My baby is five

My little Logan boy is now five years old. To celebrate, we went out for hamburgers because that was what his little heart desired. He ended up ordering a corn dog instead, because how can you not eat a corn dog at a nice restaurant. Honestly? He got a fun surprise when the waitress brought out a balloon, a free ice cream sundae, and a singing staff. He loved it.


We went to the arcade and played around, and then ended with mini golf and a ride in the baby cars. I cannot convince these two to ride with us on the go carts. They are too scared to get on with mom and dad. I don't get it. It's fun.

We went to the Jubilee of Trees. I love seeing all the different ideas for trees. I can't afford to decorate my tree the way these trees require to look that stunning, but it is so fun to go look for ideas anyway. The festive holiday atmosphere definitely gets me in the mood. I'm so excited for Christmas even though I am stressing because I don't know what to get anyone for gifts.


Logan quite skillfully led us as we sang him the birthday song so he could blow out candles on his requested chocolate pie (instead of cake).


Happy Birthday Logan! My baby is five. I can't believe my youngest is that old. That won't last for too long, but still...craziness. I am grateful that he came to our family five years ago. I love his smiling silly nature and his appetite for fun. I love that he has Grandpa Barry's pale blue eyes. I feel like I have a small piece of my father, even though he's not around anymore. (It will be 8 years this month since he died. I can't believe it has been that long, even though there has been a huge void felt.)

It is times like these that I miss him the most. When I see a Grandpa with a grandchild at the park, or at family gatherings, then I can't help but feel a little jipped in life. I'm not planning a pity party or anything, but some things happen in life that alter it in a way that can never be the same. And it is a jipped feeling. You go on and accept things because what else is there to do? But the gospel helps to put it in a perspective that you have something to look forward to at a later date.

Happy Halloween

Chase wanted to be a vampire for Halloween. I thought, "How boring." But it's what he wanted. He kept looking down in all the pictures. Guess that's what vampires do in pictures.

Logan wanted to be a knight/ninja. (That's a ninja outfit under the armor)

update

So I just had the 18 week ultrasound.
Chase really wanted a girl since we don't have any.
Logan really wanted a boy because he doesn't like girls. (even though his bff is a girl)

Mommy definitely wanted a a girl.

But Chase learned a great saying in kindergarten: "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit."

I told myself this as I learned that I am having my third boy. Yes, a little disappointment. Yet I've had this feeling for years I'm going to have boys so it's not so surprising. It is easy to mourn what you won't have, but when I look at my two boys, I feel a swell of love for them, and so it will be with my next little boy. I'm just grateful to be able to have children and the world needs more good men, so I really hope that I can raise these boys to love the gospel and want to be righteous men. I will gladly go broke putting all these boys on missions.

Want to know something?????

Since I've hit the twelve week mark, I thought it was time that I announce the obvious announcement (what else is there?) that I am expecting. My little brood of two kids is going to jump to three in mid-March. And since I've birthed my previous kids a week or two earlier than the due date, it probably means that this kid will be born on my birthday. We already share our wedding anniversary with our first child, why not give up yet another holiday that was once mine? (I hope not)

Proof, if you need it. Looks like a baby dog or something.

We are super excited, since this is long overdue for me. Good heavens, there's going to be such gaps between my children, but I'm grateful to have them anyway.

I've been gloriously sick and fatigued and it started extremely early. June was nice for my family, but July and August have been less than fun . I wish the summer could have gone differently and full of much more excitement, but it was what it was-Momma sprawled on the couch, eating grapes, saltines, and rice crispy cereal while telling dad to pick up a pizza or to eat sandwiches for dinner...again.

We don't know yet, whether it be a boy or girl, but everyone keeps telling me I need to have a girl, so that means that all of you speaking those words will curse me into having another boy. I've already accepted that I just might have an all-testosterone studded family and that's ok, but I do hold a smidge of hope that I can get to play with frilly bows.

End of the Summer

Last week was very eventful. Chase started second grade. Yeah!

