Major Milestone

Well, it was another crazy weekend for us. Friday my cousin Blake (Chance's brother) came in town for a visit. They came over to our house on Friday and we visited for a while. They went back over to my parent's house and stayed there that night. Saturday afternoon they came back over and we hung out. About 4:00 that afternoon we got a call from Jonny (Tyler's brother) and said that his kids were sleeping at Grandma Carver's house and wanted our kids to join them. This is where the major milestone comes in. The only house other then our own that my kids have slept is at my parents. I have never let them go anywhere else without us, other then to a friends house for a couple of hours. At first Britton wasn't so sure he wanted to do it and Shayna was crying because she thought she wasn't going to get to do it. She wanted to go so bad. Tyler's sister Mary and her husband were going up to Grandma Carver's house to stay the night as well so they said they would pick the kids up and take them and bring them back the next day. This was also making me nervous because my kids have never been in a car with anyone other then us and my parents, I know, they are sheltered but I can't help it. Anyway, when they found out that Bruce and Mary were going to be there they were begging to go. So we got them packed up and they were on their way. Bruce and Mary were great, they texted us when they got to Grandma Carvers, they texted us pictures of the kids playing and they let us know when the kids fell asleep. They were so good about keeping in touch with us, it made me feel alot better. I couldn't believe I let them go but I'm glad I did. They had so much fun and didn't want to come home the next day. Anyway since we had a babysitter for the night we went out with Chance and Blake and met Jonny and some of his friends at Port-O-Call. We left there shortly after 1:00am and stopped at Denny's on the way home. We finally got home around 3:00am and went straight to bed. It's always very entertaining hanging out with Chance and with Blake there it made it that much more fun. It was a good night and I'm glad to know that my kids can survive a night without us. Thanks Grandma Carver for letting the kids stay and Thanks Bruce and Mary for taking such good care of them!

Sunday....Happy Easter

We woke up Easter morning and the kids got their gifts from the Bunny. Shay got a Backyardigans playdo set and a princess book. Britton got a Diego playdo set and a search and find book, lots of candy and a note from the Easter Bunny that said "hop on over to Grandma and Papa's for more surprises". We got ready for the day and then noticed that the Easter Bunny left us eggs to find. Most were filled with candy but both Britton and Shayna found one each with money in it.

Britton doesn't like to pose for the camera. He is too much like his dad so here he is goofing off yet again.



When we got to my parents house we thought it was Christmas all over again. Britton got the Megatron he has been wanting forever. He also got flip flops and dino head eggs filled with candy.


Shayna got My little pony stuff. She was so excited, she loves horses so much. She also got flip flops, jump rope and girly girl eggs filled with candy.


The Bunny left more eggs for us in my parents backyard.

The bunny even left presents for Tyler and I, We got a basket full of candy and Emergency kits for our cars....love it!

At the end of the day we had so much candy, so we put a bunch of candy in Britton's back pack and he is going to donate it to the candy jar his teacher has for them when they earn it.

Since it was such a beautiful day we headed out for a picnic. Shayna wanted to find the wild horses so that's what we did. And here they are.....

We had a great Easter this year, hope every one had a good time as well.

HAPPY EASTER!!

Saturday (Warning, long post, lots of pictures)

Saturday morning we took the kids to Britton's school for the annual Easter Egg Hunt. They had some activities going on while you waited for your age group to go gather eggs so we got Tattoo's. Shayna sporting her Little Mermaid Sunglasses. She wore these the whole time we were indoors, when we went outside to do the Egg Hunt she said they were to distracting so she took them off. I just had to laugh. She is so cute.







They had a cup cake walk for the kids too. They played this a million times. Every time you played you got a piece of candy. So they thought they were always winning.







Britton actually did win. Here he is with his cupcake.





Here is Shayna gathering her eggs. They had a rule that you could only run out and get three eggs. When everybody had their three eggs you could go back out and try to get whatever eggs were left. Shayna thought this was so much fun until the second time she went out. It was total chaos and everyone kept running into her, she hated it and started to cry. This picture is from the first time she went out (obviously).





Britton was able to gather 4 eggs the first time. The second time he went out he ran everywhere collecting the eggs. He got a ton and could care less who he was running into. It was so funny to watch.

At the end of the Egg Hunt they had a Easter Basket drawing. This is a picture of Tyler and the kids waiting. As you can see, Ty is less then enthused. It's not because all of the activities were total chaos and it's not because we had to sit there forever waiting for the drawing and never won. It is because I took his picture. Some day he will thank me for making sure he is in pictures with his kids.


We got home around noon. Tyler went with Chance to look into buying a new truck (for Chance). We decided we should make our traditional Easter Cookies, my brother and my Mom came over to help out.

Britton and Shayna rolling out the dough.



Bet ya can't guess how much flour I had to sweep up!

Here's the Clan decorating the cookies (minus myself)



And the final results.... We had so many cookies this year. It took us two hours just icing them. It was fun and they turned out cute.


