Just checking in

I know I haven't posted for a while. We have been busy with those meetings for the house. I'll be so glad when they're over. We also might be getting a new lease agreement from our new landlords soon so I have been trying to make the house sparkle for the official walk-thru with the new owners of our duplex. We will know about that any day now, they were supposed to close on the duplex yesterday. I also ran out of batteries for my camera so I haven't posted on the few things that I really want to post on with pics. Hopefully I will have batteries today and I can post with pics again. Other than that things are pretty much the same.
Rebecca is still wearing her splint but she is not crazy about the fact that it STINKS. I want to wash it but she won't let me because she doesn't want the names written on it to wash off. Oh well, it's her choice. The girls are doing good in school, we are already into the homework battle. The girls don't mind getting homework they just don't want to have to do it. Megan is getting better at walking every day. She walks around in circles. She doesn't want to sit down but if she stops moving she falls so she just keeps walking in circles and laughing as she does it. CJ is still busy at Mity Lite building tables. He is supposed to be working four 10-hour shifts with every other Friday off but he has had very few Fridays off. He will look for a job closer to our new home once we move so he just keeps saying to himself "not much longer" every time he gets frustrated with work. I am still babysitting the little boy from 2-11pm. I did finally give my notice at Build-A-Bear. I was only working there one Saturday a month but with our new building schedule with Saturdays being mandatory I decided it would be better to let that job go.
We may be looking for an apartment closer to Payson so that we don't have to drive so far everyday but we'll see how that goes. I don't want to go anywhere right now because I don't want to take Elizabeth out of student council. We'll see what the future brings.

Baby's 1st Birthday

I can't believe that it has been a year since we were blessed with Megan in our lives. It has been so much fun, so I guess that's why the time flew by so fast. Can someone please tell me how to slow time down because she is growing too quickly!!

Her sisters still think that we had Megan just for their enjoyment. She is like their little doll. They want to help with her so much that I wouldn't have to lift a finger if I didn't want to. But I really do want to! I have waited so long for my little bundle of joy that I don't want to miss a single moment with her. I have had to learn to share my baby so that everyone else in the family gets a chance to bond with her as well. And bond with her they have. She has Daddy wrapped around her tiny little finger twice, and her sisters do everything in their power to keep her from crying because it breaks their hearts to think that she is sad or upset for even a moment. Amazingly, she is not spoiled at all. Just totally loved.

How can you resist a smile like that?! She is never in trouble because all she has to do is flash that little smile at me and I melt like butter. She didn't start out very social at all. She wouldn't look at anybody. I am so glad that she has decided to not only look at us but smile at us too. It would break my heart if I had to miss out on such a sweet little smile. She is starting to laugh as well. It's not a big belly laugh, it's more of a fake little laugh, but I'll take it. It makes me laugh everytime she does it.

Her first birthday came faster than I was ready for. We decided to have a quiet little family birthday party for her. She wasn't too thrilled about all the attention she had gotten that day. We took her to the mall to show her off to all my friends at Build-A-Bear. I put her in the display window for a picture and it came out so cute. She looks so tiny next to all the animals. I made her wear her party hat so that everyone would know that it was her birthday. She didn't mind in the beginning but you can see how thrilled she was by the time we got to the cake.

Daddy didn't mind that I made him wear the hat so much, he just hated that it was pink.

She is the first one of our babies to actually eat real food and like it, so when she got a big piece of cake infront of her she didn't hesitate to jump right in. I can't believe how fast she ate that cake! There was hardly anything left on the plate when she was done. If I had chosen chocolate cake (hind sight is always 20/20) you would see only a small mess on her. Most of it was me trying to make her look messy before she ate all the cake.

All in all, it was a great birthday. We had so much fun, and I think for the most part, so did she. I know that her second year will fly by even faster and it is killng me. I hope that I won't get so busy with life that I miss it. Keep an eye out for updates on what she is up to now that she is officially a 1 year old.

