Tuesday, December 15, 2009

We made it

Where did the past 3 months go? It has really all been a blur, but a blur that I survived none-the-less. I finished (and passed) my 2nd semester of the nursing program, 1 more to go :) Shawn left at the beginning of October for a 10 week training at the Idaho POST academy in Boise. This is essentially police academy which was required of his job. Shawn was able to be home all but 2 Saturdays and on Thanksgiving weekend so we did get to see him but not a whole lot got done.

I would never have made it through the past 10 weeks without my amazing family. Heather is my personal angel. She rearranged her schedule to help me out. I had to be in Idaho Falls 4 days a week, 3 of those days had me leaving my house around 5:45 a.m. in order to get to my clinical rotation or class on time. That means that I had to leave long before the kids were out of bed and with Shawn being 4 hours away, Heather assumed the role of getting the kids up and ready for school. Many times, she got off of work at 3 a.m. and still got up at 7 to get the kids going. There were some days that her schedule could not be changed and my dad spent the night at my house and stayed with Hallie during the day. Brooke also took a round of sleeping over with her kids to watch my children on a Saturday. What an amazing blessing my family is to me.

So, Shawn's home and it is almost Christmas. This week we are working on catching up on the housework and getting our Christmas decorations up. We are also trying to get ready for this little blessing coming in the next 4 weeks. We are still undecided on a name. The kids want Hunter. I like Hudson and Shawn is pining for Titan. I have trained Hallie when asked what she thinks of Titan to say, "Titan stinks".

Two weeks ago when Shawn was home, we went to a 'Breakfast with Santa' at my school and here are some pictures that we got from our time with Santa. The most amazing part of this is that Hallie actually sat on Santa's lap and had a conversation with him. Everyone was laughing and she did not like that but all in all she enjoyed her time with Santa.


Thursday, September 3, 2009

First Day of School (a week or so late)

The kids started school on Wednesday and I started on Thursday. Has it already been over a week? School is crazy busy for me so far and I've still got 14 weeks left. Enough about me though.
Hayden is my mighty 2nd grader. He came home from school in a great mood and proudly stated that he loved his teacher. I hope that he is able to sustain this attitude all year long. He is so big and so responsible and I am so thankful that he is mine.

Hadley is in kindergarten. It was not as emotional for me to send her off to school, this in part because she rode the bus with her big brother who I know will take care of her and she has the same teacher that Hayden had for kindergarten and she is AWESOME!!
Little Miss Hadley striking a pose

Hadley's teacher asks the parents to make a scrapbook page of the kids to use on the first day as a get-to-know-you tool. Here is the one that Hadley and I made. I am by no means the scrapper that many of my cousins are but I think it turned out OK.
Front (we only got 1 page)
Back

I thought that Hallie would enjoy her mornings without her siblings but she actually gets sad when they leave in the morning and asks where they are all day long. That brings her mommy such joy. It makes me so happy when they love each other the way that I love them.
Hallie posing with Hadley

So we survived the first week and are planning for a great year. We hope the same for everyone else out there too.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Hot dog or Hamburger

Yesterday was a very good day. Drum roll please..........













It's a hot dog or as the ultrasound tech said "a third leg". Both are a little vulgur but either way it means a boy!! Shawn about jumped out of his seat, Hayden cheered, Hadley burst in to tears, Hallie was already in tears because she thought that I was being hurt. I must say that I am also very pleased because I did NOT want to have another head of hair to do every day. The ultrasound looked good- all parts there, he looked healthy and no definite markers for any deformities/diseases. He would not turn so that we could get a profile picture but we really got the information that we came for so I didn't mind. Here are a couple of picture of his face which I personally think are a little wierd but what the hey, I just posted a picture of his down under so why not one of his face.

His little fist kept grabbing at the air.

Our little alien. He was moving his lips so it looks cool on the video

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Last bit of summer

Seriously, where has summer gone? School starts this week for all of us. Hayden & Hadley on Wednesday and myself on Thursday. Many of my friends are sad because their kids are back in school and they will miss them. I guess that I'm not as kind because I am estatic that my kids are going to school. I love the schedule that school provides, mostly because I don't have to make it.

Here are a few pics of us winding down our summer.


