West Family

Family Photo Time

2011-11-21T13:48:00.000-08:00

After the twins birthday party, I really wanted to take some family pictures. We got a new bedroom set and each morning the kids just love to be up there and play. I felt this would be a fun picture to take. So the grandparents got out their cameras and we spent about 30 minutes just taking pictures. Let me just say, It is really hard take pictures of our family especially getting 3 kids to look at the camera, but it turned to be fun.This is the one good family photo that we got.

Daddy, Tyler, and Xander.

Silly Time.

Cute Tyler.

Love Tyler's smile.

The twins are tackling Mommy.

Daddy giving sweet kisses to Xander.

Mommy and Liam cuddles.

Twins 1st Birthday!

2011-11-21T12:07:00.000-08:00

It's Catch Up Time!

In September, Xander and Liam turned 1 years old. WOW! Can't believe my baby boys are 1. At one years old, Both Liam and Xander are walking. Liam started walking right before he turned 11 months old and Xander started walking one week before he turned 1 years old. They both have 8 teeth and the most cutest laughs and smiles. They say "mama and dada" and it just melts my heart. These boys have turned our family upside down, but have brought so much joy into our home. .... and a lot more mess.

Xander and Liam's first birthday party was a Cat in the Hat theme. I made all the boys in the family, including Eric, tie shirts with suspenders. I hung pom poms and we even had a photo table. Each kid got to take home a book with a treat bag. It was a really cute party.
I decorated the tables with dots and thing 1 thing 2 vases.
We had a friend make the cupcakes and they turned out adorable.
We had the party at the park and as you can see Tyler had a blast. We almost did not see him for the entire party. Xander and Liam were blessed with so many wonderful gifts. They were two lucky boys.

The cupcake eating was really fun and cute. The boys really got into eating the cake.

Liam had fun squishing the cake in his hands. He was not as interested in eating it.

Xander was the king at eating his cake. He thought he was pretty funny and the more he smeared himself the more reaction he got so he kept doing it.

We are so blessed to have this little balls of spunk in our family. I couldn't be more happy to be the mom of three great boys.

Peek-a-boo Liam.

2011-08-25T09:28:00.000-07:00

Tyler turned 4 years old.

2011-08-19T10:07:00.001-07:00

In July, Tyler turned the big 4 years old. This last year Tyler received a great gift of twin brothers, but at the same time he received a lot less attention from his parents and extended family, less time outside playing, and less trips to fun places. For all these reasons, we decided to have a nice birthday party of Tyler. We had party at John's Incredible Pizza. This place is Chuckie-Cheez on steroids. The have bumper cars, a small roller coaster, a kids bowling alley, a swing ride, tons of arcade games and 4 buffets of food. It's a lot of stimulation for the kids. We reserved a party room. The best part of the party was that we had 2 hosts for the party so all I had to do was mingle, take pictures, and enjoy it all. Tyler has been really into Pirates lately so we incorporated that into the theme. Each kid got a fun treasure box from us filled with Pirate treats galore. Everyone was very generous towards Tyler and he got so many wonderful gifts. I think everyone had a good time.
Tyler loved this huge pirate balloon he got. Sadly it popped from the heat in the car on the way to his party.

Here are some of Tyler's friends at the party.

Grandma Bev also was able to come and celebrate.

Happy Birthday time!

John the Incredible Bear came and gave Tyler a special gift. All the kids loved hugging him.

Tyler was very generous and gave some of his tickets to his best friend.

Bowling time.

Tyler also got a new Buzz Lightyear bike for his birthday. It's his "Big Boy Bike."

A Pirate Boat water activity center from his grandparents.

Summertime

2011-08-18T23:04:00.000-07:00

July is my favorite time of the year, not just because it's the month that Tyler was born in, but also because it is truly a summer month. Being outside and playing makes you feel alive. The kids have been having a lot of fun playing in the backyard in the evenings. Once our small trees start to provide a little shade on the grass, we take the twins and let them wander. Tyler has become good friends with our neighbors kids. It is nice to finally have kids that he can play with on a regular basis . Eric built a half gate between our backyards so the kids can go back and forth without having to be watched and worried that they will go into the street. We love it.

For Tyler's birthday, he got a pirate boat water activity center. What is so nice about it is that it is low enough for the twins to play with it too. Liam(left) and Xander(right) love splash and drink the water.
The kids found a pile of dirt on the side of our house and spent a lot of time building a castle.

Xander(left) and Liam(right) love sitting in Daddy's lap.

Tyler is a water super hero.

We took a trip to Grandparents house in Corcoran. This town is right in the center of the valley and it gets sooo HOT! We are fortunate in Sacramento to have the Delta Breeze, especially at night to cool us down, but in Corcoran it is hot even in the evenings. We made sure while we were there to let the kids have some outside time in the evening and cool off in the pool.
At 10 months old, our little Liam is almost ready to walk. He just loves this walker from IKEA and cruises around with it everywhere.

Tyler graduated from Preschool this month and entered Pre-K. I was so relieved when his teacher told us it was time for him to advance. I was a little worried that he was going to be the oldest kid in the class. The best part was that he advanced with his best friend, Xander.

Catching up: June

2011-08-18T22:10:00.000-07:00

I sometime feel like life is like a roller coaster. It's going by so fast, there are many emotions, some days are up and some are down, some are scary and some are exhilarating. At times I feel that I just can't get catch up with it. Life with 3 kids is amazing, but it is so CRAZY!

So I am going to attempt to catch up with my blogging because this is a journal of my family and someday I want to print it.

In June, Tyler is 3 years old and Xander and Liam are 9 months old. Xander and Liam are both standing and Liam keeps making the attempts to take some steps. Because the twins are becoming more mobile, our house is becoming more of a tornado zone. I keep calling it tornado alley because there is a trail of destruction everywhere these kids go and then when you include Tyler, it's 10 times worse.

Tyler has become such a fun and active kid. He loves to pull all the cushions off the couches and make forts. He is so creative and likes to build fun toys out of different objects. I can't get enough of this kids smile and let me tell you he knows how to use it. His laughter is contagious and fills our house morning and night. Tyler is testing his limits even more lately. He does find ways to try and manipulate situations. For example: Tyler knows that when his TV show is done then he has to go to bed. So about 5-10 min before his show is over and before we give him a warning of bedtime, he tells me that he does not want to watch this show and wants to watch another show. Of course we don't give in. I have to give him credit for trying. Lately Tyler's speech has improved and he is trying to say words and sentences more correctly. He will still need speech therapy when ever they finally get back to us. Tyler is also feeling more comfortable with his brothers, but at the same time as they become more mobile, he also becomes more worried and protective of them and afraid that they will get hurt. He truly does love his brothers and we truly love our Ty-Ty.

In June, there was a lot of fun and cheap activities that we did. Eric took his qualifying exams for his PHD so he was pretty busy studying a lot and stressing out. He did pass his exam of, course, but there was a lot of sweat and tears. We tried to take some time and let the kids have fun outside during all of the craziness.

Bath time in our house is a lot of fun, especially with 3 kids now. After bath time, Tyler loves to get on the our bed and jump around like a monkey. Liam and Xander love to get in on the fun too.

It has been nice the have warm weather again. The weather this year has been weird. It is either raining and cold or too hot so when we get the chance we let the kids play outside. Since Tyler was a baby, he loved the sprinklers. As you can see, he still gets excited about them. I love to watch him make up games and try to get everyone to play them with him. Liam and Xander are so funny and they just chill.. This is the first time they got wet in the sprinklers. They just sat their and squinted their eyes then played with the grass.

We took the kids to a nice park and the twins got to play in the bark for the first time .Once again they are such chill kids when they try something new. We had to use the pacifiers to keep them from eating the bark. Tyler just loves the park and went all crazy running around every where. It was hard keeping up this guy and he wore his parent.
Liam is such a sweet and cute boy. He loved being in the swings for the first time.
Xander is my funny boy. When he gets excited he kicks his chubby legs and rocks himself back and forth. He really liked the swings and was trying to tell us. He is the most loud and talkative kid that we have had at this age.

Life in the West house is never dull, it's very loud, and full of energy and laughter, but we couldn't ask for a better life. Well, maybe some peace and quiet sometimes.

One of my worst nightmares did happen.

2011-05-29T22:25:00.001-07:00

Do you sometimes have nightmares about what things could happen to your kids? I do. I get scared that my kids will hit their heads, run into the street, break a limb, etc. I really try not to think about these things, but I feel at times that it makes me a little more of a cautious mom and though I cannot always isolate my children and protect them from all the harms of the world, I do try to at least not do anything that could cause them to be harmed. Well, last Thursday one of my fears came true. My little Xander started choking and we had to call 911. If you want all the gory details then keep on reading. If you don't then skip to the end to see the pictures and be assured that Xander is alright now and back to his spunky, happy self again.

On Thursday morning, Eric got up and took care of the kids while I got to sleep in. Around 8am he came to get me so I could go take care of him and get Tyler ready for school while Eric got ready. Xander was playing on the floor with toys all around him. When he saw me he started whining for me to pick him up. I put him on my lap and he started clapping from being happy to see me. Tyler came over and started playing with him. At some point I thought I saw him chewing on something so I checked his mouth and did a sweep, but did not see anything. I put him on the ground for a moment to go get Liam who was trying to crawl up an object when Xander started coughing. I picked him up and he looked like he was choking. At that moment I let him cough a little to see if he could clear it himself, but he couldn't. Next I lifted up his arms to see if that would help then patted his back. He then started to look like he was really choking so I ran him to our bedroom where Eric was and told him that Xander was choking. He started to get bright red so I turned him over on my knee, kind of upside down, and started to pat his back really hard. Next my worst fear happened. Xander started to turn purple and at one point he started to go a little limp on me. I yelled for Eric to call 911.

I am so glad that I have taken CPR multiple times because I knew what to do and I was preparing for the worst. I was praying so hard for him to start breathing, but he was just trying to cough. Just at the moment that Eric started talking to the someone on the phone, Xander gave out a cry and continued to cough. The color in his face was turning back to red and then pink, but he was still coughing like something was in his airway and he was wheezing a lot. I knew then that he was doing better and we prepared for all the commotion of the firetrucks and ambulances to arrive at our house.

It took about 8 min for the emergency teams to arrive which seemed like a long time. Xander was doing much better, but he was just wheezing a lot. When they arrived, they listened to him and determined that he did sound like something was still in his airway. They gave us the option to drive him to the hospital or take him in the ambulance, but that he really needed to be seen very soon. Of course, we chose the ambulance and I went with Xander on the ride. It's amazing how resilient kids are, but their little bodies cannot handle being in distress for a long time and my worries were that if this object moves and Xander starts choking again, I needed a medical team who can treat him fast. On the way to the hospital we were trying to keep him calm so that he did not start choking again, but at one point he started crying and he was not stopping so the paramedic started getting all her supplies together in case he needed to be intubated. It was scary looking at my poor little child on this bed with oxygen on and this paramedic looking a little worried that he was going to stop breathing. I was praying so hard that he would be alright. Thankfully he kept doing fine.

Well to make the story a little shorter, they did a chest x-ray on Xander and did not see anything. On a side note, I had no idea what Xander could have choked on. I was thinking that it could have been a tissue or paper. The only things that would have showed up on the x-ray would have been something with metal or possibly glass. Everything else is like your skin and the x-ray goes right through it. Xander was still wheezing even after 2 breathing treatments so the ER doctor consulted with the Pediatric ICU doctor and they decided that they need to put a scope or camera down Xander's airway to see if they could determine if he did have something stuck in his airway. The ICU was pretty busy so we had to wait over 2 hours for a room. When we finally arrived in the ICU, we were prepped on the procedure and an hour later Xander was put under anesthesia and they scoped his airway. Eric and I were not able to be present during this procedure due to some policies, but it only took about 1o minutes before the doctor came out to show us the picture of the STICKER that was stuck in Xander's bronchial tube. You could even see the smiling face on the sticker.

How in the world did this kid get a hold of a sticker? Tyler had not been playing with any stickers recently. After discussing this further, we realized that Tyler had put some sparkling stickers on a book and that book was where Xander was playing. Xander must have pulled the sticker off the book and put it in his mouth. Now that we knew what was in his lung, they now needed to get it out and that required having a bronchoscopy. Xander was going to have to go the Operating room where they would put him under anesthesia, stick a big tube down his throat that had a camera in it and find the sticker. When they found it then they put an instrument in that had these tiny clamps on it that would grab the sticker and pull it out. It was a short procedure, and lasted a total of 30 min. After it was done we went into the recovery room and the nurse was trying to control Xander who was trying to wake up and squirming all over the place. He looked like a really drunk baby. He was also starving. We waited a while for each procedure that entire day. Xander choked around 8:30 am, We were in the ER until about 1pm. He had the first procedure to find the sticker at around 2pm and he had the bronchoscopy at around 6:30pm. Xander had not eaten since 7:15 am. When we were finally able to given him a bottle of glucose water, he scarfed it down in about 2 minutes. He immediately then started to wake up and even smiled at the nurses. The poor guy just needed to eat. So he got 2 more bottles of food later and we were discharged from the hospital at around 9:30 pm. Xander came out of this all with bruised arms from the IVs, a hoarse voice, and pretty little ladybug sticker in a cup. Eric and I were just so glad that the day was over and we could not wait to jump into bed.

I want to just say that I feel so blessed for the knowledge that I have about CPR and that I actually listened in my classes. I am also thankful for the power of prayer and for the gift of the Holy Ghost who I know was comforting me during this whole ordeal. I know that Xander was being watched over and that the hands and minds of the doctors were being blessed. What I did not say earlier was that after we got to the ER, I felt a very comforting feeling that Xander was going to be alright and even when they were performing the procedures, that I still felt very calm and comforted. I love my little Xander so much and this incident made me love my children even more. Did I mention that we banned stickers from the house?
Little Xander after his first procedure where they saw the sticker.

This is the picture of the sticker stuck in his airway. the white, red, and blue spot are all the sticker. You can't see it here, but there is a yellow smiley face on the right side of the sticker. He was very lucky that the sticker was lining the airway because there was still some air able to come through it.
This is the lovely book that Xander took the sticker off of. Tyler must have gotten it from the bookcase and was reading it to them at some point.
This is the ladybug sticker they retrieved from Xander on a note pad.

