Bed time!

Every night as we get ready for bed, it goes something like this, first we brush our teeth, get a drink--especially since he'll ask for one as soon as I shut the door. Then we give Dad hugs and kisses and then I say, "Okay, let's go Jenson!" Then it goes something like this:

Jenson: Wait! I need ma' Doggy, and I need ma' Wex, and I need my Jesse, and my odder Jesse, and ma' Woody. (He says this as he's gathering them all into his tiny little arms!)

Me: Okay, let's go! Alright, good night Doggy, Rex, Jesse, other Jesse, Woody, and Jenson! Love you all!! (as I hug and kiss each one!)

Jenson: Wait! I need ma' Buzz!

Me: (thinking, crud! Where is that darn Buzz?) Oh, Buzz, here he is! Good night! (Of course also with a hug and a kiss)

Bed time is so much fun around here! I can't believe he likes to sleep with each of them. Some nights it's just the Doggy, other nights it's Doggy and the "lego storm trooper guy." Every night is different, so I have to wait for him to tell me which ones he needs. You better believe he knows what he wants and if it isn't there in the morning, the whining immediately starts! "Where's my lego storm trooper guy?" It can become challenging when it's a tiny lego guy, or one of the older boys has taken it from him before he wakes up!

A lovely little scare to end 2011

A couple of nights before New Year's we were all washing some buckets and putting away a TON of food storage stuff. It was our Christmas gift to ourselves. We had gone out earlier in the day, and didn't get home until later, so of course the kids slept in the car and they were up until after 11 p.m. We seriously have our entire kitchen table and counter STACKED with food, basically it's a giant mess, and makes us look crazy, especially if anyone were to come into our house!

Jenson is being himself running around having fun with his brothers, then he decides he wants something in the pantry, so he climbs up a couple of the shelves, maybe just one. He falls, hurts his side, I turn around to pick him up and comfort him. At the same time Adam and I both say, "He's going!" We usually say that to each other when the kids are about to pass out. All three of the kids do what is called a "breath holding spell." Basically when they feel a strong emotion, like feeling pain, they'll cry, but hold their breath at the same time. You know when you see a kid crying and no sound is coming out? That's what it looks like. When our kids do it, not often, but enough times we've all seen it and know the "normal-ness" of it, we know what to expect. So, they'll get hurt, cry, holds breath, passes out, wakes up, looks around like they have no idea what just happened and then they're fine. Scary the first few times, but all of this happens within 20-30 seconds, if that.

So when Jenson fell and Adam and I said, "he's going," I knew to cradle hold him and just talk to him like we always have. Well this time was different, I have no clue how much time actually passed, but I'm guessing it was more in the few MINUTES not seconds range. He went completely white and was completely limp. I hated seeing that. If I moved my arm to try to scare him awake he would just fall back. I remember thinking how heavy he was feeling. I told Adam we had to call this time. We went back and forth on that for a minute or two, tried splashing water on his face, just trying anything to shock him into waking up. I tried pinching him, rubbing him, asking him about favorite toys, etc. Adam was scared, I was scared, the boys were scared. Lance asked a couple of times, "Is he dead now?" Oh, how awful that was to hear him say that and then I got to thinking, what if this is it? We all have just watched a life go right before us. I couldn't stand the thought of the kids having to see that.

Finally Adam calls 911, the paramedics come in and give him oxygen. At this point I'm guessing he's been out for 5-10 minutes. He kept breathing and had a pulse the whole time, if he didn't I don't know how we would have reacted. After only about a minute of oxygen he finally woke up, just to put his thumb in his mouth, not really suck it, but just to have it there. Then it was like he was asleep for the night. The paramedics asked if he was usually as pale as he was. Since he started waking up and acting irritated that people were around him and I was holding an oxygen mask next to him we all felt so much better. The one paramedic said to the other, "want me to cancel that?" I think they meant life flight, mainly because they were under the impression that he fell and instantly passed out, and I'm sure his age was a factor.