Update on the Homefront

I got a call yesterday afternoon from the lady handling our housing project. She wanted to know if she had told me that we had a meeting on Tuesday night. I'm like...NO!, could you have called a little sooner? She said that she couldn't remember who she had called and who she hadn't. I'm glad that she did at least give me one day's notice. She said that we have a meeting on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Tuesday of next week, all from 5:30-7:00 and they are mandatory. She then asks me if that is going to be okay...like I have a choice. I hope that it's not going to be this unorganized and last minute all the time. Anyway, the meeting was good, it mainly told us that we are going to have to buy about $300 in tools before we can start working (I have no idea how we're going to pull that off), and then reminded us about the 35 hours/wk we are required to put in. I got to meet 4 of the other couples building in our group. They seem like good people who are as eager to get the homes finished as fast as we are. We also got something real exciting and a little more concrete in realizing that we really are going to have our own home, our new address. It was so fun to see it for the first time. The address is:

987 West 1600 South
Payson, UT 84651

Oh yeah, they also told us that this project is either going to make or break our marriage. It is a long and hard process and we have to be really committed if its going to work. Generally the couples come out stronger in the end but they have had 3 couples get divorced as a result of doing this program. Doesn't that strike confidence in weather or not you really want to go through with this.

I know we will be fine, we have the Lord on our side. It will be hard but it will be soooooo worth it. Anyway, we'll keep you updated on anything important we learn in the other meetings. They did say that if all goes well we will close on the loan and start digging before the end of the month. Keep your fingers crossed. : )

Adventures in Skateboarding: Part II

Just before Rebecca got out of school yesterday I got a call from the Urgent Care office. After the Radiologist had closely examined the x-rays he found that she did indeed have a stable fracture in her wrist. He called it a Distal Ulnar Fracture. There are two bones in the forearm, the radius...the side of the thumb...and the ulna...the side of the pinkie. So it was the bone on the side of the pinkie that she injured. Because it's a stable fracture it doesn't require a cast but they did say that she needed to go to her doctor right away and get a splint to prevent further injury. Now I don't feel stupid for taking her to get x-rays even though she could move her wrist. She got her splint and wasn't too sure about it at first but once the doctor put it on she decided that it was comfortable and helped her with the pain.

She wanted to have us sign her splint just as we would have for a cast. We used a light pink marker so you can't see the names very well but she loves it. Notice the bandages on the knee? It doesn't look so bad in the picture but her knee really got banged up as well. She can't ride the skateboard for 3 weeks but she can't wait to try it again.

Birthday/Birthday

In July we have the highest concentration of birthdays in our family. Elizabeth and Rebecca's birthdays are one day apart on the 11th and 12th. Rebecca's being first. They are both the same age for one whole day. We used to have their party on the same day but now they are old enough they want their own birthdays. I like that idea because it means we get cake for two days in a row. This year I let the girls make their own cake. They were so excited that they started planning their cake about a month in advance. They went over what flavor of cake, what flavor of icing, what color of decorations, and so on. I had no idea that this was so important to them. I had so much fun just watching them work together without a single argument. They had originally wanted a single cake that they would share. They would each decorate one half. We talked them in to having two smaller cakes instead of one big cake and then they could each decorate a whole cake. They chose a lemon cake with lemon icing, and Tinker Bell decorations. I think they did a great job of decorating. I just left the room and let them do what ever they wanted (unusual for me because I have the need to control everything they do.) They had so much fun that I think this will become a tradition for our family.

Here is Rebecca's creation. She is the Tinker Bell fan so she made sure there was Tink deco.

Wow! I didn't realize how much flameage comes from just 10 candles. I hate to think of the flamage that would come off my cake.

Elizabeth chose the lettering. Her favorite color is green so she made sure there was a lot of green on her cake. I think it looks great.

I think this needs to be Elizabeth's last birthday. I can't believe how old she looks in this picture.