Race for the Cure 2011

2011-05-24T22:02:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day weekend, my whole family got together and walked in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Sacramento. We all started walking the year after my mother was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. This is the 3rd year we have walked in this race. It was a cold morning, but it was fun to see our family including the all the kids having fun walking together. Afterwards, my dad treated our family to the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate Mother's Day. We had a great time this year and hope to be able to walk many more years. We are so thankful that my mom has beat this cancer and rose up to help other women and patients who she sees. We love you mom.Eric and LiamXander cuddling up in the cold weather.Tyler and his cousin taking a break from walking.

Bath Time!

2011-05-24T00:07:00.000-07:00

Now that Xander and Liam are more mobile, life in our house has been a lot more fun. One of their favorite times of the day is bath time. Tyler has even had a lot more fun taking a bath with his brothers, except when they splash. Having all boys is a lot of fun as you can see.Liam, Tyler, and Xander

Tyler giving Xander a sweet kiss.

TylerLiam
Xander
And we can't forget Buzz.

7 month old baby faces.

2011-04-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that my babies are 7 months old already. They just need to stop growing so fast. I have to say that this age is my absolute favorite. The twins are not totally mobile yet, but they can still move around on the floor and entertain themselves for longer periods of time. They are also sooo happy! They love to explore new objects and just chew on everything.

At 7 months, Xander is pretty much sleeping through the night. He wakes up so happy and is just a little spunk. When he sees us his little legs just start kicking so fast and if you are holding him he will try to crawl up your chest. He has also discovered how to clap so when he wants attention or to say that he is happy, he just starts clapping and everyone follows along. Xander now has 2 teeth on the bottom, 1 big top tooth that just came in and another big tooth that is trying to break through. Did I tell you that this kid can bite?
Xander loves to eat! This lil guy can hold his food and he lets you know when he wants to eat. The best part of feeding Xander is that he can hold his own bottle. He is such a help to mommy because his brother refuses to do so. He is not crawling yet, but he does scoot backwards and in circles pretty good. We have discovered that Xander and Tyler have a lot of the same personalities traits and these brothers just love to kiss and hug each other. I just love my little bubby.

At 7 months, Liam is almost crawling. He can get on his hands and knees and on his hands and toes. He is trying to figure out what to do with his hands and he will pick up his hand and trying to move it forward while picking up his leg on the opposite side. He concentrates so much on this task. Liam is my mellow guy. He is so content on watching everyone else especially his brothers play. He also makes the sweetest noises when he is trying to talk. He is very tolerant of his twin who is constantly pulling on his hair or trying to eat his toes. Liam has two bottom teeth now and probably one coming in on the top. He is constantly putting his hands in his mouth to try to comfort the pain. Liam is a good eater, but he refuses to hold his bottle because he has to message his face or my hand while he eats and especially while he is trying to go asleep. He has the most gentle touch and when he wants my attention, all he does is gently touch my face. I call Liam my squishy because his cheeks and tummy are so soft and he just lets me squeeze him all the time.

I have to admit that being a mom of 7 month old twins is so great! My boys are just to much fun. They are at such a happy stage and really don't cry very often. They sleep well. I can take them shopping with me and they entertain each other, too. The best part is their sweet baby faces and the way they look at me. I have been so blessed.1st time sitting on the grass. Liam and Xander.
Reading the paper together. Liam and Xander.
Bath time! Xander and Liam.

Brotherly Love.

2011-03-25T12:41:00.000-07:00

I could not ask for better boys. They love each other so much. Tyler is the best big brother. He helps me so much by talking and playing with the boys when one is upset or mommy is just busy. Xander and Liam love Tyler so much. Every time he is anywhere near them, they look at him and just smile. Xander and Liam also love each other. When I sit them in front of each other, they go wild and wiggle so much trying to get to one another. They love to talk to each other and hold hands. The best is when they try to give each other hugs.

I hope this brotherly love continues. I know there will be times when they are going to fight, but I hope those times are few. I want so much for these boys to depend on one another and form a relationship that stays strong throughout their lives.
Xander, Tyler, and Liam

Yummy food.

2011-03-04T10:45:00.001-08:00

Liam's first taste of food.

Xander's first taste.

Messy Liam.

Messy Xander.
Tyler was trying to cheer Liam up.Clean up time.

Liam did not like clean up time, but Xander was having a blast.

Fun times in our busy life.

2011-02-28T14:56:00.000-08:00

Life in the West household has been an adventure as you can imagine with twins and a 3 year old, but we have been having a lot of fun. All of the boys are growing so fast and it's amazing seeing the amount of stuff that they are learning in such a short period of time. Our house is loud, but it is full of love and laughter and, of course, the occasional crying.

Tyler's verbal skills has blasted off and he is trying so hard to pronounce words better. We sometime repeat words about 5 times before he can say it right, but at least he is trying. He has been telling us stories and trying to read to the boys. We have trouble understanding him at times especially when he is talking fast and he starts slurring his words together, but its amazing to see the improvement he has made in one year. I still think he will need some speech therapy in the future, but his teacher feels that he does not need it at this time.
Recently we had Tyler's best friend, Xander, and his family over for dinner and a play date. The boys are so cute together and it was amazing to see how similar Xander and Tyler's personalities are. It was nice talking to his parents and it felt like we were encouraging each other about the difficulties of a 3 year old. Hopefully Xander will be able to come over for more play dates.Tyler and Xander
Tyler was so sad the next morning when he woke up. He went to the chair that Xander had been sitting in the night before, touched the chair with his hand and said, "Xander" in such a sad touching voice. He missed his buddy, but we let him know that he would see Xander at school and would be able to play with him. He said, "Ok" in an excited voice and went on playing. Such a funny little guy.

The twins are now 5 1/2 months old and they are such loving and fun little people. I am enjoying them so much I can't even put it into the right words. I have to say that I love having twins right now. It is so hard at times, but just making them smile and laugh, especially at the same time is so worth all the hard times we go through. At their last dr.'s appt Liam had passed up Xander in weight by 2 oz. They both weighed about 15 lbs which is about 50%, but they were about 90% for height. I am really excited to see they are tall boys.

Xander is such a cutie. His eyebrows are so expressive and I can't get enough of him. I call him the Daddy Tracker. If Eric is anywhere in the room, he can spot him so fast and just smiles and gets all squirmy. He loves his daddy. He loves to move his legs also. When he sits in his bouncer or car seat his legs get going so fast that I feel like he is running a Marathon. I am so afraid of when he begins to walk because I can just imagine him running everywhere. Xander is our loud child. He talks and squeals constantly whether he is happy or complaining. I just love his little voice. Xander also has 2 bottom teeth and they are sharp! His smile is so cute now with his teeth showing. He also likes to bite. Eric keeps complaining that he keeps gnawing on his hand and it hurts.
Liam is our laid back and joyful child. His cheeks are so chunky that I just love to kiss them. He loves to put both hands on my face and smile at me in a tender way. He also likes to grab my hair which I do not like, but he thinks its funny when I say,"OW." Liam is starting to become mobile. He is kind of crawling backwards and actually gets places, just not the places that he wants to go. He is about ready to roll over and has actually done it once. I think once he gets the rolling thing down he will be rolling everywhere instead of backing up into things. The funniest thing about Liam is that he talks and complains himself to sleep.
Xander also does this a little, but Liam will talk with his eyes closed for a while before he goes to sleep.
As you can see we are having a lot of fun and the kids are so entertaining. I feel like my life is fulfilled and could not get anymore happier.

Living with 4month twins.

2011-01-20T22:01:00.000-08:00

A year ago, if you asked me if I would ever liked to have twins, I would have laughed in your face. Never did I imagine that we would be blessed with twins. Today I am loving having twins. Don't get me wrong, it is a lot of work and I have gotten used to getting very little sleep at times, but think about all the fun and adorable moments you have with just one baby and double it. Our house is a lot more noisy, but the noise if probably from laughter and love.

I can't believe that Xander and Liam are already 4 months old. I can't believe that we have been parents of twins for 4 months and are actually enjoying it.

At 4 months old, the boys are cooing like crazy. It's so much fun to sit them facing each other and listen to them just talk. When we lay them down next to each other, they always hold hands. I can't wait to see how their relationship grows closer as they get older.

Xander rolled over already and I am sure that Liam will follow soon. Both boys love to stand up and Liam even tries to take steps.

We have finally moved the boys into their own room and they are currently sharing a crib and transitioning very well. If it was not for the cold and cough that has plagued them lately, they would probably be sleeping through the night. It funny to see no matter how far apart you place them in the crib, they always tend to migrate and snuggle up close to each other during the night.

One part of having twins and twin babies is the adorable faces that they make. They are starting to look a lot more alike to us, but we can always tell the apart. A lot of our laughter comes from just looking at them and hearing them talk.Liam is intently listening to Xander's complaints...

but he is not sure what to do about it.

Puzzled looks.
Help! I'm falling over from laughter!

Say Cheese!

3 months.

2010-12-13T13:43:00.000-08:00

Exactly 3 months ago, I gave birth to these beautiful baby boys.
Today Eric and I said to each other, 'Congratulations, we have survived 3 months with 3 kids."
The last 3 months have been so hard, but so wonderful. I can honestly say that these are the best of times and the worst of times. It is so hard to function with just a couple of hours of sleep on some nights, with two babies crying at the same time, and a 3 year old demanding your attention. It's exhausting trying to feed two babies and still find time to feed yourself or even take a shower. It's frustrating not being able to keep my house clean with all this going on and after spending hours cleaning it, a little certain boy comes along and messes it up within 5 minutes.

Life can be so hard sometimes, but then there are those times when these beautiful babies look up at you, smile, coo just because you are their mother. It's magical watching a 3 year old ask to hold his baby brothers and snuggle up to them or try to tickle them and then watching these cute babies smile back at him. It's wonderful being able to comfort these boys just by holding them and talking to them. It's so peaceful watching these sweet babies sleep, their eyes twitching and wandering what they are dreaming of. I would not trade any of those hard times if it means that I have these precious moments in my life.
At 3 months of age, Xander and Liam are very happy boys. They smile constantly and love to coo or talk when they are being talked to. Last night Xander laughed out loud for the first time. It was a big chuckle and the most precious sound. I feel Liam is trying to learn how to crawl. Every time I put him on his tummy on the floor, he tries to grab onto something and pull himself forward. Sometimes he makes it somewhere. They are also discovering their hands and toes. It is so cute watching them look at something and concentrate so hard trying to figure it out. At night they sleep together in a playard. We try to lay them down as far away from each other as possible because at some point they move right next to each other and snuggle and sometimes wake each other up.
I love my children more than anything else. Xander and Liam have already brought so much love and joy into our home and I feel so blessed and humbled with them in my life.

A month to remember.

2010-12-09T14:06:00.000-08:00

November was a very busy month for our family and because it was so busy, I did not have time to blog.
The month started off with the passing of Dennis, then the twins blessing. The blessing was beautiful and was an even more emotional day because Dennis had passed away the Friday before. The spirit was so strong that day and it felt like a day of mourning Dennis and celebrating the birth of the twins. Try contemplating how we felt that day. Many happy and sad tears were shed that day.
Liam

Xander

That next week we spent attending Dennis' memorial service then driving to Utah and attending the burial service at the Salt Lake City Cemetery. It was a beautiful service. This was the one time when all of Dennis' children and stepchildren were all together. We spent 2 days gathering and having fun.Tyler was in heaven playing with so many cousins It was truly a celebration of Dennis' life. I learned so much about Dennis in that week that I did not know and I loved him and missed him even more.

Ty sleeping on the drive to Utah.

Ty loving his cousin's fake rifle.

Ty and cousin celebrating his little cousin's birthday.

The next week we went to Fresno to introduce the twins to their great-grandparents. I consider myself very lucky to still have 3 living grandparents. (My grandfather passed away when I was 14). This is very special to me because I really want my children to be able to meet their great-grandparents. Unfortunately due to health problems, I am sad to say that some of them might not be around for another year,though I pray that they are. I wish that my children could grow up knowing them, but I will at least be able to say to them that they met their great- grandparents and each one was able to hold them.. I have many fond memories of spending the summers with my grandparents on both sides.My uncle also came for a visit to meet the twins.

Thanksgiving was spent at home. For the holidays we usually end of traveling, but with the passing of Dennis, we decided that we would hold Thanksgiving at home and celebrate it with Eric's mother. We had a very relaxing day, excluding the time I had to prepare the meal and worry that the turkey was never going to be done cooking.

November was a month to remember. It was a time we mourned the loss of Dennis, but continued to celebrate the birth of the twins with so many family members.

Another photo session.

2010-11-13T04:28:00.000-08:00

We have been so blessed with gifts of photo shoots from some friends in our church ward. We now have amazing pictures of these babies and even Tyler that we will cherish for many years. Our last photo shoot was with Sarah. She is a great photographer and so energetic and she captured some priceless moments of our kids. She was great at working with us. Its hard to take picture of babies and try to get them cooperate especially if they are awake. Xander and Liam were 5 weeks old when the photos were taken and I cannot believe how awake they were. The best part and also the grossest part of the session was when Xander pooped on both Liam and himself then Liam peed on both of them. It was a mess, but you would not have known by looking at these cute boys. They were even more happy after they got it all out and even took a little nap. If you want to see more of her work go to www.sarahblairphotography.com.
This is my favorite picture. I just absolutely love the looks on these little boys. It makes me want to squeeze them through the picture.

I was so glad that Sarah captured a picture with Eric. It is really priceless.

I love this picture of the twins being so active. I feel this is how they are at home all the time.
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These two boys are just so lovable and really react to each other.

We had to get a picture in their Halloween Outift. If you can't recognize them, they are the aliens from Toy Story. I love these hats.

This picture really captures the precious moments. It is so fun having twins when they are this age and you can still hold both of them at the same time. If you come to my house during the day, you might find me holding them this way.

I cannot believe that Sarah was able to get these great pictures of Tyler. She was ready at any moment. Tyler did not want to take pictures. We tried bribing him, but he was determined. When we got him to sit in this chair, he was so mopey until I accidently stepped on the cord for the flash and all the lights went out. When they came back on he was smiling because he thought that was pretty funny and Sarah quickly took some picture.

This is my favorite picture of Tyler. He is such a handsome little boy and I just love him so much.
I feel truly blessed for the picture that we have had. Angella and Sarah have no idea just how happy they have made me by their gifts.

