hello" to my mom or mention anything to Kevin except my stomach hurt. I headed to the bathroom and stayed there on the floor for awhile, I hurt a lot, but didn't get sick or anything so after awhile I had Kevin help me up and put me to bed. I laid there for 4 hours or so with the same level of pain, then the pain moved into my shoulders and that was odd. I thought, "Ah, oh, I'm bleeding internally." I didn't know if I had a stroke, or a ruptured artery, maybe an aortal bleed, (with my cardiac history it was a possibility) but I knew it wasn't a heart attack, my head was calmly clicking through everything it could be. I didn't even know the symptoms of internal bleeding, but that was my first thought. My recent 2 miscarriages came to mind and I wondered if it was a complication from my D&C in August or something. (I'd had my first Miscarriage in April before that) But I knew I wasn't pregnant. And I knew miscarriages weren't this painful anyway.

I didn't tell Kevin any of what was going on in my head, but I shook him awake and asked him to take me to the hospital. He was surprisingly calm when he came over to help me up. I all but passed out when I sat up and tried to stand,but I fainted 4 times and couldn't stand at all, and the pain was s0 bad in my shoulders when I moved back down again I told him to call the paramedics for a transport. The pain took my breath away when I laid back down.

There were 7 men rushing around in my room not 10 minutes later. They were all amazing. My BP dropped 40 points from lay to sit, and then again from sit to stand, so It all but bottomed out. They tried desperately to then get dual IV's going and it took a few tries from two of the men to get a vein to work. I was thinking how embarrassing it was, I lying here in my bed with 4 men sitting here with me and Kevin not being one of them. Then I hoped Kevin got my underwear off the floor before they came in. Then I felt bad because I probably outweighed some of the guys there and they had to carry me up the stairs in a chair they strapped me to, and out the door, down more stairs to the gurney waiting on the sidewalk. I insisted they take me to McKay for many reasons. But I knew all my doctors that I trust would be there. And my insurance would cover me there, and I wouldn't die there. A little Davis/Ogden Regional prejudice. I spoke to the sheriff in charge as they transported me. He looked worried. I said, in a very calm joking manner, "Okay what is it? Aortal rupture or internal bleeding from somewhere else?" He gave me a surprised look, but said it really could be either. He asked me my history, took more blood, packaged my blood with my IV bag, and turned me over to the ER crew at McKay.

Those Paramedics were amazing, and I'd like to thank them for their kindness, thorough care, and level heads. They were lifesavers.

The ER doc got there and the lab tech came back with the report, and he looked at it worriedly and told me "You are down three units of blood have you had any external bleeding?" I told him no.with an ultrasound machine and was looking at my abdomen, he had an odd look on his face and I said, "Can you see anything?" He said "No, there's too much blood to see, I'm going to get you a full abdominal scan" I told him to call Dr Jiricko, my OBGYN because of my history, he thought that was a great idea.

Needless to say, the prep and the scan was the worst part of all of this, the details I'll spare you, but it was hard not to scream at the US Tech for hurting me so badly, (I knew she HAD to to get a good view) But she couldn't find my ovaries or tubes there was so much blood. Dr Jiricko arrived (Yea!) and told me before she even looked at the scan that "I obviously need to get you to surgery right now to find out the source of this bleeding, I'll have to cut you open with a long, tall incision just in case it's not gynecological related so I can call in the general surgeon and he can look further." She tried to do the scan herself and again couldn't see through all the blood. So off we went to surgery.

At this point I was still fine, still in my same bed from when I arrived at the ER, the uncomfortableness of the scan had faded, I wasn't nervous, I rarely am for any medical procedure. I was just thinking about work and what to do about that, and I was worrying about Kevin. He was so calm, and collected and helpful and understanding through this "Scary"part, he kept the family informed, kept Nathan calm from home, but I knew he would panic as soon as they wheeled me away.

When they moved me from that bed to the operating table, that's when all the pain and frustration, and panic hit me. The pain was so bad I couldn't hold still for them, they tried to strap my arms down but I kept curling in because of the horrible pain. I was thrashing my head around, pulling in my arms and legs, trying desperately to get some of the pain under control, my shoulders burned like fire, worse than fire. I wanted to die. I was pleading with them in my mind to help me, but I meant help me die. The pain was excruciating. The hospital has you rank your pain from 1 to 10, ten being the worst. It was a "10", a REAL 10, maybe it was an "11." I've never ranked my pain over a 3 before this. They said things like, "Hang in there, Kelley!" and "You're going to be okay!" and then I heard Dr Jiricko say, "Get that going ASAP!" and the anesthesiologist put a mask on me and I was out in one panicky breath.