Hallie finally figured out how to pedal her tricycle.
She is hilarious! She puts on her helmet and is off.
Sometime the helmet is right, other times it is backwards.

She is really good about staying right in front of the house too.

It is always amazing to me how much kids pick up on a copy.
Hallie always puts her bike on its side like her brother & sister.
She gets off, picks it up and puts it on its side.


Hadley has kept up on her photography passion.
Here are a few pictures of summer play as seen by Hadley:


Her brother on the trampoline




We've also had fun at the "beach".
Jensen's Grove is 5 minutes from our house and the kids love to
go swimming and play in the water.




Hallie still only likes her feet in the water.
Here she is coming to tell on her sister for getting her too wet.


We've had a great time this summer. It was super short for myself with school and I am really looking forward to next year when I don't have class all summer and will even have a new family member to enjoy it with.

Friday, August 14, 2009

The baby

Here are a couple of pics from the ultrasound I had last week. It was a quickie, about 5 minutes is all, because the ultrasound lady was backed up and in a hurry. We didn't even get to check "down under" to see what we are having. No worries though, I have another one on the 26th and will find out then. The two pictures look almost exactly the same. I'm mostly just excited to see a viable baby with long legs and he/she had a strong heart beat. My due date is January 16th.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Camping w/ the fam

This week we went camping in Island Park. We were going to go to Palisades and bring the boat while sleeping in a tent. I put the kibosh on that one. While a tent sounded just wonderful, I prefer the camp trailer. So off we were. We camped at Buttermilk campground near the Island Park resevoir. Our site was just across from a set of docks. We brought Lloyd (the dog) and he had a blast fetching a stick from the water. Shawn and Hayden ordered the book The Summer of the Monkeys and Shawn brought it with us to read. It was really kind of fun sitting around and listening to him read the story.


The next day was a busy one. We first loaded up and went to Big Springs to feed the fish. There were seagulls everywhere trying to steal the food from the fish. The kids had a blast feeding both the fish and the seagulls. I, of course, left my the camera in the car during this so no pics.


We decided to unload the 4-wheelers and go for a ride. Hayden drove his and the rest of us (that's right 4 of us!) piled on Shawn's. Lloyd ran next to us. That poor dog got more exercise in this one day than he has got the entire summer. We wore him right out. He fell asleep sitting up several times that night and the next day.

It was a beautiful ride. We saw so much beauty. While on the ride, we crossed an old railroad bridge where people were putting in to float the fork. Shawn and I had made this float 10 years ago when Lloyd was just a puppy and we thought it would be fun to take the kids on it as well.




So off to Mack's Inn to rent a boat for a float trip. I forgot how long of a float it is. We started out strong. Shawn and the kids attempted fishing while I paddled the boat (we hit the shore several times-oops)

We stopped one time to try and let them fish from the shore but that didn't last long. The weeds were as tall as Hallie but that didn't stop her from exploring. Hadley was so sweet and helped her back to the boat.

We got back to camp with just enough time to make dinner and get to bed. We were all tired. Lloyd could barely it up the two steps in to the camper. The next morning, Shawn made us breakfast. That's right- I said Shawn made it. Now if I could just get him to cook at home.

The kids played and picked me some flowers while we packed up the camp site. It was a short but super fun trip. Hopefully we can do this again soon.


Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Summer in a nutshell

Well, it's Wednesday, didn't make it on Tuesday. So much has happened in the last few months and I have had almost no time to write about out. Here is a quick overview of our summer.

Hallie-

She is talking up a storm and wishing that she was older. She wants to be out front riding her bike with her brother and sister but hasn't been able to because Mom has been glued to her computer with school work. She loves to swing and jump on the trampoline. We visited Grandpa Humpherys up at Grand Targhee and she did not enjoy her horse ride with Dad.
Hallie and her friend Kaitlyn earlier this summer

She did not enjoy one second of this ride


Hadley

Hadley turned 5 in May. Unfortunately it was also the first week of school for Mom so it was not blogged about. She played her first year of t-ball and did very well. Mom was the assistant coach (not the best, sorry Heidi). She and her brother have found a group of kids in the neighborhood their age and are little social butterflies. She rode Sheila (the horse) all by herself up with Grandpa this summer and is looking forward to doing that again.