In Remembrance of Dennis

2010-11-05T23:38:00.000-07:00

Today, November 5th, my sweet father-in-law, Dennis, passed away. For the last 1 1/2 years he has been battling with a disease (myleodysplastic syndrome) that we knew would eventually take his life, but we did not think it would happen so fast. We are comforted knowing that this last week he had come to terms with the severity of his condition and was able to spend some quality time with all of his kids at one time.

When I first met Dennis 11 years ago, I remember thinking that he was Santa Claus. He had a beard that was white and he was a jolly person. He always smiled and was so positive. He was also a jokester. My most fondest memories of Dennis was sitting with him and he would tell me stories of growing up and of the funny things his kids had done. He was so proud of his children and his grandchildren. He raised some really great children too and I have been blessed to get to know them and call them my family.

Dennis was a great photographer and he loved sharing his pictures with everyone. He often sent his photos to Deseret News and they would be published. He captured the beauty of nature in his photos.

He was a lover of fishing and hunting. I remember opening up the refrigerator in the garage and finding a duck with feathers and all just laying inside or a fish that he had caught that morning and laughing and thinking, it is not often that you see this in a refrigerator.

Dennis was a wonderful cook. He often made soups, grilled yummy fish and meats, and he often made his famous clam dip. The best part was that he found joy in cooking for his family and sharing his recipes.

Dennis was such a wonderful father-in-law. It breaks my heart that I will not get to see his face again while on this earth. I always felt at peace and comforted being around him. He had that affect on a lot of people. I loved him very much and I am going to miss him a lot.

The last time I saw Dennis was in the hospital after the twins were born. I am so thankful that he was able to come and meet these sweet boys. Now I can tell them about their grandfather. I will treasure these memories forever.
Dennis was Eric's step father, but he loved us unconditionally like his own children. Although we are not sealed to Dennis and his family, I know that one day we will see him again after this life is over. So Dennis, Till we meet again.

Twin Photo Shoot Part 2

2010-09-24T12:37:00.001-07:00

Xander giving a wink.

Liam

Daddy and Liam.

Sweet Xander

Xander

Liam

Twins 1st Photo Shoot.

2010-09-24T11:05:00.000-07:00

While we were in the hospital, a friend who is a photographer came and took pictures of the boys. If you want to see more of Angella's work go to http://angelladawn.smugmug.com. Tyler was being a pickle so he went with Grandma and each twin at one point was crying and hungry so needed to be breastfed. Through all of that, Angella still took gorgeous pictures and captured some really precious moments of these boys that I will always cherish.Liam.

Mommy and Xander

The Birthday was scheduled before it was scheduled.

2010-09-24T10:33:00.000-07:00

This week we had another little blessing come to us or one added onto our two that arrived last week. We found out that Xander and Liam were born on Eric's father's birthday Sept 13th. Eric's father passed away 21 years ago when Eric was 10 years old. I always remembered the date of his passing because we try to go see his grave and because it is such a very emotional day for Eric, but I did not remember when his birthday was. This year with the craziness that has been happening in the last couple of months, Eric forgot his father's birthday too. I was also the one who scheduled the c/section for this day. I was not keen on the twins being born on the 13th of the month because eventually they would have a birthday on Friday the 13th, but it was the only day that the Dr. could perform the surgery. I guess this date was meant to be.

When we found out that Liam had bladder and kidney problems before he was born I always thought of Eric's father as watching over him, and Xander, of course, but especially Liam. I knew Liam's middle name would be Calvin after his grandfather before we had decided on his first name.

I truly feel that the day of their birth was meant to be which makes me feel even more humbled that they were meant to stay in my womb longer and that my hard work at being on bed rest was for this purpose.

Now we will never forget the birthday of Xander, Liam, and Calvin West.

Welcome Xander and Liam

2010-09-22T21:07:00.000-07:00

A week ago our family was blessed with two precious baby boys. Xander James West was born at 9:14am and Liam Calvin West was born at 9:15 am. on Sept 13, 2010 via c/section. Xander weighed 6lbs and 19.1 inches long. Liam weighed 6lbs 12 oz and 19.3 inches long. We feel so very blessed that they arrived at their scheduled time and not any earlier. It was a very trying pregnancy, but so worth it. Eric and I keep saying everyday that we cannot believe that these are our baby boys.Moments before we became parents of twin boys.
Mommy meeting her boys for the first time.
Cuddling together.
Tyler meeting his brothers for the first time.
4 days old and going home.
Tyler holding Liam for the first time.

Handy Man.

2010-08-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

I am proud to say that I have a live in handyman. Not only is he handy, but he is good at being handy. While I have been resting my bottom on the couch or in bed for over a month now, Eric has been completing a large amount of projects in and outside our house in order to get ready for these twins. When we moved into our house we planned our rooms set ups with the idea of having another child or two in the future. We knew that with a third child we would probably have to rearrange some rooms, but we had time. Or so we thought. We never thought that we would have to change around 3 bedrooms so soon in order to accommodate two babies at once. Let me just say that our house has been turned upside down with these tasks. Tyler had the second biggest bedroom in the house. The guest bedroom was the next smallest and the office was a lot smaller. We had planned this so that when another child came along, they would share the bedroom with Tyler. Well now that two babies are coming, that has all changed. We decided that Tyler would have to move into the smallest bedroom, the guest bed and office would be combined into the Tyler's old room and the Twins would get the middle size bedroom or the old guest bedroom. I know that it sounds a little confusing. Well trying to move everything has been just as confusing.
Our main goal first was to get Tyler into his new bedroom ASAP. We did not want him to have too many changes all at once so we needed him to get used to his new room before the babies came. The most exciting part of this new room was that he was going to have Bunk beds. Can you see our minds looking towards the future of these twins also using them. For right now, it also provided a more beds for cousins to come stay the night. Tyler was really excited about his new room and had no problems with getting accustomed to it. I even like to go lay down on his bed and look up at his really cute sky ceiling. Ty's new room before it was set up. Its a pretty small room.
His cute bunk beds, new dresser, and bedding were all extremely discounted from a pretty high end kids store. We love their warehouse sales. His toys also fit really well in the room. Good use of a small space.

Next Eric worked on the new guest bedroom and office. The major upgrade was that this room used to be bright blue(Micky Sailor Blue). When we first picked out the color for Ty's room, we had in mind to paint the ceiling white, but when we closed on Escrow so late, we only had 3 days to paint the entire house so the ceiling was also painted the same color as the walls. I have to say that I have loathed this bright blue ever since. Well now the walls are the same neutral Haze color as the rest of the house and the room has taken on a more serene feel. Eric took more time with this room, but it was finished in a total of 3 days. Decorating it will have to come later after all the rooms are set up.
The next project that Eric did was to build custom shelving in our master bedroom closet. I have a lot of sewing and craft supplies. Since we had to condense the office and guest bedroom into one room, we also had to condense the closets so I decided that I would put my stuff in my closet. My sewing desk and sewing machine was also moved into the Master bedroom. I told Eric how I wanted to organize my stuff and he went to work and did a fantastic job. This project took a lot longer than Eric wanted it to because of all the cutting of the wood, painting, and installing. Now I just need to put my supplies on the shelves in my own organized way. It is going to be a slow project right now since I can't be on my feet for too long, but I am so excited about it.Before shot. It was very hard to keep my clothes and fabric in nice piles.
The finished project.
The very last project is yet to be finished and that is the nursery. I have worked hard on organizing the closet and putting all the clothes in the drawers by size and with outfits already put together so that we can just go and grab one without looking for a shirt that matches a pair of pants. This weekend we will set up the cribs with the help of my parents. And then we will just clean up and organize the rest of the house.

Getting ready for these babies has been quite an ordeal. We have procrastinated a lot because of a lot of unknown events and circumstances in our lives, but I am so glad to be able to still have some time to get these projects done before the boys arrive. Eric has also had a huge weight lifted from his shoulders as he has completed each project and he is so proud of his work. I am so proud of Eric for his hard work and dedication to make our home more comfortable and I am love having a handy man in the house. Can't wait for all our sons to help their father with projects in the future.

My cup runneth over.

2010-08-15T11:36:00.000-07:00

Today was one of those days that I have truly felt the love of God. I have been given the strength to endure and I have so strongly felt the spirit.

It has been hard the last couple of weeks being on bed rest. I keep thinking to myself that I should not complain. I bet there are many people out there who would love to just take a break from life and responsibilities and be on bed rest. Overall, my life has become a little easier, but at times it's so hard when I can't pick up my son and hold him when he is tired or hurt and that he now goes to his father for this comfort. It has been hard to have to stay laying down or sitting when Eric is working on the house and he is so tired and at the same time has to attend to Tyler's needs because I can't. It has been especially hard not being able to go to church for the last couple of weeks. I have felt that I had lost some of that spiritual rejuvenation that I got after attending church each week. I also hadn't taken the sacrament in 2 weeks.

This week I decided that I just could not stay away from church. I know Heavenly Father wanted me to attend and I felt that I just needed to feel the spirit to help me through life right now. Oh boy, did I feel the spirit. I happened to pick a great day to come. Today our wonderful Bishopric was released and we learned who our new Bishopric was to be. I can't say enough wonderful words about the Bishopric who had been serving our ward. For Eric, as ward executive secretary, he has come a lot closer to them and I have seen an extraordinary increase in blessings in our family because of this calling so I was very emotional when they were released. I could not stop crying. In fact, I was tearful from the moment I stepped into the church building this morning. Then they called the new Bishop and 2nd counselor and the spirit became even stronger because I knew that these two men were called specifically by God. I was just a cry baby through out the entire meeting. This whole week there has been a lot of discussions within our ward on who would be our new Bishop and we have been praying for a smooth transition. I know that Eric will be blessed for working with these people and I have so much love already for them and so much love for the Bishopric that we had.

So it has been a very emotional and spiritual day and I knew that I was supposed to be at church today. What was even greater was that even with all the crying, I did not have one contraction in that 1 1/2 hours of sacrament meeting. I don't remember the last time that I had felt relief for that long. I also remember feeling so much happiness in taking the sacrament and felt that it had a new meaning for me. It's so strange how life experiences change your feelings and perspectives on activities that have become a sort of routine in your life. I hope that I don't take this for granted again. I also know that as long as I am up to it, I am going to go to sacrament meetings from now until these boys are born because I need to fill my spiritual cup every week.

He has been preparing me.

2010-08-08T09:19:00.000-07:00

With the change in circumstances in the last 2 weeks, I have had the opportunity to just sit and sit and sit and contemplate my life. I thought a lot about how this pregnancy has changed my life, but more importantly how my life, my families lives, will change dramatically change within just 5 weeks. The biggest question I have had has been, "How am I prepared to have 3 children?" More importantly, "How am I prepared to have 2 babies?" I have to admit, I am scared to death! What has prepared me for this moment that Heavenly Father feels he can trust me with 3 of his precious children and twins for that matter. This last week as I was contemplating all of this and trying to make list of things we need to do before these babies arrive, I was hit hard in the heart with my answer. Heavenly Father has been preparing me and blessing me.

He has been preparing me by giving me the opportunity to have a long Maternity leave from work. The time that I have been away from work has relaxed me so much. It has given me the much needed time to concentrate on my family, to enjoy visits from so many family and friends, and it has helped me to think about the really important things in my life. Being on bed rest these last 2 weeks has forced me to slow down and take care of myself and accept services from others. I have been blessed so much with wonderful support from family and friends and the out pour of love from them has been humbling. It's really hard to accept service when you are used to giving it. It is even harder to say I do need some help. Not being able to take care of Tyler on my own these last 2 weeks has been the hardest thing for me. I feel like I have failed as a mother. Eric has picked up my job and become the mother and father. My brother's family has taken care of Tyler when Eric has needed to get work done on the house before the arrival of the twins. Of course, I get to do all the fun stuff with Ty and I enjoy nothing more than just sitting with him and holding with and reading a book with him, but I miss all the other parenting stuff that I was able to do.

Heavenly Father has been preparing me for twins by helping to me get a job as a nurse in Labor and Delivery. I have had the most wonderful experiences helping women during their pregnancies and deliveries. I have had the opportunity to see the complications that are associated with a twin pregnancy and to help many families deliver twins. I feel my experiences and knowledge have helped me to prepare for this time and not freak out about every little thing that has happened during this pregnancy or that may come in the future. Let me just say that everything about this pregnancy was way different then my pregnancy with Tyler. This delivery is going to be even more different because I am going to have an epidural instead of going natural, I am also going to have a c/section instead of a vaginal birth, and I know that these boys are going to come early, 37 weeks being the latest scheduled time for their delivery.

Heavenly Father has been preparing me for twins by giving me a wonderful family to look to as examples of great parents and a wonderful husband who is so great at being a dad. I get asked all the time, "Does twins run in your family or your husbands family?" The answer is "No, not really....But...." Eric has been blessed with a big family. His mother was remarried to a wonderful man when Eric was a teenager and with this wonderful man came a large wonderful family. Eric has 3 biological sibling and 5 step siblings not including their spouses. We have 24 nieces and nephews just on that side of our family. On his step family side there are 3 sets of twins. Eric's step brothers are identical twins and we have two sets of nieces and nephew who are twins. I have the best resources right in my own family to refer to for parenting advice. I have to say that I absolutely love my large family. I love all my sisters and brother-in-laws and my brother, of course. We have so much fun when we visit with each other and I love being an aunt to all my these wonderful kids.

There are a lot more ways that Heavenly Father has been preparing me for this time in my life and I could write forever. The most important thing I realized was that we are not given more than we can handle and we are being prepared for what we are given even if we do not recognize it. Heavenly Father blesses us in so many ways and I feel I need to recognize these blessings more in my life instead of complaining.

Obeying Parents should starts in the womb.

2010-07-29T12:03:00.001-07:00

The expression, "When it rains, it pours," does not even start to describe what the last week has been like for us and these twins have not been obeying my instructions.

Let me first start off by saying that I have all these pictures and events that I want to blog about, but with all the recent events I am not sure that I am going to have the time, energy, or mind set to do it, but I will try in the near future before blogging becomes impossible.