It was over in 2 hours. Dr Jiricko found my ruptured fallopian tube and repaired what she could there, she was able to save both ovaries, she suctioned out all the blood, and gave me a blood transfusion, after it was all over I woke up with no pain! A few hours later she came back to check on me, she told me I'd be able to try to get pregnant again with the one tube in 5 months or so to give my body full time to recover.

I only spent 2 nights in the hospital, I was up and walking later that day, I got my lung capacity up to desirable levels by the next morning, (Curse you Respiratory Therapists!) And I was doing great, blood levels up to acceptable norms.....etc...etc...

It was painful, yes, but internal bleeding is quite bearable actually if you don't move. It's when you move that the pain hits. So as long as everyone left me alone I was fine. :)

I had to take 6 weeks off work. That was hard to do. I had plenty of benefits for this "just in case" scenario, thank goodness. But leaving my team stranded without me was gut wrenching for me because I felt really fine! I got a little sore if I did too much, but I didn't need any days in bed or anything. I kept Cameron home with me while I was off so that was a blessing in disguise. I loved my time with him, being there for when the boys got home, making dinner every night, having a clean, peaceful house, the difference between a working mom and a stay at home mom is more for the family to notice...there's much less chaos and stress in the home.
It's the whole, "If mama ain't happy...." scenario.

I am sort of lost about the way I feel about this whole thing now. I didn't panic. I never do though, you know me, calmest person on the planet. I'm not traumatized. I'm ready to try for a baby again if that's what we decide. I'm not nervous or anxious about that. And I don't feel moved or changed in any permanent way. I didn't have a "spiritual experience" nor did I even think for a second that my life might be over. It was all just a huge....weird mess. I hate inconveniencing people, scaring them at my expense. I don't like the attention,I guess. So I'm not sure what I have to offer you by this experience.

Only that panicking is something I never do, because it never solves any problem, it just cripples you so others feel obligated to solve your problems for you. Not a good thing.

I am happy I'm still here, not sure what my family would have done without me.... if/when/where Kevin would have moved with the boys, how the boys would handle the loss, how Kevin would. How helpless I would feel "Looking down" on them. I realized how happy I was, and how much more I want to be a mom again. I also realized how much I appreciate the subtle mix of modern medicine and Divine intervention.

Put yourself here

2009-01-14T14:23:00.001-07:00

As I emerged from the forest, the mist softened. Everything I saw blended trees to sky, sky to cabin. It was as if I were standing at the core of a pearl, looking out at the world through milky silver.

San Diego for Christmas

2009-01-10T18:00:00.000-07:00

We took off 5 seconds after my clinic closed on Chritmas Eve for our Christmas Vacation in San Diego!
We drove. Kevin had a sleep study the night before and he packed the van, got the dogs to the boarding kennels and was ready to go, bless his heart by the time I got off work at 1:05pm.

We drove to Nephi, met up with my brother, who drove like a snail. BTW. He had like an hour start and we still caught him! We all ate pizza at the truckstop there, and then made it to St. George at 5pm and ate at Arby's there, then on to Primm, Nevada, two seconds before California for our overnight stay, we were exausted. Cheap rooms! 24.99 or something for a great hotel. I don't recommend eating there and the customer service is BAD, but the rooms are nice.

But the night was young! So Jeff convinced me to join him in a game of Blackjack, yes, my brother and I sitting around the table with strangers, sad, sad, strangers, playing Blackjack on Christmas Eve. Something was very, very wrong with that....I think.
Anyway, we got off the next morning at 9 and got to San Diego at 2ish.

It was Christmas day. My mom was there waiting for us. She had rented a cottage by the beach, cute little place, like 20 yards from the boardwalk. It had 2 bedrooms, kitchen, one bath, washer and dryer, and no parking. She had a Christmas tree all lit up and decorated and Christmas dinner waiting for us!

We had Christmas morning on the 26th so Santa had time to get there, Cameron didn't suspect a thing! Amazing how you can manipulate time with a child who can't read a calendar yet or telling time.
Presents were stored nicely under the floorboards of the Van, thanks Kev!
So...the four of us, my mom, and Jeff. Crammed into this little adorable beach cottage.

Around the 28th my brother Dave and his wife joined us, so now we had 8 people and two rats in a cage, in that small two bedroom one bath place. We all got along quite well! We got groceries and ate "at home" mostly, that save a ton of cash.