When the cookies were done it was time to dye the eggs.

I love Shayna's idea of dying the eggs. She was getting impatient so she put all of her eggs into the dye at once. That's what I call efficient.

And here is the finished work. We only broke two eggs. Not bad!


After we got everything cleaned up, we headed over to my Parents house to meet up with Tyler and have dinner.

Friday

Friday's are always busy for me. I wake up and get Britton ready for school and after I drop him off I come home and clean the house, Shayna and I go pick him up from school then we go back home and I finish cleaning the house. Then we have lunch and go run errands. After all of that I go pick up my Brother and we go grocery shopping. This is the routine we follow every Friday. But this Friday was different and I was so excited. I came home from grocery shopping and this was on my table. My Dad bought me Easter flowers. Thank you Dad! I love them!!

The Game

The first game of the season was last night. The kids played way better then they did last season and Britton seemed more into this year, he actually stayed focused and ran to the ball, not away from it. I was very proud of him. I have to say that I was very proud of Shayna as well. It's hard for a three year old to sit there that long but she did. And she was very helpful. She helped me keep track of time and told the kids when it was their turn to go in and she helped Britton hand out treats and she took lots of pictures of her favorite boy.....Chance (my cousin).

This is the only picture that Shay took of Chance that turned out. The rest were mostly of his shirt.

Here are the game pictures. I think the kids all look so cute in their uniforms. None of them fit right, they are so big on them. But I must say, they fit better then last season. I can't believe how much they all grew over the winter. All but two have lost some teeth as well. Britton is so jealous.

It was a fun game but it got COLD about the last 1/2 hour. I can't wait for warm weather.

Soccer season begins

Its that time again, luckily this season Tyler will not be in Scottsdale for school so he can be the coach this time. It's a lot less stressful for me. He is a lot better coach then I was. Last night (Tuesday) we had a practice for the kids just to get them reacquainted and let them play together and we handed out the schedules. Tonight is the real game and the kids are so excited! Maybe we will win a game or two this time.....even though we don't keep score.

And Shayna, she asked me to take a picture of this "cute pose" as she put it.

Weekend Activities

We had a pretty busy weekend. Friday night Tylers brother Jordan and his girlfriend came in from Iowa. They stayed with us and we were up until 2:30 am just visiting. I have had a lot of late night weekends lately. O'well it has been fun. Saturday morning Tyler had a training he had to go to (his brother Jonnie is opening his own business saleing and installing burgular alarms, he asked Tyler to be the cheif installer because he used to do this type of thing. Tyler is going to work weekends and some evenings. It will be good for a little extra cash while we try to pay off student loans) so we were up at 7:30 am. Some people can function with five hours of sleep, I can not. So anyway Ty went to his training and the kids, Jordan, Nichole and I had breakfast and got ready for the day. It was my Nephew's birthday so I took the kids to Tremonten to Beckham's birthday party. We got home around four in the afternoon and I was exhausted. Here are a couple of pictures from the party. I didn't get very many pictures because I was to busy helping out with games and crafts and clean up.

Here they are doing art work, they had a contest to see who could draw the best picture. Of course everybody won and got a prize.

This is Shayna's drawing, her hands and............

This is Britton's drawing Megatron (transformer), Train, and his hand

This is Beckham the birthday boy showing off his new soccer gear to Uncle Jordan (Ty's brother)

At 10 that night Tyler and I were so tired we went to bed. At 10:20 the phone started ringing. We tried to ignore it but when it rang again about five minutes later we decided we should probably answer, It was Tylers friend from Moab, they had been on vacation in Florida, their plane arrived 3 hours late so they wanted a place to stay rather then driving home late at night and it was snowing. So we got out of bed and went down stairs to get a bed for their kids ready and make sure the bedroom was clean from our visitors the night before then we went back to bed. We just told them to come in and lock the door behind them. I felt so bad but I seriously could not stay awake. Sunday Morning we woke up about 8:00 and had breakfast and visited with our friends. They left about 12:00 that afternoon. We were feeling lazy after all of that so we rented the kids the Bee Movie and we all layed around and watched it. After that it was back to the real world. Making sure home work was done, ironing clothes, eating dinner, bathing kids, reading story's and getting the kids tucked into bed. WHEW! What a weekend. Now I'm sitting here at work blogging, wishing I was sleeping.

