The Family That Kicks Together....

Sticks together!

Or at least that is what Sensei Burke says! He's our new Karate insturctor. And by "our" I mean, Blaine, Quinten, Matt and I are all taking Karate! I was hesitant at first, but it is SO MUCH FUN! And our Sensei and Dojo are AWESOME! It's located just off Highway 89 right by Pitcher Sports and the new Best Western. It's called Utah Karate Institute - North. www.karateshin-toshi.com

Blaine and Quinten started at the end of June, and after a month of watching and liking Matt and I started end of July. We have all earned our firts "promotion" to what is called a "yellow stripe" - which basically means we're half-way to our yellow belts. Matt and Blaine could be earning their yellow belts as early as this week....Quinten and I are soon to follow (poor Q's been out for a week or so because of his tonsils, and he misses it).

I will try to get pictures of everyone in our Gi's, and hopefully soon with our new yellow belts!

Bye Bye Tonsils & Adnoids!

On Tuesday I took Quinten to the ENT. I did this b/c the kid has horrible allergies that are not affected at all by the meds that he's been on continuously for a while now. And, also because when Corlin got his adnoids out in February they were so big they had been pushing his tubes out....and that could be hereditary. Quinten showed a lot of the classic symptoms of large adnoids.

So, at the apt. he said his tonsils were rated one a 2 one a 3 on a scale of 4. Not overly huge, but big. But given all his symptoms etc. we decided to go ahead and remove them before school starts.

We had the surgery done at Mt. Ogden Surgical Center. Quinten was so brave, but he did have a little bit of a breakdown before they took him back. Poor kid was so scared and just curled up in my lap crying. it really was heartbreaking.

The surgery went well, and they said his adnoids were huge too - so I'm glad we did it now instead of waiting. Recovery so far is going pretty good - he likes being able to eat as many popsicles as he wants! As long as we keep up on the pain meds he does okay.

In other news - cause lately we can't have one medical "issue" without reporting another one. 2:45am thursday morning Maveri woke up screaming. I figured it was just a bad dream so I went to console her and found her gasping for breath - very shallow, quick, strained breaths. And she was ON FIRE. I gave her motrin and took her to Wee Care (24 hr pediatric clinic). Turns out she has Croup (and a fever of 102.8 a half-hour AFTER motrin), of all things. I was a relieved it was croup and not pnemonia tho. They gave her a steroid shot and sent us on our way. Poor girl sounds HORRIBLE. She is just wheezey, and icky and bleh. She does okay during the day, but has a really hard time at night. it's been a long couple of nights with her since then. The weird thing is when we put her to bed thursday night she was fine - no fever, no cough, no snotty nose - breathing fine...just great. So this was something that just came on super quickly.

So, we've spent the last couple days couped up and recouping. Trying to keep one sick kid away from one recovering kid. Makes things interesting, anyway.

29....and holding!

So, for the next 364 days I can honestly say I am 29 years old, and mean it! Yup, I had a birthday yesterday. Nothing shout from the roof-tops about, I'm getting old. It's life, it happens - and I'm not one to whine and complain about it.

I just think it's funny. Cause 29 is the age that people always say they are. So, I wonder how many times this year I will tell someone my age and they'll think to themselves "really?? or is she just saying that"

Nope - really really, I mean it!

Making new memories with old friends!

I had so much fun last night! My old "homie" from college, Cherice, (we weren't roomies, cause we didn't share a room - we were homiez cause we shared a town-house!) was in town so we got together to do a little swimming at my mom's house with the kids. My four and her one! LOL. We were talking and decided to call anyone from high school whose phone number I had in my cell phone and see if they could do a girls-night dinner tonight.

We had seven of us there and it was SO MUCH FUN! We ate at Boston's in Layton and just sat and chatted for three hours about kids, guys (both now and then), relationships, labor, work etc. It was great to reconnect with these people - most of whom I do have their number but I don't use it nearly often enough!

So thanks to Cherice, Shara, Jenn, Joan, Amanda, and Amy for letting me get out of the house, away from kids, and have an awesome time reminiscing! Let's do it again soon!

The Princess Celebrates Two Years of Life!!

I know, I can't believe it either! Miss Maveri Jean is TWO YEARS OLD! Where has the time gone? She is getting too dang smart, I can tell you that much. She talks constantly, and usually it's "talking back"! She's hit the "two's" in every way imaginable, but mostly in her absolute adorable-ness! She makes me smile every day with her silly "shake-a-booty" dance, her "i talk nana on phone" insistance, her hugs and kisses (LOVE those kisses), and her love of all things girly! She finally has just enough hair to do "piggies" which she loves. She also loves having her nails painted to be "futiful", and will ask Aunt Erynn to paint them every time she goes over there!

She had a great birthday party at Nana & Bompa's house. We had dinner, opened presents, went swimming and ate pink cake! Good times. I will have to say that her favorite present was the bubble mower - HUGE hit, but she also loved everything else. She's very much into purses, and dolls, and stuffed animals etc. So different from the three boys, it's been an adjustment!

Here are some highlight pics from her birthday party!























And now here's a few pictures I found from the past two years that we've celebrated with this beautiful girl. I always said "girls are scary" and I stand by that - they are....but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I love my baby girl.

Independence Day Fun!

We had a great 4th of July weekend. Matt and I both had Friday off so we took the kids to the Splash Pad. The boys LOVED it, Maveri hated the water part, but loved the playground part.

That night we went out to Plain City with Bryce & Sally. Only, their dinner turned out to be super expensive for a sandwhich and beans, so we went to the store and decided to play "what can we get for what we would've paid there". We went back to Bryce & Sally's with Steak, Pork, Corn, Cherries, Salad, and Root Beer Floats! Way Yummy.

Saturday we woke up uber early and met out in Plain City again for breakfast. This time it was a much more reasonable price, and a very good breakfast. From there we watched the small parade, and then we hung out there for a little bit looking at booths, the kids played on the bouncy things, and Blaine even got into the fish pond and caught himself a real live trout with his bare hands! (and yes, I cleaned and cooked it for him on Sunday - bleh)

That afternoon we went to my parents house for a little Holiday Swimming, and then we ended up staying there and having burgers and dogs, corn, salad & pie with my parents. My poor mom is still sick with kidney stones (it's been a week now), but she did manage to eat some corn and pie.

And for fireworks that night we went out to Mike & Liz Staten's house. We haven't seen or hung out with them in so long, so it was a lot of fun to see them again. The fireworks were good this year (you never know with Riverdale, sometimes it's not so great ;) ). Only Mr. Quinten could fall alseep in the middle of a fireworks show, but that just goes to show how hard he played all day long!

The kids and I had painted matching shirts for the day on Thursday. They were so excited to get to wear them, and I think they turned out pretty darn cute!

Here's a few pics to highlight the weekend!

Memorial Day Weekend 2009

For Memorial Day this year we went up to my parents cabin in Island Park, Idaho. We've been doing this for about ten years now. This year we had The Shoells, and Matt's two younger brothers and their families with us. It was so much fun. We went into Yellowstone, saw old faithful, went on some really muddy 4-wheeler rides, went for some boat rides, played card games, ate good food and just had a blast.

Here's picture proof of our trip.