And Grandma Mary and Auntie Lauren came for a visit. We had lots and lots of fun.

The boys think Auntie is the coolest. She kind of is.

And we got to celebrate Lauren's 18th birthday with her. No cigarrettes or lottery tickets for her, just pizza factory. Yum.

It is impossible for any picture to turn out because of Logan. He is always smiling creepily, his tongue is out, or his head is turned around. A normal picture is so rare. This one of our family is such a typical Logan picture. I think I will give up and hang his abnoxiousness because it is all we have.

We were walking around SUU's campus, which by the way is a lovely little campus with nice grounds to walk around. As it became dusk, we walked by this stadium and had to double take. Did the stands really spell THAT out on the home teams bleachers? Yep. Pretty sure it did. This gave us a good laugh.

oopsie doopsie

I spent "forever" typing and downloading a new blog post with more pics of our sedona vacation. However, I accidently signed into my family blog with my recipe blog acct. I could not delete it once I posted it...or did not see any obvious way to do so.

So if you would like to see this entry, go to this place-
http://bairdsforsimpleanddelicious.blogspot.com/

I am not typing it out again. Blah.

Sedona part 1, plus more family news

Last week we went on a trip to Sedona, AZ with most of Jonny's family. As you can see, Sedona is quite majestic, unique and beautiful for a desert setting. We had lots of fun. This will be my (short) first post about it, because I have five wild boys playing in my house and they keep requiring my critical attention. Anyway, my favorite part of the trip was that the cousins got to play together for the first time in a couple years. They were cutie pies.


The hikes were great, especially the ones where no kiddos were involved. You could actually hike more then ten yards without a child complaining of tiredness.




The sunsets were beautiful. There'd be this glowing sun on your face, then suddenly it would darken and just the tips of the cliffs in the background continued to glow.




And for more family news....so you know how we were moving to Montana? The moving truck was scheduled to arrive at our home in about three weeks. Well...the group Jon works for wanted to send him to a different town to work in a tribal clinic. (Jon's basically been working in indian tribe clinics which the govt contracts to med clinics) We didn't want that job, so we took the MT job. Jon's bosses then decided they no longer wanted to do the tribe contracts so everyone involved with that was losing their job the end of this month.

Two weeks ago the Tribal administration approached Jon and wanted to hire him. Same job, different boss. Their offer was comparable to the Mt job, so it was cause for consideration. It's quite a tempting offer to stay put. We like our town, the job is decent, the pay is good, and we won't have to move. Or move to MT for a great job, but with it comes lots of change again.

We had a rough week where we tried hard to make the best decision. Both jobs were great and it was a struggle to decide what would be best for our family. We started to lean towards staying put and once we finally made the decision, it felt like a tremendous burden was lifted from our shoulders. We felt wonderful and peaceful about it.

The MT job was a good one, and we made that decision months ago, but now I can recognize that it felt strange at times. Our hearts still felt troubled here and there, but it was the only option. After this sudden job in our town becoming available and us taking it, we feel none of those troubles. Just peace. We are super duper happy about staying. I do feel bad about getting everyone's hopes up in MT and then letting them down. I almost wanted to go to MT so that there was no disappointment among those that I love.

I feel absolutely grateful and fantastic that I feel like things have lined up for us. I'm surprised that this last minute offer has completely changed the course we were on. But at least our initial move to this town and not having our first job work out has made some more sense. We are going to be much better off financially working for the tribe than the med clinic that first hired us. For some reason, this is where we are meant to be for now, and I have a feeling that it will work out for our good.

A school year gone by

It's the last day of first grade for Chase boy. Here's a picture on the first day of school and on the last day. He's has definitely gotten taller and he's turning more into a bigger boy. He has learned a lot this year, as well as he should. He did wonderful in school, he is an excellent reader, and he's a good friend. I love him.