After a few more minutes Jenson was staying more awake, his pupils were fine and he didn't have any odd bumps or bruises, no more than he normally has anyway! The paramedics told us we could wait and take him in tomorrow, we could drive him that night ourselves, or they could take him, but they thought he would be fine. We all agreed that he seemed to be fine, just tired and we'd just stay home, unless anything changed of course.

I'm not sure how much he remembers, but we ask him and he knows he fell and some friends came over to help him, but that might just be because we told him that also. He has acted perfectly fine since then, as if nothing at all happened. So thankful for that! I told Adam I'm glad that I don't know how close we were to losing him, or if we weren't even close. I don't want to know, I'm just glad it turned out the way it did. We were definitely blessed that night (and every day). So thankful for the help we received from the paramedics, our sweet little family, and Heavenly Father. Thank you!

Happy New Year!

We had a great New Year's Eve! We did our usual of king crab legs, bacon wrapped sausages, artichoke dip and all of the left over candy from Christmas. Babe only likes the sausages and candy, so I think to make it more of a meal I need to add some steak or something more for him. Even though, everyone but Jenson is a little blurry, I LOVE this picture! We all love New Year's!

Adam said he was going to make Lance work for his own crab this year. He did pretty well, he even found a few good techniques to get the crab out. Tongue out, fork over your knee, and butter drippings all over your shirt!

A funny thing that happened just after midnight has to do with those amazing pregnancy hormones, they're great! I think it was about 12:03, so Adam and I looked on YouTube to see the ball drop. When the crowd started counting down from 10 I could feel all these emotions building up. It was weird, I wondered why, but then saw the ball slowly dropping down. Then 2012 lit up and I lost it! I tried to hold it in, but as a friend put it, "you can't hold it in, then it's the ugly bawling kind." Yeah, that's what it was alright. As if it couldn't get any more ugly, I knew it was so ridiculous to be hanging on to Adam bawling, I started hysterically laughing. So it was something like, "waahh, hahaahaa, waahh, hahaaa!!" I really felt bad for Adam, he didn't understand, which I don't blame him, but to me it just made sense. It hit me like a ton of bricks that 2011 was OVER, never to be had again, there's no going back and having some do overs, seriously, it's done. I can't explain it any more than that, just that it's done and I guess I didn't like it. Now, even today Adam likes to tease me by asking if I'm okay that the hour just passed by and if I'm happy/sad/whatever with that. Haha!

Jenson's 3!

My oh my, I can't believe how quickly these little ones grow up! Funny, when you're pregnant with them you just can not wait to have them here, then you can't wait for the newborn stage to be over, can't wait until they can eat more solid foods, etc. etc. Each stage with Lance and Adam I couldn't wait until we got to the next one, because the next one was going to be so much MORE fun! They're all fun! I have learned that every stage goes by so quickly and I'm learning to LOVE every bit of every stage. Mostly, the tantrums, eye rolling, and rationalizing, sometimes I could definitely go without! Since Jenson's birthday is so close to Christmas, and he's so young, we usually just have us, a few gifts and some cake! This year, he got a Captain America set, he loves it! He also loves being Spiderman!

I think he was a little afraid of the fire and surprised by the one candle re-lighting! I didn't know I bought trick candles!

Jenson loves pretty much everything, so we did a "theme" of anything BOY. He loves Lego's, superheros, ninjas, guns, monsters, everything boy! So I just made some cupcakes with things we had here. I didn't have any sprinkles or anything, so I washed a few Lego's and put them on the cupcakes! That's my frugalness for the year!

It was the kids' last day of school before Christmas break, so we actually spent a lot of time at the school with the Christmas sing and Adam's class party. I didn't make it to Lance's class party. After all the craziness of hanging out at the school for the first part of the day we came home and just played with the Lego set Grandma got him. He loved it, especially because it came with a dirt bike for the robber to get away!

We love this kid so much! He's such a smarty, funny, teaser, and LOVES being with his brothers and dog Bonnie. He LOVES staying up later, he knows that if he does this he usually ends up sleeping with Mom and Dad, eating popcorn and watching racing videos with Dad on YouTube!