Adventures in Skateboarding

On Saturday, Rebecca was taken to Salt Lake to join a group of kids from the 4-H Club for a skateboarding extravaganza. She got a free t-shirt and watched some professional kids perform their tricks. One of the performers, a 14 yr. old boy that Rebecca calls "Little Dude" autographed her t-shirt (we're not sure who it is because we can't read the name.) She had a lunch break and then she was given her very own skateboard to learn tricks on. She was given lessons on proper techniques for moving forward, but they didn't have time to teach the kids how to turn or stop (who needs to know those thing anyway, right?). She got a technique video though and came home to show her sisters her new found skill.

She was outside for all of 5 minutes when she comes in the house in tears holding her arm to her chest. "Mom, I fell off my skateboard and now my arm hurts REALLY bad!" I had made it 11 years without hearing those words. Oh well, I guess you have to let them be kids sometime. Rebecca is really tough and doesn't normally cry when she gets hurt, and if a tear does escape her eye she says that it must be something in her eye because she's not crying. So when she was in hysterics I took it very seriously. I looked at her arm and there was a big bruise in the middle of her forearm. I felt the bruise and there was a big lump underneath it. I figured because of the amount of pain and the lump on her arm I had better have it looked at. I gave her some ice to put on it and rushed her to Urgent Care. By the time we got in the exam room at the Urgent Care office, about 30 min. latter, I took another look at the arm and the bruise was still there but the lump was almost gone. I had her move her wrist around and there was no problem, it was just sore. I knew it was probably just bruised at that point and kind of felt stupid for rushing so fast, but since I had already paid the fee and she was in the exam room we had the arm x-rayed anyway just to be sure. The doctor said that even though she could move her arm around there was a slight chance that it was still broken. After two sets of x-rays and 30 more minutes of waiting the doctor came in the room, said it's not broken, give her Tylenol if she needs it, and you can go now.

When the accident first happened Rebecca had sworn off skateboarding forever. That didn't last long though. After the pain went down and she knew that her arm wasn't broken she decided that she wanted to learn new tricks on her skateboard asap. I thought the first trick could be how to stop! I'm still not crazy about her having the skateboard but I want her to gain confidence in herself and in trying new things. Seeing the excitement in her face when she talks about all that she wants to learn to do on the skateboard makes me realize there is no way I could ever ban her from it anyway. She has better padding and protection now so hopefully we won't have any more trips to Urgent Care.

Update on Home

We got news today that our loan is still the only loan that has been approved. There has to be at least 5 loans approved to be able to start the pre-construction process. They are expecting all the other loans to come rolling in any day now. I have a letter stating that they anticipate us closing the loan on our home in mid-October. Not quite the news we were hoping but we are glad to finally hear something.

Student Governemt

Elizabeth came home with some great news. She has beat out many other students to become the Vice President of her school's student council for one semester. This was an amazing feat for her because she is normally so shy and hates attention from anyone but mom and dad (and sometimes she doesn't even want our attention.) To even be considered she had to get the recommendation of two former teachers and her parents, write a paragraph on what student council is and why she would be a good candidate, and to top it off she had to complete a personal interview. All of these tasks would normally have been too much for her but she wanted to be in student council so bad that she completed all of the tasks with ease. The only thing she is nervous about is that she has to go on camera sometimes to deliver the school news. I am soooooo proud of her! Way to go Elizabeth, you will be an awesome Vice President.

Our Hero

A little over two years ago we bought a pet fish. We got a beta because they are a hearty fish and pretty as well. We asked the girls what they wanted to name him and they thought that because his colors were red and blue they would call him Hero. He has been a good little fish, always cleaning up after himself, never jumping out of the tank, and playing with us whenever we want him to. Last night we noticed that he was being very active. He kept swimming to the top of the water and then going back down very quickly over and over. I thought he was looking for food so CJ fed him. About 5 minutes later I saw him fight to get to the top of the tank and then fall to the bottom and lay on his side. I didn't see any other movement. I told CJ that I think Hero just died. He checked on him and said that he was just resting on the bottom. About 30 minutes after that I went to see if he was still resting. I found that he was no longer breathing, nor did he respond to his tank being taped.