Logan hasn't changed a whole lot other than that he's definitely grown a whole size. I noticed that he was fitting on his bike pretty comfortably the other day. When we bought it a year ago, he was a little small for it. He is still at home for another year with me since he is not five by August. He is already getting bored...and I will have to be proactive in entertaining him next year. He has grown a lot too. It's fun to see a small child go from just learning his ABC's to learning how to read simple words. They learn so much at these young ages. Love em.

What's one more move...again

Well, life is changing dramatically again for us. (*sigh*) Jon finished grad school last August in Montana, we moved to Utah in October and that job we took ended up tanking 6 weeks after we took it. All that time we've been looking around for a better situation. We have tried very hard to make it work in Utah. We really have, but things have not worked out in that particular direction.

At the begining of the year, we found a job posting through a recruiter with a great hospital system in MT. It's just about where I grew up. We himmed and hawed about it, wondering if we should apply, because neither of us really desired to live in that town. We knew the town and knew it was doable, not our favorite, but we could live there. (Just being honest) The job started out as a family practice job in instant care, then somehow morphed into an internal med job, and lastly it turned into a sports med/orthopedics job. This was interesting, because Jon really digs that area of medicine, but it usually happens in a surgical setting and Jon isn't really interested in surgery. To sum it up, a non surgical orthopedic job is really rare.

We flew up and did the interview and felt like the situation could be a good one. When all the final details came together, it made sense to take the job. And it doesn't help that things all fit together well, like coincidence, which we don't necessarily believe in. It feels right to take the job even though once in awhile we will feel a little discouraged about small things like how bloody cold and long the winter is and the lack of things to do.

You just have to focus on the positive and we are very grateful that we feel blessed with a good job that we think Jon will enjoy, that there is a good income and good benefits, and we get to live near some of my family. Its funny that a lot of couples end up settling near the wife's family because that's what she wants. I wasn't one of those people...yet here I am settling near my family. And that's ok. We feel good about it. For some reason, we are meant to go there. So there is the big news. Another move, which makes two moves in less than a year. Yipee!!! I have become a pro at moving. (And the hospital is giving us a huge moving allowance...so we are having a moving company take care of things. I am super duper excited about that).

We are moving the end of July.

And here's a couple pictures of my boys. It has been so rainy and snowy and windy this spring. We took advantage of a warm weekend.



Logan is a spunky kid. He will rarely give me a normal picture. But at least I get to cherish his true personality through pictures.

GIRLS WEEKEND

Recently, we had a girls weekend (the gals in Jon's family and I) We went to Las Vegas where we ate out at delicious restaurants, shopped at fun stores, walked till our feet ached, saw some cool things and some trashy things, and recognized that the late night clubbing fashion trend was iddy biddy little mini dresses that didn't fit hardly a single gal. Awkward.


Caesars Palace will always remain my fav


This picture was the highlight of the trip. We were driving down the strip and we suddenly saw Snow White, which immediately elicited an "ahhhh" from us girls, until we got a close up view. This was a VEGAS snow white. So classic Vegas. Little girls were walking by and dropping their jaws at her. Their image of the classic Princess is so tainted now.




We saw Mystere, which was very exciting to watch, as well as very mysterious...


So thank you gals for a wonderful weekend. I had a lot of fun and really enjoyed spending time with you. Let's do it again!

Problem

Lately, whenever I type out my blog paragraphs, it posts them all bunched together without any spacing. I can't get it to stop doing that. Anyone know how to fix that?