Our cute little softball player

Riding Sheila

Five yrs old- going on 15



Hayden

Hayden finished his first year of coach pitch baseball and unfortunately hated it. He found it boring. We may try one more year just to make sure that it wasn't just a bad year for him. He finished the 1st grade. Mom got to go help with field day the last week of school and she had a blast with him. He finally lost his first tooth in May. He has had fun playing with his friends this summer. He also had fun riding horses with Grandpa and rode all by himself.

Riding Reba
Jungle Day
1st tooth




Shawn
So busy. He is again this summer working 3 jobs. He is still working his regular patrol work week, working on marine patrol- 2 drownings so far this summer in Bingham County, and curbing. The 30+ days of rain this summer have put him behind and he is now doing double time to catch up. No pictures of Shawn, he's way to busy to sit still for a camera.

Hilary
School, clinicals, helping with Hadley's t-ball and trying to keep up with my beloved children. Notice housework not listed? Our poor family has noticed and now that school is out, I have to pick up the pace and get this place put back together. I finished the semester with two A-. I hate that stupid minus.

Look what I've got.....get it??

That is all that I'm writing for now. There is way too much that I skipped but I will try to keep up for the rest of this wonderful summer now that I can fully participate. Until next week.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Just wait, its coming

The summer semester is over and I am now facing the very messy house that we live in. I am planning to blog on Tuesday's. I have a whole summer to catch up on and I know this so the "catch up" emails can cease. All will be revealed on Tuesday.

Until then......

Friday, May 15, 2009

Lucky Ducky!!

Last Saturday we went to a safety fair that the city of Blackfoot held. The kids got new bike helmets, got to go through an ambulance and a smoke house to teach them about what to do in the event of a fire. While there they put their names in a free raffle for several things including a bike. Yesterday we got a call from a local auto dealer saying that Hayden won. Hayden was so excited he called just about everyone that he could think of. Hadley about had a nervous break down and we had to have a lengthy discussion on how it is important to be happy when something good happens for someone else. She finally decided that she was happy for him but sad for herself. At 5 I think I probably would have felt the same way.
Anyway, I think that I might have Hayden pick some numbers for the powerball on Saturday.

Monday, May 11, 2009

One down, one to go

Earlier I had posted that I had failed as a parent in teaching my kids to ride a bike. Well cross that one off the list. Hadley loves her bike. She would ride up and down the road with her training wheels, she couldn't get enough. She finally broke one of the training wheels off. Devastated, she just couldn't stay off the thing and decided to take her dad's advice and just ride with one until we could get it fixed. Shawn noticed that she wasn't even using the one and off they came. Here is the video that Shawn got with his phone.


Boy was Hayden mad. He wasn't even interested in his bike until he saw Hadley without her training wheels. It took him all until the next day to ditch the training wheels. Here he is on 2 wheels as well. Here is the video footage of Hayden. Mind you, he is on Hadley's bike, his is much cooler (he asked that I put that in here).

In celebration, I bought a child seat for the back of my bike. Hallie absolutely loves it. We are bike riding fools. This is good because I need to get off my butt. I have spent much of the last eight months on it studying and it shows. The weather is finally cooperating and we have had a blast. Here's to a fun bike-riding summer.

Hallie's B-day



Well she's gone and done it. My baby is two years old.

We had a party for her on the Saturday before her actual day at my mom's. It was hard for me to find a gift for her. She is happy with whatever she gets and her older brother and sister have so much for her to play with already. I took her to the store to see what she would want. We got to the isle with the dolls and she went nuts. She went down the isle saying hi and then kissing each one in her reach. She did end up with a lot of clothes and some fun toys.


Here she is with her cake. We couldn't get her to pose.


She kept stealing frosting from it (that's my girl)


Hallie does NOT like the birthday song. She breaks into tears every time we sing it. Even when it is for someone else. Here Hayden is comforting her during the song.
Half of the the bags and boxes are still bigger than she is!


This ended up being her favorite. I got her a stroller for her dolls. She loves to run around the house with it, especially when she can run it into someone else. She also likes to sit in it herself. We will probably have to replace it soon because it is already starting to tear a little from her.

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