Now where do I start. Let me say that this twin pregnancy has been going well up until now considering that I am carrying twins. I had pretty bad morning sickness the first 4 months and did not even start to gain weight until 16 weeks gestation. I had the normal tiredness, soreness, and irritability. We did find out at about my 20 week ultrasound appt that Twin B had an enlarged bladder and stomach probably caused by a small obstruction that caused fluid to build up. They could tell that he was able to swallow and urinate, but it is just a waiting game for him and making sure that it does not worsen, which it has not. He will get evaluated after he is born. My only real problem physically with this pregnancy was an umbilical hernia that I had found after being pregnant with Tyler. During this pregnancy, it caused a lot of pain and started to get larger so at 24 weeks, I was put on maternity leave for this reason and because I was having twins. Being a nurse is very labor intensive and it is not uncommon that nurses go into preterm labor, even with one baby.

I went on maternity leave at just the right time, because the very next weekend, I started to have some contractions and my feet swelled like elephant feet. Well my schedule just kept getting busy. I had Activity Days camp to attend, dr's appt, family visiting, and about 2 weeks ago two birthday parties to put on for Tyler and his cousins. Through it all, I was really enjoying not having to work, and having the flexibility to do these things while pregnant and still feeling good. But, I think all these events probably helped contribute to the predicament that I am in now.

A week ago at my scheduled ultrasound, they found that Twin B also had a 3cm cyst on his kidney. This was more concerning for me because my father had renal cancer and I have had over 20 kidney stones. We are not sure if this is contributed to the enlarged bladder and stomach or if it is entirely something else, but I was more stressed about it. My contractions had also start becoming more frequent over the weekend, but not too frequent that I knew that I needed to go to Labor and Delivery. I did call my dr to make sure and she just said to stay off my feet and rest and for the most part, I did this.

On Tuesday at 30 weeks gestation, I went for my first Antepartum test where they put the babies on the monitor and look at my contractions. They look to see the at the babies heart rate was good. I was visiting with someone in the Mothers of Multiples programs when I felt a contraction. I looked over at the nurse and asked her if it was showing up on the monitor. She told me that I had been having contractions about 2-5 min apart. I wasn't really feeling them or paying attention. I was only feeling them every 10-15 min. So once the babies passed their heart rate test, the nurse called the dr and I was sent over to Labor and Delivery because my contractions were too close together to let me go home. Once I got there, my contractions were more like 2-3 min apart. I was given a muscle relaxer to see if it would help my contractions slow down and it did. The did a test called fetal fibronectin to see if I could possibly go into labor with in 2 weeks and it came back positive. This test does have false positive and is a better indicator if the result is negative because then we know for sure that the pt will not deliver. And many people have positive test and still delivery at full term. If it is positive, it just means that I need to be watched more closely.
They also checked my dilation and I was closed and my cervix had not thinned out any more than it had from the previous week. So I ended up going home.

Then yesterday( Wed), I woke up at 4:15am with pretty painful contractions in my back and bottom occurring about every 2-5 min. I decided to start drinking a lot of water and try to go back to bed, but they did not go away. I ended up calling my on-call dr and going into L&D at about 9:30am. I was contracting about every 5 min and now my cervix was dilated 1.5cm. So they gave me some lovely drugs with side effects to stop my contractions. I stayed in the hospital until about 1:30pm when they discharged me under the conditions that if my contractions returned even while on medications at home, that I had to come back and I would be admitted to the hospital and also that I was to be on strict bed rest. Meaning only getting up to go to the bathroom and to my appts. I agreed.

Did I mention that yesterday was also Tyler's birthday. Thankfully he was in preschool during this time and had no clue what was going on when he got home.

The day only got worse from there. When I got up for my allowed bathroom privilege at about 6:30pm, somehow I stubbed my small toe and felt this painful crunching. I looked down to see my little toe sticking out from the side of my foot. Very freaky. I hollered for Eric, but didn't know what to do next. I help people deliver babies, not fixed toes. I knew it had to be yanked back into place, but I was in a little shock and I had just gotten out of the hospital. I just kept saying,"i can't believe all this is happening today." We tried calling all the medical people we knew including my mother to try and figure out exactly the course we should take, but we could not get a hold of one person. So Eric yanked on it and put it back into place.That was the worst pain that it kind of took the breath out of me and of course next came a huge contractions, but only one. The only problem for me was that it still did not feel like it was in place and it was still sticking out a little from my foot, so I felt we needed to go in and have it checked out to make sure. After getting the go around with talking to dr and urgent care about where to go, we ended up going to an extended hours urgent care. Let me just say that when you are pregnant, especially with twins, places that do not specialize in pregnant women really do not want to see you even if it is for a non pregnancy issue. I think they are afraid that you might go into labor at their office. And OBGYNs don't want to see you because they deal with only pregnancy related issues. Anyways to make this story shorter, my toes was in place, but there was a nice fracture on it. So in the end, my toe was taped to the toe right next too it and ice was put on it. Eric did a great job at fixing it and I do feel a little bad for questioning his skills.Before Eric yanked back into place.

Overall this was probably the worse day I had had in a very long time, and I hope these twins are listening when I talk to them because I tell them to obey their mother and stay in for another 6 weeks, then they can come out to play.

Ty's 3rd Birthday-Part 1

2010-07-23T09:51:00.000-07:00

This year for Tyler's birthday we wanted it to be as low key as possible. We wanted to celebrate with just family, some good food, yummy cupcakes, and a pinata. What we got was two birthday parties with two different themes and two sides of our family to celebrate with and all in one week. We were pretty busy people, but this year was the funnest one of them all and mainly because of being around all our family.

Tyler's first birthday party was with my family. We had a Toy Story theme because Tyler is all about Buzz and Woody these days.
The cupcakes were fun to make and the display turned out really cute.Tyler received so many gifts. It was hard for him to appreciate them all. He was a trooper with opening up his gifts and did not really need help. The best part was that he was so serious concentrating on each gift. Last year he opened one and just wanted to play with it so he did not want to open up any more. He finally had a chance to play with each gift individually after the party.
The biggest gift was a Kitchen set given to him by his grandparents. The pool was a big hit for these cousins.

A great action shot of our niece.And of course we couldn't end a party without a pinata filled with candy.
What a fun day with family.

Happy Father's Day!

2010-06-21T00:25:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had one of those days that feel like it just can't get any better. Well Father's Day was that sort of day.It started out kind of rough. Eric was asked to give a talk in church. Being Father's Day and that Eric had lost his father when he was 9 years old, this was a very hard talk for him to prepare, but what an inspired and beautiful talk he gave. I, of course was not able to hear it. Tyler decided moments before Eric was to give his talk that he wanted Daddy. So I had to take a crying child out of the chapel and deal with tantrums for the rest of the meeting. When Sacrament meeting was over, people started to come out of the chapel tearful and sniffling and telling me what a "tear jerker" and beautiful talk Eric gave. I was very sad and to the point of tears that I had missed it, but I put on a smile and took Ty to see his Daddy. When he saw him they hugged each other. Ty did not want to let go of his Daddy and Eric did not want to let go of Ty. It was a very sweet moment. The church meetings were so good and during the morning, people were tearful especially as Fatherhood came up.

When we arrived at home, Ty and I were able to give Daddy his Father's Day gift. Ty had picked out a wooden train to paint with Daddy. I had made a fun four pack of bottles filled with candy for Eric along with all the cards that were he received. Tyler has been singing the "Happy Birthday" song a lot lately so we made it a "Happy Father's Day to you"song and he sang it to Daddy. We had a fun lunch of four different cheeses, crackers, and salami. One of our favorite Sunday lunch snacks.A very special moment came after putting Ty down for a nap, I was able to hear Eric's talk. He had recorded it while he was giving his talk so that he could send it to his mother. It was such a beautiful talk and filled with love for his Father, his step-father, and all the men who had played a special role in Eric's life. After listening to the talk, I felt this was such a great day.

We'll it got better. After our naps, we had a BBQ with a picnic in the backyard. Ty also spent time painting his train for Daddy and we topped the night off with a movie and brownies.
I am so thankful for the wonderful husband that I married. I love him so much. I am thankful for the wonderful father he has become to Tyler and am excited to see him with the two baby boys who will meet him in a couple of months. I know that fatherhood is a very sacred thing for Eric because of his life experience he had loosing his father at such an important age. It has impacted him so much and he strives to be the type of person his father was. I am also very thankful for Eric's father that in the short time he spent with Eric, that he could teach Eric so much about the importance of family, love, and a love for life.
I am also so thankful for my own father who I love very much. I am thankful for all his support, in teaching me about the importance of getting a good education and helping me through that time, and the importance of hard work.

Happy Father's Day to all you special men who have made an impact in our lives.

Words of wisdom from Mom.

2010-04-02T10:10:00.000-07:00

I love this idea. I might have to do the same or at least put it above my toilet on the wall.

Found at
http://www.bluecricketdesign.net/

Preschool.

2010-04-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

One month ago today, Tyler started Preschool. It was an exciting and nervous time for me. I knew he needed the social interaction. He was refusing to talk, count, ect. I felt that if he was around other children more often, he would voluntarily interact more.

When I picked up Ty on his 1st day of school, he wanted his sippy cup. I asked him to say the words and he did. No fussing, no hand in the face. On the way home, he threw a tantrum because we passed another school and he wanted to go there for some more fun. When we got home, out of the blue, he started counting on his fingers. He refused to do this before preschool. All I can say is that nothing but greatness has come from Tyler after attending preschool. His schedule is also more structured, naps are earlier again, and I have some free time in the mornings for myself; at least for the next 5 months.Tyler's first day of Preschool.

Today I was the spring celebration at Ty's school. They had an Easter Egg hunt and a special lunch for the kids. Parents were invited to come so I decided this would be the time to see how Tyler acts at school. I am told everyday that he is a great kid and interacts and does well with taking naps.
What I did not realize was that my presence at school with him would be a hindering factor. When I arrived, the kids had just had their Easter egg hunt and I think Ty was a little upset because he had to put his basket away for singing time. He wasn't really into it. When he saw me he came to me and grabbed my hand. We danced with the other kids but he kept wanting me to hold him. I refused of course.
Next the kids washed their hands and sat down to eat lunch. Ty would not let go of me. I had to kneel on the floor behind him and hold his hand. He was on the verge of tears because he thought I would leave. The table was decorated so cute and the kids were wearing Easter hats so I left for a short moment to get my camera and Ty lost it. He broke out into his almost-can't-breathe sobs and really did not get into the party spirit after that. Nap time came after lunch and I knew he was not going to let me leave then come back at 3pm so I took the stinker home for his nap.

I have decided that until Ty is older, I will have to fore go the fun parties that the kids have at school. Sad for me, but even sadder for Ty if I am there.Tyler's trying to eat while sniffing away because mom left for a moment.

Happy Easter!

The best day of the week.

2010-04-01T13:05:00.000-07:00

Sundays are ultimately the best day of the week, unless it is my weekend to work. Its the one day that our family is together all day.

We get up at 7 am, cuddle in bed first, eat, shower and rush to get ready. At 8:40 we are off to church looking smashing in our Sunday attire. We listen and absorb all the wonderful teachings of the gospel that we need to live by in this sometimes crazy world and, of course, feel the spirit and maybe even cry a little. At 12p, church ends and we head home after a little mingling.

Once at home we eat a yummy lunch and just relax and enjoy the rest of the afternoon together.
Together is the key word.
I am not a hermit crab, but I treasure the time I have at home or away from home with my wonderful husband and my adorable son. If I had the choice to go to a party or spend a nice evening with my family, there is no question that I would choose my family. I can't get enough of them.
We don't have a lot of nights that we can say that we spend together as a family. We have a very crazy schedule and sometimes there are people who need to be visited, families that need to move, and meetings that need to be attended. The days we do get to spend together are precious and I can always count on Sunday as those days for our family. Of course, If it is not my weekend to work.

I feel even more now then ever why Heavenly Father has asked that we don't go shopping or go to parties on Sunday. It's a day of spiritual learning, a day of rest, and a day for family.

Getting ready for Church is always a very special experience, especially if Tyler is involved.
Ha, Ha!
Look at these two Handsome men.

12 Week Belly Shots.

2010-04-01T12:55:00.000-07:00

Here is my belly shot at 12 weeks gestation with twins. I am pretty much only wearing Maternity Clothes because Regular pants feel like they cut into my stomach and tops are getting too short. My belly only gets bigger from here.

It's time to finally announce...

2010-03-23T08:12:00.000-07:00

Ok, so now that mostly everyone knows. I think it is time to finally announce that We Are Expecting Twins! That's right, two little babies are growing inside my uterus. No, I was not on fertility meds and no, twins does not run in our family. You may be thinking that it must have been a really big shock to us to when we found out, but instead it was a very peaceful feeling that we had. This last year has been a very long and trying year for us. When we found out that we were expecting two babies, we knew that there were two little ones waiting to meet us.

So, I don't have any ultrasound pics to show you yet because our scanner is not working, and I do not have any pregnancy pics to show you yet because I am so uncomfortable in everything that I wear that I refuse to take any.

The Logistics is I am 12 weeks along and due 10/3 though I will not actually be delivering in October. The average length of a twin pregnancy is 35-36 weeks,but I think it would be great to make it to 38 weeks. We will have to see.It took me 3 test to believe that I was pregnant. The 2nd line was so light on the first two that I couldn't believe it.

It's been a while, but we will soon update!

2010-02-28T17:20:00.000-08:00

I am such a slacker and sometimes there is really no excuse. Right now there is a lot going on: sicknesses, work, a 2 1/2 year old, etc. So wait just a little longer. Soon I will be blogging away about all the adventures we have been on in the last couple of months and let me tell you, there are some really exciting ones.

Cutting down a Christmas Tree.

2009-12-14T00:54:00.000-08:00

This year we decided to finally make a trip to Apple Hill and cut down a Christmas tree. If you have never heard of Apple Hill, well you should have, it is this amazing area East of Sacramento. It's an area that has numerous orchard, shops, and Christmas tree lots. In the last 1o years that we have been in Northern California, we have never made the trip to Apple Hill. Boy, have we been missing out on some fun. One of the best part of the trip for me was stopping at a farmers market and having some apple donuts and apple cider. The donuts were so crispy with a cinnamon and sugar coating. I have never had a donut so good before in my life. We also picked up some apple upon Tyler's persistent request and they were also the best apples I have ever had. We decided that we needed to make more trips to this destination.

