A Bunch Of Little Things

I'm sure that you can tell when my husband is in town or not by how frequently I blog. I can never seem to justify blogging when I would rather be spending time with him :) We have done lots of fun things in the past two weeks or so. We met up with our friends Alyson & Josie at our nearest splash pad and enjoyed chatting while our kids cooled off in the water.

This picture of Ellie just makes me laugh. She is such a big girl and I love her bulging biceps, the sparse. crazy hair, and the look of "Mom, really?? Another picture?"

Ethan is a wild man when he gets around water. Well, I guess he is kinda hyper and crazy all the time but especially around water!

Ethan is my little helper around the house. For example, today Ellie was playing in the tupperware drawer and left some out on the floor. After dinner, Ethan rinsed out his bowl in the sink and must have noticed the tupperware out and picked up every piece and put it away without me even asking! I was so proud! 

He has daily chores such as: unloading the dishwasher, wiping off the table after every meal, and cleaning the bathrooms every other day. We play music while we clean and it is so easy to get him to do it. I hope it still is in a few more years too :)

We met up with Marcelle and Talmage at the Aquarium. The kids loved it!

Ethan and the Giant Japanese Spider Crab. I would flip if I ever saw one of those crawling beside me!

Of course, there was our little ER trip too. Poor kid was exhausted at the hospital. I am happy to report that after a solid week of high fever, he woke up one morning fever free and hasn't had one since. It took him about 4 or 5 days though after to get back to his old self. 

Almost all of Justin's siblings were in town last week and so we had a few fun filled days with them. We all went to Dave & Busters and had fun playing around. Justin and Ethan played the Jurrasic Park game and Ethan loved the roller coaster adventure. Ellie could have happily sat in the race car chairs the whole entire time. 

 

After D&B, we went to F1-Raceway. It was so fun to have all the siblings out there racing against each other!

These kiddos love to dance! Any time music is on, Ellie busts out her signature dance move of galloping like a prancing horse around the room. It is so cute. 

I haven't quite figured out how to cut the movies I upload to You Tube shorter but here is a long video of  a normal morning around our house :) Really the first 47 seconds are the most entertaining. 

And lastly, Justin got us a FREE night stay at one of the Marriot hotels in Phoenix so we got a little over night get-a-way! I guess because he spends a small fortune every year staying at Holiday Inn Expresses, Marriot caught on and is wanting to get his business! They set us up in a sweet little suite (ha!) and treated us as if we were celebrities! We walked in and saw this sign below and couldn't stop laughing at how funny we thought it was!

Life is good!

New Look!

Like my new blog look? It's so nice to have the creator of Cutest Blog On The Block in our ward and one of my good friends :) She is fabulous! She and her business partner have created great stretch background images for those of us who don't want a template that restricts our ability to upload bigger pictures. Check them out here!

Thanks Ash for the cute blog!

Poor Ethan

Late Tuesday afternoon, Ethan started running a pretty high fever. He had no appetite and just wanted to go to bed. He started complaining that his tummy hurt as well. So we put him to bed early. That night he woke up screaming in pain and kept complaining about his tummy. He was running a pretty high fever so we gave him some Motrin and tried to help him back to sleep. Bless his heart, he tried so hard to go back to sleep but kept crying because his tummy hurt him so bad. After a few hours, he threw up and was able to go back to sleep for an hour or so.

In the morning, he seemed to feel fine so we didn't worry too much about it. As the day went on, his fever started to spike again and he progressively became worse. We gave him medicine to try to combat the fever but it stayed elevated at around 103.5 for about 48 hours after that. He was still complaining of pain in his stomach area and the nights were (still are) horrible. After 2 days of that, his fever spiked up to 105.5 and we decided that it was time to take him to the doctor.

Our pediatrician examined Ethan's stomach by pushing on it and he was screaming and wirthering in pain so much it brought me to tears to see our sweet little boy like that. She recommended that we go to the ER just to make sure that it isn't appendicitis. She told us that it may be a viral infection but it's better to be safe than sorry.