Fun filled Saturday

Yesterday was a fun filled long day. By the time we got home at 1:00 in the morning, I was exhausted. Here is what we did. At 10:00 am I had an appointment to go get a massage and a pedicure. I had never had a massage before and was a little worried about how it was going to go. I must say I enjoyed it. I probably wouldn't pamper myself like that but if anybody were to treat me to it I would accept without any hesitation. I have had pedicures before and love them. This time I picked out a cute shimmery green color for my toenails. Should come in handy on St. Patty's day. After I got home we got lunch over with and got the kids ready for the day. My cousin Chance came over, he has been staying with my parents while he is in town for a job and we all went to Barns and Noble. I bought some new books that I am excited to start reading, then we picked up my brother and my Mom and went bowling. It was so much fun. The kids and my brother LOVE to go bowling. I took a picture of their scores. I was impressed with how high Britton and Shay scored. I think I want to start bowling with Bumpers. Britton was such a big help with Shayna. He would get her ball for her and get her all set up and help her bowl and he did his bowling all on his own, it was fabulous I just got to bowl my own game and watch them. Britton didn't want us to help Shayna, he wanted to do it all by himself. He's getting so big. Tyler and Chance decided that we should bet money on the game, boys against girls. Tyler and Chance were on a team and my Mom and I were on a team. Of course my Mom and I won so the boy's decided we needed to play double or nothing. My Mom and I won again (it wasn't hard) and we got 10 bucks out of them. I don't remember the last time I had so much fun bowling. My camera batteries died so I was using my Mom's camera, I am kind of disappointed in the pictures, apparently I don't know how to use the camera but here are some pictures that kind of turned out. My favorite picture is of Tyler glaring at me, he hates to have his pictures taken.






After bowling we went to little ceasers to get some pizza for the kids for dinner. My Mom stayed with the kids while Chance, Tyler and I went to Olive Garden for dinner then we went to club Port O Call. It has been so long since I have been to a club I was afraid I was going to be a total out cast but it turned out ok. We had a lot of fun and I am a little sore from dancing. That was the most exorcise I have had in a long time. Chance was dancing with and hitting on all of the girls. Tyler and I wanted to leave at about 12:45 but we were having a hard time convincing Chance it would be ok to leave his flock of girls. I finally walked up to Chance and starting yelling at him, I said "where have you been, I have been looking all over for you and I find you here flirting with all these girls, we are going home now" and I grabbed his arm and started dragging him away. It was hillarious you should of seen the look on the girls faces, it was classic but I am pretty tired today, I called my Mom today around 2:00 to see how Chance is doing, he was still in bed. I guess it wore him out to hang out with the old folk.

Hilda

The other day I was looking for Hilda, I couldn't find her anywhere. Britton finally saw her sitting in the window peaking out at us wondering why we were calling her. Britton took this cute picture.

101 Dalmations

A couple of weeks ago Britton had to dress up like a dalmatian. They had a party for being in school for 101 days. I just cut out black paper and taped the dots to his shirt. I couldn't believe it lasted all day.

Mixed Emotions

I am going to try to make a very long 12 year story as short as possible. So here it goes. Back in 1996 I was diagnosed with food allergys. The foods I was allergic to included: Corn (this included all of the hidden foods such as corn syrup, and corn fed beef), lettuce, onion (this includes everything in the onion family such as garlic) all nuts except peanuts, tomatoes, all melons, oranges and mint. So my Doctor put me on injections and Sublingual drops (drops that go under the tongue). I had to give myself injections twice a week and do the sublingual drops twice a day every day. I have been doing this through the years, that brings us to the present day. I took my kids to a pediatric allergy specialist to be tested for food allergies because of my history I thought for sure they would be allergic to something, anyway all of their tests came back negitive and the Doctor started talking to me about my history. He thought it would be a good idea for me to be retested because the testing that my Doctor did on me is not an accurate test. So I made an appointment to be tested by my kids Doctor and he told me to bring in my medical records from my other Doctor. I called my previous Doctor to get my records and I was told they lost my chart. After a few days of persisting they faxed me a few notes from my chart, none of which mentioned anything about food allergies or the injections I was given. Anyway, I got tested and my results were negitive. I have absolutly no food allergies. I do have really bad seasonal allergies but no food allergies. He asked me what kind of a reaction I get when I eat a carrot. My reply, "I have no idea I can't tell you the last time I ate a carrot, it seriously has been years". He told me to go home, eat a carrot and enjoy. I asked him if I wasnt allergic to food then why am I getting hives, it was explained like this. My body reacts to stress, illness and seasonal allergies with hives the same way someone else reacts to stress with acne or some people eat when they get stressed, my body reacts with hives. And I have just been associating it with food when infact it has been related to other things. When I get sick and my immune system is down I tend to get hives, in the past I would have thought I ate something I should'nt have. This new Doctor told me I never needed to take the injections or do the sublingual drops, I sure have wasted alot of money on this over the past 12 years not to mention what insurance covered. So I ask myself, was this Doctor just trying to get money out of me or did he really lagitimatley think I had food allergies? I don't know, but losing my chart seems pretty convenient. So in a way I was upset about the results but it has been so nice to eat the things I have avoided for so long. Carrots taste so good to me, I am having a hard time with the flavor of an orange, I don't think I like them very much and now I can't wait for summer so I can eat corn on the cob and watermellon at Bar-B-Q's with everyone else!