We went to a pretty big Christmas tree farm and thought it was going to be great because we could spend time picking out the "perfect" Christmas tree. Little did we know how overwhelming it was to actually pick one out. The more we looked, the more overwhelming it became to the point we could not remember where all the trees were that we liked.

Tyler was in his element on this farm. He leaded us in between the thickest trees and when we struggled to get by some of the trees, he would laugh because he was small and had no trouble. He especially liked when we encountered a very muddy spot. When he saw a stump where a tree had been cut down or some dead branches, he would get sad and say, "Awww," because he thought they were hurt.
Tyler became tired from all the walking so he decided to take a rest and play in the mud.
We finally settled on a tree that we liked and had it cut down and taken to the front of the lot. We had no idea how heavy this tree was until we got it home and Eric had to trim the bottom and get the tree into the house. We should have had some clue when earlier the tree broke the chain on the machine that was trying to wrap it up at the farm.
This is the tree stuck while they were repairing the chain. It did not look that big to us while it was around all the other Christmas trees.

We also realized that this was the fattest tree we ever had when it took up almost the entire width of our wall in our living room. We were so concerned about the height of the tree when we were picking it out that we did not figure in the width of it. Thank goodness it fit.It sure did smell good.

Days in Passing.

2009-12-14T00:15:00.000-08:00

Lately our family has been extremely busy hence why I have not been blogging in 3 months. We have had some very sick family members that we have been feverishly praying for, finals for Eric, work for Kelly, and growing up for Tyler. Through all of this mentally and emotionally exhausting last couple of months, we have also had some great adventures.

One fun project that Eric recently completed was the concrete for our shed out side our house. The best part of it all was the arrival of the huge cement truck. Tyler thought this was the greatest present to show up in front of this house. Sadly he realized that this nice truck had to say goodbye, but the reaction on his face when he saw this truck was beyond words. Eric learned a very important lesson with this project: It is cheaper to just buy your own cement mixer than to rent a truck. Lesson learned.Prepping the ground for the laying of the cement. Tyler loves helping his Dad.

The biggest truck Tyler has ever seen. As Tyler says, "Whoooooaaaaa!"

Eric worked very hard and made at least 7-8 trips with cement because the truck was too heavy to back up onto our grass.

Boys getting dirty.

One of our Friends, Braden came to help and realized that he would rather hire someone to do this in his backyard.

Eric is making grooves in the concrete to prevent cracks.
Gotta love this handyman!

Oh, What a night!

2009-10-09T22:47:00.000-07:00

Our Anniversary could not have been any better.
Eric came home from work with a gorgeous bouquet of flowers that was so big I almost did not have a vase big enough to put them in. Our house just permeates with their wonderful smell.

We then took Tyler to Daycare and headed out to eat. Thanks to a recommendation from a friend, we headed to the Slocum House. Talk about elegant. Its this older home that has been converted to an upscale restaurant. There were lights in the trees, winding steps leading up the house, and believe it or not, chickens running around. We just loved it. The setting was elegant and quiet and we could look out the window and see chickens perching on the railing. It was great. We have been to a couple of elegant restaurant during our marriage, but nothing compared to the food we had.

We started off with an appetizer of Bleu Crab Cakes. Divine! Then I had Almond Crusted Salmon with mussels on a bed of butter and fennel with a gourmet salad. Eric had Filet Mignon with sauteed onions. The best part of the night was when Eric received his entree. Next to the Filet Mignon was these three huge Mushrooms. I am talking about 5 inches in size. We were quite shocked. Eric is not a huge fan of mushrooms so I told him I would eat one. He handed me one once the waiter left and when I cut into it, I was surprised. It was not a mushroom at all. It was a potato cut into the shape of a mushroom. It must have been the lighting because we were so deceived. It really looked like a mushroom until you observed it really close. We had a great laugh.

For desert I had a Banana Cheesecake with creme whip and a carmelized banana over carmel sauce. Eric had a carmelized deconstucted banana split. It was all the ingredients in a banana split sundae separated and put on a plate except the banana was sliced with a carmelized glaze, the chocolate was a ganache, and the strawberry was a strawberry gelee. It was really good!

Everything we ate was just delicious. It was one of our favorite anniversaries and we have found our favorite restaurant to celebrate at.

Now that I have your mouth watering, go eat some ice cream.

Happy Anniversary!

2009-10-09T13:53:00.001-07:00

Yeeeessss! 5 years!
When its your wedding day, you can only imagine what it would be like in 5 years from then....kids, a job, a house. You imagine it to be so wonderful.
You know what?
It is!

5 years ago today, we entered the Oakland Temple, and were sealed together forever. We made a commitment to always love and cherish each other, to talk to each other no matter how mad we were, and together keep God and our Savior in our hearts and our home. Today, thinking back on that special day, I did not know then what the future would hold, but I did know that as long as we were faithful to our commitments that the future would be great. Today I could not be happier where we are as a family. We have a beautiful child, two dogs, cars , and a home. Though we probably thought Eric would be out of school by now and working, I am glad that we are able to support ourselves and that we have a wonderful family.

I am truly thankful for the gospel and the blessings we have received. I really believe that if it was not for the knowledge that we have and the blessings that we have received from being married in the temple we may not have had such a strong marriage. I am especially thankful for a husband who is so supportive, caring, loving, hardworking, etc, etc. I won't get too sappy.
Happy Anniversary!
Can't wait to see what the next 5 years will bring.

Latest Hobbie.

2009-08-13T14:39:00.000-07:00

Michaels was having a clearance event today, So Tyler and I had to check it out. I got some great deals on beads. $0.98-$1.99 for them. I love Michaels! You can buy a whole coordinating ensemble of beads and just add the earring hoops and clasps and you have gorgeous jewelry. While Tyler was sleeping today, I made some cute jewelry.

I have too many craft projects going on right now, but I just had to make time for this.I was excited to find something to match these cute earrings that I had.

This porcelain bead it really pretty in person.

A packet of these flower beads was less than a $1. Love them!

I will make a matching necklace next with the rest of these black flowering beads.

I have been beading for many years and have built up a pretty good supply of hardware to make my jewelry so that when I find the beads that I like, I can make them pretty quick. Each set of earrings takes only about 5 min. Here is some jewelry that I made a while back and that I love to wear.
These are my favorite earrings that I wear to work because they match my blue scrubs. I also love them because they are vintage beads from 1970's.

Ty's Birthday.

2009-08-12T21:31:00.001-07:00

This year for Tyler's birthday we spent not one, but two days celebrating. His birthday landed on a Tuesday so we decided that he should have a slumber party with his cousins. We ate pizza, played in the water, and watched movies. Then on Saturday, he celebrated with his entire family. Tyler is at such a fun age where he can open presents on his own and his reaction to any new toy is a high pitched squeal. He was showered with so many gifts that each morning thereafter, he would come out the living room and it was like it was Christmas again. He is so excited for all the fun toys that he gets to play with. Thanks to all who celebrated with occasion with him.Ty and his cousin teaching him to blow out the candles.

Yummy ice cream cake.

Ty's new Cars race track. He is such a boy!
(Notice the cool shirt that Mommy made just for him)

He received lots of Home Depot tools from Grandma and Grandpa.

Ty was so excited to receive a Mack truck that he just stood their and admired it before he actually played with it.

Tyler had a pinata for his birthday last year, but the difference was that he could hit it this year. All the kids had a fun time.

His new water toy from mom and dad. Now he likes to water the dirt path so that he can walk in the mud. At least it will motivate us even more to finish fixing up the back yard.

Ty wore himself out on his birthday. With his new pajamas and of course Mack he is ready for bed.

Family Photo Shoot.

2009-08-12T20:38:00.000-07:00

The day of Tyler's Birthday party I decided that since our family was going to be in town that we should take some family photos. My friend was gracious and patient enough to take the photos for us and endure the chaos. It was a hard day. Tyler decided (like he did the last time we took some family photos) to be a pickle. He was a little upset leaving the house in the first place and decided that when we arrived at the park that he was not going to walk, but be held the entire time. I thought going to a park for the pictures would make him jump for joy, but that didn't happen. In the end we got some great photos and even some with Tyler smiling. Here are a few of them. This is the same pose that we used when we took engagement photos.

My family.

Eric's family

I just love this picture of my niece. Her eyebrows give her just the cutest expression.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Tyler!

2009-07-28T10:32:00.000-07:00

AAAugghhh! How did 2 years go by so fast? How is it that my baby is really 2 years old.

Tyler:
I love the way you squeeze my cheeks and gives me a big kiss. I love the way you grab your little blankie, get your sippy cup, run to the couch and climb onto our lap to snuggle when you are ready to go to sleep and make sure that you are touching both of mom and dad. I love the way you hold my finger when we walk. I love how you meticulously line up your cars in a perfectly straight line then crashes into them laughing at what you just did. I love that you sit on top of the desk when I am on the computer and give me presents you find or make funny faces. I love when you eat something you like and say, "mmmm" then nod your head in approval. I love when you says,"bye " to everyone every time we leave a store even if you just threw a tantrum. I love when I lay you down in your bed at night how you lift your hand up to stroke my face and poke my nose. I love when you say, Mom or Dad.

I love my little Tyler!

Happy Birthday, Bubba!1 day old.

1 week.

7 weeks.

5 months.

10 months.

18 months

2 years old!

Idaho Vacation

2009-07-13T09:11:00.000-07:00

From Utah, we traveled to Idaho. Eric was quite the driver and we made excellent time. Like Utah, we had so much fun with family. Tyler just had the best time running around with cousins who were closer to his age. It was so funny to see Tyler become so comfortable that he really did not need mom and dad to entertain him. In fact, he pretty much wanted us the leave him alone so that he could play with his cousins.
Little Cousins.

They seemed to cling together all the time.

Cousins playing at the water park.

Here Tyler sitting on a fountain, but it looks like he is doing something else.We went the the zoo and let the kids go wild.

This is the most adorable girl even with big ears.

I am glad Tyler did not inherit these big ears! Ha, Ha!4th of July was spent partying with lots of people. We watched fireworks in this huge culdesac with lots of other families. Ty loved the sparklers.

Eric worked hard trying to help keep the boys from running into the street towards the fireworks. By this time is was nearly 10pm and it was way past bedtime.

Utah Vacation

2009-07-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

Our next part of our vacation, we stayed with close family in Utah. We had such a great time going to a pancake breakfast, a Rodeo, playing with the slip and slide, and staying up late with the adults. The best part was just spending time with family having Tyler meet his cousins for the first time. Little CousinsAren't these just the cutest little girls?...And Boys?Tyler falling out of the kiddie pool.

From now on our vacations will have to include seeing family because these are the most momentous.

Summer Vacation- Part 1

2009-07-08T23:05:00.000-07:00

This year our family was very blessed to take a 12 day vacation and visit family in Utah and Idaho. It was one of the vacations that we never wanted to end and that we would remember for a long time.
Our first day we drop to Elko, NV and stayed at this motel that looked "alright" on the outside, but we were pleasantly surprised when we saw how nice our room was and how comfortable the beds were. We were on a restricted budget so the Hilton was not on our list.When we arrive to our Hotel, we turned on the TV and heard, "Massive Thunderstorm alert in Salt Lake City and Windover and crossing I80; 70 mile/hr winds, Take cover". Next we heard, "Grasshopper invades Lehi, Ut neighborhood."(That was where we were headed.) Then next we heard, "Micheal Jackson passes away at age 50." The first thing I thought was, " This is going to be a very interesting vacation." We were already stressing about traveling with a 2 year old, but thankfully we didn't encounter the massive storm and we saw very few grasshoppers in Lehi. IN Elko we visited a large park and Tyler met some new friends. A 4 year old girl took on the role of Tyler's mother and made sure that he was safe and secure on all the play sets. Tyler took to her too and when it was time for her to leave, he walk after her like he was leaving with her. When he realized that they had to go their separate ways, he was a very unhappy boy and our little park visit was over.

When we arrived in Utah, we visited the Salt Lake City Temple Square. The last time we had been to Utah was when Eric and I were engaged. It was such a beautiful sight. The Salt Lake Temple has always been one of my favorite temples and being in Temple Square was a majestic experience.
We toured the visitor center and tried to see all the exhibits. Tyler was a very active boy and after spending 3 hours in the car, he could not wait to release his energy. Keeping up with him was a little difficult, but he did let us spend at least a couple of seconds in each area.The Christus in the visitors center.

The one time Tyler was actually still was at the water fountain where he just sat and wanted to play with the water. We met a very nice Elder who was serving with is wife at Temple Square. He took our picture and told us some wonderful stories. Afterwards Tyler did not want to leave and getting back into the car for another road trip was hard for us all. Tyler refused to leave so he hung out with the groundskeepers mobile.

So far our vacation was very pleasant.

Our Other Children.

2009-06-17T10:38:00.000-07:00

Daisy and Zoe

There is a reason why dogs are called Man's Best Friend. Our dogs are our children also. We carry them, feed them, love them, and play with them. If you knew our dogs, you would see why. Our dogs are spoiled. If we are sitting on the couch, it never failed that we either have a dog or Tyler or all of them in our laps.
As I have been contemplating all the blessings we have received in the last 5 years, I have realized that beside, Tyler our dogs have been one of the biggest blessings. Zoe was such an odd looking puppy that she was adorable. When we first saw her, her sister in the litter was double her size looked nothing like her, and Zoe would hide in between her legs with these huge ears that would stick out underneath. She was all ears.= . As Zoe grew older, her odd looks made her the sweet, shy, and one of a kind dog that she is.
Daisy is the complete opposite dog that Zoe is. Daisy is outgoing, energetic, and times a pain in the butt. When we first brought her home, she was so tiny and cute. Little did we know that she was the Alpha female of her litter. Although she was small, she have very sharp teeth and a mean personality. She thought she was my master and punctured my finger and lip once when she became angry. I was even afraid of this tiny puppy. She eventually calmed down and I found ways to manage her and show her I was her master. Of course, with Eric's help. Daisy has surprised me the most when I look at her today. She is so kind and playful with Tyler. She puts up a lot with his behavior. Its amazing how dogs sense children and how their behavior changes as if they are extra careful with them. Today I look at our other children and I am so glad that they are part of our lives.

Daisy and her first day home.

Sisters.
Cuddle buddies.

A Boy and His Best Friend.