I agreed and headed to the ER with him. After some tests they determined that it isn't appendicitis but rather a viral infection. Apparently, the glands in his stomach are swelling which causes him abdominal pain. They could tell right away that he wasn't drinking fluids with his sunken eyes and pale skin. We have been trying to push fluids on him but even a day after the ER visit, it is still hard to get him to drink. And he is still having abdominal pain and high fevers hovering around 104. They said to bring him back in right away if it hits 105 again so we are monitering that closely.

After another rough night last night, he is still sleeping at 11:00am and we are hoping that when he wakes up he will feel better and all this can be over! So kind of an anti-climatic ER visit, but we are so grateful that it isn't appendicitis and he still gets to keep all of his organs :) Here's to hoping today is better!

Blog Help!

As you can see, i am trying to give my blog a simple look but I have a few questions for you guys:

1. I want to make my pictures bigger when I post. I have looked up tutorials but I think they are using the old blogger format. They say to look for the 'outer wrapper' in the edit html section and I can't find it anywhere! I also want to do it to where it permanently uploads the pictures bigger. I don't want to have to go in to make them bigger every time.

and....

2. How do you make cute little headers?What programs do you use?

Thanks!

I Did It!

Friday evening after my sis-in-law, Caryn, got out of school we left for beautiful San Diego, CA for my Turbokick Instructor Training!!

Google maps let us down and we ending up getting lost for about an hour trying to find our hotel. It was midnight and a little scary in the part of town that we were in, but luckily we stopped and asked a super nice guy and his wife at a gas station for directions and they were SO kind and escorted us to our hotel about 15 min out of their way! That doesn't happen in Cali, right?! We were so grateful.

After a not so restful nights sleep, (I was too excited to sleep!), I left the kids and Caryn in the hotel for my training in Chula Vista. Justin flew in to San Diego that morning and took a taxi to the hotel and took everyone to the beach while I was turbokickin' it away. The training was so.much.fun! I really don't think that I have had that much fun in a while. We worked a lot on form, cueing, and of course we worked our booty off! The training was from 9am-5pm which made for a lot of time to get our sweat on! One lady there had on a body bug and she burned 2400 calories during that time so I'm sure I did about the same! Our instructor, Mike, was amazing and made everything fun. I was exhausted after but it was so, so worth it! I can now teach classes and try to inspire others to love this workout! Chalene Johnson, the creator of the workout, has said something like, "People say that working out isn't fun, but they just haven't found anything fun yet!"

I get my results in the mail in a few weeks and then it will be official! If you are in my area, I would love if you came to my classes whenever I start them up.

We left right after to drive back to Phoenix and got in pretty late that night. We were all super tired! A HUGE thanks to Caryn for watching and helping out with our kids and thank you to my incredible husband who is helping my reach one of my dreams!

A No Theme Post

This is just a post of some random thoughts and happenings as of lately. There is no real theme to it, so it will likely be all over the place...

• Justin is gone out of town. Again. Last week he was in Mexico and Chile and was home for Saturday but left Sunday right after church for a full week in Peru. I sure miss him. Back to back weeks of him traveling is never fun. The kids are always so good for me and I find that parenting them on my own is really not that hard. You just do it, ya know? Justin is always SO good to keep reminding me that I do in fact have a husband by emailing me every night the sweetest emails and calling most every night. He is such a good husband and I'm so grateful that he is willing to subject himself to crazy schedules, crazy time changes, crazy food and sometimes crazy people to provide for our family. He loves his job but he does a pretty good job of showing his love for his family too :)

• Ellie is huge. She completely skipped the 18 month clothes and at 17 months, she now fits quite snugly into 24 months clothes. I give her less than 2 months in this size. We weighed her and she is 26 pounds and 33.5 inches tall. At the same age, she has Ethan beat by 4 pounds and is 2 inches taller! We go to her 15 month check up tomorrow and I'll find out what %tile she is in. She is in such a fun stage. I'll do an update all about Ellie sometime this week.