Work Christmas Party 2010

I'm posting last years Christmas party for work since I didn't get around to doing it and I didn't take any pics of this years party! Last year we couldn't work out any times that would work for everyone so we ended up just doing a double date sort of thing. We went to the Grand America...wow, LOVE that place! I got a steak, and Adam got some lobster. I LOVE that the portions were smaller, so we actually were able to have a little bit of everything. My favorite way to eat, especially when you can't decide!

Adam and I, we had such a fun night. Dressing up and going out on an actual date was so much fun! We always love it and say we should do it more often, but kids, work, finances, and a bunch of other things always come up!

Our good friends and work partners, Jeremy and Julie. They are awesome! Without them (and a few others that weren't there) we wouldn't be where we are today. It's so neat to see that it takes all of our efforts to make things work! Thanks guys!!

I would love for our tree to look like this! Not even close, but we also don't live in a place with marble floors!

This year we went to Market Street, I don't like seafood, but every time I go there, I end up liking it more and more! I even LOVED the shrimp and wish I could go back right now and have some! Unfortunately we missed out on a newer employee, but hopefully we'll get him there next year! It was fun to sit and reminisce about the year, obviously that included some inside jokes, favorite customers and our favorite crazy customers!

I'm so thankful that Adam is such a hard (headed) worker. If he would have listened to me at all, especially in the beginning, we definitely wouldn't be where we are today. I can't imagine how much courage it has taken him to just go with it and make it work. Love him so much for doing so much for us as a couple, family, and business!

Exciting News!

We are so excited to be having another baby!! This will be our 4th, it hasn't hit me yet of how different it will be with 6 in our home instead of 5. I've known for the longest time that we should have another baby, I would call the kids to dinner, or when I'm sending them to bed, and just doing the hundred other everyday things, I felt like I was missing someone. Sometimes I'd count in my head and go through our names, crazy I know, but it's true! Maybe that means a 4th won't be a huge change, or maybe it means I already have so much! ;) I had an ultrasound a few weeks ago, Adam couldn't be there with me or Jenson this time, so we called him during and put our phone on speaker, funny story about that in a minute! I love this picture of the baby's arm and head, I think the baby is showing off!

Cute little legs all stretched out!

The baby is doing some yoga!

So...after three boys, we are excited to announce we are having.....

...a...

Yes! ANOTHER boy! I must be meant to never have anything nice...or clean! Regardless, we are so very excited to have ALL boys! The newest little guy will be arriving sometime in April!

Back to the funny story about Adam and the ultrasound. Adam has been correct about the gender every time! Me? I've been wrong every single time! So, Adam was dead set on this being a girl, I of course thought a girl, but finally after 3 pregnancies and thinking they were all girls and having them turn out to be a boy in every way, I finally thought that there's a chance I'm wrong about another girl and it's probably a boy.

So the tech has the Doppler on me and before she got to the gender reveal, she was measuring the legs I saw something! I didn't say anything though. Once she gets to the gender she freezes it since I FINALLY decided I wanted to know. She asked if I wanted to take a guess, when I said that the baby is a boy, all we heard on the phone was silence. The tech whispered to me, "Is he shocked?" All I could do is laugh and tell Adam he was finally wrong. He asked the tech if she was sure, she said, "Yep. Either that or this baby is growing a thumb between his legs!"

Thanksgiving

This year it was my side of the family's turn to get together and we decided to have it at my house because it's just easier! I really enjoyed cooking all the things that we were assigned to do. First of all, the time was up in the air until the night before! All because my sister works at Village Inn and was supposed to work from 1-8 that day. She swore she'd get off early and I think she wanted us to wait until she got off and then have Thanksgiving, since she "knew" she'd get off early. We ended up having it at 11, which I think worked out perfect. Oh, and I don't think she got off early at all! That was pretty much all the drama we had, which, if you know my family is basically considered no drama! Kind of blurry, but the turkey looks great, tasted just as good too! Adam told me how I should cook it which included flipping it. That resulted in hot grease splashing onto my chest and in my hair! OUCH! Turkey grease makes for some great hair gel! I was so worried about cooking a 22 lb turkey that I thought just to be on the safe side I should get up at 3 am and put it in the oven, luckily I went to bed at 2 am, overslept my 3 am wake up call and got up at 5:30 instead, the turkey still ended up being done at 9:30...still had some time until everyone else got here!