This morning we had a little funeral for him. We had a viewing for the girls and then said a little prayer. We took him to his burial plot and everyone put a shovelful of dirt on him, then we said a last goodbye. He was tiny, but he was part of the family and we will miss our Hero.

Home Sweet Home

As most of you have already heard we put in an application for a new home and it was approved! We are so excited. This is a USDA Rural Housing Self-Help Home which means that we will be building our home as well as 5 others. The sweat-equity we put into building the homes becomes our down payment. In the program 6 to 8 families (6 in our case) help build each other's homes. This lowers the cost of the home, helps us to learn skills that we can use to repair or upgrade our home, and builds unity with our neighbors. No one can move into their home until all 6 homes are finished. It will take approximately 8 months to build all the homes once they get started so we are praying that they are able to start building asap. Each family is required to work a minimum of 35 hours/wk on the homes. Some of the hours can be volunteer hours so we will be looking for as many volunteers as we can get. We have had many people that have told us they would love to help and we are so grateful for them. We feel so blessed. It will be a very hard 8 months but when it is all said and done we will have a brand new home.

CJ and I both had the day off today so we took some time this morning and went to Payson to visit the site of our new home. We wanted to take some pics before they start digging (which we hope will be any day now) so that we could record the progress from the very beginning.

The house will face north/south. The mountains in the background will be what we see from the back porch.

CJ and Megan are standing right about where the front porch will be. The next pics will be when the ground has been broken.

Add a caption

I was looking through some pictures on one of my camera's memory cards that I had forgotten to place in the photo album. I found one in particular that I just loved. This is Megan after a bath about 2 months ago. We were trying to come up with a caption to rename this picture. The girls came up with some good ones and we laughed for a long time. I would like to hear some of your ideas for a caption. You can reply with as many caption ideas as you like. The more, the better. Thanks for your help.

How does your garden grow?

One of the things we have always wanted but couldn't have, because we have lived in rental housing almost all of our married life, was a vegetable garden . This year we decided that we would do our best to have a garden even if we had to grow one miniature tomato plant in our kitchen window. I saw a program on PBS that showcased gardening in England where they have extremely small yard space and yet they have huge gardens. They did it by growing almost all of their vegetables in pots. I would have thought that pots would not give the roots enough room but some of their large plants were in very small pots. Well, we thought we would give it a try.

We started some tomato plants in our kitchen window and when the weather was right we planted them in pots in our front yard. On the last day of school Dakota brought home a corn seed that she had sprouted in school as part of a project so we let her plant it in one of the pots too. Then about a week later Elizabeth and Rebecca came home from a church activity with some squash seedlings and we planted those as well. Before we knew it we had a decent sized little garden in our front yard. The biggest problem we encountered was the wind. Once the plants reached a certain size they could not stand up to the wind. (With the exception of the large pot on the end. It never had a problem with the wind.) Sometimes we would have to bring the plants into the carport to protect them. I'm sure our neighbors thought we were crazy and all of them were curious to see if we really could get a garden to grow in pots. Sometimes I did feel like a fool and wondered if we would get anything to grow as well, but we did get them to grow and we had fun doing it. We didn't have total success but we will take what we have learned this year and add to it next year. The girls had fun watering the plants (there wasn't a need for weeding, yeah) and kept asking when they were going to get to eat the vegetables. They love picking the ripe tomatoes everyday and count how many more we have that have yet to ripen. We feel very blessed with our garden.

Here is our little pot garden. We have 5 pots of tomatoes, 1 corn, and 3 squash.

Our tomatoes did the best. I did have one tomato horn worm that found its way in to the pot. Other than that the only other obstacle was the wind. We've had a good harvest.

The girls couldn't tell us what kind of squash they had brought home so it was "surprise squash" for a while. We did determine that it was yellow squash. We had lots of flowering but very few squash buds. Two of the buds grew to about 1 1/2 in. in length but then they would just die. I don't know for sure why they couldn't survive but my theory is that the pots were not big enough to handle squash.