Playing Killer Bunnies on New Years Eve

Jeff, Nathan, Cameron and Kevin and Point Loma

Tide Pools at the Aquarium

We had a great time, hung out in the cottage, played games, and toys, and played on the beach of course, and we walked a LOT, thanks to Rachel we were walking 5 miles a day or more. It was really cool. We hit the aquarium, Point Loma, a couple of movies, (Bolt, and Benjamin Button)
We got a TomTom and found our way around easily. The weather was great, mid 60's most of
the time.

More Aquarium fun, look that girls's not even bothering to help....typical.

Kevin and I were lucky enough to have our own bedroom which we only had to share with Cameron a couple of nights so we had some peace and quiet in the "Cottage Of Chaos."

We all had a great time!! Thanks Mom!!

2009-01-05T17:06:00.000-07:00

What do you believe?

So many of us who truly believe in this country, but think common sense is dead, and feel alone these days. I get so frustrated, Glenn asked a caller who was ready to give up, to give him a few weeks to prove that he wasn't alone. Today, Glenn starts trying to make this idea into a reality. Step one---if you believe in the principles that this country was founded on---please email an individual picture of you--and each member of your family who wants to participate to wesurroundthem@gmail.com

1) Yes or no: Do you believe America is a good place, that we've lost our way over the years, but generally speaking we tried hard. We try to make amends. We have tried to do the right thing. Just like everybody else, we fail from time to time and we have truly lost our way in the last 20 years. But gosh, if you look at America, she's good and our founders were good and our founding documents are good. We've just strayed too far away from them.

2) Yes or no: I believe in God. I believe in God and he is the center of my life, and God does not tell people to behead others or to persecute others that see God in a different way. I believe that God is not telling "them" to persecute others.

3) Yes or no: It is my responsibility to try to be better and a more honest person than I was yesterday. Sometimes I fail, I'll make mistakes, but it's my main mission to be better than I was yesterday.

4) Yes or no: The family is sacred. I and my spouse are the ultimate authority under God when it comes to my family. I raise my family, and that comes with a grave responsibility. If I fail, I answer to God.
5) Yes or no: If you break the law, you pay the penalty. No one should be above the law.
6) Yes or no: I have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but that is not a guarantee of equal results for anyone. Ex: Owning a home is a privilege not a right.
7) Yes or no: I work hard for what I have, and I will share it with others that I choose when I choose, should I choose. Government should not force me to be charitable.
8) It is not un-American for anyone to disagree with my opinion, but my opinion or others' opinions may be anti-American. Anti-American rhetoric would be anything that is destructive to the Constitution and our country as our founders understood it.
9) And the last one is the government should work for me. The government should answer to me. I do not answer to the government.

I want you to ask as many people as you know, do you believe in these things? Just seven out of nine. Do you believe in them? Then will you please take a picture of yourself. If you ask your family and you ask your children tonight, do you believe in these things. Take a picture of your spouse. Not as a family. Take them one at a time and send them to Glenn, e-mail them to Wesurroundthem@gmail.com. This is how much I believe that you are not alone. This could be considered a petition, a photo petition that our values are still solid. That Americans still have faith in our Constitution and what it was meant to stand for. That we believe we can still have a society of Accountability, Responsibility, and Pride. How many millions of people can send their picture in? It will be interesting to see what Glenn Beck will do with the photos....

Fun times together

2008-11-23T13:49:00.015-07:00

Ice cream smile!

I'm about to go back to work again tomorrow. I've been off for 5 weeks due to an emergency surgery I may blog about another time...I'm not quite ready to do that yet.
But regardless I pulled my Cameron right out of daycare as soon as I was physically able to take care of him and me, and I had him stay home with me while I recovered fully. It's been an amazing time for me and for him and the rest of my family. I was able to start this blog, and another one with my recipies on it too! I also got into facebook, but more importantly I got to play and play and play with Cameron. Here are some things Cameron and I were up to:

Playing Swords, we did this for like two hours a day. Cameron has his mean face on. He gets two swords, I only get one.

Playing Marble Works and army guys, and this is some alien we found.

Boys hanging out and eating icecream

These are his "Guys" they played with us too!

Playing letter games

"No more pictures mom!"

He meant it.

Making Halloween Cookies

Here Cameron is "Johnny 5" He says "Input!, Input!"

Reading Endless Books

"Playing" Blokus

Building a Palace with our Blocks

I will miss our time together, it's sad, it's almost like I'm leaving, but I'm not going anywhere.

Find Your Voice, Declare who you are.