• I will be Turbokick certified this SATURDAY! If you don't remember, miscarriage #4 happened the day before I was to go to the training in Scottsdale. I was so, so sad. But we found another training in San Diego and so my awesome husband is making this one happen! This is one of my "selfish" goals in life. Meaning, I am fulfilling my goals of being a mother, wife, etc., but this is one of the only things that I really want to do for ME! I think everyone needs to do at least one thing for themselves. I am STOKED about it!

• I love helping out in Ethan's preschool. I get to be in there with my boy and be around one of my most favorite people, his teacher, Jill. She is awesome and is a great teacher!

• I'm having the hardest time finding cute and good quality work out clothes that aren't outrageously priced. I'm tired of frumpy workout gear!Target is even too expensive for me. Any suggestions??

• I scored an amazing deal at Famous Footwear. I really wanted some cute athletic shoes since I have been wearing the same ones for over 3 years. So I waited for their Buy 1 Get One Half Off deal and used that, plus and 20% off coupon, plus a 10% off coupon, plus a $10 off your order coupon and got two awesome cute Nike shoes for $30 each. PLUS, they accidentally shipped me 2 of the same pair of shoes and so I bought the second pair for $20 for a backup in the future. Not bad, right?! I love using coupons when retail shopping!

• On Saturday night we found a scorpion in our upstairs master bedroom! That is the first scorpion I have seen and it better be my last. I don't do scorpions and I have been on bug patrol ever since. That was enough motivation for us to de-junk and deep clean everything! Justin and I stayed up to like 2:30am doing it. We can safely say that there is not another scorpion in this house :) We filled up our suburban full of stuff to take to Goodwill. You would have thought we were moving or something with the amount of stuff we are giving away. Everything is neatly organized and it feels SO good!

Well, that's all for now! I'm off to be productive and sew some projects!

Fun at the Park- In the Summer???

I don't think that there are many people here in the Phoenix Valley that take their kids to the park during the summer. We love our lids too much to let them burn their legs on the slide or scorch their poor little hands when they fall down! This last Saturday evening, however, was a perfect day to take them out! It was in the low 100s (isn't that so funny that that is cool for us?!) and a lovely monsoon was a brewing which took the heat of the sun away and gave us a nice breeze. Before the rain hit, we ran down to the park and enjoyed it while we could!

Ethan brought his little 4-wheeler out of summer hibernation and rode all over that park. Then after, he and daddy went to explore the "castle".

We sure did have fun and can't wait for cooler weather and those beautiful winters that we all live here for!

On a side note, can you totally tell that Justin is out of town again this week with all my posting?! It gets lonely here at night so it's always a good time to get caught up :)

Preschool

This week Ethan started his last year of preschool! Can you believe that at this time next year Ethan will be starting kindergarten?! Simply unfathomable to me.

He is attending my good friend Jill's preschool which is absolutely amazing. She is so sweet to let me be a parent helper in Ethan's class. He attends 2 days a week for 3 hours each day. Jill has a babysitter come to watch her little girl while she teaches and so Ellie gets to hang out with them while I'm helping. For me, it is so good to be back in the classroom. I love it. And I love that I get to be with my happy little boy too!

Here is a picture of Ethan from last year on his first day of preschool.

I think he has grown up so much since then and he no longer looks like a little toddler but a little boy!

Annual Minnesota Trip!

We just love coming to this place every summer.

It is always so good to see my parents and to let the kids run on 2 acres of land and get as dirty as possible. I couldn't resist posting lots of pictures so bear with me!

My mom has this cute little red wagon that she loves to go for walks with the kids in. Ethan is getting too big for it but he loved pulling Ellie around in it.