2009-06-17T09:53:00.001-07:00

Tyler is at a very fun age where he doesn't need just Mom and Dad to entertain him. His loyal companion and Best Friend, Daisy, has become his greatest entertainment. This morning, I came into the room because I heard Tyler's squeaker laugh and knew that he was up to something. This is what I found:

The funniest part was after taking the video, Tyler wanted to see the video and while watching it, he was telling Daisy, "No, No! Get Down!" and "Go, Go!"

Often I find Tyler curled up in Daisy's bed, rolling all over her, or giving her hugs and kisses. Daisy, who used to be an absolute "Stinker," has calmed down a lot and has become the best dog for children.Daisy was very curious and protective of Ty when he was just a week old.

Daisy never missed the chance to nap when others were napping.

Daisy always made sure Ty was safe.

Tyler always made sure Daisy was safe, too.

Best Friends.

Great Finds.

2009-05-23T22:21:00.000-07:00

After working the last 5 nights at the hospital and collapsing from exhaustion, I needed to get out of the house and have some fun. When I met Eric, he had over 100 shirts in his closet and all from thrift stores. I was known as a Thrift Store Queen in high school. Since having Tyler, rarely have we gone to thrift stores. Since we have been on a tighter budget lately, we have been trying to find ways to cut our cost and still find clothes and toys for Tyler.
we finally realized that thrift store shopping would help us. You will be surprised with amount of really nice stuff you can get at a thrift store if you know how to look.

We decided to spend the afternoon and go to a couple of thrift stores we have seen while driving around. I am soooo glad we did!This is what we got:

A desk, a blanket for the dogs, a monkey pillow, a tie, fabric, 7 nice shirts for Eric, and two brand new skirts with original store tags still on all for $30 at the Salvation Army's 60% off sale. Yes, Thrift stores also have sales. All of this stuff would have cost about $80 at the thrift store's regular price which is still pretty cheap compared to getting this amount at a regular store.

My new sewing desk for $16, original thrift store price of $40. It will have an folding extension table and some other custom designs once Eric is done with it. Now I can get my sewing machine off the dinning room table.

A huge Tonka Truck, two other cool trucks with lots of sounds and gadgets, a dress shirt for Ty, memory game, book, fireman hat, baseball bat all for $25 at Goodwill store. Ty had a blast in this store just giddy with happiness and tried to carry all the trucks around by himself. Of course he couldn't, but he was determined to try. Playing outside for him now is going to be even better.

This is all the fabric that I have been buying over the last couple of months. Some are from thrift stores, other discounted with sales and coupons, and a couple full priced, but all very beautiful. I have a lot of sewing projects in mind with this fabric.

Just Me and Mommy.

2009-05-21T12:25:00.000-07:00

I have been working a lot of overtime at the hospital lately. You would have thought we delivered everyone in the whole town by now. Though I love my job, I would rather be spending time at home. Poor Tyler has been a little neglected lately with mommy being so tired. Today I decided that we needed to have some special Mommy-Son time and go to the Zoo.

We arrived when it opened and were greeted with hundreds of school kids waiting to have fun and see animals. Tyler joined right in and started following then everywhere. I think he enjoyed the other kids more than looking at the animals. He was a good sport with the large crowd and spent time looking at each animal then waving and saying,"bye" to each one. His favorite animals was the giraffe and the flamingos. He just giggled when he saw them. He also loved the carousel and giggled and waved to the man working every time he passed by. It was a great day even though there were tantrums at times. Hopefully there will be more Mommy and Me days to come.Tyler mesmerized with the Lemurs.

Tyler's favorite animal. He said, "Oooooo!"A little frustrated at still being small and not able to climb up the frog by himself like the other kids. The carousel.

Zoom! Zoom!

2009-05-21T12:15:00.001-07:00

Last weekend, Tyler was able to spend some man with little man time with Daddy at a Studebaker Car Show. I had worked the night before so I needed to sleep. Tyler had a great time and Eric had an even better time talking car stuff all day. The hardest part was keeping Tyler from trying to get in the cars. He is just like his dad.Tyler loves getting into Daddy's car and trying to drive off in with Mommy.

1955 Studebaker Speedsters. Eric's car is the Lemon and Lime on the left. It's the original color. Pretty Stylin'!One of the cars on Eric's wish list. Packard Hawk. There are not very many of them out there. I still like Eric's car better.

Happy Mother's Day!

2009-05-10T14:14:00.000-07:00

I couldn't ask for a better Mother's Day than spending this weekend with my own mother. I feel this was the best weekend ever. We walked in the Race for the Cure, had a BBQ with our family at my house while the kids all played, took naps, and just spent time having a relaxing time together.My hubby and the BBQ. He had fun.

Grandpa and the grandkids playing piano.

My niece thought she was a great piano player and constantly ran back to play.

Since it was Mother's Day this weekend, I wanted something special for my mother. I really did not have money in my budget to get her what I really wanted so at the last moment I decided to make her something like I was a little kid again. It took me a couple hours and I used what fabric I had. It was probably not a gift that she would use all the time, but I wanted it to be something that I made.
A nice Apron was her gift with some little recipe books. She is holding up my creation thinking that I just wanted a picture of it my archive of my crafts that I made. She did not know that she would be getting this as her gift the next day.

Happy Mother's Day Mom!

Race for the Cure, Sacramento

2009-05-10T13:44:00.000-07:00

This weekend my mom, my sister-in-law, and I walked 3 miles for the Race for the Cure. We had a lot of fun. There were over 25,000 people registered, but about 20,000 people walked. It was really fun to see all these people, men, women, and kids wearing pink. The best part was seeing all the pink survivor shirts for those who survived breast cancer. Mom looked really cute in hers. I know it made here feel really supported. It was also sad at times. On the back of a lot of shirts were signs that said " in memory of" The most recent death was on May 4th,2009 that we saw. One older gentleman had 3 signs clipped down the back of his shirt in memory of his wife and in celebration of his two daughters. One of his daughters was walking with him. It was a very emotional time and being around all these people you could not help but tear up. Mom said once during the day that she felt a little guilty because she was so lucky to not have gone through all the chemo and radiation and suffering that a lot of these women and their families went through. I truly feel that she was blessed and that she had a greater purpose from this experience.

Next year we will make this an entire family event and have our own team. Thanks everyone for their donations and thoughts for my mom. A total of $345 was raised on behalf of my mom. She was the 2nd highest person for our team and she doesn't even work for Sutter Memorial Hospital.Our exercise instructors who helped us warm up for the race.

Mom warming up.

My sister-in-law and mom walking. It was at times really crowded.

Some of the different teams that walked. The finish line!

Buggin around.

2009-04-22T23:09:00.000-07:00

Tyler's favorite past time lately is going outside. When he is outside, he moves nonstop. Due to the very warm weather lately, we have been having a little more company to our backyard than usual and Tyler and our dog, Daisy have been having a wonderful time welcoming them. Sometimes Tyler and Daisy fight over a particular bug, but both have the best intentions of not wanting to harm the bugs, but it does not always work out for the best. Daisy likes to play with bugs or worms. She picks them up, puts them in her mouth, does not eat them, but drops them then barks at them in excitement, then rolls around on them. Most of the time the bugs do not survive. Ty is a little more humane, but if you are not careful and surprise him, he might hold the bug a little too tight while he is running away from you trying to hide the bug so that you do not make him put it down. Over all as a mother, I don't mind them exploring the world of bugs as long as they are not spiders, then I freak out and quickly quit playtime outside. I perfer that they don't kill the poor creatures unless they are spider, then they can kill as many as they want to. Here is a cute video of Ty with a new bug friend that ended up living an escaping.

Picnic Day.

2009-04-22T22:37:00.001-07:00

So much as happened this last week, that I could write forever, but I won't.
Last Saturday was filled with fun and worry. We had been planning to attend Picnic Day at UC Davis for the last month. We were super excited and anticipating all the cool things we could see and the exhibits we could attend with Ty now that he is older and would be more interested in the animals, but things did not turn out exactly the way we planned.

On Friday night, our beagle, Daisy, started showing signs that she was not feeling well. By the end of the night, she was having trouble walking and using the bathroom. She would just lay down and wine. We thought that she might have a bowel obstruction because this dog will eat anything; paper clips, toothpicks, nickles, etc. (I should not mention this, but since Eric is in Vet school, he did do a rectal exam to see if he could feel a blockage. Eeeewwww!.)By Saturday morning, she was worse and of course this was the day that we were planning on attending Picnic Day. Since her Vet office is in Davis, Eric took Daisy to the Dr, while Ty and I went on our adventure. Poor Eric had to miss part of the day to be with Daisy, but then left her at the Vet to have fun with us. Little did we anticipate was the difficulty of seeing all the cools exhibits with an almost 2 year old in hot weather and one who did not have a nap that day. Overall, we did not see many exhibits because of the crowds and Ty's lack any attention span. He did have a lot of fun at the bubble table set up for kids and he did love running away from us at any moment that we were not holding him. After we had all the fun and tantrums we could have, we picked up Daisy from the Vet. She did not have a bowel obstruction. She had an abscess in her anal gland. Yuck!. Never wish this on any dog.

It was very exhausting day and we all crashed when we either got in the car or set foot in the house. Like we said last year and said again this year,"Next year will be better because Ty will be older and enjoy be able to enjoy the exhibits more."Ty loved the bubble so much. He spent an hour at the table and even pushed other kids out of the way to get to the bubbles.Here is Daisy on heavy narcotics, antibiotics, and a warm compress on her tush after the abscess ruptured.
This is what happened when Daisy could not leave her tush alone. She is pretty pitiful.

Adventures of a Toddler.

2009-04-01T22:53:00.001-07:00

In the life of a Toddler, aka Tyler, life is very exciting. There are all these new toys, bugs, and even rocks to explore. On a typical day of a certain Toddler, aka Tyler, it begins with eating then going outside, eating some more, sleeping, waking up, eating, going outside, eating again, and if parents allow going outside again, having a bath, cuddling, then going to bed. The next day starts and the same routine begins.

Lately all Tyler wants to do is play outside. He loves to explore all the different rocks in our backyard and see how many he can stick in his mouth before mommy discovers them. When I give him the special tone of voice. He opens his mouth and all these rocks come out. One day I was not watching him closely enough. He was playing in a rock pile with a little cup. He scooped a cup of dirt into his mouth and when I finally looked at him, he smiled at me with this black smile. I immediately ran over to him where he started spitting out mud and smiling. I don't know what it is but I have issues with eating dirt. I wanted to vomit. So I grabbed him and took him to the sink at the same time gagging my self. Then I proceeded to wash out his mouth and kept gagging at the same time. It was so gross! He just kept spitting out the dirt and thought it was fun to play with the water. Hopefully this incidence does not repeat itself because I don't think I could take hold myself together.

Its been so fun to see Tyler explore everything outside. It is almost like you can see his thoughts how he discovers and learns new things. I love it!
Tyler loves chalk. Unfortunately he brougt it into the house and drew on the piano bench, the wall, and a chair before we caught him .

Tyler is helping Grandma do the weeding.

Tyler has now been known as the handyman. He loves to try and fix things with his screwdriver and hammer.

Our new Car!

2009-03-17T22:32:00.000-07:00

I can't believe this day has finally come. We are the owners of a minivan! Ahhhhhh!
Eric has been tired of me complaining and fussing about how much I could not stand the looks of a minivan. I like the looks of an SUV, but not the mileage that they get and Eric flat out refused to get an SUV. I grew up with a van. I even obtained my drivers license with a van, but I just felt like I was getting older if I had to get one. And, we only have one child right now. Of course, we also have two dogs and we travel quite a bit. After realizing that our PT Cruiser was getting too small for our family and I was getting tired of Tyler kicking me on the shoulder from the back seat, I started considering that it was probably time to upgrade to a larger car. Then after some coaxing from Eric, a great credit score, and a nice tax return, a great financing deal from our bank, and an unbelievable deal from the car dealership, somehow everything fell into place and I finally gave in.

So this is what we got. 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan SXT, Certified with 34,000 miles. It has the works with Stow and Go, power sliding doors, etc, etc, and it does not look like the older models of vans. I have to admit that it is pretty nice and drives gorgeously. Can't wait to see how Tyler likes it. He actually might get mad that he can't kick me anymore.

Little Gracie

2009-03-01T23:51:00.000-08:00

I just got home from work and Eric told me to look at the Gledhill's blog, because it was not good.
I don't know if you really care, but I feel that I have gotten to know this family and little Gracie through the last 10 months, so I feel the need to blog about her.

I found out that the family will say goodbye to Little Gracie tomorrow. Her bleeding won't stop and her heart will never beat on it own. The family has decided to donate her organs so they really won't be with her after she passes, just for a moment, then she will go into surgery so that other lives might be saved.

How does a parent comprehend this? I can't even imagine what that family is going through. I would feel so lost and just heartbroken without my Tyler. I am so thankful for being a parent. I absolutely love Tyler. I am also so thankful for knowing that my family will be together forever. I know that during this difficult time, that is something this family is also very grateful for. Please say a little prayer for this family through this hard time.
http://thegledhillfamily.blogspot.com/

Visiting Family videos

2009-02-24T23:45:00.000-08:00

Ty and his red wagon

At the end of the day, Ty was still running like crazy.

Visiting Family Part 1

2009-02-24T23:11:00.000-08:00

This last week I realized that I a big gap in my work schedule so I took Ty and we headed south to see my parents and grandparents. Eric had a big test to study for so he stayed home. WE MISSED HIM!.

I have had a really hard time lately with having most of my family 4 hours away. It is just far enough away that it is hard to take the trip often with a little guy and with our busy lives. I have really wanted to see my grandparents while they are still alive. I really want Ty to get to know them and call them Grandma and Grandpa.

Ty was so cute and opened up to everyone he met. He was not his typical shy self. He ransacked my parents house, getting into drawers, pouring sugar all over the floor and just being his self.

We had such a great time visiting with My grandmother on her farm. She has downsized her farm to only 2 acres, but it is enough for one woman to take care of. She has lots of ducks, chickens, and other animals. I loved staying with my grandparent in the summer when I was a kid. We had to work, but we always found some kind of magical adventure to go on. I miss that time. I want Ty to see what a wonderful and fun place it is to visit and this time was not a disappointment.