Chore charts

Mrs. Busby asked that I do a blog about the chore charts we do for our boys. I got sick of making charts that were pretty specific, and as the kids grew bored, the charts would go to waste quickly. So Jon and I wanted to do something that was more permanent, but could also be adapted with the changes in the kids. Magnets are fun at our house, so we bought large baking pans that were magnetic. Then I bought craft paper and sprayed adhesive to make the paper stick. (I think adhesive is tricky and I still don't know how to use it well) I am so not crafty, and these charts are not well made, but hopefully they don't fall apart for at least a little while. I also don't own any kind of straight paper cutter, which is why I so wonderfully cut these bad boys with scissors. I can't cut a straight line to save my life. I should at least get the tools one day. Anyway, I just printed images off the internet to represent what it is I want to the boys to do. We "cheap" laminated them (packing tape on both sides) cut them out and then stuck an adhesive magnet on the back. When I took these pictures, the images were sharp and focused, but somehow transfering them to the blog undid that for some reason. Stupid blogs. I like that we can interchange the magnets and adapt to things the boys need to work on. Chase could not remember to make his bed worth his life, so once we made that a magnet, he seemed eager to do it so he could put the magnet up. We have specific chores that he must do everyday, and he gets paid a nickle for each chore. He has to brush teeth, make his bed, clean up toys, do homework, and unload the dishwasher. He can choose to do extra chores to make more money and we pay according to the chore. I have a vacuum and set the table magnet, but otherwise, they use the stars for anything else special they do. We keep the magnets on the bottom half and they move them up to the squares once they accomplish the chore.

Logan is my child who is hard to motivate to do anything. He does not ever change out of his pajamas so I have a t-shirt magnet to help remind him. He has to make his bed, brush teeth, pick up toys, and unload the silverware from the dishwasher. I also have an ABC magnet to encourage him want to do "learning"

We started having problems with the boys wanting to play the computer and watch tv all the time. Mostly Logan, since he's home all day. So now we limit the tv and computer time to a certain amount each day and they have to pay a nickle for each 15 minutes they use these things. The boys are motivated to do chores so they can earn money and in return they like to purchase tv and computer time...as well as anything else they would like to do with their money.

Now they know that once they buy their time, that's it.

So that is what we've done and it's worked decently so far. You can make magnet boards really cute and glue all types of fun things anywhere. I like simplicity, and given my lack of crafty ability, there's less things to fall off. hee hee.

29

Well, Jonny got on me for....I just realized that didn't sound very pg. Lets say Jonny got on my grill for...that still doesn't sound good. Hmm, how can I say it then? Jonny gave me crap for...um, that literally doesn't sound clean either. Our language is insane. No wonder the hispanics don't even try to understand it.

I will try this again by saying that Jonny gave me a hard time about posting about his birthday and not about mine, so here I am, doing my duty as a wife and as a blogger, to tell everybody about something that they really don't care about.

However, having said that, my birthday was AWESOME.

When your birthday falls on a Friday, there is no excuse not to have a better than average birthday. We pulled Chase out of school a little bit early, and then we drove to St. George to have a good time. I requested we go to Red Cliffs Park, which is a neat canyon to go hiking around in. We used to go there all the time when we lived in St. George. I love to go exploring in nature.

Then we went to a few stores that are not available in my town. I only have a walmart. I can't believe that target has such cute things. Shoes, clothes...its probably good I don't get to visit one often.

Then we went to one of our fav restuarants, Texas Roadhouse. Yum Yum. My husband told our server that it was his wife's birthday and he wanted to embarrass the he** out of her. Yes he did say that. So they brought out a saddle on wheels for me to sit on. I did while they did their cowboy whooping thing, and I even waved to everyone. A little embarrassing for a shy gal like me, but I did it.

We ended the day at Costco. We always end with that place when we go to St. George. It happens when you don't have one in your town.

Here are a few pictures from our hike.


This is the best one that turned out of our family for propping the camera on a rock.

I love this picture of Logan for some reason. It is so him. Sometimes in pictures he looks like a little midget man, instead of a four year old.

Chase looks sad here because he was doing some funny bouncing and I kept asking him to hold still for a picture, and he finally said, "Mom, I really really have to go to the bathroom." I told him to just give me a second, and this is the look he gave me.

We ventured on a fun trail and found ourselves in a small slot canyon...which was really cool. Chase, who is my pansy child, was scared because the sun didn't shine on us sometimes and he worried about wild animals. Hopefully boy scouts will toughen him up a bit.