The clock finally clicked over to 11 and ALL our stuff was ready, just needed everyone to show up. They did, only a few minutes late, but still had to cook the stuffing, assemble the devilled eggs, and they put their coats and junk on the counter, which is where all of the prepared food was supposed to be! Not a big deal, but I was keeping everything organized so well, but that's easy when it's just yourself! I had fun setting the table and trying to make it super nice, especially since our tables all have resin on them! They're very versatile! The kids thought it was so fun to eat in the living room and have such a "fancy table like at a restaurant."

The two older kids wanted the "chicken that comes with the bone." They had smaller plates, so the "chicken that comes with the bone" took up almost the whole plate. At one point Lance just put the leg on the plate and leaned into it to take a bite.

The kids always have fun rough housing with Uncle David, I hope he likes it too. If not...oh well, I guess that's what Uncles are for!

I love that Babe is about to get him from behind and Bonnie (the vicious dog) looks like she's biting his face, I promise she's actually just licking him!

Best Buddies

Jenson and Bonnie have a very special bond. I'm actually quite surprised that Bonnie is so protective of Jenson, especially because he'll come up and start beating on her for no reason. She's a smart dog, I think she knows that he's young and doesn't understand that we always need to be soft! I've always found Jenson asleep and Bonnie right next to him, either keeping watch or sleeping right along with him.

This one was actually taken before the next one, completely on different days too!

I love when she sleeps with part of her on him, sometimes Jenson will put his head on Bonnie, not sure how or why she tolerates that, but she does!

Mmm...snacks!

Finally! A picture of them both sleeping! They really do have such a special little bond, it's so fun to see. I never really thought I was a dog person, but I guess I am! I have so many pictures of the two of them like this, it will be fun to give him a small book when he's older with all of the pictures.

Babe's 1st loose tooth

Adam lost his first tooth! Way back on March 1st! He was so proud, he did it by himself! Much different from Lance, so funny how all kids are so different! Adam's reaction was awesome as he pulled his tooth out! I wish I could have gotten it on video! Here he is all proud! I told him to grab a wet washcloth and he'd be able to grab onto the tooth and...YANK! He was determined to do it himself and I thought I'd do the usual, "just let me get a good hold. Oh, look, it's out!!" Instead he put the rag on his tooth and POP, out it came. He said, "I got it! I got it!" as he threw his hands up in the air cheering, then immediately turning to tears because he was so excited!

The tooth fairy has let us keep all of the first teeth that have been lost, she also gives a BIG prize for the first. The first is a very big deal! He's so happy, can you tell? I love it!

Lance's Basketball Season

Wow, basketball season is about to start again and I'm just getting around to posting these. Watching Lance play was so much fun, always something to see! His coach was wonderful and I think he loved it. Although he isn't playing this year because he'd rather to BMX racing and wheelchair racing. I'm working on telling him that wheelchair racing isn't for him and he should be happy about that. I think maybe he's just looking up to Dad though. Maybe he wants to try racing him! All the pictures I got were horrible, because the lighting in the schools+sports action=blurry pics! This is Lance after he stole the ball, ran down the court, took and shot and....missed! Great try though! His team lost almost every game, but they all had so much fun!

After the last game, he received his medal. Since we signed up later they forgot to get our name on a certificate so we didn't get one, but that's okay. He really cares about the medal!

This is the team picture, on the day they did team pictures Lance was puking his guts out! Poor kid, so this is what we got! Honestly, I'm sort of relieved that he didn't want to sign up again, I coached Adam's soccer team, while it was fun, one parent can ruin it for you! (I'm sure it didn't help that I was a bit hormonal either!