The corn plant was the hardest to keep upright. Any slight wind would take it down. I think it was blown over one too many times because the two ears of corn that were growing nicely just stopped growing one day. I also found a grasshopper chowing down on the stalk. Dakota was disappointed but understands that we did our best. I would think either a bigger pot for corn next time or just leave it to row gardening. We will still use the stalk as a fall decoration though.

I was home alone with Megan a week ago and was out gathering tomatoes. I washed one off and gave it to her to play with. She rolled it around for a few minutes like a ball and then decided to take a bite. She got a big eyed look and then just started devouring the tomato as if it were the last food she was going to eat. I almost didn't get a picture of her eating it because she was eating it so quickly. The other girls were sad they missed it and kept asking me to give her another one. This morning I sat down with a bowl of tomatoes for breakfast and Megan saw them. She got very excited and asked for one. When she was done she asked for a second one. I can't believe she ate them both. She asked me for a third but I said no because she was already covered in tomato junk and I thought two was enough. She didn't like that idea. I guess we grew another tomato lover as well with our garden.

First Day of School

The first day of school for my girls was on Aug. 18. Dakota is now in 3rd grade, Rebecca is in 5th, and Elizabeth is in 6th. This is Elizabeth's last year in elementary school. I can't believe she will be in Jr. High next year. She's too young, and she looks too small. The girls were counting down the days until school started (Rebecca was counting down the minutes) because they still love it so much. I hope that they always love to go to school and know what the value of education means to them in their lives. They are doing so well this year so far. I think it's going to be a great year. (Sorry the pictures are so dark.)

Good looking group of girls.

Elizabeth, 6th grade

Rebecca, 5th grade

Dakota, 3rd grade

55 Questions

Okay, so about a month ago I was tagged on my friend Nancy's blog with these 55 questions. She has been waiting forever for me to start a blog and even tried to start one for me. So it is in her honor that my first blog entry will be answering those questions.

1. Have you ever showered with someone? Yes. Me, Myself, and I.

2. Do you still talk to the person that you fell hardest for? Yes, everyday (although he probably wishes I'd take a break sometimes.)

3. Where was the first kiss you had with the last person you kissed? In the delivery room. Gotta love those goodnight kisses from the girls.

4. Who is your last text from and what does it say? I don't use texting on my phone. Those new fangled electronical gadgets confuse me too much.

5. Burger King or Wendy's? Wendy's! I love the Jr. Bacon Cheesburgers and my fries dipped in the frosty.

6. Latest you stayed up in the past week? Let's see, what time is it now? I'd have to say at least 1:30 am.

7. Where are you right now? Living room.

8. Do you have someone of the opposite sex you can tell everything to? Yes. Although I don't tell him everything because that would utterly confuse him and then bore him to tears.

9. What were you doing at 9:30 last night? Delivering a great score of moving boxes to my friends.

10. Are you listening to music right now? Just the music of mother nature and the anoying cricket right outside the window.

11. Was it a boy or girl to text you first today? Refer to question #4

12. What does the 7th text in your inbox say, and from who? Again, refer to question #4

13. Are you currently wanting any piercings or tatoos? Nope

14. How long can you go without your phone? Considering the fact that we have gone days without a single phone call I would say 2 weeks.

15. Who was the last person you talked on the phone with and what did you talk about? Amy. She wanted to know if I was still going to color her hair today.

16. Who last called you babe/baby? My husband, now that I let him.

17. Does your phone ring in the middle of the night often? No

18. Do you know anyone who is married that shouldn't be? I think so, maybe, maybe not, I don't know.

19. If your ex said they hate you, you say? Whatever!

20. Do you curse infront of your parents? No

21. What is your current annoyance? Being ignored

22. Last time you saw fireworks, with who and where? 24th of July, with my family, in my front yard.

23. Who did you last lay in bed with? Megan, she woke up before I was ready to get out of bed so I just laid her next to me.