2008-11-21T21:37:00.003-07:00

In order to influence anyone you must have a solid understanding of your beliefs.
You can then educate others and help improve their lives by making them challenge and question their own belief system and how they got there.
Missionaries do this for others. You can do this too. Our world is crumbling around us because people are being blinded to the real problems out there.
If you want to change things....if you want to educate anyone on any issue, political or religious, you have to speak up!
I'm talking specifically on politics and world events here, but it can apply to anything you feel strongly about.
But what if you don't know what you believe or how you feel? Do you shy away from politics because you don't know enough about any issue to argue or discuss it? Or did you decide to tell yourself that you "don't care about it"....and yet, truthfully, the reason you say this is because you really don't know anything about it.
Why stay ignorant? Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is shame. You don't feel good when you say I Dont Know. There is no shame in not knowing IF you then go find the answer. Find out about the issues and know what is happening in the world around you. You can then educate others who are as lost as you once were, then they will look up to you, they will respect you, then and only then can you influence people, you can help change things by challenging people's ignorance.... So many people let the media tell them how things are and how to feel, the media tells us who to believe in, who to trust, how to look, how to feel about others who don't look a certain way, they tell us who the crooks and hero's are, but if you look further , if you think harder....you'll find that most of the time....they are wrong, the media are wrong.
I too once wondered too where to start....I found out that;
First you must know what you feel and why, or you will not be effective. If you only know what you've been told and you don't know the other side, you know nothing. You don't know the facts. Did you research all sides for yourself and decide on your own? If you don't know how you really feel about an issue, you need to find out. You need to decide. You need to be that one voice, that person others look to for information. You need to be that voice for your children, they need to know where you stand, and how to stand up for what's right. They need to watch you challenge others and watch you share your beliefs. Then they will look to you for answers instead of the world.
You have to take the time to educate yourself or you will not be effective in expressing anything, you need facts, you need conviction.

Write down your own mission statement on your beliefs and why you believe them. This will make everything clear for you when things become cloudy again. Take the Obama test on the issues in my link list to the right. This test lists every possible political issue out there and you can decide how you feel on your own through your own research.

The best list I've found so far for finding who you are is from Glenn Beck below..., I have added to it; you may begin your quest for who you really are and what you really believe by doing the following:

FIND YOUR VOICE: You are your own voice. Others may be silenced. Who will lead if your guy 'who speaks for you' is gone?

FIND YOURSELF: Who are you really? What do you believe? Have you been pushed and challenged? Do you know where you stand? Can you support it with real facts?

FIND YOUR WEAKNESS: Don’t ignore your weakness. Make your weakness into your strength. Find out where your ignorance lies. What are you afraid of? What can you change for the better about yourself?

FIND YOUR VALUES: Make your list of values, model it after your religion's but add what you find important and take away what you dont. Don't feel how you're "supposed" to feel by anyone else's standards. These values are your focus, work at them. Values don’t just ‘happen’ they are developed. A house divided against itself cannot stand. Be the same person at home, at work, in public and private.

FIND YOUR LOVE: Too much hate has been planted. Uproot it, pull it out and find a way to replace it with goodwill and mutual respect for those of different faiths, political parties or viewpoints. Find those people, and build good meaningful relationships with them, don't be afraid of anyone because they believe differently than you do.

FIND YOUR FELLOW AMERICANS: Connect and encourage those who put Constitution and service to God first. Find those who love charity and help them do some good, then help them wake others.

FIND YOUR JOY: It will not come from places that the media has encouraged us to find it. True joy won’t be found in money, sex or power. You will need to know where your unlimited supply of joy can be found. Look to your family. Look at selfless service. But you have to find it for yourself.

Read this article for more inspiration:
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/18299/

Construction

2008-11-15T15:23:00.014-07:00

Our work in progress.....

The video above is of Kevin and our friend John hanging the drywall for our basement master bedroom. We had a carpet remnant installed just after this video, (which sat in the garage for six months after we bought it) and then Kevin and I moved in so we weren't cohabitating with our toddler. Now....A year and a half after we hung the drywall, we have finally decided what we want to do with these walls....(well, I knew I wanted pine or cedar tongue and groove, but at $12 a board, it was a little steep). So we found this awesome paneling that looks just like pine tongue and groove!
It's coming along great!

Kevin did the window wall in like an 2 hours, the rest went a lot faster!

Working on wall Four.....all walls done!

Now, when we clean up the mess, frame in the wondow, add doors to the closet and to the room itself, and then maybe buy furnature that is not a modge podge of stuff we've picked up here and there we'll show you the finished product!

Cameron, My Little Sunshine

2008-11-15T14:05:00.007-07:00

My baby serenading me, singing , "You are my Sunshine." He knows how to make me melt.

I especially love that "Skies are 'Great"and "You neva know de-a"