Tyler loved riding the tractor that I rode when I was a baby, looking at the turtles, dragging his red wagon all over the farm, climbing and crawling through fencing, and just running everywhere. The moment we got into the car to leave, Tyler fell asleep.
Ty was not tall enough to use the pedals on the tractor, but he figured out how to still drive it.

Ty just loved crawling through this rolled up fencing.

Ty's special red wagon.

Grandma loves turtles. She has a hot house just for a lot of her desert and box turtles, then another hot house for water turtles and more turtles inside her own house. Did I mention that Grandma is Treasurer of the Turtle Club.Grandma and her pet Emu, Abby. Abby will sit and let you pet her.

My grandparents used to run a Cactus Nursery. They had 13 acres and their farm was lined with cactus hot houses. We used to help with the seeds and weeding. Now my grandma has sold most of her land and torn most of the hot houses down. This is the glass hot house that had all the succulents in them. I used to go in this building when I wanted to feel peace. It is still there and I still feel peace when I am in it. I love all the different succulents that my grandmother grows there.

It is always a wonderful adventure when visiting my grandmother.

Please pray for Gracie.

2009-02-23T10:02:00.000-08:00

A while back I came across a blog about the Gledhill family with a baby named Gracie who had a rare heart defect. When I first read their blog, Gracie was only weeks old. Now Gracie is 11 months old. She and her family has gone through so much in her life. She has had the wonderful experience of going home to her family, but now she is very critical. Over this last week, Gracie's heart began to fail and within days she was put on a transplant list and had a transplant. Now here new heart is failing. This is such a strong family and the mother is so great and blogging what is happening. She is asking for prayers now for little Gracie and I thought I should pass on the message. It brings me to tears to think that a child has had to go through so much in such a short period of time and my life is a piece of cake compared to hers. So I ask you to pray for little Gracie that she is comforted through this hard time and feels no pain.
http://thegledhillfamily.blogspot.com/

Kelly's New Toy.

2009-02-06T21:18:00.000-08:00

This last week Eric came home with a big surprise for me. A sewing machine. I was looking a one online and decided on a cheaper simpler one, but when Eric gets looking he can't stop until we have what he is searching for. This sewing machine is a Pfaff 1471. It is the same kind of machine that his mom has and she has had it for years. Pfaff is a German maker and they make really durable machines, but they are soooo expensive. I was not sure about this machine at first because I do not sew a lot and I just wanted a nice machine that wouldn't break down and make do until I had the time to really get into sewing, say in 6 years when Eric graduates. To my surprise this sewing machine is awesome. It is programmed with over 100 stitches and you can also program your own like your name. It also comes with different attachments or foots. I have been playing with it and get so excited when I sew a new stitch. For an older machine it runs like a new one. We also got it for a killer deal on ebay because the person selling it happened to live 15 min away and so far we have not seen a machine sell as low. I now have all these new projects to sew and try to sew a quilt that does not include yarn ties.There are a lot of fun embroidery stitches.

There are compartments that hold the foots, needles, bobbins, etc.

Some of the fun stitches I played with.

Ty's New Toy.

2009-02-06T21:09:00.000-08:00

For Christmas, Tyler received a table and chair set from Ikea. We thought is was a good prep for Nursery since we did not think he could sit still for one minute to eat his food. He definitely surprised us. After purchasing it, we noticed that Ty would have a serious tantrum at every meal when he ate in his highchair and for a couple of meals, he refused to eat at all. So we decided to let him eat his meals at his table and low and behold, he loved it. Since then, he will not sit in his highchair, but runs to his big boy chair for every meal. He also sits in it to watch TV. His favorite thing to do is rearrange furniture. He can spend hours a day just picking up his chairs and placing them in other rooms or in different orders. He now loves to do this at church which can be a little bit of a problem when people are in his way.

Christmas in the Central Valley

2009-01-02T21:58:00.000-08:00

Christmas this year was spent at my parent's house and with family in Fresno. We started the day with waking up and opening gifts with my parents. Tyler was a cook. He saw one toy and refused to open another gift until we bribed him enough and most of the time we just opened his gifts for him then he became interested after once he saw the new toy.
We next headed to Fresno for a wonderful formal lunch at my aunt and uncle's house. We had fun talking with everyone, but most of the time Ty refused to sit in his chair, so he crawled under the table and played with the dogs.
Next we headed to our other grandparents house to visit some more family and eat some more delicious food. We opened up more gifts. Santa must have thought Ty was a very good boy, because he was especially blessed with a lot of fun toys. It was a wonderful day and in the end the gifts were not what was so special on this day, but the time we spent with our family.
Ty's great-grandmother in her silky new dress.

Christmas Snow Vacation.

2009-01-02T17:45:00.000-08:00

Our family spent the first part of our Christmas vacation at Eric's parent's house. We had a relaxing and fun time. We ate great food and spent a day in the snow up at Big Trees.
A nice family let us borrow a saucer for Ty to ride around the parking lot. He loved it! We must get one of these!

Daddy and Ty look so cute and so cold.

On our way back to the car, Ty finally got into the snow mood and played in the snow.

We also met a very nice snowman.

The true meaning of Christmas.

2008-12-16T20:21:00.000-08:00

During this time of year, it is so easy to get stressed about what gifts to give and caught up in all the sales and lights, but every year during this time of year I always have a moment where the true meaning of Christmas makes it appearance into my heart.

Through church, I have a great calling of teaching Faith in God or Activity Days. Let me tell you, it has to be the greatest calling ever. I help conduct a class two times a month with girls ages 8-11. We work on service project, talents, articles of faith, and learning about the gospel and trying to feel the spirit. Sometimes that classes are just wild with activities and sometimes they are just sweet, but everytime I come away feeling so thankful that I have the opportunity to get to know these sweet girls.

Last year we started the tradition of going Christmas caroling as our last activity for the year. We make special gifts the previous meeting to give to the people we carol to and decide on the songs we are going to sing. We go caroling to 2-3 homes then at the end of the night, one of the girls mother invites us to her gorgeous Christmas decorated house for hot chocolate and treats where we sing some more Christmas carols and the girls get all their giggles out before going home.
This year we made cute raindeer ornaments out of popsickle sticks and decorated candles.
This year we decided to focus on caroling to two widowed sisters in our ward who have in some way or another made an impact on our ward and on our own families. When we arrived at their homes, immediately when the door opened, you could feel the spirit and the tears filled their eyes as these sweet girls sang with the purest voices. And afterwards, the smiles on each womens faces and the girls faces were priceless.

These are the type of services that show the true meaning of Christmas. During this time of year we should be celebrating the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ by being like him and serving others. I can tell you the simple act of going Christmas caroling brought the spirit and enough joy into my heart to last for a long time and I know these girls felt it as well.

Our New Desktop Accessory

2008-11-24T11:02:00.000-08:00

Who knew that our new desktop accessory would be so cute. He is really great at rearranging all the pens in the drawer and pushing every button on the computer and printer. Now I will never be bored while blogging.

Little Mr. Energy.

2008-11-23T21:42:00.000-08:00

We have noticed as parents lately that we might be failing to entertain Little Mr. Tyler. He seems to have become quite an energetic boy and his attention span is getting even more shorter. So we have had to come up with some ideas as to entertain this little guy. Here are some of our ideas that have worked.Piano playing is always a fun past time for Tyler and he feels it he is the next Mozart in our family.
Turning on and off the TV is also great entertainment for Tyler, especially when you are watching a movie and your are really into the exciting scenes then all of a sudden the TV goes blank and you hear a loud shrill of laughter from a little short person.( Notice all the fingerprints on the TV. Can you tell how often this event happens?)

Can't forget the remote. Tyler is great at pressing all the buttons.

If all else fails, just bring in the good old swimming pool. I have to give credit to Daddy for this one. It's a great way to fill your living room space and can also be used as a toy box or ball pit.

Swimming pools would not be fun without a Tyler and a Daddy in it.

Crotchet Time.

2008-11-23T21:08:00.001-08:00

Recently I have indulged myself in my love for Crocheting. It is a hobby that I just love to do. I can crotchet just about anywhere; in the car while Eric is driving, in the car while I am waiting or procrastinating going into the hospital to work, or while watching TV. Recently our Beagle, Daisy, has been having trouble getting out of bed in the mornings. She keeps getting here head caught in the one of many holes that she chewed in her favorite afghan. This was the first afghan that I ever completed and it was my favorite too until we brought Daisy home as a puppy and she indulged herself with the blanket.Recently Eric had been nagging me to make another afghan for Daisy because she prefers it to the other four blankets that are on her dog bed. So I gave in and made her a blanket.

The process of crocheting the blanket was quite funny to many people. While crocheting at work on my breaks when someone would ask who I was making the blanket for I was honest and said it was for my dog. Their immediate reaction was to laugh. I would then explain my pathetic story how Daisy's head was stuck in her blanket every morning and how pitiful she would looked and how she just had to have another blanket. They would then understand, but still think I was crazy for spending so much time and effort for my dog. Now anytime they see me crotchet they ask if it is for another dog.

I feel I have almost become obsessed with it. There are now so many patterns and fun things to crotchet and they make great gifts. I think that I have given away at least 8 blankets in the past that I have made. I have made a goal now to not use the same pattern more than once so as to improve my skills and challenge myself. Here are just a few of my project that I have completed or am working on.
Daisy's blanket. She really loves it. Every night she crawls under it and wiggles around.

This is my latest project. It is called a Zen Spiral afghan. I have never made a circular Afghan and so far I am really loving how it is turning out.

Here are some unfinished projects. Some blocks for an afghan and a baby boy blanket which I will crotchet a pocket on and put a crotchet dog in it as a gift.

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T20:19:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Today has been a relaxing and fun day. Tyler and I spent the day at home just playing. I had the opportunity to care two pumpkins since Eric and I did not have time to do it together. Most of the carving was done while Ty was sleeping since he wanted to play with the knife. Probably not the best idea. Afterwards we decorated the front of the house in preparation for Trick-or-Treaters. When the sun had set, we were off. We visited four houses with Tyler. He was more interested in trying to walk and get the candy out of his pale than actually getting the candy. We spent the rest of the night sitting in front of the house with Daisy and Zoe and handing out candy. It was an easier way to give out candy instead of the dogs having a hissy fit every time the door bell rang.We even dressed up the dogs.

The dog was carved just for Eric since he missed it and because Ty can say, "Dog."

The decorations turned out pretty good considering I did it all for free.

Daisy was a Bumble Bee and Zoe was a Lady Bug.
Can't wait to see what next Halloween will bring.

Trunk or Treat.

2008-10-26T20:48:00.000-07:00

Our family went to a great Carnival and Trunk-or-Treat this weekend at our church. They had a carnival with a cake walk, basketball shooting, a scooter course, fishing stand, face painting, popcorn machine, and a chili cook-off. The activities committee did an awesome job and all the kids just loved it. There were so many cute costumes. Some even brought their dogs dressed up.Tyler was a Dragon. He was so cute. I thought that he was not going to keep his hat on, but he was so mesmerized by all the other kids that he did not notice it. He had a lot of attention. There was a big blow up entry way that he kept running to because he liked the pump and he even threw a tantrum when we had to pry him away from it. Dad was a mechanic and mom was a candy corn. We went a little cheap on our costumes, but it was fun. Mom played the basketball shooting contest and came in second with 16 made baskets in 30 sec in the Women's category. You almost had to pry me away from it. The trunk or treat was fun, but Tyler was more interested in eating popcorn off the ground or running to the side walk then trying to get candy. It was a great night. It is a lot more fun when now that Ty is older and can walk around. We did feel a little guilty that we were getting candy since Ty does not actually get to eat it, but I guess he needs to practice and we did work really hard letting him practice so we deserved a treat too.

Pumpkin Patch.

2008-10-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

This last weekend, we had a great day at the Pumpkin Patch in Davis. We met up with other Vet students and their families. It is one of the activities that we like to get together and meet each other's families and let the kids just play together. Tyler was old enough to go to the petting barn this year. There were so many animal and kids. I think he was a little overwhelmed at times and was mostly interested in the other kids than the animals. We then picked out our pumpkins from these big fields. Tyler loved helping dad with the wheelbarrow.

Our family.

The piglets were so cute.

This little pygmy goat was very unusual with its ears curled up.

This is mommy's favorite animal, the cow. Both Tyler and the calf look a little tired.

Tyler loved helping daddy with the wheelbarrow.

Tyler picking up a pumpkin.

Mischief Child.

2008-10-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

I was having one of those, "There is not enough time in the day to get everything done," day.
I was working on the computer printing some stuff off for a class I teach, when I heard a thump. Tyler was in the office playing with the plastic lid of a box and likes to bang it around where ever he goes, so I did not think anything of it and kept printing off my work. When I finally turned around, this is what I saw.

If you cannot tell what this is, he took off the top of the paper shredder (it was turned off of course) and threw shredded paper all over the office, then down the hall and into the living room. It's not the first time I have turned around and have been unexpectedly surprised and he was actually being pretty quiet with it.

Mom's recovery.

2008-10-20T08:05:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to give an update on my mother's progress. The results of pathology and her estrogen and progesterone receptor test came back great. She will not have to have Chemo. She will just have to take a pill for 5 years, a mammogram every six months, and more doctors appts. Pretty great news. She has been so thankful to everyone for the gifts, food, and phone calls. She is feeling great and is relieved to finally be able to drive and get out of the house, but she still has a lot of healing that she needs to do and try as best as she can to not overexert herself. Thanks to everyone for your support and prayers. I truly believe that they have helped her and blessed her.

I just wanted to post some cute pictures of mom before her surgery. Mom, I hope you do not mind.
This is a picture of Aunt Nancy, Grandma, Mom , and Tyler in the waiting room before mom's surgery.
Mom in the pre-op room. Tyler was scared of mom in her hat.
She had to take it off to talk to him, then he recognized her.

I just love this picture of my parents. I think it radiates the love they have for each other.

Doing Something With My Time.

2008-10-16T14:59:00.001-07:00

Recently I have decreased my hours at work by one shift every two weeks in order to be a little more sane and spend some more time with my family. I know there will be a little more strain on our financial situation, but I am willing to give up some luxuries to spend some more time at home.