There are wild animals roaming around like crazy!

Turkeys in the backyard,

and deer in the corn. We also saw an adorable little raccoon family searching for some grub nearby as well.

What was really amazing was seeing a family of bald eagles who live just a few trees down from my parents house. It was amazing to see these beautiful birds soar over the lake. They didn't like us getting too close and would chirp at us as if warning us to get away. There was a mommy, a daddy and a little baby. Mom said that the other brothers and sisters had flown away earlier in the year. Their nest was huge!

Ellie is definitely our little animal lover and I think she got her quota filled for the year!

I love this picture. Knowing Ellie's personality I can totally imagine her thinking, "Oh yeah... What are you looking at?"

We went on a pasture ride at Uncle Mike's farm to see the cows and the little baby calves.

This picture was taken right before the cow stuck out her humongous tongue and licked Ethan's arm. The look on his face was priceless!

Mom and Dad with their one and only granddaughter. They are such cute grandparents :)

Ethan sat in all the farm machinery he could! Semi trucks, big tractors, combines, skid-loaders, you name it. This place is pretty much heaven on earth for little boys!

And for little girls too...

This kids loved playing outside with all their tractors and were always filthy by the end of the day. I think that definitely means that they had fun!

I thought this next picture was so sweet even though I'm almost positive that he was taking something from her :)

Mom got the kids these cute little chairs. Ellie enjoyed carrying them around the house more than actually sitting in them.

Justin went to put Ellie down for a nap and when I went to go check on them I found this... so sweet!

Justin and my dad worked down in the basement studding it and doing the preparations to sheet rock it. There are always projects to work on with dad around!

Ethan joined in on the action and made a tree house. With supervision of course!

Dad and Justin cleared some growth down by the lake too. It was sure hot!

With a lake for a backyard, there are always opportunities to fish. Ellie didn't like the fish too much though.

Justin and I went fishing out on my cousin Brock's boat, and Brock caught somewhere around a 10lb catfish on a daredevil! It was so fun!

Brock also took us out jet skiing and we had a blast!

It seems as if these small farming communities love any excuse to throw a city party with a parade or two. It is always so fun to see more people in the parade than those watching it. Gotta love small towns! Ethan thoroughly enjoyed his bag of popcorn,

an Ellie devoured her fudge bar. They threw out some good stuff at this parade!

It was so cute to see my dad reading to Ethan and Ellie in the evenings. Ellie especially loved bringing books to grandpa and sitting on his lap while he read to her.

One afternoon, Justin and I took the kids to Lakefield's public pool. I was quite impressed with this facility considering there are like less than 500 people in the whole town! Ethan was a pro with going down the slide!

One of our last days there, we went up to the Loon Lake Cemetery. There are all sorts of rumors that this place is haunted and there are some creepy stories out there! Google it if you are interested. It was a neat place to visit and see such old graves. Those pioneers were amazing to want to settle in a place this cold in the winter! On this sign, I counted 37 buried infants. So sad.

I just love these next few pictures on the way back from the cemetery. She loves to ride around on Justin's shoulders.

Ellie doing what she does best... running away from us!

My mom has 2 really pretty wind chimes that Ellie loved playing with. I think this picture is so funny because I accidentally caught her mid-pooping while playing with the chimes!

Justin likes to give my parents heart attacks with throwing Ellie up in the air like this. It sure makes for cool pics!

I don't remember what was happening in this next picture but I though it was so sweet!

We had a super long layover in Minneapolis so we spent pretty much the whole 5 hours in this one play place they have there. Play places in airports?! Genius! Ellie was happy as could be

spending the majority of the time in this space ship.

She meant business if another kid tried to get her out of it too!

We always love spending 2 weeks of our summer with my parents in such a pretty part of our country. We love the laid back lifestyle and could picture ourselves living there if the winters weren't SO darn harsh :) Thanks mom and dad for having us!