24. Are you afraid of roller coasters? No and yes. I love roller coasters but their are some that are just insanely scary looking.

25. What would you do if your best friend told you they were moving? My friends always seem to move away from me. Is it something I said? Maybe I should take a shower more often.

26. Macy's gift card or Hollister's gift card? Niether.

27. Who pissed you off yesterday? Obama (when does he not)

28. At what age do you want to be married? I always wanted to be married at 18. I was 23 when I FINALY got married. I was afraid that I would never find someone willing to put up with me.

29. Where is your mom right now? Probably at her computer doing some last minute geneology before going to bed.

30. What are you supposed to be doing right now? Sleeping

31. Are you slowly drifting away from someone? Most likely, but not on purpose.

32. When was the last time you felt unbearably guilty? 2 weeks ago. I lost the birthday card my friends had given me. It had gift certificates in side it so that CJ and I could go on a real date. I couldn't face them. (I have since found the card, yea!)

33. Are you bored? No, just wondering how many more questions I have to go.

34. What girls can you tell everything to? Unfortunately I have a habit of telling all my secrets way too often. My friends know way more about me than they want to. I need to learn to keep some things to myself.

35. The last person you talked to on AIM/MSN? I would agian have to refer you to question #4, you know, too much conflabit technology and so forth.

36. Have you ever kissed someone who's name started with an A? I kissed my brother Aaron on the cheek. Does that count?

37. Can you play guitar hero? Yes. I found out that I'm quite the rocker.

38. Do you prefer warm or cold weather? Warm is okay as long as it's not too warm.

39. What do you currently hear right now? The blasted cricket and my blinds blowing in the breeze. Oh my fridge just kicked on.

40. 3 days in a hotel or NFL game tickets? Are the Broncos playing?

41. How old do you think you will be when you finally have kids? Well I hoped to have 2 kids by the time I was 21. I guess it doesn't always turn out like you plan.

42. Would you rather watch football or baseball? Football, unless my team is in the World Series.

43. Where is your number one person on your friends list? He's in bed sleeping. Although he will probably be getting up to get ready for work pretty soon.

44. What's your ring tone? If it's CJ "If we were a movie", if it's my sis-in-law "I want fabulous", if it's my parents "Pirates of the Carabean", for anyone else it's a psyco phone ringing.

45. Three things you did yesterday? Babysit, go to a meeting at school, balance the checkbook.

46. Did anyone see you kiss the last person you kissed? What is it with all the kissing questions?! Yes, all my other children.

47. When a freind walks out of your life, do you go after them or let them go? I would let them go. I'm not going to force anyone to be my friend if they don't want to.

48. Looking back, did you ever waste too much time on someone that treated you bad? No

49. Have you ever kissed in the rain? Probably not

50. Have you ever fallen asleep in someones arms? Yes

51. What are you doing tonight? Going to bed

52. Do you know anyone who is pregnant? Yes, and that list gets longer everyday.

53. Do you still talk to the person you last kissed? Again with the kissing. Yes, I get to boss her around as much as I want and she has to take it.

54. Does anyone hate you? I don't think anyone hates me but I do believe that there are people who don't like me or are dissapointed in me.

55. Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance? What a deep question. I don't think this has a yes or no answer. I like to think I am a forgiving person, but there are some circumstances that you might not be able to give a second chance to.

So now you know some trivia about me, and more about my kissing habits than you wanted to hear. If there were any questions left out that you want to know the answer to just let me know and I'll do my best to answer it.

Blog Hopeful

I have been reading some of my friends blogs for a while now and I love it and have wanted to start one of my own. I am not as creative as they are so I will have to pirate most of my ideas from them but at least I will have finally started a blog. If nothing else it will be a fun way for me and my family to share our experiences and thoughts with others. I hope you all enjoy our blog and feel free to comment as much as you like (as if I had to say it) because I love reading the comments. I am not sure how to load pics yet so please be patient with this work in progress. I will also be blogging about past events as well as current events since I have so much to catch up on. Thanks a bunch and happy reading.