On the weeks that I work one less shift, I have made a promise to myself that I will work on a project while Tyler is sleeping. This week it is Burp cloths. I have way too much fabric and craft supplies than our new house can hold so in order to use the fabric in a financially safe way, I have used my time to create future baby gifts. I had a pack of cloth diapers from the last time I made burp cloths and lots of cute girly flannel blankets. Here are the results.

So if you are having a baby girl in the near future, I hope you do not see this blog because these may be in your gift.

Happy 4 years!

2008-10-16T09:53:00.000-07:00

Last week was our 4 year Anniversary of being married and 9 years of being together as a couple. I know that I am a little late to post, but we've been quite busy. It seems like we were married a long time ago, but at the same time that it was yesterday. We went from living in our mobile home with one dog and a Studebaker to now living in our own house with a child, two dogs and two Studebakers. I wonder what next year will bring or in another four years. It has been such a wonderful life and I can't imagine any other person to spend it with than Eric. He is a wonderful father and works so hard at home and school. I am truly lucky to have a this man in my life. (Sorry for the sappy stuff, but here's to you Babe!)

Here is a picture of us on our 1st anniversary. We went on a Dinner ride on the Sunset Dinner Train. It was very elegant. Having a child sure changes your plans of an anniversary trip.

To celebrate this year, we had a wonderful weekend of traveling and enjoying our time together as a family. Friday we headed to Milpitas, Ca (San Jose) for a Studebaker Zone meet. We have not been to a car function for a while so it was fun to see old friends and look at cars. Eric mostly looked since Ty couldn't miss his nap and it was cold and windy. There were some really gorgeous Studebakers. One car was bright pink and the woman did all the work on her car herself. She was really cute and dressed in black satin pants and a bright pink top with a black scarf around her neck. Total 50's!

After spending half of the day there we went to San Francisco. Once I heard that the Academy of Science Museum was having its grand opening, I have been so excited to go. It was fun, but very crowded. They had a really neat aquarium and coral reef area and rain forest area. We did not go into the rain forest because of the line, but we could look into it because it was this huge glass ball that people walked up a spiral walkway up the top. We also could not go into the Planetarium because Tyler was too young. The best part for Tyler was sitting on the grass outside and playing with all the kids running around. It was a kid zoo and he just ran around and walked up to families then stood and stared at them for a long time. It was funny to see him interact.

On Sunday, we headed to Point Reyes along Highway 1 and spent some time at the Lighthouse. We walked 300 stairs down to the Lighthouse then back up. It was quite a trek, but very beautiful. We even saw deer on the side of the path. Overall our weekend was just about spending time together and introducing Tyler to more exciting places even if he will not remember any of this.
Tyler did not seem to mind looking down at the cliffs. He constantly wanted to look over the railing at the water below.

Mom's Surgery Update.

2008-10-02T21:38:00.000-07:00

What an emotional day! Today was my mom's mastectomy. We left the house and headed for Fresno at 10:30 am. When we were just out of town when the hospital called to tell my mom to come in as soon as possible because they wanted to move up her surgery. It took about an hour to get her prepped and the actual surgery was about 1 1/2 hours long. The greatest thing was that everything went great. The Sentinal test came back negative which showed that the cancer had not spread to lymph nodes. What wonderful news! It took another 2 hours before we were able to see mom and she looked great. She was hooked up to a PCA pump that gave her a dose of Dilaudid (really gooood stuff!) when she pressed the button. Mom was smiling and even laughing. She was also so concerned about everyone else ( That's my Mom!). When the medicine finally caught up with her pain, we would be talking to her one moment then she would be asleep within a second. It was funny, but we knew it was our time to go. I hope she gets caught up on all the hours of sleepless nights.

We had a lot of family there for support which was great. It is amazing how an illness can bring a family closer. My biggest job was being in charge of calling people after I learned of the results. I was also in charge of Mom's cell phone. I learned from dad that mom has 92 people on her address book on her cell phone. Of course I did not call that many people, but it goes to show just how many people my mom keeps in touch with. I did spend the rest of the night on the phone, though, with what seemed to be the whole town my parents lived in. I would talk to one person and they would tell me that they then needed to call so and so and let them know how my mom was doing. The phone tree was definitely in progress. Thank goodness I did not leave the cell phone with mom because she would never get sleep with how many people I had to talk to and when we got home, I would be talking to someone on the land line and cell phones would be going off at the same time. My dad just refused to answer the phone. Overall everyone was just so kind and loving. I just could not believe how many people were concerned for my mom and telling me what a great person she is. I just hope that my mother realizes what a positive example she is to others. My heart is just so full right now and I can't express enough thanks to everyone for their concern and their prayers. This will continue to be a very trying recovery for my mom, but I feel a little more at peace leaving her knowing that so many people will make sure that she is taken care of.

For Her.

2008-09-29T22:23:00.000-07:00

This is the hardest blog that I know or hope to ever have to write because it is about my best friend. My Mom. I hope that she does not mind me writing about her, but I feel compelled to let people know just what a great woman she is and how brave she is through this difficult time. And I chose to discuss this now after many people have already found out and it is not a big secret, and because I am asking people to keep her in your prayers.

A couple of weeks ago, my mother told me that she had found a lump on her left breast and had a mammogram. The mammogram showed three small masses and calcification along a duct. She told me that the following Tuesday she was going to have a biopsy to see if it was cancer, but that she did not have a bad feeling about this and that she would probably have to have a lumpectomy. It was quite a big shock and though I was worried, I also did not have a bad feeling about what was going on. I was saddened that my mother did not want us to know this until she knew the diagnosis for sure, but I was so glad she told us because I probably would have been a little more upset if she had delayed telling my brother and I.

So the following week she had a lengthy biopsy and the next day it was confirmed that she did have breast cancer. Two of the masses were two centimeters in size, the third one smaller, and three centimeters apart from each other which I guess is a little more serious because it could mean that the cancer is spreading. The calcification could also indicate this since cancer is spread quicker through lymph nodes and ducts then into the blood stream. Only one of the masses indicated infiltration into the breast tissue while the other two did not. So what does this mean?

A mastectomy.

When they perform the mastectomy they will run a test to see if the cancer has spread to more than one lymph node which will indicate that the breast cancer is metastatic and whether she will need chemotherapy or more aggressive treatments.

Once again the news was shocking. I think the next day the news really sunk in and for a couple of days I could not help but cry when I thought about my mom. I mean, she has spent most of her life helping others and working so hard as a nurse and nurse practitioner. For the Big C to happen to her was heart breaking for me and I felt that she did not deserve this. My mother is the person that people call in the middle of the night if they need help with an illness or any other issue and my mother, no matter how little sleep she has had, will get up and spend the rest of the night helping others just to go to work in the morning and not complain about it. Every week she works hard with Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, being the medical personal at every football game, and helping special friends recover from illnesses. She is just an amazing woman. I was scared and heartbroken and I wanted so much to take this disease away from her.

I continue to turn to my Heavenly Father in earnest prayer to please help my mother get through this and to be healed completely. I realized that this was in a way a blessing for our family. I feel already that it has brought us all closer and to cherish the moments we have together. It has also forcefully made my mother think of herself and hopefully realize that she also needs to take care of herself and that so many people want to help her. It is really hard for my mother to except service, but there has been an out pour of love from her community and she in the prayers of many people and many churches. While I was home this last week, I encountered a lot of people who let me know that they have been worried about my mother and are thinking of her. Some of them had tears in their eyes while talking about her. I hope my mother realizes just how many lives she has touched and that by taking care of herself will give her the opportunity to care for people in the future.

As my mother continues to let people know about her diagnosis, she still finds ways of trying to help others become more healthy. She is currently using her diagnosis to teach woman and men about the importance of doing self examinations and getting a mammogram. To put in my two cents, October is Breast Cancer and Get Your Mammogram awareness month.

So on Thursday is the big day that my mother will have her mastectomy. Tyler and I will be driving down tomorrow to be with her through this week. She will then spend at least three weeks recovering as long as the test results are good.

I ask that you please keep my mother and my father in your prayers this week that the surgery goes well and she recovers fully. This is a challenging time for our family, but I know that the Lord will be with her and bless her.

Precious Time With Grandparents.

2008-09-29T21:32:00.000-07:00

Tyler and his mom(me) had the wonderful opportunity to spend some time at my parent's house this week while dad was busy going to school. Let me tell you, when it comes to grandparents, Tyler sure knows how to put on the charm. He was such a great little guy and had a break from some of his usual stinker behaviors. Grandma made sure to smother him with kisses and hold him as much as she could. We also spent time with his great grandparents and it was so great to be able to let them see him in this stage of his little life. I get really home sick sometimes when I think how far away I live from my family and wish that they can see Tyler more. I cherish these moments we spend with them and hope that my grandparents are around long enough for Tyler to remember them.

While we were there, it was my parent's anniversary and they really wanted to go the beach before life became to busy. We went to Pismo Beach so they could see what a little fish Tyler was. He proved this right. The first thing he did when we hit the sand was try hard to run to the water. My dad grabbed him and off they went. Of course not without me nagging my dad to bring him back to change him into his swim clothes and not get his pants wet. And of course, he did not listen to me. We were finally able to pull Tyler away from the water and dress him, then he flopped back to the water. He would run into the waves at first as far as he could go. Then after falling a couple of times, he realized that he did not like the water in his face and when the wave came he would run away from it squealing with delight at his accomplishment. If he had the choice, I'm sure he would live right on the beach.

There was one point where an older little girl in a blue bathing suit was running around by us and caught Tyler's eye. He seemed drawn to her and when she ran away to meet up with her mom, Tyler decided to run after her. We just laughed then realized, Hey, he is too young to be interested in girls. He didn't seem too heart broken when she did not come back.

The best part of the day was when both of my parents were playing with him in the water. I just wanted time to stand still and hold that feeling of happiness. When it started to get colder, Tyler cuddled up with grandma, laid his head on her shoulder and soaked up the love he was receiving. Of course, grandma was also soaking up the rare moments that Tyler showed his love.

I hope to have many more trips with them and grandchildren. It was truly a memory I hope will stay forever.

The Terrible Ones.

2008-09-07T20:43:00.000-07:00

Tyler has been on a rampage lately, starting not the Terrible Two's or Three's, but the Terrible Ones. He has been taking everything off the shelves, getting toys out everywhere, making every attempt possible to get into the dogs water bowl and splash around, rolling around and screaming when you are trying to change his diaper, especially the poopy ones, throwing tantrums when he does not get his way, randomly screaming at the top of his lungs and sometimes for no apparent reason other than to hear himself, throwing food off his high chair to let you know he is done, and other things that I did not know a one year old would do. At times I feel like I want to pull my hair out and hire a house cleaner, but most of the time, it is pretty funny to see how much destruction a little guy can do to your house in a short period of time. This is probably a phase and for you experienced parents out there, you are probably laughing at me and saying, " Just wait. This is nothing compared to what is to come."Other than that, he is a really happy boy who will turn on a smile for anyone who looks at him. His happy times are spent cuddling with mom and dad, reading a book, trying to snuggle with Daisy and roll around on her, playing tug-a-war with Daisy, walking around outside, or getting a bath, which is the highlight of his day.

There are so many emotions to being a parent and it is amazing to see the thought process that a little child has and how they try to explore and figure out the world. I still cannot believe how fast the time flies and I want so badly to freeze it so that I can really enjoy Tyler and just give him so much love at this stage.
Here are some pictures and videos that grandparents have been begging for. Today was the first time that I cut Tyler's hair with scissors. It took a good hour to accomplish and I still did not totally finish. Eric held Tyler on his lap while Tyler intently watched Sesame Street. He did really great for his age at sitting still and we stopped when he had to get the wiggles out. I had to admit that I did a great job for my first time and did even better than those who had cut Ty's hair in the past. Now we can save $15 on his hair cuts.
Ty's haircut while he is glued to the TV.

Ty loves wearing his sunglasses. He wore them around the house for entire hour until it was getting too dark and I had to take them away.

Ty giving Daisy some snuggles and rolling on top of her. Sometimes I feel for Daisy. She usually just lies there and takes the abuse.

Here is a video of Ty and Daisy playing Tug-a-War. Ty take a little bit of a beating from it, but he actually loves to be pulled by Daisy and sometimes dragged across the ground.

As I go walking.

2008-08-13T20:06:00.000-07:00

Well, the time has finally come that Tyler is getting courageous and trying to walk. He has been walking while holding onto furniture and toys since he was 9 months old, but never wanting to be adventurous and take those steps alone. He loves to be held and spun around. Two weeks ago he discovered that he could walk around while holding onto our finger and since then has been leading us around the house and down the street. Three days ago, he decided to take his first steps and since then he takes a little more. Today was the first time that he was determined and kept walking farther until he walked across the room. We always gave him a cheer afterwards then he proceeds to do, what I call, his jiggy dance. I can't believe this time has finally come. It seems like yesterday that he was just born.

Our Little Birdie Family.

2008-08-13T19:52:00.000-07:00

Recently we have had a cute mother bird take retreat on our house. She built this really intricate nest and has been constantly sitting on her nest. Then one day, there they were. Three little bird poking their heads out. They must have been there a while before, but we just did not notice. The next day, Eric came and woke me up because Daisy had found one of the birds on the ground and was chasing it across the yard. The other two birds were nowhere to be found. So, Eric put on some gloves and put the bird back in the nest. The mother bird was close giving us a piece of her mind and every time we came to check on the bird. I was afraid that the bird might fall again, but this time to its death. The bird was perching on the side of the nest and looked a little sad. I was sad also for it because I felt that the bird was alone without its siblings.
When I came to check on it at lunch time it was gone. I searched the yard just in case it did not make it, but it was not there. The bird finally succeeded. Since then I have been seeing some birds hang around on the fence and hoped that these were the birds coming to see what used to be their home.Momma Bird was always nearby to keep a watch over her little ones.

More Birthday Fun!

2008-07-26T21:48:00.000-07:00

We had a fun pinata. Cousin Caden was a master Jedi.

Ty and Grandma.

Caden was so great at showing Tyler what to do and as you can see, Tyler looks up to his big cousin.
Mommy and Daddy couldn't help but get some lovin' before Ty got dirty.

But Ty just wanted to Party and eat some cake.
One of Ty's present was a fun castle slide.
This is his first ride and he loved it.
His little party friends had fun too.
We have been so blessed to have Tyler. He brings so much joy and laughter to many lives. Happy Birthday Sweet Bubba!